I’m standing by the fence with Big Country on a dreary Monday morning. We’re both pretty bummed out. Years of living in Seattle taught me everything I need to know about Seasonal Affective Disorder, and Big Country’s dealing with his by way of alcoholism (very popular) and edifying me as to how to properly run a night club in Puerto Rico (unorthodox, yet effective).

Bleary-eyed and reeking of Tennessee whiskey - not the kind immortalized by Chris Stapleton, but the borderline gasoline shit that’ll strip the paint off a battleship - Big Country’s yammering on about his ex brother-in-law, evidently also the former proprietor of the night club in Puerto Rico. "If his brains were dynamite, he couldn’t blow his nose,” BC claims, which is satisfyingly both elucidating and confusing. Does Big Country have an ex brother-in-law? If so, what're the chances he knows where Puerto Rico is, much less ran a night club there?

There’re so many questions and even more I’m missing because I’m admittedly not paying very close attention. I’m dealing with my Seasonal Affective Disorder in classic Pacific Northwesterner style - overly-caffienated existential crisis. Big Country, to his credit and my surprise, notices this and puts his being a maniac momentarily on the back burner.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Oh nothing,” I say, “just wondering if I’m a giant asshole.” I’m knowingly leaving the door wide open for Big Country to lay on me one of his epic witticisms, which will surely lift my spirts.

Instead, my redneck Buddha of a neighbor looks off into the matrix with a furrowed brow, as if counting shingles on a distant roof.

“Shit, I don’t know much about you Trevor, and I reckon I never will. But I know the world’s better with you in it.”

And with that, it all makes sense, my path to Nirvana: I'll prove Big Country right.