I had spaghetti for almost every single meal this weekend.

I repeat to myself again and again “I am not who I think I am. I am not who I think I am.” until I finally believe it. Then I realize that I don’t even know who exactly it is that I think I am.

Sometimes I have the spaghetti with just parmesan cheese. Sometimes I have it with Catalina salad dressing, orange and tasty, but sometimes the taste is too much and it’s too thick and doesn’t taste good any more. Sometimes I have the spaghetti with pizza or breadsticks. Rarely I’ll have it with sauce. I enjoy spaghetti, but there has to be more to life.

Perhaps I spend too much time thinking about pasta, or eating pasta, or making pasta, perhaps I don’t spend enough. For all I know there is some profoundly simple thing about pasta that will save the world, something deeper, yet more in-your-face than just carbohydrates. I don’t know. I’m just that kid with too many abstract dreams and not enough concrete ideas who’s convinced he’s going to go somewhere as he treads water in a stagnant pool of his own laziness. If it weren’t so terribly depressing and true I would’ve liked that sentence.

And if I were more adventurous I would eat only cupcakes and go parasailing in the Amazon. Who knows, maybe I will someday. Either way, right now I’m on Long Island and sometimes girls tell me that I look like a duck. That used to make me angry, but more and more it just makes me apathetic. I’ve been struggling with myself to fight apathy for about six or seven years now. I’ve said “I’ll do it tomorrow” more times than I’ve thought “I love cupcakes” and I love cupcakes a lot. But if I’m really being completely honest, I’d say I love vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles. And no, I’m not a gay white supremacist. You dive far too deeply into my cupcake preferences.

But when I say “I don’t even like cherries that much” it’s not because they don’t taste good, because they do. It’s partly because I don’t really like their texture and partly because I can’t tie knot from the stem with my tongue.

For me, texture is just as important as taste in a food. If it smells and tastes delicious, but feels gross, or weird, or just not right, then I can’t eat it. But that’s just me and I am just one tiny insignificant speck of human on one tiny insignificant little ball of dirt off on the edge of the galaxy. That little ball of dirt means the world to me, though.

I use too many buts and thoughs. I should use “on the other hand” more. On the other hand, I hate using “on the other hand.” It’s a lose-lose situation and I got both losses, from the trite to the cliché, wondering how many times you have to quote something before you don’t have to put quotes around it any more. “I think, therefore I am,” said someone who existed once.

And why exactly do we say please when we don’t really mean it? Because nine times out of ten we just say it to help ourselves get what we want, not to be polite. So maybe I want to be a writer and I don’t really know the parts of speech or what makes a sentence or what the rules of grammar really are. I don’t write what’s right, I write what feels right. Whether it’s a run-on or it runs off, it get’s left behind in my rampant trail of not editing.

So ask me anything. I’ll answer you either truthfully or not to the best of my ability. Because those days when I don’t feel pretty, and those times when I don’t feel alive, and those moments I want vanilla cupcakes with cherries on top are all moments that I think and therefore am. So take me or leave me or love me or hate me or emote or don’t emote. Wake me up or leave me ensconced in a dream that I won’t remember anyway. Tell me why I won’t succeed and I will tend to agree with you and add on at least ten additional bullet points.

This is me and this is my mind and this is what you’re in for.