I was never really quite sure where or what I was headed towards. Then one day I earned my Eagle Scout and I grew up a little. I'd spent years without shoes chasing snakes and feeding turtles in various tanks. I'd fallen in love at the age of 14 and then went on to propose ten years later to the French woman of my dreams. She had stolen my heart underneath a waterfall in the rain some years earlier. It was between my professional bicycle racing career and the somewhat stumbling fall into art. We had shared our own fascination with fireflies and intercourse. One time I even got a tattoo while she watched.

I would hangout every afternoon, arms draped over glass cases, staring at bicycle parts. Later I was told that I had been suspected of stealing and even later I raced my bicycle for money. I rode until my legs hurt and stairs were nearly impossible to climb. I went to school as an athlete and painted because I remembered it being easy in high school. Within two months I had dropped out and sunk into depression. I was in transition and my bike looked neither appealing or a feasible means to eek out a living. During my second go at school I made a considerable amount of money each week as a fly fishing guide armed with a flask of vodka in the Smoky Mountains. I almost stepped on a rattlesnake a number of times; one of which was while hanging out with my best friend who would later commit suicide.