At times I feel as though I am suffering from arrested development...speaking in a figurative manner of course. Well, I could be suffering in a literal sense, but I'm not a doctor, so let's just roll with the former shall we.

The idea of being an adult even at my very adult age of 32 is something that still feels like foreign territory. I am though, at that adult age where when I talk to someone 12 years younger than me and I thrown out what I consider some cool pop culture reference from my youth; they look at me, well I might as well be speaking Esperanto. I'm certainly not trying to hold onto my past or continually in the mode of "man I wish I was younger", but here I sit, wondering what it's like to be an adult with adult responsibilities. For the record, in case you think ill of me, I have adult responsibilities and handle them quite well. When I do though, I just feel like I'm acting older than my age. It's quite the conundrum in my head.

So the idea of buying a house has me in tatters.

This time next year, M and I will be sharing the same next of kin. Some might say that's a very adult thing to do, getting married. I say no and I offer this to support my claim. I have a cousin; she's 18 and a sweetheart. She met a guy, who lives in California. They met while playing Halo online...NERD ALERT. They talked and talked on Myspace...insert own joke here. He went to visit her. The term soul mate is tossed around pretty liberally. They're getting married. Neither a wise thing nor a smart thing to do, but they're doing it. Getting married used to be somewhat sacred, now's it's flippant. So I don't consider it adult. But now I'm getting off topic.

The idea of buying a house has been talked about more and more, since we ourselves are being flippant. I balked, but then I said yes. That yes has now become a regretful one night stand.

Here's why I said yes...

Last Friday I was sitting in my friend's car, there were 4 of us. We're getting tore up on warm champagne, cheap whiskey and Bud Light. We're doing this because none of us want to pay for drinks at the Bluebird Theater, where we were going to see Mickey Avalon, who by the way, is a no talent $%# clown and I wish to God I could somehow regain my time I spent at his concert.

Dear Mickey,

You suck.

Paul Hughes.

While I was sitting in my friend's car, my inebriated thought process actually calculated out that what I was doing was certainly not very becoming of someone my age...read not very adult like. I told myself it was time to step up to the plate and be an adult. So when I got home that night I told M that I'm down to make the big push.

%$#@

I'm not adult enough to own a house. I can confidently say that.

Here's the caveat...

Let me just get this very self absorb reason out of the way first. I can't live in the suburbs. That means I have to say goodbye to Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Parker, so on and so forth. This sort of thinking kind of puts my eggs into one basket.

Lawn care...won't happen. I not disciplined enough to keep things "neat"

Cleaning the house...again won't happen. I'm certainly no slob, but if given a choice to pull out the Windex and Favor or just leave and go to Wax Trax...take a wild guess. A weird anomaly, I'm very anal about my bathroom and will in fact take time to clean that, constantly.

Buying that cute "fixer upper"? Well I'm handy with tools like OJ is innocent. I'm also afraid my malaise towards fixing things would then snowball into a house that in due time would look like it should be condemned (see also lawn care).

So on and so forth...

I would love to get a house, get out of the life known as apartment dwelling, but I may have to be here awhile. I'm just not adult enough to take on the responsibility and I'm certainly no Daddy Warbucks, so paying various people to take care of said various problems has to be that weird creepy cousin that conveniently gets left out of the family photo.

That's fine; I just have more money for useless concerts, cheap beer and music and when I finally become an adult, I'll let everyone know, we can have a party, and get tore up in my friends car.

Your friend

Paul Hughes.