It was a rather pleasant summer that year, albeit a bit hot. I remember how the waves of heat radiated off the line of cars parked outside as I stared out my bedroom window. That day I was in my sterile little bubble with the windows closed and the air conditioner on. As a matter of fact, I had been staying indoors like that for most of the summer, even though the long, warm days and pleasant evenings were as inviting as they had always been. Something had been keeping me from going out and enjoying myself. I hadn’t realized that it was a combination of too much of the wrong kind of stimulation and not enough of the right kind of stimulation. You see, I had been spending far too much time drinking, smoking, and playing computer games alone during my down time. What had once been enjoyable habits from my late teens to early twenties eventually turned into debilitating vices. At twenty-seven, I was finally feeling the effects of a decade of getting stoned daily and drunk every weekend. What I needed was less artificial and chemical stimulation and more natural and physical stimulation.