Which would you rather do, sleep or live?

At the moment, I’m reading “Life” by Keith Richards, and it’s kind of making me want to write my own memoir. Keith mentions that for many years, he slept only twice a week – presumably due to the gross over-consumption of certain illegal substances – and has therefore lived more life than the rest of us; hence, his memoir is quite extensive. Being 40 years Keith’s junior and a daily sleeper, my memoir is decidedly brief. Here are some highlights…

I am born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the only child of an age-inappropriate, quasi-interfaith marriage; my father is Catholic, my mother Jewish. Thankfully neither believes in god so faith is moot, which leaves me free me to drop out of Hebrew school aged 4. Also, Easter is all chocolate, no bloodied Jesus. Some of my very first words are “Bryan Adams.”

I have a rough time at school because everyone thinks I am weird. Being a member of the local silent film society doesn’t win me any popularity contests, although I am finally elected to student council in fifth grade after the implementation of some complex rules which effectively disqualified everyone else. The only other person on the ballot is my best friend, Alanna, who never did forgive me for her defeat. We go our separate ways soon after, but I later hear a rumor that she performed oral sex on her whole high school football team. Alanna, if by chance you’re reading this, please confirm or deny.

I’ve blocked out my 11th and 12th years. They were not happy. I eventually transfer to a ritzy prep school after some public school hooligans bestow upon me the nickname “Bush Lady.” I think it had something to do with pubic hair. Anyway, I stopped letting them copy my math homework after that. Once I turned out to be a bust, they conned some Asian kid named David into being the new me. The summer before transferring schools, I manage to break my neck. Due to the sweltering heat, I emit buckets of sweat into my neckbrace, which in turn begins to smell like a dead raccoon.

Despite my charming aroma of decomposition, I find private school to be intermittently bearable. I become friends with Katie – who did not go on to perform any sex acts on entire sports teams – and together we have our first Keith Richards-esque experience: On a school trip to Washington DC, we drink vast quantities of Jolt Cola – tween crack – and sleep very little. Katie and I see the Stones a few times during high school, thinking Keith might keel over at any moment. Thus far, he has not.

I spend one terrifically unhappy and expensive summer in Europe before starting college.

I think that’ll do for now. If you enjoyed this, you can stay tuned for future installments in which I discover that the carbonation in beer makes it come back up, and that feuds between francophone and germanophone Swiss kept Switzerland out of the European Union. In other words, college.