write and wrong

in junior high school my troubled mind began to show it's face. i had been removed from public art school. now i wore a polyester plaid skirt and a sour face. i hated authority (especially male) and seemed to have no issue with announcing this to anyone who was stupid enough to cross me.

i wasn't always so angry.

it's fairly safe to say that i've always had trouble in school. in recent years i have come to the realization that i had a learning curve as steep as an archway. my mother and i moved alot and my schools changed every few years, sometimes more. i could list the scroll-worthy series of reasons why i had issues. for a time i assumed everyone thought i was stupid. and ugly. i got that last one alot. one thing is certain, my mother is tremendously smart. the kind of smart that only masterminds - serial killers, super villians, csi detectives and research librarians embody. and while she imparted as much worldy wisdom as possible, she was also busy breaking me into a thousand useless shards.

growing up i could, with relative ease, do anything creative or crafty. i was a dancer and an actor. no trouble there. but when junior high school hit i had no legs to stand on. i was supposed to be held back to repeat 6th grade again. i am not sure how my mother got me into 7th grade. i couldn't do math very well - i hate math to this day. numbers make me uncomfortable. words. i love words. i couldn't function in class. i had an almost allergic reaction to solving problems, and i had an even harder time absorbing information. and i never did homework. it made me feel stupider.

and that's where grammar comes in. whether it was 7th grade or 8th i don't remember - i recieved my worn out copy of an english grammar workbook. how was i supposed to understand how this worked? i knew i could speak very well - my mother speaks like a victorian queen. i hesitate to say i couldn't read well but looking back i might as well have been illiterate. grammar, syntax, and the use of tenses, verbs, pronouns and the like alluded me. i knew they existed. i was well read. i had no practical application. and no energy to put into learning how to apply it or anything else for that matter. i had other things to think about.

this problem continued and worsened until i left school. grammar still alludes me actually, hence the inspiration for this entry. recently i have started writing content for anonymous clients with www.textbroker.com. every critique i receive has been the same....

you have no idea how to use a comma.

really?

in my ignorance i had forgotten that in order to write - for money - as an adult - i should probably have a proper grasp of the english language. i don't like conformity and one of my favorite things about the english language is how much freedom one has. new words appear everyday (if you hang out with my friends it can be more like every few hours)! but this has no place in the world of nameless faceless content writing or writing at all probably. as you can see here i don't even like using capital letters. i don't like them. but i use them in my professional life as it were. at least i can get that right. and people seem to enjoy for the most part what i've written.

until today. i recently wrote a brief article on "astral projection and isochronic tones". for those of you who have no idea what the hell i'm talking about, astral projection is when someone's mind travels into a spiritual realm outside of the body (an out of body experience). isochronic tones are literally tones that one may use to elicit the trance-like state needed to project. now i don't necessarily ascribe to this - though i am curious how effective the tones are (they work for insomnia and mood issues). but this is the kind of thing i grew up with. the phrase "travel to an astral plane" was no less common in my house than say "butter for my toast please". so i thought i'd have no problems nailing this. with a little research and a nice conversation with a friend i wrote confidently.

i failed. this person hated my article. wow. the criticism (i asked to receive it and boy did i) was on one hand alarmingly harsh and on the other hand extremely helpful. they caught me at a good time. i did not retaliate.

even when they said "and this line really made me cringe".