How I long to fall just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines and stray from the light,
But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height

- Dar Williams

On grammar

I feel I am reasonably competent when it comes to using correct grammar and punctuation, but I am definitely conscious that there are rules I don't know. Chances are I learned them at some point and just forgot.  Two examples came up just last night and it  occurred to me:  I lost the ability to absorb any new grammar rules in the 10th grade. I remember the day it happened, too. I was sitting behind Patrick Abernethy in Mrs. Tomes' first period English class. We were in the middle of diagramming sentences and suddenly I couldn't remember what the fuck a past participle was. And I knew I would never know again.

(I do recall that one is not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition or begin a sentence with "and" but those are often inconvenient for me.)