AH! Finally This has taken me three days to write. I finally found a small slanted capital letter A icon way to the right almost off this box entirely, and clicked it, after clicking almost everything else on the page, and it let me enter text. Why don't any of the "helpful" tips and instructions for creating a first post say anything about this? Also, I wrote to admins three days ago (using only the title field since that was all I could enter text in) asking for help, and never got a response. Yes, I'm whining because what I wanted to ask in the first place is whether it is normal to be taken to the top of every page and have to re-read the forum rules and then scroll down searching for my place amidst so much clutter and confusion each time a page refreshes. I find myself lost and confused.
I left the subject title as is, even though I obviously did manage to find out how. I did so to make a point. However, if I am the only person who ever had this problem then I guess I am making a jerk of myself and I apologize.