This companion to my memoir goes chapter by chapter with notes about the accuracy of what I’m saying with links to related content. This is only relevant for people who question my memory, or want to dig deeper.
Unless noted in this document, all conversations are recreated from my memory. I don’t remember conversations by exact words. Instead, I remember the concepts communicated so I had to recreate the language and make best guesses.
I almost never remember smells, but you gotta have at least a few odors in your book for the sensory experience, so all smells are best guesses and not actually remembered.
Chapter 1: First Pot Smoke
I remember most of this pretty clearly.
The index card note is the real note.
I don’t specifically remember listening to Tool at that particular moment in the opening, but I do remember I listened to my CD player all day, and Tool’s Aenima was by far my favorite, so it seemed like a reasonable guess.
I read my high school journal to tell me that I was working on The Last War during that time.
The story about playing baseball is real. However, I don’t specifically remember talking about this on this day. I remember having a conversation but not what we talked about. I felt that story was a realistic guess.
Details like what I specifically ate for lunch are best guesses based on what I used to eat back then. Guesses like that are very common in this book so I’m not going to specifically call them out after this.
Chapter 2: Am I an Asshole?
I remember making a big deal out of the spelling of the girl’s name, but I don’t remember what that spelling was or why I cared.
Chapter 3: Jumping the Fence
I refer to the party hosts as “homeowners”. I don’t actually know if they owned the house. They probably rented it, but explaining that was clunky and slowed the story down.
I mentioned in the text that I did not remember the suicide pact until reading my journal in 2022. Then it came back to me, but the original version of this chapter had my girlfriend not smoking any pot. Then I contacted her to send her the book and she informed me that that night was actually her first time ever smoking pot.
Chapter 4: First Web Page
I made a best guess as to the specific numbers of people from each group who were in the English teacher interviews. I know I was the only student though.
Chapter 5: Sparkles
Chapter 6: Apartment 120
Here’s a link to the Hideaway Apartments, in case you want to move into my old home 🙂 https://roycegroup.us/hideaway-apartments
They want almost $1500 for an apartment that I think cost McLean and I $450 per month.
Chapter 7: First Shrooms
All I remember about the dealer’s clothing was that he wore cargo pants. I guessed they were shorts rather than long pants and I don’t remember for certain that they were camouflage.
Chapter 8: I Am God
Chapter 9: Embracing Sadness
I remembered this happening just a few days after a breakup, but that doesn’t match up with my journal so it must have happened weeks or months later and I was just thinking a lot about the breakup.
Chapter 10: Free Drugs in a Condom
This chapter has a conversation with my mom that I remember having, but I’m not certain it happened on this specific day. It’s possible I combined two separate conversations from other days. But I know the conversation was something similar and that it upset me in the way I depict in the book.
Chapter 11: Growing Drugs
Chapter 12: Scream 2 Was a Romance
This was one of the stories that I wrote on my website in the 2010’s.
Chapter 13: First Ounce
I think $280 dollars is the right number. It was an expensive first ounce, but not totally unreasonable. I was still able to turn a profit without shorting anyone.
The part where I gripped the edge of the couch like a stress ball is a good example of a time where I remember my emotions but not my specific behaviors so I made a reasonable guess to show the emotion instead of telling it. There are more examples like that in this book that I won’t bother mentioning.
Chapter 14: Dropping Out
For years I remember dropping out of college simply because I didn’t want to, or as an act of rebellion. Then in 2022, I read my journal and it said that I did actually try my best to keep going and only dropped out because I was not able to get into a single class.
Claude AI, which I use as an editor, told me that I had likely signed up via Western’s new phone system. After it said that, I remembered how I hated the feel of those class booklets, and had a vague memory of standing in my kitchen trying to sign up, but there is a possibility Claude planted that memory.
Chapter 15: “She”
Chapter 16: 4/20 Faint
Another story I wrote out in the 2010’s for my website.
Chapter 17: Wisdom Teeth Surgery
I clearly remember picking up a scalpel and trying to murder the nurse. However, for most of my life, I told myself it had to be a hallucination. I’d never seen a dentist just leave a scalpel lying out like that, so I assumed I had actually grabbed a pen or drill, or perhaps the entire experience was a hallucination.
The first person I told was twenty years later. She was a retired surgery nurse. She just laughed at my story. “I can’t even count the number of times someone tried to kill me right after surgery,” she said. “It’s super common.”
But I still assumed the scalpel was a hallucination, until I asked Claude about it, and it explained that scalpels absolutely are used in wisdom teeth surgeries and do sit out on a tray within reach of the patient.
Both my mom and dad told me years ago that they have very little memory of my surgery, which made my memory of the experience worse.
Chapter 18: New Roommates
I had already written this chapter when I searched through my box of old photos and realized I actually had a picture of the vodka chugging.
Chapter 19: Borrowed Car
This was one of the stories that I wrote on my website in the 2010’s.
Chapter 20: Glue and Glitter
One of the wildest coincidences I’ve ever experienced. I think she may have been the first person I ever told about this so for her to be the same person from the story was kind of mind blowing. This primed my brain for the idea that God was sending messages through coincidences like this.
Chapter 21: Hater’s Girlfriend
Chapter 22: The Marine
I forgot the man’s name within a few years of the incident, possibly because he told me it was fake. I had always substituted “Kevin”. That name is the one I use for characters who are my alter-ego or represent some aspect of my personality.
Chapter 23: Eviction
I left out the part where Jeremy and I rode our bikes down to the leasing office and tried to talk the landlord out of the eviction. I told him that we had been smoking some weed but not selling, which was sort of truthful because I had quit and at the time had no intention of starting again.
Chapter 24: Back in Business
I didn’t mention that during this time I had gotten a second job at The Parkway Chateau AKA The Pink Palace (these days it has a new name and color). I was cooking for a retirement home, but I quit because the manager promised me $8.50 per hour, but when my paycheck came, it was only around $7. He promised to give me my back pay every time I asked until the last time when he told me that was never going to happen. I called the Better Business Bureau and they seemed to believe me, saying this is extremely common, but refused to look into it.
I was so frustrated by this that I figured if they could commit crimes like that then I should be able to too, so that’s part of why I started selling again.
Chapter 25: Famous
Chapter 26: Snake Head
Chapter 27: Covert Recovery Mission
Chapter 28: Choke
Chapter 29: Granite Countertops
Another one where I wrote the chapter before realizing I had a picture from that night.
Chapter 30: You Don’t Believe Me Either?
Chapter 31: Blind for an Hour
Wrote this for my website in the 2010’s.
Chapter 32: Beer Smokers
Also wrote this for my website a long time ago. I don’t remember when.
Chapter 33: Candle Love Spell
Chapter 34: Arrested
I took notes on paper during my weeks as an informant, then later, copied them onto my website but changed everyone’s names. I called the officer “Chewey” after his chewing tobacco habit. Once I started writing this book, I could not find the original paper copy, so all I have is the digital one with the changed names.
Chapter 35: Police Station
Chapter 36: Colophon Café
Chapter 37: Unprofessional Misunderstanding
Chapter 38: Working for the Bad Guys
Chapter 39: I Trust You
Chapter 40: Best Man
Chapter 41: Little Buddy
Chapter 42: Childhood Trauma
This one I remember clearly, but it was so long ago and so traumatizing, that logically I have to assume my memory has been corrupted. But after the scalpel revelation, now I wonder if my memory is closer to reality than what I want to believe.
I’m not certain if the fight started with the bet. The bet and subsequent renegging may have been a different experience.
Chapter 43: Gasoline Love Spell
Chapter 44: Leap of Faith
Chapter 45: We Always Have a Choice
Chapter 46: Whatcom Creek Explosion
Chapter 47: You’re Going to Hate Me
Chapter 48: Field of Dead Fish
I mentioned that we couldn’t hear any birds. I don’t specifically remember that, but I do remember it feeling unnatural in an unexpected way, and no birds properly illustrates that. I added it because other people online described the aftermath as having no bird sounds.
Chapter 49: Cutting Cheese
Chapter 50: Pee Martini
Chapter 51: Police Brutality
I left out the part where Jeremy told me during his “That didn’t happen” speech that the victim here actually sued the police and got $30,000, implying that I shouldn’t be upset about it because of that.
Chapter 52: Still After Me
Chapter 53: Jail
Chapter 54: I’m Not Doing Anything Illegal
This is entirely pulled from memory. I have not done any checking on anything about the big guy charged with killing his infant daughter or validated the court system I remember. I can only assume my memory is not perfect.
Chapter 55: Out of My League
Chapter 56: That Didn’t Happen
I don’t remember if the religious people were using canned or fresh pasta sauce and I have no memory of what their camp looked like.
The religious booklet is what’s called a Chick Tract: https://www.chick.com/ I had never heard of these until Claude gave me feedback on this chapter. However, we were unable to find the specific cartoon I got that day, mainly because I don’t want to take the time to click on all 200 options.
I wrote the spaghetti scene months after finishing the initial rough draft. I didn’t realize how important it was to the story. All these years my brain had set the spaghetti scene and the police brutality as being totally separate experiences even though one happened just a few hours before the other.
It wasn’t until I finished writing the spaghetti scene that I noticed the connection. I was so pissed that they would portray us turning our backs on our own people, just a couple hours before I turned my back on one of my own.
“Your mother wishes she had an abortion” is the line I remember from the brutality incident, but part of me believes I made that up, that my trauma was so intense that I put words in the cops mouth.
Chapter 57: Learn the Hard Way
I wish I had a better scene to show the sheer terror I felt every time I saw a police officer.
Chapter 58: Kick to the Head
What I really mean by the line: “I finally did some real research and found my assumption was wrong” is I asked Claude if I was correct that a pounder glass can’t shatter over someone’s head without making them bleed, and it did research for me and explained that it absolutely is possible. The original version had me credit Claude right in the text, but Claude convinced me to remove any mentions of AI until the Thank Yous.
Chapter 59: They Tried to Kill Me
The curse that I wrote on the police officer I recreated from memory as I couldn’t find a copy. I wasn’t sure if casting a spell on a cop would be considered assaulting a police officer, but I wasn’t taking any chances, so I think I destroyed the evidence.
Chapter 60: I Believe in Freedom
This chapter I struggled to place in the timeline. I remember it happening but not exactly when, so this chapter might be out of order.
Chapter 61: This Desert Life
Part of the story I didn’t mention is that after I wrote Against A Rock, I found myself so embarrassed by This Desert Life that I removed it from the internet. Then in 2024, I revisited it and found that, despite its problems, there was still something about it that touched my soul, so I re-released it. Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCM24WJN
Chapter 62: This Desert Delusion
If you want to look through the actual Get To Know a Marijuana Dealer website that I ran in the early 2000’s, including the Flash animations, you can go here: https://web.archive.org/web/20020901000000*/isellpot.ws. You’ll see a calendar, allowing you to look at the site as it was at any point in time.
The two quotes from the site I pulled from that web archive, but I don’t remember the exact dates.
Chapter 63: Two Conversations
Chapter 64: Independence Day
This one for all these years I remember happening after my criminal charges were all done with. Originally this chapter came much later. Then, once I found the old archive of my website, I found a blog I’d totally forgotten I’d written. It said I smoked pot inside the police station on July 4, 2000, while I was still facing a felony drug charge. I knew I’d been crazy back then but I didn’t realize how far I was taking it.
The HOORAY FOR FREEDOM quote is also pulled from the blog.
Here’s a link to that blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20030210062011/http://www.isellpot.ws/website.htm
The note itself that we left at the police station I had to recreate from memory because I could not find any old copy.
Chapter 65: Possession With Intent
I think the quote here I pulled from a local copy of my website. I think I added this one first.
Claude took the liberty of looking up my website in the archive when I started talking about it. I somehow hadn’t realized a web archive even existed… or maybe I did, but it didn’t occur to me that I could just go and look at my old isellpot.ws website. That felt like discovering a treasure trove of family photos in the attic.
Chapter 66: They Treat Me Different
Chapter 67: Price of a DVD Player
I already talk about my memory concerns right in the chapter.
Chapter 68: Cartoons
Chapter 69: Bribery Attempt
Chapter 70: Gay Agenda
Chapter 71: Terrified of Human Connection
Chapter 72: 9-11
There was some confusion about which George Bush speech I actually watched at the bar, and I’m still not totally certain.
Chapter 73: Alcoholism
Chapter 74: Stars in the Sky
Chapter 75: Just Say No
This was the hardest chapter for me to write and edit. I think it should be obvious why.
Chapter 76: Accusations
This was the second-hardest chapter for me because I’ve always been scared of writing about rape.
Chapter 77: Not Ashamed
Chapter 78: Fast Forward
Chapter 79: Bar Fight Shooting
Claude was unable to find the police report or news reports for this. I really doubt I hallucinated this, but I haven’t dug deep enough to figure out what the news and police said about this. I wish I knew if he survived.
Chapter 80: Dark Mirror
Chapter 81: Family
Chapter 82: Pittsburgh
The drug testing PDF was recreated by ChatGpt.
Chapter 83: Self-Help
Chapter 84: Black Lives Matter
Chapter 85: Stay Human
The death threats here are verbatim, exactly what he said. However, I deleted maybe thirty percent of it because he was repeating himself a little.
Here is a YouTube video where you can hear all of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPtZwjRYCaw
Chapter 86: Pope Francis
Chapter 87: Someone Else’s Idea
The letter to the other drug dealer I wrote and sent without getting any feedback from any AI. That may have been a mistake.
I wrote the first draft of the letter to my cousin myself, then showed it to Claude and asked for feedback.
It came back with a big list, then offered to rewrite it for me.
It had never done that. At the beginning of the editing process, Claude and I agreed it would only give feedback, not write anything itself.
I stared at the question for a long moment and even walked away from my computer as I debated this. It felt so wrong, and I don’t know why. But I finally decided it couldn’t hurt to see, so I went back and said yes.
It spit out a letter much better than the one I had written.
It was a little demoralizing that I spent thirty years perfecting my writing craft and some machine can come along and do a better job in seconds.
But that’s missing the point. It’s not about my ego. It’s about what we can accomplish as a team.
