one space after a period?!?!

oh man, things like this freak me out. Did everyone but me know that we are no longer supposed to be putting two spaces after periods? It was practically beaten into my muscle memory in typing class 27 years ago, and just today I stumbled upon the news that it's now considered unnecessary and inefficient. ALL THESE YEARS I never noticed that websites, newspapers, and magazines all use only one space. And to think I call myself a writer! Sheesh. Here, check this out while I try to recover from the shock of it all:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/OneSpaceorTwo/OneSpaceorTwo02.html

http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/onetwospaces.htm

http://adamsdrafting.com/system/2006/10/30/one-space-or-two/

Who knows how many other grammar violations I'm committing on a regular basis!? I'm almost as discombobulated by this as I was when I recently learned that "costed" is not a real word. And yes, I still use it! Daily. (Just like I still use sentence fragments, too.)

Okay, here's how it's gonna go: I am going to continue to write whatever the heck I want, and leave it up to people who want to publish it to clean it up for me. If you are conversing with me and you don't know that costed means the same thing as cost, well, that's just too bad.

Hi, my name is Karen, and I'm a functional ...okay, wait ... I was gonna say functional illiterate, which I always thought meant that you were basically illiterate but could still function in daily life. AND THAT'S WRONG TOO!!! I just looked it up. It means you CAN'T function. OMG.

I think I better just quit right now, and go over to the Grammar Girl site http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx . The sad thing is, I bet I'll forget just about everything I learn there!

(Sigh) This is very humbling. I was a straight A student, and even won awards for my writing. What happened to me? Oh yeah, that's right. I stopped caring about being proper and starting taking poetic license. LOL. Maybe I got a little carried away. Might be too late to turn back now.

To all of you who know and care about this stuff, my sincere apologies. I hope you can overlook the form and still appreciate the content.

I suppose if you are still with me, then maybe you already have.

:)karen