When I was younger, reading was a bit of an abstract concept for me. I looked at the alphabet like an archeologist trying to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. I. Didn't. Get it. Much like how I couldn't understand analog clocks and why I had to learn how to read them when we had digital clocks, but that is another story.
So when I was five, and the time came for learning how to arrange letters into semi-intelligible words, I was like "Fuck that, I'm playing in the sandbox." Sadly, this was not an option. So I hid behind the toy chest, and in the closet. When that failed, I cried until the teacher let me go to the nurse, where I stayed until my parents came to pick me up. Feeling triumphant, I watched as the other kids learned to spell things like "cat" and "ball" and "tree". I felt like a ninja. I had tricked my teacher and now I would never have to learn spelling or reading ever! I won!
Little did I know, that when Monday came 'round again, I would have to deal with reading all over again.
I pretended to be sick.
I'm not sure how I actually convinced my mom that I was ill, but whatever I did, it worked.And then I actually became sick. With strep throat. God truly a just and cruel God.
Several days later, I came back to kindergarten when the other kids were moving on in their studies and were getting books read to them. I was pissed. I was all like "But the OTHER KIDS aren't writing anymore! I don't want to understand the alphabet! Fuck you teacher!" Only I didn't actually say "fuck you teacher". I think. I also didn't seem to understand the concept of make-up work yet.So, my teacher just sat with me in the back of the classroom, showing me how letters were like friends and they all wanted to be joined together into cliques called "words". I was skeptical, like I thought the teacher was just fucking with me and it was all a huge joke. I grew resentful of words and reading, and only got down the very basics to placate my teacher and I could go outside and play Titanic with my friends. Even though I hadn't actually seen Titanic. I knew it involved a sinking boat and a girl named 'Rose', or something. I was always the poor guy that drew her naked. The jungle gym was the boat.
And then came first grade, when we were introduced spelling tests. I think. I remember having to spell them, "them" being words. I really wanted to be smart. I wanted to be the first kid to raise their hand, so I could feel better than the other kids. Never mind that I didn't even know how to spell 'robin', I was the smartest kid in the class. No one was going to tell me otherwise.
(On the note of first grade, I think I should mention that I didn't identify well with girls. I played with boys and we pretended to be archeologists and would dig up cat paw prints in the mud and would pretend that they were dinosaur tracks. I was also what people would call an affectionate child, so I gave a lot of hugs. This translated into my teacher once telling my parents that I was "very friendly, especially with boys" (read as: "she is a whore and you should get her to a psychiatrist before she starts giving hand-jobs to feed her heroin addiction"). Thanks, Mrs. Patterson.)
(I also feel it is pertinent to tell you that my school didn't have any walls. Let me repeat that: NO WALLS. There were book cases and black boards separating the classrooms. "Classrooms" being a general term. When I went to a school that DID have walls, I was flabbergasted. It was like I was an alien learning to interact with people and telling teachers that my teacher needed to borrow a marker without just yelling.)
Anyway, I just trailed behind the other kids, never quite getting the hang of it, and not being able to read anything over the kindergarten level.
Until second grade.
It was then that I got tired of being made fun of because I couldn't spell or read in front of the class. This only got worse when we were supposed to draw scary pictures for Halloween, and I drew a vampire ghost which also seemed to be very sympathetic to bats. I meant to illustrate this by drawing a dying bat in her hand, complete with blood splattered everywhere, and a speech bubble from the vampire ghost saying "proo baft". My teacher wouldn't even put it on the black board (mostly because there was fucking blood everywhere, but I also think it was because she was so ashamed of my spelling).
I'd had enough, goddamnit. I was going to prove to them that I wasn't brain damaged, dyslexic, or just plain stupid. I was going to be the greatest reader and speller in the whole wide class, and no one would impede my ultimate goal of becoming the god of reading.
That's when I started going to my school's library. I wasn't going to become a master of the literary arts just by staring at words until they started to make sense.The first book I read of my own free will was some book about a kid that picked blueberries. It was on a third grade level, and after reading through it a few times, I felt a false sense of accomplishment- like I had just discovered the cure for bird flu.
And that's when I vowed to the world that I would read and read and read until I was the best at anything involving words. What I especially liked reading were gems such as Junie B. Jones and any horror story I could get my hands off. My favorite book ever until I was about twelve was a book by Mary Downing Hahn called Wait Till Helen Comes, along with another one of her books, Doll in the Garden. I became totally engrossed in the world of books, and quickly stopped going outside or even trying to play games like normal children. This may be the roots of my social awkwardness, but that is far from the point.The point is, I quickly become delusional when I read anything.
For instance, I just read If There Be Thorns by V.C. Andrews, which is the third book in the Dollanganger series, and I ended up thinking that I was Bart. He's the angry, awkward, socially retarded kid, which isn't that much of a stretch for me, but still. I found myself thinking that my mother and father were brother and sister, and thought that I was a religious zealot and also an old man named Malcolm, and even developed a little bit of a limp. And I started talking like him. A lot. I was like "Want out of this car mom. Hate stuffy car rides. Let me out." And my mom was all "Don't talk like a five year old, go to sleep if you're bored, and I was all "Okay."
This happens every time. This is not an isolated incident. I have also thought I was Charlie, from Perks of Being a Wallflower; Darren, from The Vampire's Assistant; Claire, from What Happened to Lani Garver, and so on through just about every book I've ever read. This lasts anywhere from a few days to a week, depending on how long it takes me to read it.I'm sure this happens to other people too. Haven't you ever gotten so lost in a book and you get so close to the characters that you think you are the characters? Well, there you go. It isn't hard to get totally caught up in a good book.
On another note, I just got a tablet for my birthday and the first thing I did with it was draw stick figures. Way to go, me.
And, I'm still not very good at spelling. Thank God for SpellCheck.
