I have no idea what that title is in reference to. One can fear context. I fear context.

The tech guys are here. Internet is but a new cable install away. While I wait, I’m multitasking by being on the phone with banking customer service. Nothing huge. Just another chore in dealing with corporations. Goddamned bills, goddamned bill-pay. Meh, might as well write here while waiting for instances to resolve themselves. That way I can honestly say I’m spending my time efficiently.

First week of college started this week on Monday. If my experience with college is correct, the first week is deceptively easy. As the semester drags, so too does patience with the process. Pretty sure all parties feel that pain and deal with it in whichever way they see best. Me and my adjusting to academia, well, I’ll write about my sins in a paragraph or so while I frame up my history with school. Grab a beverage, this’ll take a moment while grandpa Steve spins a yarn.

Once upon a time, in the mid nineties, was my first foray into higher education. My K-12 experience was spotty in quality. Lots of moving and relocating. Relations with peers, teachers, and institutions were all about a year’s time before the family would move then move again. We’d relocate, fresh start, learn a new routine, and wait for old problems to reappear before prompting a reset of the process. None too stable. But I’m here to write about it, so stable enough, I suppose.

Anywho, I posit the experiences left me with a less than optimal respect for peers, teachers, and institutions. After all, how much effort should be invested if they were to be gone in a year or so? So, me being me, I measured doses of effort accordingly from my K-12 experience. Given the history, my newfound adulthood, and my yet to be fully developed brain, my first stint with academia did not go so well.

I thought I knew what I wanted to do with myself. I was gonna become an art icon. Once I became a rock star artist, all my problems would disappear. Armed with an inflated sense of self, little world experience, and reckless youth, I set about my task . . . But, wait, what’s this reckless youth? Why does it feel so good? What are these feelings?

Yeah, I got distracted. There was the usual drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll. Exploring these new sensations was a thrill, to be sure, but eclipsed responsibilities. I paid school lip service and weighted its importance low on my list of priorities. Grades and efforts dwindled. And soon thereafter, student loans. And soon after that, freedom.

To be continued . . .