On the line
I don’t like writing on ruled paper. I would if I have to, but I despise them. The feeling has haunted me for a long time, but I haven't been able to put a finger on it until two years ago. I thought I hated those spiral bound notebook because the paper quality was so terrible that even pencils ghost through to the other side, the covers invariably falls off before the three months mark, the metal spiral deforms into a knot of wire that tears the pages as I turn them, and by the end of the semester the notebook would be shedding pages daily. But I also feel my heart drop when I find a beautifully bound notebook and felt the smooth thick pages between my fingers, only to look at it and see the rows and rows of lines tearing across the pristine surface. This aversion to lines can probably be traced back to my elementary days in Vietnam learning the Copperplate cursive font. The two-millimeter lined paper we were forced to use was to make sure every stroke had the proper position, l...