I spent my seventeenth year of unconscious breathing nodding off in church three times a week with my obese yatzee addicted step grandmother. We lived in the city of tomorrow twenty-three minutes north of Detroit. My Parkinson disease ravished Grandfather, Uncle Bruce, Grandma Kim, and me. I moved in with them again for the second time in ten years when I was sixteen and a half. It was a relatively safe place to stay when my father would go back to prison. I am convinced that he felt more in control of his reality there, but I suppose that's a different story. Well, probably more like a badly produced Santa Monica boulevard theatre one act advertised and cast out of backstage west. It's that kind of anti-climatic story if you can dig. My theory is that there are two kinds of people on this planet. There are those that wait their entire lifetime for their personal savior to approach bearing the perfect job, destiny, and answers. Finally a fuel for their under developed curiosities. Then there are those who seek nature and balance with such passion that all else falls unnoticed to the wayside becoming instantly irrelevant. The list makers. Call them self-possessed compulsive elitists with secret agendas and well-drafted plans. If you'd prefer. Nevertheless, who's right, and how many spontaneous complexities can be attached to those two contrasting personality patterns? The combinations are Infinitely pointless to even dwell upon. Trust me. Even at eleven I would not be comfortable playing outside, or inside even unless my room was spotless and arranged to my satisfaction. Vacuuming to me, was like having my soul laundered and pressed daily in China town. Sorry for stereotyping Orientals but have you ever in your life seen a fat-ass-chink wake up at noon just to go eat twenty dollars worth of food at McDonalds. Only then to return home bored and sit on their couch all day yapping on the phone and watching soap operas. Perhaps complaining about how nothing exciting ever happens to them to a relative, or a friend. Who then in return, get off on listening to those around them suffer and fail at the game of life. I know that. I've been guilty of that in the past, and more than likely will be guilty of it in the future. When you sleep where do your fingers go? You laZY FUCKING AMERICAN! Graham Greene was right on. Holidays were worth it though weren't they? All of that food and obnoxiously drunk uncles. Wanting to wrestle and prove their leadership skills during battle. Stratego all afternoon coupled by spontaneous wedgies. Winning quickly to forfeiting nephews gripped by pity and passive aggressive natures the Uncles now content fall asleep while watching spagetti westerns. Only in America can I get kicked off of the football team and two F's on my report card in a matter of days. Grounded again for seventh months. Is this why men carry flasks later on in their lives? I too, will be bound for the pub. A champion dart thrower. A dark beer drinker. I will never have kids of my own. And they'll leave a key and a light on for me. I'll make love sporadically with strangers in strange lands. While dragging along my trick knee.X