It's easy to live an existence that may seem stable to some. Just getting out of the way of people's ideas and opinions but for some odd reason, that just wasn't for me.
    I never wanted to fit into the mold of basic society.
    I didn't go to college right after high school. Hell, I never finished high school.
    I chose not to try to get a GED.
    Doing so, I chose not to go into the military.
    I didn't realize early on that being "this different" wasn't so different. 
    I may have thought I was unique but being so "different" actually made me fit into a large piece of the pie. A statistic.
    Who would have thought that something like that could happen at such an age. But with time I guess anyone can become one.
   The funny truth is, that even when the wiser would say so, I really never gave a fuck!!!
   I remember the first time in life that I thought that I had it together.
   It was early in my youth, I was just eighteen and my step father Ron had just kicked me out of my mother's home. I had nowhere to go.
   I had just been released from California Youth Authority where I had been in a fire camp for almost a year. I came home and two months later, on my birthday, he told me to pack up and hit the streets.
    I went to a couple friends house, and I told them what happened and how things went down that Christmas Eve and how I had nowhere to go. I usually had a sob story when it came to dealing with my step-father.
   At first, I hated how he treated me. Being only 12 years older than I, I couldn't understand why he was such an asshole but he totally was. Truthfully now, I am thankful, only because I was reliant only upon myself at a young age. And it probably is the root of one of my favorite character defects. The Victim.
   I had two jobs. One was screen printing during the day. 9 to five. And the other was working at McDonalds from 6 to midnight. So I was making a little money.
   I couldn't believe how well I was doing just out of the gate and then my step-father boots me out on Christmas Eve. So eventually I wind up walking into my friends house and telling the sob story of how I had plans to get this apartment and it wasn't going to be available till New Year's Day and I had nowhere to go and my dad was such a dick and blah blah blah. 
    And Keith Everson and Mom, let me stay with them until I got my shit together.
   Keith was moms boyfriend and Mom was one tough ass Bitch and she wanted us kids to know it. She always was. I would tell you different but it's honestly how she was. You called her Mom or you referred to her as the "Bitch". No lies.
   I always called her mom. It was easier to say.
  My guess from memory is that her name was Donna. I'm probably way off. She would slap me around if I was wrong but Hiedi's Mom was so hot back then it couldn't hurt to be wrong. Jajaja.
    Hiedi and Shane were brother and sister and they were always very cool with me. I was Shane's school friend and Hiedi was a crush I had since meeting her as freshmen. I was friend zoned very quickly in the 9th grade and so I I quickly became a brother to them both and boy was I thankful for friends.
   I remember smoking weed. And drinking beer with Kieth when he came home. And if you have read any of my other shit, I promise you these things were daily. And by far, are no exaggeration by any means.
   Weed was cheap and beer was cheaper.
   I lived pretty good those few weeks. Mom always had some food cooked when Kieth came home and they always got home shortly after I closed McDonalds at 1am. Then we would drink a beer and smoke some weed before starting all over again the next day.
   Mom was awesome to me. She always told me uplifting things when I was growing up. Like, "Know when to shut the fuck up you lil flip!" And, "fuck you you lil asshole." And we would all laugh and be sarcastic. And the more sarcasm you through at her the more she would throw back. It was fun.
    She told me once, "Hey, you lil fucktard, remember this, if nothing else at all.... you're worth something to me even if the world tells you, different. If you ever need anything we will be here for you. Now pack up your shit and get to moving into that new apartment."
    She meant every word.
   I'm still friends with those guys. Not as close. But still in touch. I miss them very much.
   I don't know how Shane and Heidi ever moved away but eventually they did. I don't remember seeing them too much after I moved out.
   But there I was. I had it together. A couple of weeks and I would be sharing my apartment with my true love, Jamie Brown and her best friend, who I cannot remember at all except the last name Rivera. She was cute though.
   I was gonna live out the fabulous fantasy of being Jack Tripper from the hit TV show in the 80's called......
   (Do you remember it?)
   Threes Company.
   (Too Late)
   I remember it well. We all moved in together and and things went to hell for me. And about a week went by smoothly.
   A week later, I dunno.
   Maybe I got too comfortable.
   She found someone else.
   Jamie started seeing this guy. Who later I found out took up a job I got laid off from days before. And the next thing I know, they're moving out. And I can keep that apartment.
   Head over heels, I was in love. How could this happen?
  It just did.
  It fucking happened.
   There I was just a week later and I was going to have to figure it all out again.
   I guess the lesson in the story here is don't think everything is ever okay. Shit gets escalated quickly and before you know it, it will have you grabbing for the hand rails as soon as the first wall crumbles.
    Be ready. Be watchful of those closest to you. You have no control of anyone. They have their own mind and their own heart to follow.
    I had to pick up some pieces. And pretty fucking fast.
   None of my truest friends liked her and she definitely didn't like any of my fucking friends.
   My way of dealing with this breakup was finalized with Mickey's 22's and whatever weed I could scrimp.
   I needed roommates if I was going to keep this apartment. And I had to find some trustworthy fellows if that was going to happen.

2
At first, I wasn't sure how this was going to work. I had never really been on my own and spending a lot of my teenage life in facilities like juvie, group homes, and youth authority; I hadn't had a lot of experience being an adult.
I sure as hell had no idea what a bill was or how to take care of them.
I didn't know or comprehend the idea of budgeting and here I was, soon to be apartment renter in an apartment that I thought had all the cool stuff. You know, electric and cable and utilities such as trash and water.
I mean I had no idea at the time that those were things you paid for.
What I did know how to do was throw a party.
So I did.
I didn't know how it was going to go but I told a few friends and figured it would work itself out.
I learned long before any of this, if you're not counting bricks in a jail cell or dead, it will all be alright. And for most of my life, give or take a few days, it still rings true.
Sometimes, we make jail cells in our free lives and at times they can close to unbearable at moments. Sometimes we forget that in only a moment and forget that, the moment is just a storm, it will pass.
I needed this short storm to pass and quickly decided that the party would give me some options. I couldn't be the only guy my age who had parents who wanted them out of the house.
I was sure to find them. I knew that.
A case of Mickey's 22's, a malt liquor that I learned to love from my brother Scott. He lived about ten miles away in a town over from here. But when we got together, for some reason this skunky malt liquor was our drink of choice.
I told a few friends who told a few friends and before I knew it, we almost twenty people over at my apartment. This is a small party by any means but at the time, it was more than I knew what to do with.
Some how a buddy of mine, Jason Garcia, and his friend at the time friend Sean Aglar made their way into helping me out. It was a good time for awhile. My first roommates.
We taught each other a lot about things. I had some brothers. I never speak of them too much and our time was short. But I honestly have never forgot the lessons they taught me.
Like the power of asking.
I had been living in this apartment for a month. I didn't know my neighbors. Day two, of living there and Jason and Sean met three of the neighbors in different apartments by simply asking them for shit.
Like a broom and a dust pan. Cups of sugar for kool-aid. Butter for toast.
Interaction like this disturbed me.
But it worked.
So many things go for the want of asking.
What's the worst thing that can happen, they say no? You never know if you never ask.
That goes with a lot of things.
Asking for sugar for your kool-aid. Asking someone for an opportunity. Asking a girl to go out with you. Asking for a break on a bill. Having a couple of bros go in on apartment.
Shit man, I've had people say yes to all these questions.
Today's lesson brought to you by the want of asking. You never want to ask.
Some people will never understand your body language when it comes to that unnerving decision just not to ask in hopes someone will offer up your needs.
Believe it or not, I will help anyone out who wants to help themselves but if all you want to do is make me listen, that is what I will do. It's the path of less resistance.
Don't be afraid to make yourself great. And if you need to ask for help, believe me, you may not always like the answer, but you will have one. And that is better than feeling alone.
There has never been more people on the planet. Not all of them will say no. Get out there and meet some new folks.
Night.

3
The mind is a kaleidoscope. I mean that from above it all makes sense but when we are in the moment, we can not see the beauty in our tragedies. We cannot see that there is a sequence in its staggering number of walls falling. That every wall crashing down that there is another wave coming behind it. Just like the ocean, it can be overwhelming.
That there is a design in perception.
That the calamity comes no matter which direction we choose to turn.
Only in hindsight, sometimes even, years later, do we finally perceive it all from above. Only then, do we get a gods eye view, if we think on these things.
I had a good road to travel and somewhere along the way, while traveling with my roomies Jason And Sean, I met up with Tim and Ted Samson.
They were a couple cool kids at the time of my youth. Couch surfing through Lemoore like a couple vagabonds looking for a place to hang hats.
I didn't know any guys my age who thought like them. And although many of the things they said, to me today, sound ridiculous, they made perfect sense to me.
Ted was a fighter and very confrontational one if I remember him right. He had some pretty radical views and he stood by them.
He was one of those guys you don't want to mess with or even friend but once he was your friend nobody messed with you. If you know what I mean.
Tim was his older brother, and he for sure would have been nothing without Ted. Tim was in my eyes, one of the coolest guys ever.
He was Ted's "cooler". When Ted would get loud and Hot, Tim would chill him out and somehow calm any situation with words. He was Teds Manager in a way.
Tim was a social butterfly. He was smooth and crafty. He had opinions galore and he wanted to know yours and then somehow change them. He had charisma and somehow you always had a way about him that made you feel like doing just about anything.
When I think of my situation then, I couldn't see these guys were bad news.
They friended me.
Tim did Tattoos and I liked Tattoos.
We all liked a lot of the same stuff and I wanted to do tattoos. While hanging out with Tim and Ted, I learned a couple of tragic skills. Ones I didn't know I was going to need. Ones I didn't know were going to come in handy in the coming year, but most of all, things I was never gonna forget.
When I look back on these days I couldn't see how these guys bullied their way into my home and took it over. I couldn't see how they manipulated their way into my waves but they were the reason my walls were crashing down.
My history, right? After all I'm writing it.
Once Ted and I were friends, I knew I didn't want to lose it. Turned out, he was just anti social and didn't know how to be with other people. Getting to know him was an honor more than anything else.
He went on to marry a girl I used to hang out with, and she settled him well. Had a few kids, a house in Sacramento and he went on to be VW owner. He loved those cars and busses.
Nobody messed with Tim because they were terrified of Ted. And you probably wouldn't have wanted to mess with Tim either. When I look from above though, Tim would have been easier to Fight than I ever thought. He was a coward who hid behind his brother.
But he could tattoo.
A skill I wanted to learn. And I learned from him as much as he could have taught. The truth is, I watched him, and like a monkey, I did what I watched him do.
I learned to make friends. I learned to listen to people and how to make an opportunity out of whatever they say. It's all a dream to me when I think about it. But that was exactly what Tim had done for me.
He knew I wanted to learn how to tattoo. He knew I had a place to do it. And all he had to do was do a couple tattoos on my friends and me. It was also a place he could stay while teaching me to do it and somehow along the way, I forgot to tell my homies, about it.
So one of my sins that I remember was my roommate Sean having to put a padlock on his door and Tim and Ted getting mad about it.
I remember watching them break into his room and doing nothing about it. I was more scared of them than I was of Sean. They stole his food and his prized possessions. Comic books and toys and sold them at a couple comic book stores in the area.
It's no wonder Sean moved out.
When he confronted me, I buckled and probably got some back up from Ted who stood in front of me and said he was gonna kick Sean's ass if he wanted to fight. And for that I guess I was thankful I had Ted.
But my lesson was taught anyway.
I should have told those two dudes, not to break into my friends room. I should have never been scared in my own home. I should not have been their friend anymore. And when my friend confronted me, I should have chose a better side than that of my new friends.
I was a fucked friend/roommate. I was eighteen and learning how to be an adult. And I'm afraid, in my history, that the "should haves" or the "could haves" were in great numbers. The next two weeks were a downhill slide.
I quit working at McDonalds and thought I could find another job. But couldn't.
I couldn't pay the rent.
I didn't know how to pay bills.
And I was total dick to my friends who had jobs who were there to help me down the road.
My early years came with much calamity. I thought I knew what it would take to be a good friend. A good person. I maybe started out that way. But my experience took a dive somewhere after 18.
It stayed there for a couple years but in the meantime I learned many things.
Sometimes you cannot see that people are using you. Sometimes you don't think you can be used. And although I thought I was learning how to tattoo, I was learning how to tattoo in the most awful of ways. So crude. So dirty.
I remember tattooing people with no gloves at a kitchen table. While smoking weed and other drugs while drinking beer. Recking it while feeding my ego about how good I thought I was. Running from responsibilities like the cops were chasing me.
Nothing good comes of that.
When meeting people, try to see their intention early on. Everyone you meet has an unseen opportunity. Everyone is open about there intentions if you're listening. Truth be told, it's just good advice.
What you do with it, is up to you to live with.
Do you need a kaleidoscope of "should haves", "could haves", and "what if's"?

                                   4
    Yeah yeah yeah, I'm a wise monk.
    I'm not really. I am just thinking on these stories from these old days and reflecting on them.
   While writing it, I sort of feel like and electric Forrest Gump.
   "Life is a lot like a box of chocolates..."
    It's like that with my story telling too.
    You do not always know what you're going to get. I'm just grateful that I made it far enough to actually be in a place where I can jot them down.
    I moved away from Lemoore and moved on towards Hanford where I lived a lot like Tim and Ted. And if you read it, a portion of my book "My life in a Nutshell", you got to read a lot of what my life was like at 19.
   It's pretty funny to me really. When I look back on my days in Hanford it really was a flash. It happened and it was over as quick as it started.
    What I didn't understand was that in that "poppy field", everything was easy. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't know how to. Nobody was going to help me. And nobody really wanted to make me grow up either. I found my way too, and without any supervision.
    I had a childish view of things. I had lived in detention most of my childhood and now there were no authoritative figures. Nobody to tell me to fix the bed or to fix my food, or take care of myself.
    I took a lot of things for granted.
    I was selfish and self-centered. I was high, and tried to escape any reality that I could. Things got real ugly and most of my friends were done with it.
   It got to the point that older people tried to guide me, and I tried to guide myself against any of their good advice. Jajaja. I made it here though, just way later. Perhaps.
   My family went east to South Dakota and I stayed in Hanford. Where I learned how to "Rock Bottom"
    Drugs and Alcohol are a great means to an end if you think it's all you want to do. And I did. It was all I wanted.
    A lesson I've learned time and again.
    Don't let good shit become habits. It isn't any fun anymore.
    When the good shit doesn't get you off anymore, you're gonna have to do a lot more of it. And sadly, if you ever dealt with addiction, ever in your own life, you know  what I'm talking about.
    Getting wasted, isn't fun anymore. It becomes work. You may be selling a little so you can do more. Or you're selling it yourself so you can do it for free. Or you cannot find it anywhere, and you have to look for it throughout other circles and you find out the world is dry and you're bumming for a few days or more.
    Those days that pass are even worse cause you feel like a sock that's been worn for two days inside a converse that walked the summertime pavement and now you're drying out in the sun as you're walking to another fucking house where everyone is high and they aren't sharing with you like you shared with them.
    Drugs suck man.
    I tried killing the time by writing in spiral notebooks and sometimes I read back through them. Hanford had some of the greatest sad times I ever knew. Jajaja
    I had that wack dream and I believed that if I ever went back there, I was sure to die.
    I just write what I want in here.
    I would just write what I wanted to in them Spiral Notebooks. The yellow spine and the black spine, are my most prized possessions. If anything ever happened to those, I would probably feel a lot like Sean, when they broke into his room and stole all his shit.
   Probably worse.....
    I can never buy my own words back.
   So here in the WATTNIVERSE, I can write shit that I don't find too hard to read like I do those books. Except now, I don't have to ask my friends to read it.
  Read if you want to. If you comment, im even more grateful.
    It was tough growing up. Do you remember your coming of age? Mine wasn't like the movies Hollywood makes.
    I really wanted people to like me. And once I got them, I really didn't give them too much to continue liking me. It's no wonder so many different relationships went to the sidelines.
   Not just with girls, but my friendships with everyone. Old people and dudes my age.
   It's funny. Now I'm an old person giving advice. Being wise and shit.  Jajaja
    I remember this guy who used to buy me alcohol before I found a place that would
Sell it to me. He was married to a black lady who was kind of crazy and although she kicked him out everyday to go find a job, he seemed to find us kids. He would buy us a bottle,  if we bought him just one.
    His favorite drink was a 32oz King Cobra. He used to call it, "King Snake". I have a hard time pulling my mental file on him. It seems I forgot a lot of his words, phrases and his name.
    What I do remember of him was him telling me that he had been out looking for a job all day and that he was gonna have to go home and tell his "crazy black bitch" that he didn't have any luck at all and that the best part of his day was coming by the park and seeing us kids. He knew he had to go home and face the music.
   He really didn't want to do it sober.
   I remember the faster he drank that bottle the funnier he got. That solid beer gave him the courage to go through the dreadful door of his own home.
    Seemed like a believable story. But when I reflect on it and see from above, maybe that guy only told Me half the truth.
   Maybe he did have an ol' lady who was crazy and he couldn't find a job. Maybe she left his ass long ago because he had no job, and that was his story he told us at the time. His "free beer" story.
   What I do remember of him may just be fragments but I do remember thinking, that I didn't want to be a guy buying some kids in the park beers or liquor just so I could get a beer.
   I remember his story making me feel bad.
   I knew I didn't want to be a 40 year old dude buying drinks for kids, unless it was soda pop. And they were my own kids. Jajaja
   I still haven't bought liquor for minors my whole life.
   Moral of that last sentence, there are a thousand lessons to learn in life. You do not have to experience them all.
   Life is good man. Have a great morning.

                                   5
   I remember getting on the bus.
   It was a grey hound headed for Sioux Falls South Dakota. I was with a lady and three kids ages 5 through 9. I remember the feeling well.
   The bus was an hour late and shortly after getting on it, it broke down right outside of Fresno.
   We had to wait in a hot bus with the bathroom sweltering with its fumes rolling through. I'm pretty sure it was full of all kinds of junk. It smelled terribly.
   My mind was cross wired and I had this feeling that California was not ever going to let us get out. As if California had a mind of its own and controlled my karma. Another bus came and we all piled onto it and headed for Sacramento.
    I remember sharing my thoughts with my fellow riders but they weren't buying into my insanity. Obviously I was way high getting on that rig and I really wasn't gonna be coming down any time soon.
  We had a few things for the trip but none of them were more important to me than escaping California and I swore the state had some control over my trip all together.
     A little speed and a bit of weed was all the things I would need. And next stop, Sacramento.
    When we finally got to Sac town, we found out that we would have a twelve hour layover there. Just miserable.
   One bus was late and then broke down and now that we missed our bus out of Sac town, the next one would be twelve hours from then. The bus system was weird to me back in 1994.
    It would stop in every town along the way and people would get off and stumble on and we were all traveling somewhere.
   People came and went from all over and as an adult, it had never really occurred to me how regularly this happened.
   Anyways eventually everyone on the bus was trying to get to Sacramento and when we got there, it was 4 in the morning. And twelve hours would go by before anything else was going to happen for my lady and her kids, and me.
     She enabled me so well.
    She portioned us out a certain amount of what we needed and kept me sedated well enough to travel. But all these layovers was killing our supply's.
    I could smell it. On the side of the building around the corner was the smell I loved soooo much. It was weed and I was a hound for it.
   Travelers on the bus were a lot like us.
   Didn't want to travel without and didn't want to get pulled over by the cops and so, they traveled by bus.
   I had no idea.
   All of us stoners were all going somewhere and didn't want to deal with the po po.
   So ....
   We were all getting high. I made friends with strangers. And before you knew it, we were on our way out of Sacramento.
You know, once I get something in my head, it's there. And there isn't any getting it out at all. We got out of Sacramento a little later than we thought. It was dark by the time we left.
I'm not sure if you have ever driven over the mountains from Sacramento into the state of Nevada, but it gets really pretty as you come to the top of it. I only know because I've driven there a few times long after this night.
This night, just before the state line of Nevada at 11pm, this mother fucking bus breaks down and we have to wait for a new one.
Let my tweeked out mind spin another karmatic cali-venge story. So there we all are standing around on the side of the bus with its hazard flashers banging lighting up all the trees on the side of I-80, we are all smoking cigs and other things and I start telling the story that makes a lot of people think I'm crā Krā. It's funny when I think about it.
There may have been one or two stoners who were on my wagon but most of the others weren't in to listening to any paranoid delusions I wanted to spit out. Funny thing was I didn't care if anyone wanted to jump off
a bridge with me. California wasn't gonna let me go without some claw marks. And I knew that.
It may have been one of the last weird happenings of the trip.
The bus came and we all boarded it and we switched buses on time in Reno Nevada.
I had never seen anything like that place. I had heard about it growing up but this may have been the first time I had ever left California on my own and with such a bright wide eyes.
I was headed for South Dakota. I had no idea what I was in for or how it was going to be. I had my Cali identity and my Cali-style and a street smart attitude. In hindsight, maybe I wasn't so smart, but none the less, we were going to Sioux Falls.
From Reno it took 4 days to get to Omaha.
With a 20 hour layover and three kids, the Greyhound paid for us to have a room and it was one of the nicest hotels I had ever been in.
Sure I had seen a few motels in my time back then but this one had a pool and a jacuzzi. It was fancy. It had trees and plants around the pool area and after five days on a bus, I swore I was in heaven.
We had a little weed and that only made it better really.
The next day we boarded another bus and it took another few hours to get us to Sioux Falls where I had to wait for my sister to show up with her best friend at the time, McKenzie.
There I was though, on my way to mothers house in a little tiny town called Wessington Springs.
Enduring and overcoming all the things in my mind of leaving everything I knew behind was unbearable at times for me on this trip.
I was scared of leaving my friends. Leaving my "made family" for my real family. I had a code that most people here would never get, or even understand. And I could see that at first meeting.
So many fears, I had to overcome.
I didn't know how strong I really was until I took those steps. I didn't take them alone though. I am so thankful that I didn't have to. My only regret is that I didn't do it on my own.
That's just the truth.
I didn't know it yet, but this was the beginning of my adult life all over again. The start of great things. The new chapter.