One of the best parts of being a writer, in my opinion, is
getting to justify random fun experiences as ‘research.’ I recently decided that
I’m allowing myself to go on vacation for the sake of my book. I really need to
check out some locations in person before my next round of editing.
Then I thought about it a little more and realized I’m forcing myself to go on vacation for the
sake of my book. For the first time ever, the thought of traveling alone to an
unfamiliar part of the country actually scares me.
When I was eighteen, I moved to Las Vegas without knowing a
soul who lived there. The week I turned nineteen, I attended a writer’s
conference in NYC, also all by myself. I made it to see twenty-one, but not
because I was particularly cautious. Every night I used to leave the dive club
I worked at in Vegas and walk home, at two in the morning, sometimes with hundreds
of dollars in my socks. Even in Cleveland I’ve broken plenty of safety
guidelines. One decision that stands out in my memory is the time I let a guy I’d
met only hours earlier come inside to kick it with three of his homeboys.
I got lucky. Though I got chased during those walks home I
never got caught. My nineteenth birthday was the best I ever had. The guy I kicked it with would turn out to be
a murderer, but one of his three homeboys would become a good friend of mine,
among the realest and most intelligent people I’ve ever known.
And while all that crazy shit was going on, at some point I
turned from an eighteen-year-old who was afraid of everything and cautious of
nothing into a twenty-one-year-old who gets overwhelmed at the thought of
spending a few days alone in L.A. But still I’m checking flights. I’m going to
go. I’m a writer after all, and aren’t we all just a little bit crazy?
