at the next book! (Same Link!)
Welcome to the End of book Shit, fondly called the EOBS around these parts. This is where I get to say anything I want about the book.
So let’s get right to the point. Is this really a true story? Yes and no. Lots (and I do mean lots) of things in this book are 100% true, but it’s a called a novel for a reason. It’s based on my story when I was eighteen, but it’s obviously been embellished.
The first thing I’d like to talk about is Anaheim High School. Yeah, lots of those things about it were true, that first chapter is 99.9% true. That really happened to me. I was x number many credits ahead, yet they told me I was not going to graduate unless I went to night school and made up math, science, PE, and driver’s ed. Anaheim High School had its problems back when I was there in 87, and I’m sure it’s got its problems today. But that counselor (who was not named Bowman) really did give a shit and really did help me get through it. Also, the girl I insulted never did try and beat me up. I did see her at a party later in the semester, but it was all good. I had no issues with the kids there at all. They were good kids.
The name Shannon comes from my best friend from childhood in Ohio. I saw her a few months ago and after discussing all the crazy shit we got into, told her I was gonna make her a character because we were WILD. Just fucking wild when we were teens. And she said do it. So thanks, Shan. Love ya, bitch. Hope you like the book. If I could write one called 16, we’d both be there, but I’m pretty sure that book would be banned immediately for underage sexcapades and extreme drug use. ;) #FuckingShannon. Jana asks me all the time how the hell I’m still alive when I wander down Memory Lane. Just lucky I got over that wild side early, I guess.
I changed everything about my family life except for where we lived, because honestly, you do not need to know about it. But it was dramatic enough to give me the idea for this book. And I’ll tell you, the only good thing about my eighteenth birthday was Sunday.
He’s real, but it didn’t happen exactly the way I wrote it, and his name wasn’t Danny, it was Geoff. I have two “love” regrets in life, and one of them was Geoff. I talked to him a few years ago on Facebook and that was pretty cool. He reminded me of the “J” he tattooed over his heart and I reminded him of how my 18th birthday really went down. :) And even though he really was a drug dealer, he was Sunday. His whole personality was Sunday. He is forever the guy who took care of me when I had that ear infection. Dr. Geoff, he said. “Just call me Dr. Geoff.”
When he got his first apartment after we broke up he called me on the phone and said, “Come over. I got this place and no one to share it with.” So he picked me up and I went over there. Just writing this makes me smile because we were sitting on the floor and he asks me if I want to see his AK’s under his bed. He’d moved up in the drug world sicne we dated. I was all, “Nah. I don’t think so.” But then he smiled and said, “Wanna see my banana clip, Julie?” #FuckingSunday. We laughed and he did show me his guns. I oohed and ahhed with him. I cannot even picture him the way people must see him today. I only see that smile, that night, sitting on the floor of his bedroom in his very first apartment. I only saw him once after that because we were heading in two totally different directions. He called me right after my daughter was born and came over to see us. And soon after that I left Orange Country and started a new life somewhere else.