I am the World; I am two-thirds water.

Writing has always been difficult for me. I think it has to do with the chemistry of my brain. I've always had the tendency to reverse the meaning of words and numbers in a sequence. My parents saw it as a problem and had me tested for dislexia when I was around 5 years old. Somehow I fooled their test and proceeded with the rest of my education thinking I was quite normal. I made it to 3rd grade before teachers recognized that I was a better student than they thought I was. They switched me to the more gifted math class as a way to see how I handle myself within the confines of higher intelligence. I think I saw through their bull shit and played dumb when it came time to show I could keep up with the harder material. They moved me back to my more familar territory a couple days later only to be welcome by a movie about mathematics. I was glad to be back with my friends. In fact, blending in with them might of been my motive for not conforming to their accelerated track program which they thought was such a good idea. I was back in my old seat next to my best friends. We made the most of 4th and 5th grade and I still look back on those times as some of the best moments of my life.

We lived in a Country Club Community where walking on certain areas of grass warranted a verbal beat down or worse house arrest. My dad likes to think he provided me with a nearly perfect childhood based on the facilities and quality of people living with in the community, but my greatest memories involved us using our imaginations to recreate our surroundings. The stairs in the pool became a jail cell and the game was to secretly swim underwater to the other side of the pool without the guard noticing. The cohort of sun bathing moms became known as The Empire. With their lawn chairs grouped together in a circle clearly obstructing the inferior public's walking space. Our imaginations allowed us to escape and yet understand our surroundings even though they were "ideal".