On my 21st birthday, my dear friend Navroz Kwatra gifted me perhaps the greatest literary challenge of my life: Infinite Jest. This is David Foster Wallace’s earth-shaping magnum opus, a literary voyage about addiction, prestigious tennis players, and political hilarity.

This is one gargantuan tale.

For the past four years I’ve danced on and off with the halfway house residents and underage drug users of Enfield Tennis Academy, never quite knowing how to fall in step with them. Now things are different. I’ve lost my dad, taken on more knowledge in my addictions course, and counseled a few individuals as a student in practicum. I have a slightly better ear for the notes of Foster’s tragic and entertainment- hungry characters.

My resolve is set. This December will be my time to complete this journey. To laugh in dismay at the American obsession with entertainment cartridges and grimace at the graphic assassinations of Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents. And revel in the screwed-up existence of Hal Incandenza and his dysfunctional family, with film making, football glory, and general imperfection lacing every fiber of their being.

Won’t you join me?