This was my first book, and it’s a collection of short stories and poems. I just wrote about my marriage falling apart and having to run back to my hometown, Santa Ana, CA. And how once I got there I had to rebuild my life, I had to find an affordable place to live, I had to work extra long hours as a cook in several restaurants to have barely enough money, I felt so alone and ugly, like a failure. I publicly announced that I wanted to run for Mayor of Santa Ana. I painted. I was lonely most of the time, but I was content with the little I had. And, out of all that, I also found a new sense of freedom I had never felt before. I was able to spend all of my extra time on writing for the first time in a very long time. Every dollar that I made could go toward IT or anything else that made IT more fun. I was my own person. I would stay up all night drinking beer and wine and smoking cigarettes and listening to music while staring outside my window at the walking derelicts and lovers that passed me by–and no one could tell me shit about it.

And then, I also found love again.

Then I started to get more writing jobs as a freelancer. I rode the OC Weekly train for a while and had a one-way trip with VICE covering the Trump rally in Costa Mesa, CA. And then I got sick of it–it being journalism. I got back to writing fiction and poetry, and very quickly finished this very book.

This book was great because I felt like I was exploring all the motives behind why I did the things I did during this turbulent period in my life, but I also delved into the possible reasons as to why others and those around me did the things they were doing. What I found was that people will oftentimes deal with absurdity by adding into the equation even more of their own brand of absurdity. We can easily become weak and petty in strenuous social situations. And I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that we do it, or that we are happy to do it. It’s still a question I have no answer to, but I had a blast trying to wrap my head around it in this book.

–Eric

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