The Book is Back

I'm a good liar -- which is why I spend most of my spare time writing; writers are, by nature, incredibly gifted liars.

I realize that I promised awhile back to post an excerpt from my book, "Blow Up the Outside World," every weekend, but it's a much more difficult endeavor than I originally figured it would be. Therefore, naturally, I wound up breaking that promise.

Hey, at least in the heirarchy of promises that I've broken in my lifetime -- "Yes, I'll be faithful," "No, I won't do drugs again," "Absolutely, that haltar-top looks great on you, even though you're 5'1" and weigh 145 pounds" -- I think it's safe to say that this one ranks close to the bottom.

This weekend though, the Weekly Reader feature returns.

To summarize again, the story I've written is a memoir and deals with an eighteen month period whose centerpiece is 9/11. In the months leading up to September of 2001, my life was a frightening downward spiral of drug addiction and estrangement from the woman I was married to at the time. I checked myself into rehab in August of 2001, and less than two weeks after getting out and re-entering a world which at that moment looked terrifyingly alien to me -- something happened to change the world for everyone.

I took a leap of faith and drove to New York -- basically pissing on the advice of my counselors, all of whom told me to take it easy and not take on too much responsibility for awhile. When I arrived at the scene of the worst terrorist attack in history, I somehow landed a freelance job working for NBC news. They put me up in a hotel for four months. They worked me almost non-stop. I learned to recover and live again with everyone else in New York; and I learned from those who were hurting far worse than I could ever claim to be.

The new excerpt I've posted deals with a phone call I received from my estranged wife at the time; she was still living in Los Angeles -- albeit in a new apartment, as she had moved out of ours during my time in rehab.

Feel free to take a look.

Hope you like it.

October, 2001: Business with Pleasure