It was a Friday night and I'm chillin' at home. I called everyone in my phone book, even the people on a normal day I would never think of calling. But as life would dictate they weren't home. They had lives, unlike me. Sitting there, staring at my wrinkled Billie Holiday poster hanging on the wall the 3 life cycle theory came to me.

Life is awful funny to me because it never works out the way we want. As a young child I had daydreams of how I wanted to live my life. I would imagine meeting new and different types of people, traveling the world (not just catching the bus to South Philly once in a while), and finding that true love (not being harassed by the old men in my neighborhood). But here I am at 20 with nothing to show for. It's Friday night for Pete's Sake and I'm in the house! That's when it hit me. Life has three main cycles: screw-ups, recovery and boredom.

Screw-ups are all the fun stuff which happen to be bad. They are your normal sleeping around, getting drunk, spending all your money, missing class, Friday/Saturday nights, drugs, and other random shit that feels "oh-so-good" but you know is more times than not bad for you. Screw-ups are usually short lived and you spend the least amount of your life doing.

Recovery is the time after the screw-up. It's when you have to deal with the screw-up you just made. For example, let's suppose you slept with someone way to soon (meaning, it would have been in your best interest to wait until you learned her/his name before you start kissing their thigh). After the dirty deed was done, you begin to evaluate the situation and how you can change it. Maybe you vow to never do it again, or you'll call the girl/guy and get to know them, or you look for some excuse (those Long Island Ice Tea's will do it to you every time). Either way, this is the point where you think about your life and basically try to make some change.

Boredom is the state when your life is at a stand still. You feel like everything is routine. Most teenagers are trapped in this cycle because our lives are routine. School, home, eat, sleep -- repeat. When we get into this cycle we start to get edgy and want something out of the ordinary to happen in order break this monotonous cycle, which usually ends in a screw-up.

You see we live in a silly little cycle. Some of us have series of screw-up after screw-up (college). Sometimes we get so bored or anxious that we deliberately go out of our way to screw up. For instance if you ever declared, "I'm gonna get fucked up tonight", well you just initiated the screw-up cycle. Of course at some point we come to our senses and get everything in order, but we all know order can get boring.

(deep sigh) I think I'm in the boredom cycle, everything is just uninteresting to me. You know what? It's Friday night and I'm gonna get fucked up!