No, you're not an idiot. You're going through the same thing(s) I have, and still do sometimes. :-)

IMHO, one of the best discussions of complex data structures, and how to access their innards (and by extension, get all the regular parenthesis, curly things, etc., straight in your head), is to be found in Chapter 3. References and complex data structures of perlinter.pdf, available from Perl Training Australia. You'd probably want the most current version of the course notes, though, which have been reworked into progperl.pdf, available from the same page noted above.

You may also wish to take a look at the following:

• intro to references
• References quick reference
• Not Exactly a Hash Tutorial
• The Uniqueness of hashes.
• Re: How can I visualize my complex data structure?

HTH,