it’s never boring,

On Tuesday, July 2, 1995, I was parked in a car at the top of a hill with a gun and a bottle of Xanex.

I began thinking about all those broken pieces I didn't know how to fix, which made me behave a certain way. Suddenly, I could feel all that shame manifesting into anger and hardness. I knew if those feelings gathered enough force, the little guy with the hatchet that lives inside of me would wake up and begin chipping away at all that old stuff from my childhood, and then I'd probably pick up at that gun and...

That's when I knew I was heading toward a place I didn't want to go to, and it was time to put my life back together.

And then I remembered something you said to me years ago, long before I began pretending to be who I am today.

"No matter who you are or what you do, you will be assimilated into a society that will not tolerate rebellion... you are compromised, or you die... there's no way to win."

Yeah, you knew how to play the game and tried in vain to explain most of the rules to me, but, as usual, I didn't listen.

I was sneaking off for a long smoke with one of those bad influences you were always warning me about or negotiating with the virgin next door or attempting to teach myself to play the drums or fishing for trout in that stream in back of our house or laughing at anybody older than twenty-five.

Then, a funny thing happened.

I turned twenty-six.

And I wondered how the hell a thing like that could have ever happened to a guy like me.

Not that I ever thought I'd be immortal.

I just figured somehow, I'd be able to fight better than most.

But I soon realized that even the best of fighters are subject to chronic brain damage as a result of the repeated pummeling they take from the establishment for violating their norms, and I never factored that part of it into the equation, which shouldn't surprise you.

Not that I was looking for a revolution.

You know, I never cared about being socially conscious.

I just wanted to divide my time between avoiding exhaustion and self-pity and trying not to become another archetype of the tragic soul.

If it appeared as if I had nothing on my mind in particular, it was only because I was trying to find a comfortable way of absolving myself of responsibility.

You get like that when you're eager to forget your sorrows.

So I ended up in some really funky, fantastical places with some really grimy, feral-looking punks who suffered from dramatic bruises to their global images, just like me.

Things were always bubbling up from some crazy, naughty place inside of me that I was entirely unprepared for. Most days, I was so distracted that I couldn't even think, so I stared blankly and spoke slowly and softly—if I spoke at all.

I now realize I was finding the distance from what was painful; those sad adolescent wounds take so long to heal.

Even after all these years, I'm still trying to resolve my master plot: an erring person who makes severe mistakes and secretly tries to live down their consequences recognizes the foolishness of attempting to be someone else's true self.

I work on resolving it every day.

Because the little guy with the hatchet still lives inside of me, and he's sleeping now.

I don't want him to ever wake up again.