Recently I was introduced to a young journalist, who naturally asked the quintessential networking question: Do you have a business card?

For many years I was on the opposite end of that question, asking anyone whom I felt was in a position I wanted to be, or had the power to plug me in, for their card. If I was fortunate they would dig in their purse or wallet and pull out a card.

Before everyone carried a cell phone or had their own website, Twitter, Facebook, business cards were the key.

I’ve had a business card for every position I’ve held. Now, I don’t have a card nor do I want one. For starters, what would I list on the card? In today’s world, no one has only one job. There is the 9-5, the 6-10, the side hustle and the “I do this because I love it but it doesn’t pay and I don’t care” project.  How exactly do you fit that all on one card?

I’ve been handed cards like this before and never took them seriously.

Then you have people who are a little creative but still leave you clueless as to what they really have to offer.

I have a stack of business cards that I’ve collected over the years and while I’m sure that 90% of the people no longer work at the places listed on the card, I still can’t seem to throw them out. Consider them relics of a time past; a time when people interacted personally and had real conversations. This was long before we could scan each others barcodes or text.

I don’t have business cards because even when I did, I barely gave them out. I’d push past my business card holder (actually I had three, two of which were college graduation gifts), grabbing for my phone and have the interested party enter their information and vice versa.

While I do care, immensely, about the environment and watching my waste “Going Green” is just one small part of the reason why I’m card-less. However, no one can refute my response. They laugh gingerly and it spins the conversation in a completely different direction, one in which they drop the issue of why I don’t have a card.

I could just tell them to google me, but that would make me sound like an egomaniac.

I miss writing.

Not this typing on a keypad or phone (I’m doing the later as I ride the subway). I miss sitting at a table (gasp) with a notebook (double gasp) and an assortment of pens and freshly sharpened pencils (remember those).

Like most journalists/writers, I not only love the process of finding and developing the story, I love the song and dance of physically writing it.

As a little kid my aunt taught me how to type. I’d sit at the keys punching away on the typewriter because I loved the sound of it. Then we moved up to a word processor and finally a desktop computer. Still, when it came time to do a school paper I would sit at the dining room table with my artillery of supplies.

- Pen/Pencils

- Plenty of clean, crisp paper normally of the 3-ring loose leaf variety

- Index Cards

You’d think with all this prep work the writing would come easily. Instead, I stare at the faint blue lines thinking of the right words. Normally, I’d write three intros before moving on. (Funny, I sometimes do the same thing now. It’s better to give your editor more to work with than less.) Then, right when I find myself in a groove–ink flowing smoothly across the page–I’d jump to the computer refining my written draft as I typed and continuing where I left off.

On the page I could see my train of thought without having to scroll up. A misdirection could be crossed out but find its place elsewhere. My success was measured by how many pages I completed–front and back–that is until I learned about word counts.

Now, I’ve trained myself to start and finish on the computer but the feeling isn’t the same. The humming noise of my computer’s fan taunts me as I sit at my desk drained but determined to get just a few more words typed before I call it a night. The cursor blinks impatiently, “Well, what are you waiting for?” If it had a foot, I’m sure it’d be tapping it.

I miss writing so long that I’d had to shake my right hand out and wonder why my mother didn’t teach me to be ambidextrous. I miss the mix of pride and frustration I felt when my favorite pen ran out of ink. I miss the swelling in my chest when people marvelled at my penmanship.

The last time I saw hand writing in a professional journalism setting was from a former co-worker, who shall remain nameless. He’d turned his weekly column in via a handwritten fax! His words scrawled across the line-less page, trailing off towards the end of each sentence. An editorial assistant had to retype it word by word. I thought to myself, “Who does that? Hell, can I do that?” All typing has gotten me is weak eyes and a touch of carpal tunnel, which is why I’m ending this here. My thumbs hurt.

- ch