24 years, 363 days old

I was going to post a rapidfire update on my exploits during the past three weeks. Instead, and in honor my impending 25th (!) birthday, I'm going to post a drawn-out summary of my entire life so far.

1979-1984: The Hemlock years:
During my formative years on Hemlock Lane I established an early appreciation for pop culture. At Mother's Day Out, while I was coloring, my teacher approached me and complimented my drawing of a group of people. "Chase, that's lovely," she said. "Is that your family?" "No," I replied without moving from my work. "Oh. Well, who are they?" she asked. "This is the Reverend Elton Pointer. These are his daughters, Anita, Ruth, and June. They're on MTV," I replied. These years also displayed impending signs of A.D.D. as well as the disappointing absence of chocolate and other sugary substances.

1984-1990: Once a Charger...
Until my first day of Pre-School at Heritage Hall, I wanted nothing more in life than to be an HH Charger. Then it happened. In Pre-School and Kindergarten I was hyperactive. In 1st grade I was sent to the principal's office daily for disrupting class. In 2nd grade I wet my pants twice because I was afraid of the big kid's bathroom. By 3rd grade my parents were looking at Christian schools for children with learning disabilities. In 4th grade kids noticed my buck teeth and startling lack of athletic ability. I made friends with the 1st graders and parents wouldn't let their children spend the night at my house.

1991-1994: Adolescent quandaries and Christian sports camps
The first time I realized I was a bitter person was when I heard a camp counselor scream, "Jump for Jesus." I remember vividly the words that went through my head: "Fuck you, bitch." That was in 5th grade. As an alternative to spending time at the pool with my friends, I went to Kamp Kanakuk in Missouri because, oh yeah, I didn't have any friends. Let's see. I was a horrible athlete with gangly limbs and bad teeth, so going to a sports camp would make me mr. popularity. Every smiling bastard and bitch at that camp had looks, wealth, athletic prowess and perfect teeth. I was alive with the joy of Christ. Back at school, kids noticed my sarcastic streak and actually embraced me. In 7th grade I got braces. By 8th grade, I was the class clown. I was invited to parties (read: the mall) on the condition that I made everyone laugh.

1994-1996: The preppy years
By high school I'd settled comfortably into my role as the sarcastic guy who doesn't get the girls and is only seen sporadically in public. While I wasn't eating lunch at the loser table, I certainly wasn't in the homecoming court, either. In retrospect, none of that mattered because I was so sure I was better than everyone else. Still am. What I do remember from high school was a closet lined with clothes that must have been stolen from the set of Swans Crossing. How else do you explain a wardrobe tarnished by sweater/turtleneck combinations, Structure, and "short sleeves" that went beyond the elbow? Why God, why?

1996-1998: Let's get our Christ on
As an avid participant in a high school church youth group, I felt I'd arrived. Every experience was deep and profound. Were I to have kept a journal, each entry would have been filled with sunshine and smiles. Today, most of the "friendships" I made during those bizarre years are non-existent. Why? Because everyone from that youth group "grew" as God's galliant warrior in the college greek system. And a few of them got knocked up (but thanks to some clinics in Texas, those happenings are also now non-existent). All in the name of Christ, mind you. By the end of this Carpenters experience, I was ready to graduate from Heritage Hall, and God had spoken. I'd find myself back in Missouri, this time doing the will of the Lord via the written word.

1998-2000: The memories and misery of Missouri
Okay, so it's a tad untrue to say I had felt God's calling when I decided to attend Mizzou. Hell, I just wanted to go out of state for the sake of making people miss me. My freshman year was a fun year thanks in part to the dorm experience. My freshman year was also host to an array of emotionally unstable roommates. By my sophomore year I was growing weary of the college experience. I just wanted to move to LA and starve to death (of course back then I called it "becoming an actor"). I lived in a prototypical ant colony apartment complex called College Park. I wished my roommates dead. I also encountered more smiling, two-faced Jesus freaks during a mercifully brief stint with Campus Crusade. However, thanks to some severe credit card debt, I finally developed a sense of style and how to do my hair. The summer after my sophomore year, I returned back to Oklahoma City to intern at my glorious youth group of yore. Only then did I become truly bitter.

2000-2002: How to make people hate you
Certain vocations are clearly not meant for me. Pro-football player. Accountant. Youth group minister. During a summer in which I turned 21 and was working with kids at a church, I found the former to be far more enjoyable. You see, my co-workers at church (all kids with whom I'd attended youth group in high school) had undergone the aforementioned greek change. I was clearly not cool enough to hang with the Abercrombie crowd, so I drank a lot with my "evil" friends from my restaurant job. Then I'd prepare outstanding Bible studies with an intense hangover. By the end of the summer, even Columbia seemed more inviting. I returned for my junior classes and returned home a total of three times during the entire year. And not wanting to reserve all my hatred for the OKC set, I began to alienate myself from my college peers with trademark hateful looks and condescending comments. I also worked as a debt collector and became obsessed with Marci. Eventually I graduated. And thanks to credit card debt, Hollywood was a distant, distant dream. Instead I'd return to OKC to wait tables and get out of debt, all while living with my parents again. Life, to be savored.

2002-2004: Waiting
Within weeks of arriving back in OKC, I reconnected with some high school friends and clicked immediately with my co-workers at the restaurant. I was drinking so much and making such great cash that I threatened to never move to LA if I didn't stop having so much fun. However, that ship sailed after an episode with a bipolar, habitually dishonest, consistently unfaithful girlfriend. But it was fun while it lasted. I also spent part of these years at yet another church in OKC. This time, however, my faith in the faithful was restored.

2004-today: A star is bored
On Sunday my friends from high school are taking me to Disneyland to celebrate my birthday. It's ironic that I'm going to the happiest place on earth to celebrate 25 years of bitterness, materialism, sarcasm, hypocrisy, resentment, drunken debauchery and the pursuit of stardom. What's even more ironic is that despite all of those flaws, I think I'm the happiest I've ever been in 24 years and 363 days.