A lifetime of excuses. 

I blame the guy at the gas station and the sophmore in the dorm. Then the Mormons. After that I blame my grandmother and the phonics box-set. The Mountain Bell activity book didn't help either. Nor did the chocolate cake and bare feet on the elephant slide in Pioneer Park. Sand and blood everywhere. I don't know whose fault the crayon incident was. The thing at naptime though I blame on irrigation day and the neighbor who always mowed his lawn without a shirt on. I'm still unclear about my brothers and me in nothing but underwear up in the fig tree and later eating pork chops in front of the television and wondering why we were so itchy. Now tell me: Whose fault was that? Please don't let me forget to include Ben Gazzara, shag carpet tiles, bunk beds and a genuine simulated wood-grain cabinet. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Not long after that, I blame my nine-year-old stepsister and her ulcer and their combined obsession with Patty Hearst.

Consider, if you will, Abraham Lincoln and the theory of elasticity.

I do, of course, blame the dog that bit me and hold personally responsible the sheriff of Tombstone and Radio Shack nine-volt-batteries. The first one is free, but they know you'll be back. Of course you will because the 99-in-1 kit is in on it too. I blame model helicopters, flammable glue and roadside firecracker stands. I blame girls with Now-and-Later candy bars and abandoned lots and Hustler magazine. Paul Barresi. The cheap pendants from the mall had nothing to do with it, but Karla and Chad and the Western Auto cassette recorder they saw before I did at the swap meet? Definitely. As did the back room at Spencer Gifts.

I blame Reddington Pass, Madera and Sabino Canyons, Boy Scout camp, "bug juice", the M-80 (along with whoever lit it) and the asshole Park Ranger. After that, it's the Space Shuttle on the back of a TWA jet on a runway in Utah that is most responsible. Then I blame Timex-Sinclair, Tandy, and the DEC-10. But not Commodore. I'd like to say I blame punch cards, but I was out that day. Probably home feverish and reading Penthouse Forum. The one thing unrelated to the other.

While I'd like to present evidence against the drama club, the gymnastics team, and my art professor, it would all be hearsay because I was never around long enough. Instead, allow me to present my case against the yearbook staff and Advanced Darkroom Technique — it's a solid one.

The jury is still out on the latch-hook rug kit, but Kraftwerk and Soft Cell all but confessed, as did the German exchange student and the bottle of Lubriderm. After that, I'd like to meet in the judge's chambers with fisticuffs and room service ramekins, pig poppers (something I'd never even heard of yet) tanning butter and a loaded handgun.

When that's done, I'll blame a man on a train, the doctor he shared an apartment with and the merchant marine who often stopped by. I'll call him Pepe. Yes, Pepe. Anyhow, the couple's cat died that week, so it was probably very sick and therefore I'll assume too weak to be anything but uninvolved. However, I am afraid the Mazda Z car and the Polaroid camera in the glove compartment will have to be impounded. Indefinitely. I also blame Carlos Fuentes and public transportation, both of which were in cahoots with the Diego Rivera mural at the time, along with an entire poker hand of twenty-five cent playing-card themed coffee cups. Oh, it's true.

Then, as much as I know you don't like to think about it, but someone is going to have to reckon with the many pots of potato lentil soup.

Eventually, I'll also get around to blaming: the government, Netscape, Apple, the Jesuits, Carmen Maura and Ricardo Cucamonga. But not for a while yet.

I apologize if it's embarrassing to be sitting here with me as I make loud, wet sucking noises with this straw and tear desperately at the thin sheet of plastic protecting the frosty contents of my Lollicup. I also know I must look like some orally-fixated six-foot-three Disney racoon who has just discovered salmon-flavored bubble tea. Gosh darnit, however, this is my first time and I'll have you know those li'l tapioca pearls are playing powerball in my mouth and damned if they are not just as flavorful as I am not proud.

All the more reason perhaps I am not ashamed to tell you that today is all about mercifully unequal parts foot cream and Krispy Kreme. It's true. Try it and you too can feel better from the bottom to the top.

Then again, today is also about tactfully outpacing the little old lady at the branch library in our undeclared, albeit blatant, race to the only restroom. She doesn't stand a chance.

Is it any wonder then that I should feel like a winner? No. I feel like a winner because I am a winner—and would be one even if she hadn't stopped at the water fountain.

Later though, the cosmos seem to shift and I do wonder what role karma—which I don't believe in—plays in my life when a gassy Korean woman sits next to me on the bus.

But not for long though because soon I'm thinking about how when Joe Millionaire picks me on his show, it would be easy to say something like I was happy just to be selected to be on the show in the first place and how it was nice getting a new pendant each week and how I'm still friends with some of the other girls, which I am not. And who knew I would even make it to the final two? Certainly not me! Why, I've never won anything in my life...and so on.

That would all be so silly though because I never lose anything and I always win everything, and as you and the rest of the world know from watching me each week, I understood the man and his show more than anyone. You know?

Some people thought of Evan and said: What a big dummy. Early on I decided that sort of attitude was a luxury I couldn't afford. Do you want to know what that's like? Well, it's like when Evan and I would go on a one-on-one date and I'd listen patiently to him while he talked and ate food off both our plates. Sometimes, I'd try to read his mind and for some reason it suddenly dawned on me that it was really all like when a new shopping center opens and they set up a money booth and use a fan to blow air and cash all around inside and you have to grab as much as you can. When I think about my special moments with Evan and all the thoughts that must have been in his head at those moments, I think Evan is just like one of those big plexiglass shopping center wind tunnels. Except without the cash.

Anyhow, now that it's all behind me and on days such as today when my friends are saying, "You keep spending so much time at that library people gonna think you homeless." I just think about how home is where the heart is and I tell them, "You know where to find me."