a letters a letter no matter how small. or an explanation for why i do not capitalize at the beginning of sentences in this blog.

i don’t believe in capitals. i guess that’s really not true—its not that I have something against capitals, its just that i don’t like using them in their proper places, at the beginning of sentences and for titles and names and so forth. ive had always a soft spot for lowercase—the dot hanging out in its teeny circle of solitude above the lower case i, the little q dipping its tail into the next line, a bit self conscious about its extra appendage. If lowercase q went to jr high, he’d be the one getting picked on, his voice not yet changed and still wearing superhero briefs even when everyone else has graduated to the manly world of boxers. I’m not sure why I love the little guys so much, I’ve just always felt wronged somehow watching the innocent r and baby s marched into place by the big bad capital Ds and Fs of the world. maybe I just read the world through a marxist lens, but it always seemed like the lowercase letters deserved a chance to be at the front of the line too.

i think this natural disgust for the aggressive nature of capital letters was what led me to fall in love with ee cummings. ee cummings doesn’t use capitals in his poetry. In an ee cummings poem, everything seems equal, nonintimidating, just lower case letters smoothly unfolding down the page, like velvet carpet or creamy sorbet, with no big bad capitals to intimidate the weenie lowercases to get back in their places at the back of the line. For a while, I tried to live in an ee cummings world devoid of capitals. i started writing everything in little letters, refusing to buy into the idea that capitals are a necessary part of the world of language. my teachers didn’t agree, constantly marking up my harmonious worlds of liberated lowercase with angry red pen—The beginning of sentences need capitals! Why is everything lowercase!? i tried to explain it was deliberate, but 6th grade teachers don’t believe you make errors like that on purpose. in danger of failing 6th grade (failing elementary school does not bode well for your academic future) and being scorned by all the capital-using students around me, I relinquished my poetic license. social pressure had forced me to become a capitalist.

i hate the fact that I gave into the Man and continue to give into the Man, but i do. im a capital-using prostitute that has a lowercase soul, a little letter loving woman screaming damn the man inside while turning in perfectly punctuated papers conformed to the perfection society demands of me. such is life says my father. but a little piece of me dies everytime i replace my shy friend little b with his angry and ferocious older Brother.

one day when i have a complete nervous breakdown and finally allow myself to break free of social norms (this is inevitable, mind you, for ive been conforming to standards completely against my nature since i was potty trained and at some point i assuredly will snap), the first thing im going to do is turn in an essay in all lowercase letters. yes, this will involve an inordinate amount of work seeing as microsoft word conveniently auto capitalizes all words that are supposed to be capitalized within your document. but i think im up to the task, armed with the knowledge that breaking free of the system is not going to occur overnight. reaching outside of the box of conformity we are all drowning in is going to take going back to every sentence within my document and de-autocapitalizing, but im okay with that. we must start somewhere.

for now blogging world, don’t be fooled by my outward conformity, my capitalist appearance. i remain an advocate of the underdog, a proponent of the i and r and o, a lover of the little man.