i found a thousand nickels on the ground. give or take. maybe a bag fell out of a nickel truck? i dunno. they were in the grass so after i scooped the big mound of ’em off and put them an old radio flyer wagon i’ve had since i was a kid. scooped ’em all in there and then started picking the ones out of the grass, farther away. once i had them all i started counting them but i got bored after 800. i guess there’s a thousand of ’em. then i took the wagon down to the bank by my house and they had a big fancy machine that could count them all. it sounded like a dishwasher when i loaded it up, which was funny. took like ten minutes, everyone at the bank was staring at me. it was weird. then it was done and i only made fifty bucks! i spent all that time hauling a heavy wagon full of nickels to the bank and i only made fifty bucks. the coin machine printed out a ticket and i had to give it to the banker, and he said, “only fifty bucks, huh?” and i said “yeah! that’s stupid.” then he asked if i have a bank account and i said no and then he asked if i wanted one and i said no but then he said that he would have to charge me a fee if i didn’t have an account with them! like five dollars! so i got a bank account. now i have a bank account. it’s a savings account, it saves my money until i really need it. but since it’s only fifty bucks, i don’t think i’ll need it any time soon. long story short: if you see a thousand nickels on the ground, don’t pick it up.

so let me explain this dream to you. you can fold the laundry while i tell you. i know dreams are boring to other people but listen: i was trying to climb out of fidel castro’s beard. like, i was trapped in the hair, and every time i tried to get out he would inhale and i would be jerked back, like i was going to fly into his nose. meanwhile a dog was riding an orca through his hair. i think it’s a metaphor for cuban immigrants entering america? this dog had aviator glasses and a scarf–he looked like snoopy, like a real life snoopy, when he is that world war i flying ace. and he’s just sitting on this orca, uh, uh, killer whale–okay you know what an orca is, just checking, anyway, he’s sitting and the thing’s bobbing up and below the beard hair. the dog is barking but it’s morse code and he’s saying “i’ve got a banana sandwich” in morse code. i mean, i knew he was saying that but i don’t know if the morse code he was barking was that exact sentence. you know what i mean?

then my grandma shows up, she’s wearing a ballerina outfit with a tutu and she’s like ballet moving on the points of her toes, on the top of the beard. like a jesus-walking-on-water kind of thing. she comes over to me and extends her hand and i’m about to grab it when fidel sneezes. suddenly we’re all thrown from the beard and we’re tumbling through the air and as we’re falling i see the ground is nothing but spikes, and we’re heading toward it so fast. i wake up just when we hit, and i guess i kind of bounce in my bed when i hit because of my muscles tensing or something, because the bounce is so huge that i literally bounce myself off my bed and onto the floor, which, i shit you not, was covered in lego pieces. i know what you’re thinking: what is a grown single man doing with lego pieces on the ground–the answer is that i love legos, fuck you. but i went from falling in my dream to falling in real life, on a pit of lego spikes.

i still don’t know what it means. do you still have that dream dictionary your aunt gave your for christmas? i wonder if it has anything about fidel castro in it. let’s go check.

2015 was a good year that turned into a difficult year, but was always kind of a difficult year in a way. i’m still debating if it ended up better or worse than 2014; i think, ultimately, it was better, just more difficult. i continue to be amazed and exasperated at how much i learn about myself, what i want and what i don’t want. you’d think after 32 years i’d know what i want. but i don’t sometimes, and it’s frustrating, and in trying to find what i want, i make sacrifices that might have been mistakes, and watch the sunnier days from the comfort of my bedroom window, as i lament in text on a computer screen. i learned a lot this year and yet was still the same old doofus. i learned that i like video games, like i really like them, and that i shouldn’t beat myself up for liking them. i learned to leave at the right time instead of too late, and to encourage others to do the same. i learned that my downfall in relationships is to always assume there is someone better out there for the other person. i learned that your best friends are the ones who are there even when you’ve been hiding in darkness for months. i also learned, well, i’ve known now for a while, that whatever longing feeling gnawing at my insides refuses to go away, dooming me to continually search for it instead of enjoying what i have right in front of me. i am a sisyphus of emotion sometimes.

i also learned that i share more when I’m drunk. what can i say, these two scottish ales i drank are strong. the point is, i’ve never been one to settle on a happy ending, because a happy ending implies that everything’s been figured out, when really, nothing is figured out. every year raises more questions than the one before. every year brings its own difficulty. every year wants you to be the best you can be. i don’t even know. here’s to 2016 and to being the best you can be.

every trip is the same. it should be distilled into two or three days, really. even five days is more time than i need. because at first it’s cheerful, pleasant, meeting with family and friends, but after a couple of days of this, i am reminded acutely of how little i belong in this city anymore. i have no desire to seek out the old haunts. my friends, no matter how much i love and cherish them, are still generally doing the same things they always do. it’s nice but i’m different, which makes things difficult. i look at myself in the mirror in my parents home and wonder if i really even belong here anymore, or if my new home has taken me over, molding me into a new man. my thirties have started there, and likely will end there. i grew up and learned everything i need to know in southwest idaho, and now i am using those skills in portland, oregon. i am seeking my future there, and with every trip back home i am pushed back into the past. the past is good but the pull is not coming from that direction. i don’t really wish to relive my past, i wish to explore my future. i’ve visited the old house half a dozen times now. i’ve walked through paul’s grocery, i’ve seen the high school, wandered the boise state campus, talked to my old professors. people in boise live there because it’s comfortable, because they have roots there deeper than can be dug up. my roots i ripped out before they grew too deep and thick. now i have new roots. and that’s fine. but now, as i wait in the airport for my flight to arrive, to take me back to the present, i find myself simultaneously happy and sad, filled with love for my family and friends here, and sad and despondent that i can no longer be a part of it. this is why it’s hard to come back. but i do. i always do. and i always will.

is anyone in this fucking group going to acknowledge that we’re all lying to ourselves and to each other? every week we come in here with these stories and these promises about how we’re going to change our ways, and every week we come back with sunken eyes, gaunt cheekbones, and track marks. this isn’t an NA meeting, it’s a death cult. it’s twenty people who use this time to escape the inevitable. we’re all dying, we’re all fucking dying, we’re scratching our meth-addled faces, we’re shaking as we wait to be let out so we can get another fix … it’s a waste of time. we might as well just go now. even these fucking cigarettes are killing us. this is a room full of people who know they’re a waste to society and would rather ride the ticking timebomb among their peers than function in the real world. and i’m with you, 100% of the way. last night i got high. the week before i got high. if that 30 day chip was legit currency i would spend it on meth right now, no questions asked. because while we’re a family here, we’re not a family out there, out in the wild, and there’s a million things out there that want us to use, to get high, to die like sick animals in back alleyways while vulture people swoop down and use our death to make themselves look better. i don’t know how to change that. i guess that’s why i’m here, because i’m hoping one of us does.

fuck you, you grandiose piece of shit. don’t you come into my house spouting your nonsense. i took care of you, i raised you, i gave you a home and food on your plate and you repay me with this? all this … bullshit, this sense of importance, the suit and the sunglasses, the fucking … alligator leather shoes. and yet you come here expecting more, wanting more, from me, from this family. well you can’t leave and then drop by whenever you feel like you need a hug, you got it? you’ve already got your life out there in hollywood or wherever the fuck you live. you’ve got your groupies and your sense of entitlement all wrapped up in a nice pink ribbon, don’t you. think you could kick some of that our way maybe? i work two jobs to provide for this family. i work hard and i worked hard to raise you too. the least you could do is give me some goddamn money. i know you’re worried about me but i’m telling you i need that money for this house and these children, okay? all that stuff in the past … it’s gone. i’m clean, i’ve been clean for six months, i’ll go find the token if you want to see it. call my sponsor, i don’t give a shit. i’m clean and you’re still an asshole, now it’s your turn to turn your life around. the rest of us need it. desperately.

what did i get for christmas? well, i got two spindles, a barometer, twelve paper clips from three different countries, a teddy bear made out of leather (very weird), four wooden dowels, gonorrhea, a basket, metal throwing stars, not sure how many, three empty bags for ice, a driver’s license for an arabian woman named rashid, lingerie clearly not for me, a doctor’s note excusing me for being flatulent in class, a dog bathed in turpentine, oh and the car, i got a car, not a new one but an old 1977 ford pinto, a lemon, some surgical scrubs engraved with a porn studio’s logo on the back and also weirdly enough on the crotch of the pants, a board game called “don’t touch daddy in the shower”–looks homemade–four egg shells impeccably cut in the middle, and i guess the whites and yolks of those eggs in a small mason jar. i think that’s it–no wait i got a bag of coins, like a huge fucking bag of coins, and thirty-six gummy bears, six of each flavor. and a watch. oh two watches, a rolex and a watch whose hands are made out of bacon. not, i mean, real bacon, it’s kind of gross. but i think that’s it, besides the fur cologne and the bearskin toilet seat cover, where the bear head is just the top of the toilet lid, if that makes any sense. it’s kind of impossible to lift the lid at this point. kind of a pointless gift. anyway, that was my christmas, how was yours?

(disheveled, hasn’t bathed or changed clothes, paces around the room)

see, it’s, it’s not that santa claus doesn’t exist, it’s that he’s dead, and has been dead for centuries. i know what you’re thinking but please hear me out. i have evidence to back up my claim. you see that notebook i brought on the table? it’s all in there. i have poured through various books where the author writes about santa claus, books written from now until about the middle of the 16th century. books that mention him speak about him in much the same way we do, a jolly old fat man who delivers presents, but, see, but around the middle of the 17th century, there are a few years, particularly from 1608 to 1614 when all mention of santa claus ceases to exist. in fact in 1608 there is a book by a man, willem van deusen, he’s from denmark, see, and he specifically writes in his book, he specifically writes that santa claus has died. i, i wrote the book and the page number in my notebook in case you don’t believe me. then, for the next half decade or so there is no mention of santa claus, not in any of the books that i’ve read at least. and then … this is the crazy part. in 1614 a british author, simon miller, writes a book called “the life and times of jacob esterwhile,” it’s about a fifty page book, nothing huge, but in it a husband and wife construct the concept of santa claus that we know and love, for their daughter marjorie. in doing so, they buy gifts for her as though they were santa, AND they leave a plate of scones and a glass of milk for santa to eat once he’s arrived. this is the first known instance, again, in the multiple books i’ve read, wherein the idea that parents stand in for santa takes place. thus, in between 1608 and 1614, santa claus died and the western world scrambled to find something to take his place. without a new santa claus, parents were forced to buy gifts for their children on their own. i have all of this in the notebook, i really encourage you to read it, it’s … i mean this is my life’s work, this is what my life is, really. santa claus is dead, and all attempts to create a new santa claus have failed. until tonight.

it’s always quiet on christmas eve. i have the worse insomnia on this night, so i lay in bed and watch the six tv channels we have. every channel is either a choir singing, static, or infomercials. when i turn the tv off i am beset by the insufferable quiet, the soft drone of the heater pushing warmed air throughout the house. i live in the basement of my parents house. i am fourteen, cursing myself for being excited about christmas morning, trying to figure out how to stop my heart beating so that i can sleep and wake up early. my mother allows me to check my stocking when i’ve woken up, as i tend to get up around 5am to slink around the house and check the consistency of the christmas presents under the tree. the carpet is old, green, and shag, a holdover from the 70s. it looks like our living room was carpeted by skinning oscar the grouch monsters. the kitchen has carpet, the bathroom has carpet. only my parents room is bare floor. more holdovers from an era that loved carpeting.

in the basement i lie in the dark for what seems like ages. i try counting sheep but lose count a couple of times and get frustrated. i let my eyes adjust to the darkness. i watch the snow fall from the basement windows, the kind that are at the top of the room, three times as wide as they are tall. sometimes i crack the window open in the summertime and my cat sneaks out, leaping up and bypassing the metal screen. once i woke up and my entire bed was covered in aphids, don’t know how. once i put on headphones and heard a scratching sound, and when i took them off an earwig scurried out. i never wore those headphones again. when i still cannot sleep, i turn the tv back on, thinking that the sudden increase in brightness somehow helps my eyes “ache,” which in turn helps me sleep. sometimes it works.

i’m laying in bed, the soft rain patter above a lovely sound that often lulls me to sleep here. my excitement for christmas has long since abated, replaced by regular paychecks and adulthood duties. no longer do i wait for sleep while under covers–sleep tends to take me unawares these days. i’m grateful for it. but every christmas eve, without fail, no matter how tired i am, i can still feel a twinge of excitement, of the next morning, of the bright white snow that makes me squint when i look outside. it is a yearly reminder of my childhood, a yearly reminder to never forget where i came from, a yearly reminder to enjoy the silence.