I don't know when it started.

I could say it started when my girlfriend stayed out all night and came home the next morning to retch in the toilet and to lie to me for the next three days. I could stay it started in a hospital ward in a small rural suburb in NJ when my mother gave birth to nine pounds of pure American baby boy in the hopes that I would keep my parents from splitting up.

I could say it started when I rode my bicycle from New Jersey to Denver. Or when I was kissed by Nicole Mozalak in third grade around the corner from the 1st grade entrance. Or when I punched a stop sign when I walked out of my dad and stepmother's town house in Florida and didn't go back until she stopped drinking, or did my first bong hit in Bryan Dorfman's basement, caught the acting bug in college, hung up on my dad when he didn't tell me that my friend in Florida was killed in a car accident, kicked the wood paneling out of one of the kitchen cabinets because my mom was yelling at me, ate a cannoli for the first time, completed my first triathlon, or lost my virginity having really unremarkable sex.

Staying home from school to find out how many times I could masturbate in one day when I was 15 years old, deciding that smoking cigarettes was a good way to mask that I was smoking pot, waiting until 1998 before liking 80's music, strangling Damon Goley in the photography dark room until Mr. Pern broke us up, wanting to strangle George W. Bush, touching Nicole Jackson's breasts in 1st grade, or Erica Banferth's butt in the same grade, or trying to figure out why Parliament recessed their filters.

When I started loving the Police, or when I couldn't stand them anymore. When I moved in with Kim, or when I moved out. When I got my first dog, or when I found him dead in the basement with his jaw locked open after he died of uncontrollable seizures. When I started to ride my bike from Denver to Seattle, or when I quit and hopped on a bus. When I started working for a famous global coffee company or when they laid me off eight years later.

When I learned to cook. When I discovered that teen angst never goes away. When I was in love with Beth, Nicole, Alyson, Erica, Molly, Cheryl, Mara, Maude, Michelle, Barbi, Beth, Meghan, Melissa, Sarah, Jane, Ginger, Kim, Sarah, Kelly, Megan, and anyone else I can't remember right this sec. When I started writing, and then quit, started again, quit, started again, quit again, etc. etc. until today. When I decided I should act like an adult. And then quit.