Reading never came easy to me. I really didn't start to read regularly until my thirties. In fact, I don't think I have ever finished one reading assignment during my entire education. I had a tendency to look at letters and numbers in a different way.Ever since I can remember I assigned a gender to all letters and numbers. I gave them personalities and histories. I imagined the relationships they had with each other, even the most forbidden, an alphabet/numeral relationship. 8 and G always had something going on. 8 obviously female, and a bit on the chunky side, liked G's soft side. She also like that he stood his ground..."No, I'm going to stop right here! Fuck C, I've got to be my own man!"
A and B, female. Lets face it, B looks like a pair of breasts and A kinda looks like one of my mother's friends from when I was growing up. C D E F G H and I are all male. The old Boys Club of the early letters. "Sure, A and B might be girls but we dominate the first ten letters." K is female, just look at the way she moves. Strong and assertive yet graceful. L...kinda goes both ways if you know what I mean. Like 9, neither here nor there. "You're no 6, that's for sure, and 10 wears the pants in the family."
Actually there are many gay letters and numbers, Q for instance, just look at that limp little hand of his. 7, feminine for sure, but there is something about her. 1 2 3 and 4 are all children, and therefore without gender to me. 5 is growing up and wishes the others would stop following him around all the time! And anyway, he kinda likes 6, you know.
M and N are both female, and good friends. Well, they have so much in common. Nobody likes O, nothing to grab onto, mostly empty space. The only one who likes him is P, another loser. J is like that uncle that is younger than the other adults. He's still cool, he still smokes pot every now and then, and lets you borrow his records. R and T are drinking buddies. Tough, rough and vulgar. They like beer, bowling and farting. S is R's wife, and she's always coming between the two. V W X and Y are the matriarchs. The old ladies sitting around in rocking chairs, brow-beating the rest, demanding quiet and hot tea.
Z the poor thing, hardly ever used. Worth 10 points in scrabble you know, not a vowel anymore are you love?
4 comments:
this is my favorite by far...it had me laughing and then i stopped and thought "my god..he is on to something..."
Do you feel the same way about letters? It's really obvious and natural to think of them as people. Right?
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ummmm...well...i can't really say that i ever thought of them as people before your blog, but i do remember a time, kindergarten maybe, when learning the letters they each had a personality and faces, like ~A~ would have a smiley face and a beret or something like that...it's a vague memory but it is coming back to me, it was supposed to make us remember the letters i guess...maybe you just remember them better..lol..but i like your low-down on the letters much better and i do think gender assignment is natural - i like to think of you as a boy ;)
Am I J?
Right on with the letters.
Ive been partial to the personalities of the numbers 0-9 too.
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