Stories are funny things, really. If you deconstruct them and get down into their core, into their 'symbolism' and their self-reflexivity and what have you, they're really very funny. All the stuff English teachers are into – the blue curtains represent the character's depression, and the way they sway in the wind is significant of the spiral into that depression. That kind of stuff. It's funny, because a story is a plot sewn together with characters and settings and problems and resolutions; and if you get down to the bare minimum, 26 letters repeated over and over again in different orders. And what do we end up getting out of all that?

The curtains were blue. He was sad.

Forgive me if I sound a little cynical – I've not been like this my whole life, but that problem is a little stitch in the rest of this story, and we're not quite there yet. For now, let's continue with stories. A beginning, a middle, and an end. If you're a post-modernist, that would probably look more like an end, a beginning, and a middle, followed again by the end, and if you really like screwing with people, then that's when you start with the middle. You have your characters, well developed with traits like you and I, who can communicate your plot effectively. Sensible settings, a believable plot with a problem and (not always) a resolution. You know the drill – I'm sure you all remember the fifth grade. I find a lot of the time, people tell you to write about what you know. That's what I'm doing.

But I don't really know where my story starts, or whether my characters are going to be real or whether any of this is going to make sense to anyone reading it. I think, unfortunately for you, my story might start in the middle. My story might start sometime now – when everything started falling apart, when every day became once a week, whenever I decided to sit down in front of a computer screen and start typing. I don't even have an end yet. My end hasn't been written. On second thought, maybe I'll start at the beginning and I'll end with the middle. Yes, that sounds about right.

Summer of 2010 was the hottest summer of my life.