one time when i was 6 or 7 i watched a little boy pick up a cigarette butt out of the gutter and place it in his mouth. i did nothing but laugh and mumble that hemightgetsick.

another time, when i was nine, i watched my cousin fall off a bike onto her face. i rode my bike home as fast as i could to call for help. when i got there i realized she had the key.

at the age of ten i watched a bottle rocket tip over in the street and hit a house a few times.

when i was 11 the olympics came to town, so i got to go downtown and watch people drink a lot of beer.

on my 13th birthday i had been to two different middle schools. by my 17th birthday, i had been to nine different schools.

when i was fourteen i thought i really loved somebody, because i was fourteen.

at fifteen i was in high school, listening to the sound of music and not doing drugs. i was staying up until 6 am, sharing my secrets.

when i turned 16 my hair was purple and we had a party.

yup, at sixteen i smoked for the first time, out there in the winter cold.

seventeen i got a scholarship, and finished up high school with a fizzle, not a bang.




now it's almost time for eighteen, and i don't know where to start, except for in a hotel room in omaha, nebraska.