And I’m three, and all of a sudden one day I toddle out to the living room, and for some reason my parents, who up to now have seemed pretty unremarkable, have chopped down a tree and dragged it into the house. Not just any tree but a cone-shaped, very green, nicely smelly tree. And I like this. I like having a tree in the house. This could start a trend, bring a tree into the house, then a bush, maybe a cow, a horse, who knows? I can dig it. And then, even cooler, they get all these colored lights and glass balls and shiny tinsel and throw it all over the tree. Cool. Very cool. A side of my parents I have not seen before. Colors. Shiny shit. So I’m happy. I think, maybe this isn’t going to be so bad living with these people.

And they seemed to be into it, too, taking pictures of me in front of the tree, laughing, singing songs about stars and bells and angels, very cool imagery. And I’m blissed out—we get presents, nuts, oranges, chocolate, happy people all around.

So every morning, first thing, I run out to the living room and yup, it’s still there, the tree. And I just sit there and groove to this tree. Develop a relationship with the tree. Even gave it a name—Larry—Larry the tree.

And then one day I come out to find my dad taking all the decorations off Larry. And I go, “Whoa! Like what are you doing to my friend?” And my mom is standing there and she says, “Larry has to go back to the forest. Christmas is over.”

And then my dad, who has always been neurotically committed to being honest, especially when it causes other people pain, says, “Larry’s not going back to the forest.” And he pulls out this ax and starts chopping up the tree!

I’m in shock.

I say, “But what’s going to happen to Larry?” And my mom says, “Well …” And I say, “So where’s he going?” Dad says, “Either it’ll get burned up in a giant bonfire someplace,” which of course stuns me to hear this about someone I’ve gotten very close to, “or …” (now check this out) “it’ll get ground into mulch and be made into paper.” I ask, “What kind of paper?” and my dad says, “I don’t know, toilet paper maybe.” Toilet paper. My best friend in the whole world is getting ground into toilet paper!

I was traumatized and to this day, every time I wipe my ass I think of Christmas.

BUILDING CHARACTER

MY METHOD FOR CREATING THE SOLOS