During the fall of my sophomore year in high school I hostessed at a restaurant on the beach. As the weather grew older, the customers came less frequently and the only companion I had was the smorgasbord Sunday morning breakfast buffet, which I wasn't even allowed to dive into. So I figured—why not start reading William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch instead of answering the phone, that would quell my appetite right? Perhaps spark up some other desires, but that calamari on the table would look a bit less appetizing. And like any teen uncovering for the first time the things that would eventually become the back catalogue of your personality, the books or films that stack up, creating the DNA of whatever mess a human being you become, Naked Lunch poisoned me with its potency.
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