Ok, I'll play.
Oi, folks. I'm Tony Spectacular (yeah, really!). I'm 38, married to the most wonderful woman that I've ever met (and trying my damndest to deserve her), and finishing up my final semester in my second bachelor's degree. Nursing this time. Last time was IT. Network security, to be precise. See, I made the mistake of confusing aptitude with a calling. Had no idea what to do with myself, so I went with what I was good at. Turned out that I HATED the work, so I bailed. It probably didn't help that out of school I worked for the Evil Empire (yes...that's right. Comcast. Please don't judge me.). But I guess I'm skipping ahead in the story a bit. I didn't go straight to college after high school. I was actually homeless for ~6 years. Not on the streets, exactly. I was a rave promoter. At first I was just traveling with likeminded people, catching showers and sleep where I could (college dorms, back in the 90s, were HELLA easy to charm your way into, and always had hot water in those gross communal shower rooms), but eventually graduated to 'prestige' status, meaning that I got flown around the country and put up in fancy pants hotels. As you might guess, I did WAAAAAAAY too many drugs during that time. I think that I'm better off for having had those experiences, drugs included. I know myself much better than I would have otherwise, having plumbed my depths and all. It's good to know who you are at both extremes, if you catch my meaning.
So anyway, I graduated from 'the scene', and then it was off to school, then COMCAST (I hope you heard the Emperial March just then. I meant it as I typed.). It was every inch as wretched as you might think.
Jebus...typing this is bringing back such a flood of memories. I'm going to spare you all of the romantic entanglements (though some of them really have defined...or at least honed me) and try to keep to the narrative.
So, one day I decided that enough was way too much, and threw it all up in the air. Feck it. I cannot and WILL not abide this nonsense any more. So I wandered off again. Back to the hand to mouth life. I waited tables, I bartended, and then I ended up a bike messenger.
Hoo BOY! Man, I would recommend that life to anyone in their late teens or early twenties who has the constitution for it. Camaraderie for MILES. Literally. I can still go anywhere in the country with my bike and be welcomed as a brother. There is truly nothing on this earth quite like Messlife. I could regale you with dozens of stories about alleycat races, debauchery, car v. cyclist disasters, and really, truly EPIC parties, but I guess those too are stories for another day.
Stay on track, Tony. Stay on track.
Anyway, after figuring out sound engineering and running a live music venue in my basement for a few years, I graduated to running monitor sound and barbacking for one of the major music venues in Philly. Rhymes with Eclectic Packtory. Back then, the family of venues associated with my home venue were multitudinous, and one of them was a particularly spacious outdoor jawn. That particular venue had an AWFUL annual Memorial Day event called 'Jam On the River'. Yes, 3 days of jam bands. Kill me. I'm inclined to apologize if you are into that sort of music, but I'm not going to. Because you have to realize that working those events is the. very. worst.
So anyway, I was living down in deep south Philly, catty corner from my cousin. I had worked that festival 7a-1a Friday and Saturday, and 7a-3a Sunday. Humping kegs and ice, running my whole as$ off the entire time. Rode my bike home after the show, exhausted as any man has ever been after a weekend working in the sun, only to face a significant dilemma. See, my cousin's birthday fell right around Memorial Day, and since he and most everyone we knew worked in bars and clubs and such, he held his birthday party/bbq on Memorial Sunday. Sundays are usually a workable day for people in 'the industry'. So I've been getting beat up by the work and the sun for a weekend, and all I want to do is to pass directly the eff out. I arrive at the corner of his house and mine. I stand over my bike for what has to be a solid 5 minutes. Looking up at my apartment, then over at his house. Back. Forth. I want nothing on this earth so much as to be in my bed. But his house is right over there. That's my family, and it's his birthday. How could I not go? But Jebus Price, I just want to be in bed. Ah, eff it. I can go in for one burger and one beer. I'll be home in 15 minutes, having discharged my obligation to my family. I ran up, stowed my bike in my apartment, and headed over.
This, friends, was the best decision I ever made. It really and truly freaks me out to this day how these seemingly inconsequential decisions can have such a profound effect on our lives. Had I opted for sleep instead of my cousin's I shudder to think how my life would have turned out.
Because during those ten minutes I planned on being there, SHE came through the door.
Man...I have 'known' more than a few women in my life. But when I laid eyes on HER...
I was done for. I had never been smitten like that just based on the first glimpse. WhoooWEEE was that an amazing woman. I was hers from moment one.
She took a whole lot of convincing, but I was hers from the door.
But I put the work in, and I won the woman.
Long story short (Ha! Short? You're kidding yourself, Tony),
So anyway, I kept working in bars and eventually realized that hand to mouth would simply not do if I was to be the partner the SHE deserved. But I absolutely would NOT go back to the IT chair. I needed to do something worth doing, not just pimping my mind out to the devil for a couple of bucks.
But what?
Hm.
Oh...hey...I'm good in a crisis...what about EMT school?
So I did. And I (if ou'll pardon the phrase) KILLED it. First in my class, got a great (relatively) job right out of school, and immediately started climbing the ladder. Got moved to an ALS truck, and was very proud of my achievements, but then I realized how low the ceiling is in EMS. If you're not willing to go into Management, you're going to cap out in both pay and responsibility pretty quickly. I don't handle being sedate very well...in that sort of circumstance I'm both unhappy and unproductive...so I realized that I had to make a different move. I lucked into getting an in with the hospital which was affiliated with my EMS company, getting to move into a sort of nursing assistant role. It's not exactly that, but it'll do for the narrative. And from there, since I can't ever sit still, I started working towards being a nurse. Which, as it turns out, is immensely fulfilling. Like, I was all full of balls, middle fingers, knees and elbows (but on the inside all kinds of pathetic ennui) until I found this path. But now, I have the best partner that anyone ever had (sorry, jerks. She's MINE!), a new career that is more than a job, but rather is a true calling that has no limit to its horizons, I'm a homeowner, and I'm winning the game of life.
Oh, and I smoked a pack a day for 25 years, found ejawns, quit smoking in a day, and have been a happy vaper ever since, ESPECIALLY after having found REOs. I preach the word of Squonk diligently to any vaper who'll stand still long enough to listen. But you already knew that, and that wasn't what this post was supposed to be about anyway.
So hey...If you managed to get through all of that, then good on you! If you rolled your eyes at the wall of text, then maybe you shouldn't have come in to the narrative thread.
But anyway...hi! I'm Tony, and I'm really glad to have met you.
I'm a retired school teacher, a mother of two grown kids, and a grandma of two awesome grandkids who are 5 and 7 years old. I smoked for 40+ years and have been 
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I learned to smoke at the age of 13 in the designated smoking area at my high school. I smoked for 35+ years with 8 of them trying to quit. Always failed, once I took the first puff, it was over. I was smoking again. This time with vaping it's been a little over two years and I failed once...on a trip to see the MIL...I bought a pack out of frustration and a broken tank. I smoked four, that was last June. The difference is I never continued smoking as in the past. I got out and got a new tank and continued vaping....about 3 months ago I threw the pack out....I never wanted them and that was the difference. Grew up in small town Blue Ridge Mountains, work at a university (Virginia Tech....we know what that is famous for) married, one daughter, two mutts, three grandpuppies. 
