it has come to my attention that i write very easily when i don’t worry about little things like run-on sentences. when i just allow a thought to ramble on endlessly, everything just kind of flows on its own.

case in point, a recent email to a friend:

“i bought the taste of home holiday magazine because i’m weak-willed and i saw the most adorable idea in it ever and immediately knew that if i didn’t buy the magazine i’d forget it and cry the rest of the season, even though i haven’t forgotten it at all and i probably could’ve saved the ten dollars, but dammit, it was so damn cute. they’re these little dove-shaped cookies, but what makes them so cute is you layer sliced almonds on them, so they look like feathers. i know, right? there was also a recipe for sugar cookies using cream cheese that i wanted to try, thinking that the cream cheese would bulk them up and make them not so delicate so maybe half of these year’s batch wouldn’t come out on fire. also, i have parchment paper.”

that paragraph is constructed from a mere five sentences. and two of those sentences make up about 70% of the information given. long sentences are FUN. who decided that people shouldn’t be able to just write long, meandering, winding lines of text? who decided that my desire to write two pages to someone without a single period was bad form? show me that person, and i’ll show you someone about to get punched in the face. with words.

sometimes i think grammar and punctuation rules were invented merely to make writing more intimidating and difficult than it needs to be, to keep the “masses” in check. if word got out that anyone could be brilliant, then what would all the self-proclaimed brilliant people do? cry into their crumpets and silk scarves, that’s what they’d do.*

well, ladies and gentlemen, i am here to tell you, right now, from a completely uninformed standpoint, that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. jump up out of your seat! thrust your fist in the air! then immediately sit back down and thrust both fists at your keyboard and TYPE WORDS ENDLESSLY.

*all brilliant people wear silk scarves and eat crumpets. this is science.