Your Oma and Urgroßmutter, along with Uncle Adam, had come to Philadelphia for my law school graduation. I was living on the third floor over a soul food kitchen on the second floor, with a bar on the ground. The bar held the lofty and noble title of “The Easy Corner.” The manager, Mason, and I had become well-acquainted with each other after almost two years of collaboration. I would teach web development (HTML5 & CSS3) in the bar after classes in the evening, and patrons would buy me free beers. Win-win-win for social justice and alcoholism. I was able to get food and drinks from each establishment in the row home, and had Mason on speed dial to put in orders. They’d be delivered up to my room with due haste, and folks were always astonished that I had such excellent amenities at my hideout apartment with no address. I was there to hide out from the feds, after all, not to have room service.

Your Urgroßmutter was in the bedroom, playing a game called “Weeds.” The aim of the game was to become the most efficient and profitable weed farmer. She had grown up in Nazi Germany, and knew a lot about farming. She had worked in a slaughterhouse when she was a kid. She was loving, but cutthroat, and was a product of her time. Needless to say, she tore new assholes for the extremely high competition of 20-somethings, and exalted in jubilation upon her inevitable victory, “I AM THE BEST WEED FARMER!!!! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!” It was genuinely heart-warming to hear an 80-something with arthritis and a bad kidney celebrate her debaucherous and illegal enterprise with such youthful vigor and reckless abandon.

Meanwhile, your uncle Adam and I were casually watching Don Hertzfeldt’s “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” as others chatted idly. The film was about a man named Bill, whom was suffering from amnesia resulting from some sort of degenerative neurological disease. The story tracks the last days of Bill’s life — losing his keys, his girlfriend breaking up with him and finding a replacement, riding a bus, meeting a person he believed was his father in a far-off city, and watching people stick their crotches in all the goddamn fruit. I was a dreary and dreadful person, even back then. I don’t know why, but the morosity and doldrum of life bore no meaning for me beyond the mundane discretions of the moment. A polite word here, a “How ya do ma’am” there, and trying to earn enough coin — by hook, or by crook — as one may in order to keep a roof over one’s head. So we watched Bill slowly die before our eyes, and made casual conversation.

Your Oma wanted to lighten the mood a spell, and I could get on board with that. I informed her that I could order room service, and mentioned that the bar downstairs had excellent frozen drinks. She seemed enthused by the possibility, as Philly gets damn sweltering in the Spring and Summer. Especially on the third floor of a 200 year old row home, an iced drink sounded lovely, and indeed, I reach to imbibe one at this very moment upon reflection. I called Mason and thus inquired, “Yo dawg, whatcha’ got on ice?” He responded that he had a Margarita and a “Smooth Bitch.” I relayed the menu to your Oma, and she said, “I’ve never tried a Smooth Bitch!” And thusly it was ordered in short order, and prepped to be brought upstairs.

It is at this juncture that I feel I should make you aware that I had no idea what a “Smooth Bitch” was, either, except for mayhap a buxom woman in stockings looking to spar in a verbal parlay — perhaps whilst smoking a fine cigarette. But I digress… The “Smooth Bitch” in question was a blend of coconut rum, Cointreau, raspberry vodka, and god only knows what else in a blended ice format, complete with plastic straw & cup, and a cute pink tiki umbrella to boot. Your Oma took one sip, and declared her eminent approval. So enthusiastic was she, that the smooth bitch was soon departed to the bowels of her being, and she found herself asking for another “smooth bitch” to imbibe.

And so the evening went, my anarchist friends being shown up by the German GOAT, being drunken under the table by your Oma, and everyone but your Urgroßmutter high as a fuckin’ kite. And herein lay the lesson of the hour, O’ Daughter, My Daughter… There are times for joyous revelry, and there are times for somber reflection. Confuse everyone by blending the two. For you see, there is no joy without sorrow in life. No death without birth. No meaning without the vacuous emptiness of existential angst. There’s no weed farmer without the fuzz out to hunt them, nor slavery without masters. There are no bars without domiciles, no room service without service to folks in a bar. I’d never have gotten to know Mason and the staff if I had not taught web dev to their patrons. I’d never had seen Don Hertzfeldt’s work without having gone to parties with my philosopher friends in college. I’d never had that apartment with no address had I not been running from the feds. I’d not be myself without all the joys and sorrows of a lifetime of once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

We are coming up on the imminent end of this memoir now. I’ve been publishing it out of order for followers of mine online. This chapter, accordingly, will not be the last I write. But it may be the second-to-last you read. Or, mayhap, the last, depending on whether or not I last beyond the completion of this work. You never know if you’ll make it to the next day. The next week. The next month. The next year. The next coming-of-age of a child, or a grandchild, or the birth of a great-grandchild. So enjoy the time you have. Enjoy the people you’re with. Savor every moment of meaning you may find in each passing morrow. Cherish the things you hold dear while you hold them. They will slip through your fingers after long, and you may find yourself bereft of purpose and passion as you age. With luck, your youthful vigor shall outlast mine. I had thirty or so years of forward momentum until I ran into the mud. Do yourself a favor and bring a winch, lest you find yourself wallowing in midlife the way I do, adrift. Waiting to die, and wanting.