Hell No, I'm not a Grammar Nazi

Screw the subtitle. I just started typing and hoped the words on the screen would be at least semi-coherent. Which they are, semi, so they get to stay.

“Wtf is she getting on wit now?”

Right? I know that’s what you’re thinking. So, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about thinking about a stream of consciousness thinking and grammar or non-grammar, spelling or non-spelling, etc.

Gotta say, I’m conflicted as fuck. When I scribbled a thought stream from the perspective of my cat, the different spellings and missing punctuations and messed up grammars messed with my head. And don’t even ask me what my Word program thought of it. I swear I saw smoke coming from the keyboard and “DIE, BITCH” appeared on my screen in gothic font with red dripping from the letters.

Okay, that may or may not be true. But I swear I’m not a grammar nazi. Truthfully, I’m not even really that good at it.

For example, I still don’t know where the question mark goes in a sentence..? question? That includes the question in quotes. Confused? Yeah, me too. So:

“Is Cathy an idiot?” asked every person reading this post.

Seriously, where does the question mark go? Where I have it, or at the end?

And another thing. Isn’t this stream of consciousness supposed to be a poem? This doesn’t look like a poem to me. Doesn’t sound like one either. Then again what does a poem even sound like outside of my own head?

What does it sound like in your head? Am I talking to you? I have no idea. Its all just a bunch of gobbeldegook. How do you spell gobbledygook? Never mind.

So that’s the thing about me with a stream of consciousness. It’s not exactly a stream is it? I’ve seen it referred to by other brilliant Vocalists as a river..with fish. Hannah called it a delta. That was a great piece, by the way. You should check it out.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. River. I think my stream might be a river. I’d like it be a slow moving brook, but that’s not how water always works is it? Or the mind.

Actually.

Come to think of it, I believe my stream is more like a lake. A huge lake. One of the Great lakes. With fish. And not pretty little fish that just gently glide along beside your canoe. No, not those. Big fish. Those huge invasive suckers that jump out of the water and slap you upside the head with their slimy tails. The ones that try to knock to into the lake with them so they can eat you.

Okay. Fine. I don’t know if they would actually eat you. But maybe they brought their friends the pirrahna with them. They’d eat you. Yes, I know piranha was misspelled the first time and I don’t even care. The fish are eating my brain.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Freddie. Have I told you about Freddie. I told Caroline about him.

Freddie is the fruit fly I met yesterday. He was standing on my plate while I was eating my toast for breakfast. Just standing there on his wee little micro legs... (should that have a dash?) did I put the question mark in the wrong place again? Is it okay that I am assuming Freddie's gender?

Right, so Freddie was just standing there on my plate, politely waiting for me to finish my breakfast so he could feast on the leftovers. I briefly considered squishing the life out of him, but then I thought of how this gigantic universe of ours considers squishing the life out of me every single day, but by grace alone, lets me live. So, I let Freddie live, and saved him some raspberry jam.

I saw him again later in the afternoon. He was in the kitchen hanging out with the bananas. I thought maybe he was hungry again. And then I thought, how would he eat a whole banana?

I mean the banana is what, a thousand times bigger than him? Wouldn’t that be like me trying to eat the CN Tower? Which would be a really hard thing to do. Even ignoring the size, I mean, this tower is concrete and steel. I’d have to drink Lake Ontario to wash it down.

And what of my stream then?

What would happen to my stream if the lake it was sitting in disappeared because I drank it just to show up a fruit fly? What would happen to everyone’s stream? All the streams of all the people whose thoughts flow into the streams and rivers that flow into that lake? Would we miss our streams? Would we all turn to zombies?

Is that not what we are already, what we have been trained to be? Get up – go to work – eat – sleep – get up……. Yeah, skip that.

And what about the fish? All the pretty little fish in the streams and big slap-me-upside-the-head-and-try-to-drag-me-under suckers who invaded the lake? Okay, I wouldn’t miss them.

I would miss the lake though. And I would miss all the little brooks and creeks and streams and rivers that flow gently into it. I would miss the ones who, through struggle and trial and error, had to take different routes to their destination; the one who had to shift north or west around unwelcome or barren landscape, or were forced to change their damn directions because the damn beavers dammed the damn route.

In the end, they all make it to the lake. Whether it’s an easy flow or a torrential rage to the end, all the streams eventually come to rest that sacred place. So long as I don't drink the lake, it shall be so. Oh dear! I probably should have squished that little fucker after all.

End Rant

P.S. Is this even a poem?