More than half my life ago, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test made me want to be a Prankster. FURTHUR! No left turn unstoned! The Importancy Coat! No matter that I was already over a decade late and didn't understand the context of the book outside of my limited juvenile Minnesotan experience: It moved me in my world.

For years I carried the memory of the feeling of that book around with me as I went ahead with the too-many-hours-a-day job thing, the mortgage thing, the marriage thing; then clawing my way through the divorce thing, the bankruptcy thing, the foreclosure thing; and eventually getting to the living-in-a-1955-school-bus-in-New-Mexico-for-a-couple-years sorts of things.

When I finally read the book again not so long ago, it wasn't as... powerful as I remembered.

But there ain't much I'd trade my time on the bus for; and I look forward to getting back on again. Hopefully not in New Mexico next time, though.