That's right, I've got a floor

I know I've got a sweet tooth for nostalgia. That's already been established in blogs past. So hopefully we can move forward without the reader thinking, "Oh Alex, you're just being nostalgic." No I'm not. This is different. I swear.

Ever since I started college for the first time in '02 I would frequently remark, and still do to this day, that the last time I truly felt myself was Freshman year in high school. During this time I was heavily into the album "Punk in Drublic" by NoFX-- the album which begins, as with any NoFX live set, with the song "Linoleum."

The other day I caught myself reciting the lyrics in my head without even meaning to, and I realized that they actually do have some content, some merit. As a freshman I thought they were just silly middle-finger punk lyrics that only served the purpose of melding with the fury of the drums and guitars, but even at that time of limited scope there was something so appealing about the first verse:

Possessions never meant anything to me
I'm not crazy
Well that's not true I've got a bed and a guitar
And a dog named dog that pisses on my floor
that's right, I've got a floor
So what? So what? So waht?
And I've got pockets full of kleenex and lint and holes
Where everything important to me
Just seems to fall right down my leg
And onto the floor
My closest friend, linoleum.
Linoleum supports my head,
Gives me something to believe.

As a freshman, tagging along with Mike Burbank and his big brother Jon, a senior who was gracious enough to take us Freshmen under his wing and into the world of small club shows (Jon also taught me to play the guitar, and if that never happened, then neither would this trip I'm on), I thought that some day I would be living this punk rock life. Of course I ended up transferring schools, focussing on other things and eventually getting married-- settling quickly into the life of ordinary adulthood where the next steps were children and a mortgage.

I've been debating lately over whether or not I believe in fate or destiny. As a Freshman, if you told me that ten years later I would be crashing on my buddy's kitchen floor in Chinatown, sandwiched between Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, I wouldn't have batted an eye.

And miraculously, that is exactly where I am at this moment. I'm laying on linoleum with a bottle of vodka and my laptop. And I'm not surprised. And I'm not displeased. In fact I'm thrilled. I'm so fucking happy right now. I got here, wherever here may be. Probably more of a state of mind than anything.

But the path I took to get here is what's so damned weird. I'd written this new reality off as all but an impossibility. Ten years ago, of course I would end up here one day. Ten weeks ago, no way in hell. Everything was in place then. Everything was in line.

I don't know how I ended up here. I don't know if it's by accident. I don't know if it's fate. Maybe subconsciously I wanted it so badly that it all just sort of manifested itself as a product of my psyche. I still don't know if i believe in fate or destiny, and I may never make my mind up. But as cheesy as this sounds, especially at the end of a blog where it's cute to do a clever throwback to an earlier item, especially a song lyric, this linoleum that my head rests on gives me something to believe.

That's me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish.

-"Linoleum," NoFX. 1994.