nced me to blend in with the crowd; neither the cemetery across the street from school nor the various monument and flower shops entice me to- pardon my morbidity- just drop dead. The strategically located bowling alley down the block does not tempt me to ditch school. Certainly, the smell of the garbage dump has turned me off to the wide-eyed world of garbage disposal and handicapped my nose, thus threatening me into giving a hoot. I have been headed on "The Road Not Taken" all my life, much to my surrounding oppressors' dismay. Actually, I possess an especial amount of pride that I take of the fact that my rough-around-the-edges landscape has not influenced the quirky-'til-the-cows-come-home individual that I exist as and the unique level of intellectual being that I crave.My town and its blindly contented inhabitants have taught me quite plainly to not be like them. I prefer to lead them to the Red Sea, rather than follow someone else who will stop along the way to sell our food supply for something absurd like carved wooden pigeons. Even though I have happily adopted a few Buddhist beliefs, bare feet, meditation, good luck tummy rubs, and all, sometimes I feel like Jesus Christ, Jane Eyre, Stephen Daedalus, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Yes, I know these comparisons are very self-centered, but hey, I'm human; I'm allowed to believe that my problems are greater than everyone else's are!) I feel like The Chosen One, sans the bloodsucking undead part, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sometimes I long for the life of the characters sprinkled throughout the impressionist painting of my landscape: something old, nothing new, nothing learned, without a clue. Many a time, I walk alone, searching for sidewalks of life and people to question; on some blocks, there is no sidewalk to stroll upon, and I am forced to walk on a street littered with once-valiant squirrel corpses who were the victims of the speed-happy wra...
