I have always had a drive to be an entrepreneur. Not like an, “I wish I could work for myself cause I am mad at my boss today,” entrepreneur. It’s way more pressing than that. When I was a child I had lemonade stands, I sold rides in a wagon pulled by my dog, and I made things to sell. My dad was always my best customer. I remember concocting some kind of miracle cure all. I don’t remember exactly what was in it, but it was chocolate milk based and pretty damn good. I stood on the tailgate of Dad’s pickup truck and sold it like an old West medicine man. I was a hell of a barker, calling out to passing kids that my elixir would cure what ailed them. I gathered a small crowd, and my Dad played perfectly right into how that scheme is supposed to work. “Let me try one of those,” he called out. ”Yes, sir,” I said “Step right up and have a taste! This stuff will make you stronger than you’ve ever been before!” I poured him a cup and he drank it down like a shot. “Wow! Why, I feel ten times stronger!” He held out his arm and told one of the neighbor boys, “Here, feel this muscle. Now hold on, I want to try something.” He said this as if he’d had never performed this trick before. The boy held onto his arm and Dad lifted him from the ground with his bicep, then added another kid to the other side and swung them around. “That’s amazing,” he proclaimed, “I’ll buy all of it!” Then another voice, “But I want some! I have my dollar right here!” Other voices joined him and before I knew what was happening I had served all of my elixir and made twenty dollars. That is probably my most successful business venture to date.      In addition to being an entrepreneur, I have also always been a traveler. My parents used to take me on epic road trips all over the country. We would drive and drive and then eventually come across something fantastic. I never grew tired of this. And I never stopped. As soon as I had that driver’s license in my hand I was gone. I ran away to New Orleans when I was sixteen. I went down to Bourbon Street and made friends with some Rainbow Tribe hippis. They bought me a 40 oz that I couldn’t even come close to finishing, no matter how hard I tried. We smoked, and thought we were going to jail until we realized the cop walking towards us was just headed to a costume party. I was certain that a Voodoo man with flames tattooed on his head had cursed me, and after all my adventures, I told my friends that I could not hop a train with them because I had to go back to high school on Monday. Still, every time I got the chance, I was in Birmingham, Mobile, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, and later D.C. and New York.      Meanwhile, I went through jobs like water. Restaurants, retail, theatre, call centers, what ever I could get. I was smart, capable, and qualified. I just could never manage to stay. I was always discontent and restless. Looking for a new challenge and a change of scenery. Maybe the Voodoo man did curse me. Eventually I decided I should go to college. Here, as a broke college student that was more or less tied to one place, my entrepreneurial spirit kicked back in. My new girlfriend, who eventually became my wife, would call my attempts at making a little cash, “Homer schemes” after Homer Simpson. It was a fitting metaphor, as I was always Gung ho about some crazy scheme, but by the end of the “episode” it would either have gone hilariously arwy or fizzled out. She loved this about me, until she didn’t anymore.      To this day, these tendencies, entrepreneurial and wandering, cannot be squashed. It isn’t that I haven’t tried. I put down roots. I have a beautiful wife, a beautiful home, lots of debt, and full time job with benefits. Its the American dream. So why am I not happy? Why do I still feel compelled to try to strike out on my own? I have way more to lose now than ever before, and my wife thinks I am insane. Maybe I am. Especially considering that there comes a point where I just can not bring myself to go and sit at that desk in that office under those florescent lights and the conspiring glare of a power hungry coworker anymore. Every now and then, something in me snaps.     I hear the road calling me and I lust after new schemes. I want to go see all of my friends all over the country. I have places to stay in Mobile, New Orleans, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Colorado Springs, Spring Green, and probably more if I really needed a place. I long to spend my time writing, canning food, being an activist, making cheese, designing fireworks displays, volunteering, reading tarot, helping people. And I don’t think that I am crazy.     Don’t get me wrong, I like my job. I don’t want to lose it. And I love my wife. Actually, I adore her. I would try my best to do anything for her. I love our life here. I love how far we’ve come. I love our friends here. I am not trying to run away from anything. It isn’t like that at all. I love everything I have. This is just who I am. And I really don’t think I am crazy.      My father told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. My mother tried her best to snap me out of that illusion, but it did not work. I am still smart, capable, and qualified. I still want to drive and drive and come across something fantastic. I feel like I have so much more to contribute to the world than what I can do sitting at a desk. And there is truly nothing that I can do to stop myself from getting up and going. I want to be an American gypsy. And I am not crazy.