Introduction - First Draft

I turn 26 two weeks from today Monday, April 13, 2009. Twenty-six.  Four years till 30.  I never thought I would be 30.  I never thought that I would be old.  And yet, here I am staring down the barrel of adulthood.  This is a pinnacle time in my life embodied by a decision that will ineffably decide the course of the rest of my life.  If you can pardon my use of an overly abused metaphor, there is a fork in the road.  One path will lead me down the road to becoming a functioning member of society.  You know that road; it usually involves college, career, marriage and children.  It’s the kind of life that your parents dream for you.  In all actuality it is the life that those who drive the economy require us to choose so that we can continue to enable The Man and his money hungry power trip.  It’s the kind of life that you lead and wonder 30 years later, is this really all there is?  And then there is the other road…



I am the product of a sweaty July night between two drug addicted, mentally unstable musicians.  I have inherited a number of bad habits, an inability to maintain a normal relationship, and an affinity for mind altering substances.  In the past decade I have become quite adequate at getting fucked up and having a good time.  There is something very freeing about living on the streets not worrying about shit except for how to score the next bag.  You don’t really have to worry too much about rent and insurance and all of things that seem mundane after a fat hit off the meth pipe.  In fact, I am having a very difficult time seeing the silver lining in not getting fucked up and having a good time; that is until shit goes sour.  Daddy died at the age of 47 from a lifetime of getting fucked up and having a good time.  I bore witness to many heinous events in my life due to my father’s love of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  I always swore to myself that I wouldn’t take that road.  I didn’t want to be addicted to drugs and I didn’t want to be homeless and struggling for the rest of my life.



Here I am, in sight of 26 and after only a few hiccups (a year of alcohol, over a decade of marijuana, a stint on speed and occasionally a number of club drugs whenever available) I have managed to make a life for myself.  I have a career and I am on my way to having a college education.  I am quite proud of myself.  However, being proud of ones accomplishments and being happy with ones life are two drastically different ideals.  I hate my career, college isn’t the mind expanding experience I had expected, and somehow I ended up in the fucking Midwest.



Let’s make one thing clear Californians by birth were never meant to leave California.  It should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, taking a person away from year round perpetual sunshine and moving them to a state that suffers five consecutive months of snow and below zero weather.  Fuck Wisconsin.  I have been here a year now and have found the accents to be annoying to say the least, the weather depressing and the roads atrocious.  That’s it.  There is nothing else to Wisconsin, unless you count Lake Michigan, who’s only purpose is to smell like shit and cause even MORE snow to fall on the nearby cities.  I pity those who live and die with out ever knowing the beauty that is my home of Orange County, California .  What can I say?  I am biased and with good reason.



So, life isn’t what I expected.  Is it ever anything anyone expects it to be?  It is about more than that though.  Life just can’t be this monotonous.  Am I really meant to spend every Monday through Friday of the next 50 years of my life sitting at a desk doing shit I couldn’t care less about?  I have a very hard time believing that I am alive to punch a fucking time clock every morning and work my ass off to make someone else money.  All the while struggling to make ends meet in an economy that is rapidly collapsing at the hand of God knows who, just so that I can try and achieve what society claims to be the American dream; the right road to follow.  I’m not happy.  If I’m not happy, what’s the point?  I think it’s time for a new American dream: Smoke Pot and Do Nothing.  Maybe, maybe not.



Before me I have a choice.  Two roads to follow.  One road is the road I’m on.  This choice would mean that I would stay here, in Wisconsin, finish my education and continue to work at the job I hate all in the name of financial security and stability.  The other road, the road well beaten before me by my parents and countless family members, promises happiness with undesirable consequence.  Quit my job and do whatever the fuck I want to.  Of course, homelessness and being broke usually put a damper on this way of life.  The simple truth remains, I won’t be happy either way.  The only way to happiness is to beat my own trail.  So here is my decision, in your hands.  I am selling everything, packing up the boyfriend and the cat, and taking a soul drive back home.  Who knows what will happen.  Who knows if my car will even make it .  What I do know is that I will be happy, I will be stoned, and I will write every bit of the way.