How Bad Ideas Begin

It doesn't always seem like a bad idea, a bad idea.

"Ugh," I said, "I feel terrible. I want to go home and throw up everything I just ate. Wouldn't that be great?"

"What? No," she said.

"Yeah," I insisted, "think about it. I ate all that food, had the pleasure of eating it, but now I could go home and throw it all up."

"You know that's bulimia, right...?"

And I guess it was. But in the moments before it has a half-joke, half-clever idea. Part of me wanted to go home and vomit, to stop feeling so gross, part of me thought it was great. And that's how bad ideas begin. They're not bad ideas at first, they're solutions. People trying their best to fix something, and fucking it up even more along the way.