vii

“I reject your reality and substitute it with my own.”

-Adam Savage

            I’m home alone.

            My family is all at some genericprivateschoolbasketballfunction, where the only attendees are eighth graders, mom jeans, and my Junior Pre-Cal teacher. I should be calling up all my friends or using this time to write all the verses and paragraphs that have been stuck in my busy head for the past six months. Maybe even getting some real work done.

            But instead I’m flipping between Jersey Shore and Family Guy, using this precious time to slowly sink further and further into our living room’s ragged red recliner, away from the night of literary/social/root beer merit that I had planned in my badly-in-need-of-a-haircut-head.

            My excuse for not moving from the leather cushion sticking to my back, is that its too much of an effort. While I was at work today, my little brothers built a fort using my sheets in the living room. All over the living room. It took me a full five minutes to navigate my way past the carefully stacked pillows and the straight line of dinner table chairs. Like a responsible adult should.

            Well, fuck this shit.

            On my hands and knees, I find the main entrance (labeled in Christopher-colored pencil as “Main Entrance,”) and crawl into the Secret Rebel Base. I have taught my little brothers well: they’ve stored it with snacks and (my) (rare) (vintage) (expensive) comic books. I could live here forever.

            Adulthood is overrated. I’m just going to hide in my living room, slowly suffocating under blankets and sheets, waiting for someone to find me.