Nobody's Interesting Life

When I was young, my grandfather would tell me this story: An old woman found a dollar. She wanted a pig. She said, "I can get a pig. I can get a pig with this dollar." So she did. As she was walking the pig home, they came to a stile. The old woman said, "Pig, pig, jump over the stile, or I shan't get home tonight!" The pig said, "I won't jump over the stile." And he ran away. The old woman ran after him. Along the way the old woman met a dog. She said, "Dog, dog, bite pig. Pig won't jump over the stile, And I shan’t get home tonight." The dog said, "I won't bite pig." So the woman went a little further and she met a stick. She said, "Stick, stick, beat dog. Dog won't bite pig, Pig won't jump over the stile, And I shan’t get home tonight." The stick said, "I won't beat dog." So the woman went a little further and she met a fire. She said, "Fire, fire, burn stick. Stick won't beat...

I was conceived by God before the beginning of time. Before my grandfather died. Before my parents' got a divorce. Before there was such a thing as before. Three years prior to their divorce, I was concieved by my biological parents. Nine months prior to the first day of the second month, I left my Father to visit my Mother. Leaving dad's penis with about one hundred million other well meaning sperm, I made my way through my mother's uterus, took a breather in her cervix and witnessed the passing of thousands of my fellow travelers. That was my first encounter with death. I continued on the red-eye, flying through mom's fallopian tubes, got into my first fight just outside her zona pellucida and won. Nine months later mother pushed me out of her vagina. I was a quiet baby, but that didn't last. I continue to maintain a complicated love affair with silence to this day. All this may seem extraordinarily dull, trite and unoriginal. It is, after all, the beginning of th...