I wanted no more of this. I had had enough of this self-serving flagellation of acceptance from my intellectual friends... sycophants, all of them. I was tired of my parents' questions about how exactly I made a living writing articles about Killer Bee attacks and driving back and forth from California to make television commercials. I was sick of running into my high school friends' moms at grocery stores and having to explain "what I've been up to all these years." So I escaped.