epic, my apologies (harhar)

I am apparently unemployable, but it's OK because I have a Brilliant Entrepreneurial Plan. The Brilliant Entrepreneurial Plan is derived from two conversations I had with my mom on the last drive to Berkeley.

1) Stoners: It's not that I judge them; I just can't stand them. My attention span is very brief; they become fixated on things and want to stare at/talk about these things for hours. Subjects on which I am willing to fixate for hours are extremely limited and do not include the shape of carpet stains, what color Tuesday is*, or how much I want Rice Krispie treats at any given time.**

2) Old people: Old people have amazing and delightful stories to tell; sadly, they tell these stories incredibly slowly. This presents a series of problems. First, History is vanishing into the vortex simply because we all pretend to have very pressing errands when our grandmothers want to tell us about their first day of college***. Second, old people are unhappy because nobody listens to them -- especially tragic if you are physically unable to do anything but talk. Slowly. Lastly, I need these stories as material for the next great American novel, as my life is of no literary interest and Dave Eggers already fucking wrote about it anyway, that bastard. I am prevented by the aforementioned short attention span and an irrational suspicion that imminent death may be contagious from collecting old people's stories myself.

Solution: Stoners for Oral History (SOH, pronounced, "sooooooooo..."). This will be a volunteer corps of chronic marijuana users that I will send to retirement homes across the Bay Area, the country, and later the world. They will listen to old people for hours. They will not get bored. At UC Berkeley I am primely situated to recruit well-educated, high-functioning users able to take accurate and illustrated notes. I will use these to write the next great American novel and honor my family***.

* It's obviously blue, just lighter than Thursday. This isn't even worth discussing.
** Actually sometimes I could talk about this for a while.
*** Mine did go to college. She was the first woman to go to her (Muslim) school and therefore she attended lectures behind a black curtain. She's written a lot of articles about her older brother, Majaz, whom Google tells me**** was a "romantic revolutionary poet," "the Keats of India" who "drank himself to death in a tavern on a cold winter evening." Yes, I too enjoy the alcoholic poet's location on the Indian rather than the Irish side of the family.
**** The fact that Google is telling me this and not my grandmother is EXACTLY THE POINT.