From a box of Savannah's Candy Kitchen sugar & spice pecans

I think I stopped being a good speller in junior high.

In elementary school, spelling was one of my only officially recognized creative outlets. Every teacher had the same routine. Every week, we'd learn a list of words, learn how to spell them, and then learn their definitions. On Friday, we'd have a test in which the teacher would say a word, then we would have to spell the word and then (here was where the magic happened) use it in a sentence. Coming up with the perfect sentence ... that in my opinion was the highest of arts.

But in junior high there were far more opportunities to screw around creatively in between the cracks of my public schooling. Spelling and grammar, to me, became -- as they should be -- an afterthought. The creative drive -- ideas -- took the forefront. All I wanted to do was think crazy thoughts, put them in writing, and say them out loud. Preferably in front of others.

Gradually, I became worse and worse at spelling and grammar, until I went to college and majored in English, where they taught me that everything they'd been trying to teach me about the English language was wrong anyway, so none of it mattered. There I learned the 10 or 12 things that were important. I also learned that I was a decent enough writer to know when and when not to shitcan the rest of what I'd been taught. It was tremendously liberating.

I've written before about how there's no better exercise for a writer than to read a lot of really, really bad writing. You can read the canon, but all that does is make you feel inferior. When you read F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can see that it is incredible, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly why it is incredible. Conversely, when you read something horrible, you know why it's bad. It's hard to escape, rather than hard to understand.

After I graduated from college, I read a lot of bad writing. Working for the Ripsaw News as a copyeditor was an education in and of itself. I used to liken it to being a hotel maid. Most days you change the sheets, empty the trash can, vacuum, clean the toilet, and leave. But some days, you open the door and say, "Ohhhhh ... shit."

I remember being given 6,000-word articles and being told to pare them down to 2,000 words. I remember rewriting entire paragraphs. Don't get me wrong: There were a lot of great writers working for the Ripsaw. But the writing staff was made up mostly of volunteers. Not all of them were great, and on a few occasions I questioned whether or not the writer could speak English at all.

On top of that, I also reviewed books by local authors, which I've often referred to as the most thankless job on the planet. I had to read many, many books, most of which were barely fit for the fireplace, let alone for reading. I'd read about three books for every one I reviewed. Sure, we'd get books by Louis Jenkins, Anthony Bukoski, Bart Sutter, Jim Johnson, and other writers who are fantastic in any arena. But we'd also get every self-published, vanity press piece of crap imaginable. I read as many as I could. And I tried to stay positive. But there was no way I couldn't rant now and then.

But here's the thing: Ever since my days at the Ripsaw when I relearned spelling and grammar, I copyedit everything I see. I once asked the people at Twice "But" Nice Furniture in West Duluth what the quotation marks were all about. They didn't understand what I meant, and later they changed the name to 2wice But Nice, which oddly made a lot more sense.

Tonight at Thai Krathong, I asked the server why the closed sign didn't have a "D" at the end.

"I never noticed that," he said.

"Maybe it's on purpose," I said. "Maybe it means, you were close, but we aren't open anymore."