When I was 6, I remember going to Burger King.  I had a thing for the people that worked there.  Back then, they ordered through a long thin microphone.  I really wanted to do that for a living.  I looked at them like they were gods as they wished they were dead.

I had other wishes and dreams.  Singer, actor, Michael Jackson’s girlfriend, marine biologist, lawyer, rich housewife, shrink, writer, teacher, professional comedian, hotline answerer, radio show host, stripper, porn star, drug dealer and the winner of the Next Food Network Star.

I settled on retail assistant manager in my twenties.  I was a shiftless lush with weird hours at a record store in the local mall.  It did it’s job.  All of sudden I found myself wishing for the commute.  So I started working in the city at a sales job.  I dreaded getting up in the morning but I had money.  Money, dread, money dread…every damn morning wishing for mono.  

I lived my life in front of the TV.  I had this dream that if I could just get into that box, I could make my life seem less pathetic.  So I pretended to be Natalie Green from Facts of Life.  She seemed to have a good handle on what she wanted and how she wanted it and even though she had some rough times she always had a one liner to back up that cheesy grin.

I started out early with the boys.  Just the wanting not the fucking.  I always had a crush on someone.  The kid from two rows down at church, the boyfrom Ecuador at school, the wayward teen who felt me up when I was thirteen, the junkie who asked for change at the deli, the dickhead who stocked the shelves at Toys R Us, the maniac who talked to the dead…good times

When I got married the first time it seemed like I was living in some else’s body like Quantum Leap. I was there to make sure things stayed in line with the fates, when I was done I would move on to another body and live their life till it was time to leap again.  I made the jump in but barely made it out.  What the fuck did I know?  I was desperate to get out of my parent’s house and so I fucked the first guy that showed interest in me that way and said yes to the isolation routine

There is no real way to worship God.  Who is God and what the fuck does he want from me?  

Religion in my family was a big deal.  It was a way of goddamn life.  Do this, don’t ever do that and if you do it this way the whole time you might get rewarded. Not definitely.  Maybe.

Lets start off by saying that when I was born, I diedinside…a little.

Not all the way.  Not enough to make the blood stop circulating or the heart stop beating.  Or the brain stop functioning.  Just enough.

So, I went on that way for a while.  Just existing within a timeline.  You know the drill, school, church, friends (not good ones).  The occasional “happy”moment where you say “Hey, I did that”. Graduation from school was one of those moments.

That’s  about it.  

 School was horrific for the most part.  I did okay in school.  I got by. But the social structures of elementary, middle and high school was not one I could navigate correctly.  I was always just left of the road.