When you grow up with the same people (whether family, friends, or wards of the state) there’s a shared set of experiences. But even with “sharing” similar experiences and YouTube videos, we’re all different. Some of that is from the DNA strands trying to recombine and propogate variety, to avoid symmetry, the boredom of “sameyness”, traditional “politeness” and eating with a “spoon” like “the rest of humanity” as mother frequently screamed.

My brother, for example, really liked his side of the closet. He chewed through the ropes one time and told me, “It’s not the same in your corner. Where are the stains on the wall and the wobbly floorboard? My rock … where’s my rock?”

I left the exploring to him and brooded in the dark. In the silence. In the dark silence of darkness. The stick got me through all of that, but I kept it a secret from Brother. He would have taken it.

Boredom is good for children, father would say as he shut the door and locked it. Most modern, right-thinking people will nod their heads in agreement as they sit in dark computer closets and type furiously at the Internets. Instead of harnessing the power of human genius to create a race of super-smart and sexy robots they add captions to photos of sleeping cats. Yes, I have but I left the door open one night and they’re gone. You know how that goes. (Cats not the robots.)

To get back to my original point, all of us are different and some are more different that others. Some like to drink NyQuil mixed with Old Bailey’s. Some are throwing up a little in their mouths right now. Some are shouting not to make fun, because some need that olive-green cocktail just to make it to the supermarket to buy more ingredients for an olive-green cocktail. Some are wondering what’s a cocktail and to that I say “Good night!”

I finished the first draft of the sequel to “A Girl Called Badger” and I’m now working on another novel that’s completely unrelated, because people are just sick of the whole “post-apocalyptic struggle to survive sexy girl” genre. I might branch out into “post-apocalyptic struggle to survive sexy Amish girl.”