Sign o' the Times

When I was a kid, I spent lots of time practicing how to sign my name. I needed the practice, you understand, because I was going to grow up to be famous. I needed to perfect my autograph because my fans would call upon me to sign things for them, and I would oblige them gracefully. I noticed how famous people on tv, when shown amidst throngs of adoring people, would always sign their names with a sweeping hand. They seemed to hold their pens loosely, up near the top, not near the writing end, and they would always look like they couldn't possibly be writing anything other than large flowery spirals all over the page. I practiced it this way all through elementary school, thinking about who I would take with me to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party (Scott Baio or Prince, naturally).

After a time, I stopped practicing my autograph (not that I am conceding the fact that it's a valuable commodity, of course), and started to think of it as a way to creatively convey something of myself to whosoever may have looked at it. This was a dark and embarrassing time in my personal signature history, as I experimented with different ways of writing my name. I won't divulge the depths of cutesy that I went to in great detail. The bottom line is that my very first driver's license bears one of my attempts at expressing myself: my first name ending in a curly, artistic star (signifying something along the lines of "you're a STAR, baby, a STAR!), and my last name swooshing up into a semi-circle, into which I drew a (oh dear Jehosephat) a smiley face. Oh, and a couple of hovering hearts thrown in too. What can I say people. I was sixteen years old and I had a serious case of the cutes. People seemed to love me in spite of this.

I'm happy to report that not long after my sixteenth birthday, I ceased all that nonsense and starting signing my name like I do now, which is still a little curly, but long-ish, tall, messy but legible. It actually looks like a hybrid of my mom's signature and my sister's, which is apt because my girlitude is half and half created between the two of them. There was a time in my life that I knew actual famous people (well, maybe "knew" is the wrong term-- I was near them. In close-ish proximity to them. Adjacent, if you will) and I witnessed firsthand the signing of autographs. I always wondered whether this big, loopy, flourish-y gesture was really the way they signed everything. Like did their driver's license just have their signature across the whole damn thing?

All of this talk of signatures is merely because today was the single most-signatured-day in my life, so my signature got the workout that it has been waiting for since back in the day when I wanted Charles in Charge of me. Today, I signed for my new house. Librarian Girl has gone and done it. I was in Escrow. I never really understood why the preposition there was "in" until today. You are not for Escrow. You are not by Escrow. You are not on Escrow. It's definitely an "in" sort of feeling. Like in a pool. Or in over your head. Or insane.

So here's how it goes. You go to the Escrow office, and they take you to a special signing room. There is a whole room in this building just for the purpose of signing. There is an ergonomic chair in there, and a table, and a cup full of blue-ink pens, and there are even little placemat things on the table. What are those placemats there for? I thought to myself as I was shown in. Are we getting hotdogs and strawberry shortcake before we sign? Sweet! But these are not really placemats. They are leather signing-stations. It's what they put the papers on in front of you so that you can sign on a special smooth surface, not just on the table like an uncouth common signer.

So they sat me down at this table in front of my placemat (I almost wanted a special signing bib to go along with it) and they showed me the different options I had for pens. I am not making this up. The Escrow lawyer handed me three pens, and said I could pick whichever I wanted, but she personally likes the kind with the squishy spongy gripper on the bottom. I don't think she knew who she was dealing with. I have been practicing my autograph my whole life. I was getting ready to channel Johnny Depp and exorcise my inner Cameron Diaz. Bring on the paper and I will show you how this is DONE.

And for the next hour and a half (yes, it took that long), I signed. I signed like I have never signed in my life. I sang to myself as I signed: she's a maniac, maaaaniac! It was a blur. And I walked out of there with a home to call my own. Signed, sealed, delivered, it's mine. This time I kind of wish I'd put in some hearts and smiley faces.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl