"An Oscar for Living Theatrically In Real Life"

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Harold Whitman

Speling Is Not For Amachures

It started in forth grade, because I wanted to “buy” but wrote “bye” and the teacher said, “No, that's wrong. Look it up in the dictionary.” I did I look it up, but only found “bye” and also “by,” if you want to keep it simple. I would never have guessed to put a U after the B. And why should I? What sense is there in that? There is no sense in it. But sense is also tricky. Why is it sense and not sence? I don’t know. I don’t know why anything is spelled the way it’s spelled and marvel at anyone who finds it otherwise obvious.

Spelling is a verb. It is the process or activity of writing or naming the letters of a word. It’s also a noun, as in casting a spell, a word or words used as a magical charm or incantation.

Words are spells that change us, can bless or curse us, liberate or condemn, empower or destroy. I love words. And yet, I have spent my entire writing life being tormented by their strange and arbitrary rules. My spelling instincts—like my directional instincts—are not really instincts at all, so much as they are hallucinations, vague, shadowy voices, leading me helter-skelter, backwards off the cliff. And, of course, when you are running backwards, neither spell check nor Webster’s can phathom your intent.

Take delema, for instance. I never remember how to spell delema and can’t find it in the dictionary, because (ta-da!) I can’t spell it. You'd think I'd learn by now. But I don’t. It's the delema of delema.

I also get stuck when I bang my knee on an open cabinent, am anhililated by their onorous judgements, or fail to seperate myself from the masses. I admire that sintilating actor who sholders the burdons of life in a drafty, medeval castle. But I will not eat on a full stomache, beyound, perhaps, an avacado sandwhich. In the event of the apocolips, I fear being plunged into the airless, outter reaches of our galaxy. I’d rather live in a little house on the prarie, surrounded by fusia-colored bouganvilla, much like an asetic or a painter. If I knew French, I might have a better idea how to rendevoo or daytant. I prefer a dry heat, since I have very wirery, frizzy hair, decinigrating into chaos whenever it’s humid. I am incompetant when it comes to math, but persistant in my pursuit of a legetiment profession. My afradeezshiac is chocolate. One of the most discouraging years of my life was age forteen. There is nothing omniscent about my grammer and nothing permenant about my mood. Most of all, I dread to write congradulations because isn't congradulations an outgrowth of graduation, which looks (to me) a lot like the word sitting inside of it. In fact, I think the “t” is a clerical error, inadvertantly agreed to, like that Spanish King who talked with a lisp or the outdated notion of not needing naps. Except, of course, in Barthalona. Which is only to say that dictionaries are not always the answer. And spellcheck will never suffise.

On behalf of all the spelling-challenged everywhere, I demand exonoration.

Magical Place