In brief...
I was born at a very early age. I grew up in the woods of Kentucky, roughly thirty miles from the nearest one-stoplight town. There weren't any neighbors my age...mostly middle-aged redneck alcoholics with shotgun fetishes. My father, an attorney, chose for my family to live in Deliverance country to fulfill some survivalist fantasy he concocted. We didn't even have a telephone, but I had a beautiful Labrador Retriever, woods to explore, and a large lake in which I could swim or fish. Fortunately, the IRS auctioned our farm after my parents filed bankruptcy due to unwise business ventures. (Beware Get-rich-quick schemes, kiddies!)
We moved to a small town where I began learning how *not* to fit in with my peers. Other kids just weren't as interesting as my dog or imaginary adventures, but Pandora's Box was opened. Still, looking back I would rather endure the shock of overcoming introversion than live my life like Nell. Odd how the little heathen who ran barefoot across gravel and through deep weeds grew up to become a latte-sippin' college student who won't even shed his shoes at the lake because "Sand is yucky." I graduated high school, headed for college and muddled through what felt like an endless series of dead-end relationships. Whether any actually had potential is moot now, because those bridges are well and truly burned. One might even say Napalmed! Still, the lessons learned led to the epiphanies that: I never really wanted to be a damn lawyer anyway, that my childhood sucked but can't be changed, that most problems in life really are either self-created or matters of perspective, and that I really needed to graduate and get the hell out of this godforsaken state. So....I graduated and got out of this godforsaken state. "I didn't go to the moon, I went much further, for time is the longest distance between two places." Tennessee Williams was a genius. I went to New Jersey for three months to participate in the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival's apprenticeship program.I had some fun, worked and sweated my ass off, and met some amazing people. I'll miss them very much in the days to come, and hope to see them again in the future. I let go of several things that were holding me back, and find myself poised with newfound confidence to make my own fortune. Don't wish me luck...just say "Break a leg!"