A short autobiography of Habib bin Habib Al Fulan (with acknowledgments to F. Scott Fitzgerald.)

1984

Half of a can of beer given to him by his favorite uncle while on vacation in Miami. They made him perform jokes in front of the whole family. He was 4 ½.

1992????

On a trip to Disney World with same uncle and cousins. (Habib, his mother, and brother, had already moved to Miami.) Drunk at a Denny's barking orders, embarrassing older brother Nabil, but entertaining his family like a clown. Collapses on the steps of the motel where they were staying, laughing like a little maniac. He was 12.

1994

A case of Budweiser in a Honda accord with a high school buddy he met on the football team. Then later on in the night, drunk in Coconut Grove asking to use the restroom in various restaurants and being denied. Relieves himself next to the dumpster behind a hotel.

1997

A bowl of weed at his best friend's house. He ends up laughing the whole night, and ordering pizza. Another friend brings some Hialeah Chongas who jump in the pool and remind Habib of hippos in Africa. He's now attending community college.

1997 end of the year.

Ecstasy at same friend's house. He was afraid to try it, but his friends ambush him with it. It's so pure, that Habib feels reborn while shopping with his mother the next day.

1999

Absinthe smuggled from Spain. He has a floating drunk feeling, despite the taste. This was with the same best friends but at a condo in Brickell. His friend had a  neighbor, a single woman in her 30s, who kept banging on the wall whenever they got too loud.

New Year's Eve 2000

Ecstasy again at Shadow Lounge. Partied the whole night. Stared at a strange Russian couple fighting and tried to write a story about it the next day.

2004

Mushrooms in Amsterdam with his travel buddy Montes. He was so high he couldn't cum with the Brazilian prostitute in the Red Light District.

2004

A bowl of weed with Montes before a tour of the Vatican grotto. He felt an evil presence despite the holiness. He was 27.

Same Rome trip in 2004 –  Grappa at the quaint restaurant across the street from the hotel with Montes.

2007

A feeling that all life has not been lived, so, – “I need Spain, or Key West, or San Francisco or the Dominican Republic, or Cuba or anywhere else but Miami.”