Charlie Sheen is waving the winning flag, Obama thinks he's winning against the Republicans, and then there are the crazy people....the burden of Adulthood (whatever that is) for me hasn't so much been the responsibility to pay bills (though, that sucks, too) so much as the gradual awareness that on the continuum of Mildly Functioning to Losing Their Shit, a frightening high percentage seem to be working their way towards the latter. Or maybe they were already there. I think I was better at spotting them in high school. Then I got "mature," escaped to mafia America and, suddenly, talked myself into believing that things like "education," "success" and basic hygiene could separate the guy in an Abercrombie & Fitch shirt from a guy pushing a grocery cart and wearing a really old smelly A&F shirt.

My neighbor was always a little lost, a quasi-hippy surfer dude who lived off of his trust and hung out with all the other quasi-hippy surfer dudes. But he had friends and could hold a conversation about the weather. Sure, he didn't own a car, and spent a lot of time traversing the beach front neighborhood, but he moved in circles of people who talked, washed their clothes, exercised. Now he drinks from morning to night and doesn't look like he's changed his clothes in a week. He used to annoy me, then creep me out, now it's like watching the people on the Titanic. The edge was a lot closer than I or anyone thought.

Just for today, I'm grateful that I'm holding it together.

Today was my last day working on the other side of that big latex Orange Curtain. Aside from making me feel like a hairy feminist, the OC grew on me. Don't get me wrong, I do shave. But I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have a strand of hair on your body beneath the neck in the OC. What am I saying? If you've ever been in a locker room in LA, then you've seen the wave of 9-year-old hooches on grown women's bodies. The Hairless VJ Syndrome is an epidemic, if you ask me, but that's another issue...I don't know about the OC, but I'm going to really miss my girls here. Everywhere I go I adopt hot young girls, and support them to become strong and confident women. Maybe I should just be a full-time Big Sister.

But life is about growth, and if we don't move forward we become empty shells waiting for the Rapture to bring a different life.

Just for today, I'm moving on.