I rather choose cynical apathy over optimistic complacence, but frankly, I probably don't have a choice.

I wake up every morning and inhale one my venomous, beloved Marlboro Reds, my "cowboy killers," into my lungs before I brush my teeth, shower, even before going to the
restroom. Eighteen years old and I'm already at a pack a day, two depending on my state of mind.

Someone tell me why this seems like a logical idea and why I enjoy and advocate it in pretty much every situation outside of this essay- please.
My best guess is a general apathy for myself and the world that houses me definitely plays a role.

"It's just a sign of your age."

"It's just a phase you're going through," tritely chimes countless choruses of some patronizingly benign adult wisdom, something beyond my comprehension I guess. As a college student, I'm in what past generations call the most exciting and engaging part of my life. I find that simultaneously empowering and depressing. Why do people value their past more than their present, or their future for that matter? Is adulthood really that bleak and mundane?

Probably.

Before I left for college, I often used to sit in my neighbor's driveway- yes, you read correctly; not inside of his upper middle class suburban home, not on his comfortable couch or at his lavish antique dining room table; his driveway- and drink heavily with him and the other adults of my street, including my parents.
Rationalizing this tells me that these sensible, ethical, productive members of our top-of-the-food-chain society's idea of leisure and delight is physically escaping their own homes while not actually going anywhere besides a maximum of forty feet from the front door. The common is excuse is they just "have to get away." I guess their desired location is Happy Drunk Land, a magical oasis found in bottles and beer cans, and enjoying themselves anywhere else or in any other way is either improbable or just too inconvenient.

It's interesting to think that women being raped and overdosing alley addicts probably shared the same moment with my merry neighbors and family, and that if the occurrence was actually called to our attention, I have no doubt we would shrug it off and carry on the carousal.

My neighbors always nostalgically spoke of their college lives, and, depending on how drunk I was that night, I'd ask them something that seriously bothers me still.

"Well, aren't you happy with your life now?"

And the housewives

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