It isn’t actually about redemption. That’s the selfish part. Its so much worse than that.

Its really about a book. At least at the moment it is. I finally finished “The Once and Future King” tonight. And for the first time in a long while, a book made me cry. Here’s why:

I truly believe we’re all trying to do the noble, righteous thing. I truly believe I’ve known nary a malicious or evil person in my life. The tides of fate don’t actually create people intent on harming others … not without reason. And those exceptions strike so rarely as to make themselves noteworthy. Of the people in my life, I can’t think of a one who has been noteworthy in a harmful regard and sustained any form of existing in my life for more than a moment. You all know this, right? Somewhere between my insecurities and my sense of the bigger picture, I sit in a place of believing myself to be the luckiest person alive. Even at its worst … no, especially at its worst, life has granted me the opportunity to know some of the greatest, kindest, smartest, funniest, most clever, most compassionate, most loving people that might be alive today. I don’t say that by way of hyperbole – those who have spent any amount of time with me know the sincerity to which I truly believe myself outrageously lucky to know you all. If you’re reading this at all, if you’ve been granted the access to knowing this exists at all … well, you’re one of those people.

I get sidetracked so easily.

Back to the major point: “The Once and Future King.” We’re not so noble as we try to be. We are creatures driven by our passions, our loves as much as our hates. We strive for some unobtainable, undefined, indescribable perfection in life. We make our decisions based on our passions as much as our logic. The weight we give these things is perfection in the moment, and occasionally complete disaster in the outcome. We don’t intend to hurt, only to strive to do the thing that will make us feel right, to feel righteous. And sometimes, the consequence of such actions is the downfall of Camelot. Sometimes everything we aim towards some kind of personal good only ends up destroying the foundation of the community and life we’d otherwise built ourselves around. Only its worse! The consequence is not just the loss of that thing for us, but the loss of that idea for everyone else. Sometimes you can’t realize how profound the punishments will be for the choices that feel so right in the moment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I won’t be talking about it anymore.

Here’s the way you can discuss it if you ever feel the need: Everyone is fallible. Life is significantly more complicated than we plan it to be. Everyone ends up okay in the end. Everything else is private.

Tonight I cleaned my apartment, hung out with Kir, played some video games, and worked on, planned for  or confirmed the following plans: Monster Jamz (the monster truck show, not the awesome 80s rock mix), impending cases for work, impending Sith Flash Points, Veal Pistache for my birthday, homebrew meeting, yoga classes, crochet lessons, indulging in more music, trying to figure out when I am meeting Arlo, spending more time with my “nieces” and “nephews” (Emmett, Audrey, Arlo and James, Sara, Ella and Harley), preparing for inevitable bungee jumping (which I hope is not a surprise incident), figuring out which will be my next tattoo (Triforce or Rebel Alliance emblem), and over-indulging in things Beardsy has given me to enrich my life (“The Once and Future King, LCD Soundsystem).

In addition, I’m continuing down the path of making new friends (at least 4 new lesbians and a gay man in the last 72 hour), working on strengthening the friendships I established in the last year (Micah, Menendezteinenfeld and Knate will be getting the big push in the next few weeks), spending more time with the family, continuing to strengthen the inexplicable long-term friendships I have (T&K, Emmett’s parents, Cynji, Drestin, XYT to name a few), and in general keeping up with that whole mantra of “keep saying yes.”

That sentence really got away from me.

The point I’ve been trying to make is that my fear has dissolved. I think the end result is that this is who I am now. Its not just an affectation to get through or over something.

Given everything that was, I am in the best best possible place I could hope to be.

With ides come passing idle times; and new horizons are imagined, both contrived and natural. Somewhere after it all, the new dawn springs.

I don’t want to be fat again.

I don’t want to be unhappy.

But before I could finish drafting the matter, an answer presented itself this very AM.

Gchat from Micah: “We should think about buying tickets to Pax East.”

Gchat from PrinceofWhy: ”Yes. Yes we should.”

And then tickets were immediately bought.

If anyone wants to join us for the nerdiest roadtrip of the year, we’ll be driving up to Boston on April 5, attending the Expo on Friday and Saturday, driving back on Sunday. Tickets are only $70 for the two days – not a bad deal at all!

So yeah, looks like I’ll still be making good decisions for adventure times this year.

Phew.

No, this year I celebrated Xmas in ways that truly reminded me of my impending 32nd birthday.  But on the whole, I would say the entirety of the holidays this year shall be marked down as one of my favorites.

The highlights:

• Kir’s first Xmas tree and lights.
• Participation in the Santa Deception for my nieces, followed (the next morning) by hours and hours of unfastening toys from the GD police zip ties that strangle Bullseye to his cardboard backing.
• Presents! Including, and actually limited to, the following: SWTOR, Flight to Arizona (paid for finally), Parking Tickets (paid for finally), new work clothes, a sugar bowl and an iron, a print that no one seems to like but me, dinner at Little Serow and lunch at District Commons.
• And presents for Kir, including her new Hex Bug which has been a HUGE hit!
• Island of Misfit Toys Doctor Who Xmas Special Party!
• A metric shit-ton of (re)watching Doctor Who
• Visits over the course of the week to/with/from The Mole (and Mrs. Mole), the Dutchies, The Beardsies (and Mrs. Beardsy with her new single about to drop!), the Others, Emmett’s Mom and Dad, and an entire extended weekend of XYT.
• Medieval New Years where everyone was sparkly beautiful (especially the tin-foil helmet) and Nik’s pirate shirt was the hit of the evening.
• First RPing of the new year, including the introduction of Maria Na to the process and the inception and subsequent elimination of Gryphon Schmeltz. All this despite a lack of vampire trees.

I will have more to say on a lot of these things, especially if I can get off my butt and complete my “year in review” post wherein many of you are quoted and/or thanked and I put a final spit-shine on what can easily be called “The Most Unexpected Year of My Life (Thus Far).”

But I will say this – for those I saw over the holidays as well as for those I did not: Thank you all for making me feel like I was a part of your lives.

Gatorfan and I won bottles of Malbec during the Xmas party. We opted to hang at her place, drink all of the wine, and discuss “how are things,” which is never a short conversation. DKay showed up towards the end (I need a better nickname for him) and it definitely served as a reminder of how lucky I am to have made new friends that strike deeper than simple acquaintances. DKay and I discussed our NYE apparel plans – suits are not in order. We shook on it.

I left, tipsy, and wandered the few blocks back to my house. Inevitably I ran into Yoga, who was walking her dog and who caught me playing golf with my ostentatious umbrella. Much mocking ensued, followed by the standard awkwardness of dealing with Yoga, who doesn’t do well with the word “No.”

But the headphones went on, and “Blinking Pigs” went on, and Kir was very satisfied to see me. And although the light was on at Cynji’s old place, I can assure you no one worthwhile was home.

Note One: I am thankful that I stayed out late enough that my desire to download SWTOR dissipated with the reality that I, like all good adults, should go to bed soon.

Note Two: Little Dragon – Fuck Yeah!

Note Three: Living around here alone isn’t as terrible as it could be, as long as I stay proactive like I have been. 

Note Four: Kir says “MRRRRRRR-YEOW!” so I best log off now. She gets lonely too, after all.

I apologize for the nostalgia. It is, in part, the season. But it is something more.

As I flew and read, I would occasionally laugh out loud, or stop, go back, and read again. This book has all the magic of my first reading of William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say.” I found myself jotting things down, making notes on scraps of paper (or, when I remembered, in my iPhone) – These are the things you must remember! These are the things that speak to you! Among the things I have written down (out of context):

• “Everything not forbidden is compulsory.”
• ” … but it seems, in tragedy, innocence is not enough.”
• “The Ill-Made Knight”

The offending above-mentioned book is one that I am sure most of you have read, but I am experiencing it for the first time: The Once and Future King. I would say the absence of this book from my nerd catalog is only slightly less egregious than the fact that I have yet to read Dune.

The fact is, I’ve read Arthurian legend time and again, including Le Morte D’Artur and the more modern Warlord Chronicles (both which I HIGHLY recommend) and I am even currently engaged in the paper-and-pen Pendragon campaign. Aside from the mythology of Krynn, there are few areas of fiction I would say I’ve spent as much time devouring. Yet this is the first time I have read this book.

And let me also say, as was told to me when I was handed this tome, that this is a thing which I likely would not appreciate nearly as much as I do right now in my life. There is a certain warmth and emptiness and acceptance of turmoil and release from the frustrations of youth and expectation that accompanies growth and maturity – and perhaps, given this context, certain pieces of art become nearly prescient in their wit and display.

Let me put that another way … I bought the rerelease of The Dismemberment Plan’s “Emergency and I” this year, and it was shocking to me how much that album resonated with my life as an early 30′s failure. I understand that the same sounds and rhythms were present when I was 21 and the album was a frat anthem; but the intentions, the ideas, the mood was clearly aimed at a different set than Drunken Emo Moron. And so I discovered, for the first time, what that album was really about.

The Once and Future King is about a lot of things – it is a humanization of the story of Arthur. It’s about bringing the context of classic human tragedy into the modern era. Its about love and friendship and honor in the face of treachery and betrayal, and how the things inspired by good do not always lead to kind endings, while the things inspire by selfishness and greed do not always beget more suffering. It is about sacrifice and denial of the self. It is about the human condition.

I consider this book to be the flip-side of the coin upon which The Magicians rests as well – this a non-cynical look at suffering and pain while people attempt to make the world a better place; that (The Magicians) a cynical analysis of the selfishness of young adulthood, the disappointments of growing up, and the consequences such selfishness and disappointment wrought upon the world.

I believe that together, these books can teach us not only to be nostalgic for the times in our lives that were simpler, but to be more accepting of the turmoils and tragedies we will face. And to have the strength to know that such tragedies are often our own doing; but more often, it is simply the weight of the tides that push us forward, set in motion long ago by forces beyond our control. And through this, perhaps we may find the dignity to love, and to know that we cannot love without loss, and to bravely face those things when we are at our most alone.

He recently railed on “electronic techno music” which, in addition to making him sound like a grandfather, also revealed a gaping chasm of misunderstanding, over-generalization and ignorance in the realm of something I dearly adore. Attempts at re-education were met with outward hostility and constant citing of “beep boop music” which, to be honest, if’n you’re going to make “computer noises,” you should always add in the “L” – BLEEP BLOOP BLEEP!

At any rate, I’m pretty sure he now believes I sit in my office listening to Technotronic and La Bouche all day. Which is silly, because I only listen to that shit between 2:00 and 4:00.

I thought of it this morning because I popped on Matthew Dear as I worked on a memo, and “Pom Pom” came up. Sadly, the only video versions of this song online are a remix and a few terrible fan videos, so I won’t share it (however, I highly recommend you do go ahead and listen to it while watching something else on a tabbed browser). At any rate, as Pom Pom played, I realized that this song is pretty quintessential to what I like in a lot of electronic music – circular lyrical base, repeating melody, playful and bouncy and upbeat, a conflicting simultaneous significant weight and vapid superficiality to its message, amazing arpeggios when listened to on headphones, and an inherent ability to really make me question the art of music and the infinite possibilities for expression based out of emerging technology. On some level, music is a constant existential crisis for me, as exemplified in something so simple and yet so deeply confounding as “Pom Pom.”

I stepped out of my office for a moment, song still playing. And when I returned, I realized something else of equal importance.

There sure are a lot of BLEEPS and BLOOPS in that song …

• Subject spends a lot of time admiring himself in mirror. Ill-spent or at least ill-advised time.
• Despite attempts at “feeling it,” has no discernible rhythm.
• Sings excessively. Either to self or to indifferent cat.
• Loves “Naked Night.” Not a real celebration. Not a party if alone.
• In love with own semi-emergent triceps.
• Not as good a singer as subject believes himself to be. Needs more “Jesse’s Girl” and a cappella backup.
• Slaps belly repeatedly. Possibly an attempted mating ritual. Perplexed by solitary status.

But tonight I simply wanted to chime in with a thought that has been plaguing me all day now. Something I placed in the trash bin but never bothered to actually empty. Something that somehow made its way back onto my shelf.

I’m not a very good person.

This isn’t some cry for affection or attention, some need for an online hug. Truth is, even the best of those I know are fallible. We all make mistakes in life, and hurt people we love, and do things we will regret forever. Or neglect to do the things we should have done. It doesn’t make us bad people. It doesn’t stink of some grandiose Evil inherent in our spiritual soul. It just makes us people.

But there’s a special spot reserved for me.

This isn’t novel. This is an ongoing dilemma for me. I’m always fascinated with people who are multilingual. The thing that blows my mind is how you can know multiple languages, but fundamentally think in one language. There is a base language that your mind works in, and no matter how much French or Mandarin you pick up, the analytical self will always default to that single language. Its completely unshakable. It is so inherent to the way your brain works as to become part of the actual machinery itself. It is a part of your intellectual identity, inseparable from the self.

For me, that inherent machinery is a healthy dose of self-loathing.

This doesn’t make me unique. This is not somehow insightful for anyone else – those who know me well have seen it for years, and those reflecting on the idea see it as a binary issue: either you are inherently self-loathing, or you are not. I don’t expect many of the people I know would relate to it. Call it recognition of a pattern deep-seated, deeply ingrained from youthful traumas and missed opportunities for affirmation. A youth misspent in overachieving in the hopes of approval, trying to fix things that, while logically were never my fault or within my power to control, nonetheless felt like the effects of my causality: existence.

Here’s some perspective: in June of 2001 my mother was on a flight next to a woman who was crying. My mother asked the woman what was wrong. The woman had been dating a man of “Middle Eastern descent” for several years. The man was kind, had a lot of money, and had treated her as a queen. Then, suddenly, the man wrote her a letter, saying he could never see her again. The woman spoke of how odd it was – the man and his friends had been taking piloting lessons and none of them had jobs but all had gobs of money. And then he just disappeared – his house, where he lived with his friends, was deserted and there was no forwarding address. The woman cried and my mom thought how odd this story was – middle eastern men with lots of money, taking lessons to learn to fly.

When my mom first told me this story, she had tears in her eyes. I asked her why she was crying, and she said, “Don’t you see? If I had said something, if I had done something … I could have prevented 9-11!”

Yep. My mom believes that on some level, 9-11 was her fault.

This is the stock from which I am sprung.

I tend to overdo it with my new friends. I gush about how wonderful it is to have a new friend, how unexpected and wonderful. I know how corny it must seem, how overbearing and ridiculous. But that doesn’t make it any less true. I never expect people to like me, or to want to have me around. My closest friends can attest to how long it has taken me to stop questioning their motives in being my friend – what gains to you achieve? What possible benefit is there to having me around?

Henri disagreed with me so vehemently. He says I am so likable, so compassionate. I say I care too much about things that don’t matter, expect too much of people and then blame myself when they let me down. I sit and wait for everyone to leave.

Inevitably, they all do.

None of this matters, of course. Just smatterings and ramblings after a tough day of being me.

All of the best things I’ve written down have been quotes from someone else. But right now, my life is a whirlwind of things to love and hate, to be proud and ashamed of. I will continue as I have, the Year of Saying Yes.

I am a leaf on the wind – watch how I soar.

“Read this!”

I take the papers, a simple redundant Response to the Reply to the Answer to the Addendum to the Reply to the Response to the Motion for Leave to File a Memorandum in Response to the Original Request for a Postponement. Or something to that effect. The content is pretty standard … Big Government conspiracy, keeping down the small business owner, cameras set up in the lamp post, plight of the Native American tribes on the trail of tears, dolphins are space aliens … all for an employment dispute. The gist of it: apparently the lawyer needed more time and when Dede did not consent to allowing more time, the lawyer filed papers calling her a two-faced lying bitch. Or something to that effect. Pretty standard stuff after a while here.

“Did you see it?!”

I’ve read through the two-page memo twice before it jumps out finally. “You mean this one here?” I point to the offending word.

“What the fuck is multifarious?” she asks. “That’s some pretentious bullshit is what it is. Multifarious.”

Having many different parts, elements, forms. Numerous and varied. Diverse or manifold. I make a sticky and place it on my desk. Word of the Day. Try to use it in a sentence. Try to use it in a filing. Try to work it into opening argument.

Its been weeks since this happened. The sticky stares at me from my monitor, every day reminding me of a tiny failure in my life. Learn a new word, use it in a sentence. How tough is that?

Did I mention I went to a pirate-themed bar and drank grog? That I got my face painted at the Renn Fest with inappropriate language and a giant sparkly pink flaming dragon? Did I mention my current middling learning of French and guitar? My continuing yoga practice? My efforts to become one of those bike people? My trip to the grand canyon? My very first fantasy football team? My meeting of the people who fondly refer to me as “that guy from the internet?” Did I mention my friend from law school? My friend from work? My friend from the nerding group? My friend with a kid? Did I mention my abs hurt? That I stayed out late on a Thursday night for no good raisin? Did I mention my Halloween costume (yes, I did, excessively)? Did I mention my new fall jacket?

The Year of Saying Yes continues. It has been a humbling year of my life. It has destroyed some good and some bad parts of myself, and has allowed a new me to emerge. I hate phoenix analogies. I keep thinking of myself getting catoonishly SPLAT’d by a big flat rock. For the sake of being obvious, let’s say it has the word “LIFE” painted on it. Sure, some splooshy goo of the Self shoots out – some compassion gone, some self-loathing, some self-righteousness, some optimism. But the pancake emerging from underneath (or perhaps accordion man) now has room inside for new traits – some good, some bad. But best of all, undiscovered.

Where once my life seemed straight and unwavering in its intents and outcomes, this multifarious existence spreads out before me as a million tiny beams of light. All simultaneously become and already are me.

It starts with a passion.

I can’t remember the last time I felt a passion. I’m tingling with it right now. I feel like I woke up one morning recently and remembered that I speak a different language. Not one that I learned over years of study, but one that I always knew. The language of my thoughts. The language I communicate through. Somehow I forgot, and everything was this secondary, translated form of communication. Nothing felt right the way I said it, or thought it, or felt it.

And then I remembered what it’s like to feel passion.

Do not assume this is anything uncharacteristic or romantic (which I acknowledge would be completely characteristic of me – I do fall in love frequently and easily in an objectifying way). My passion is a simple thing – a band. I recently came into possession of the entire catalog of a band that I had neglected to research and procure for years. I lack the words to properly describe it all without it sounding like anything other than an obsession. But I promise, its more than that. Its touching, and moving, and tear-inducing, and speaking to soul-parts. It’s such that I will talk about it endlessly if asked, but will never try to push it onto another person, for feel of taking their rejection of the music as a rejection of my person.

Its that kind of connection.

We all have those connections in life. Our things. Our people. Ourselves. That which, when stacked into a pile, starts to become a pile of things shaped exactly like us. All of those things that, on an infinitesimal level, are the very molecules of matter that makes us ourselves. Here’s another large heap!

I have to say that its been a very selfish year. I say that not in a self-demeaning way. I think, on some level, it’s what I needed to get to where I am right now. But it has been a year of me me me me me me me me me me me me.

That’s been changing.

It’s not my place to speak about the woes and troubles of others. But we’ve now reached an age in our lives when trouble doesn’t come as frequently, but it comes more profoundly. In the last two weeks, several friends have had their lives affected in unspeakable ways. The drama of our youth was fickle and overblown and in some ways contrived. The troubles of adulthood strike hard and deep. With just enough years under our belts, the things that can hurt us now hurt not only our status quo, but reach back to our pasts to rip away something we believed to be forever. Friends, loved ones, memories.

I am not the only one who has felt pain. I have spent too long in that place. As life continues, life continues to hurt sometimes. I have to leave this place to make room for others who are in need, who hurt. I’ve taken this spotlight for too long. And I don’t need it anymore.

I don’t mean to find solace in that. I am not self-assured by the hurting of other people. More so, it just served as a check on my status quo. Its no longer me who is the one most in need. It’s no longer me who hurts. It’s time to be there for someone else, instead of constantly asking for someone to be there for me. It’s time to let my friends be there for someone else.

This is a good thing. This is the realization of strength, and progress.

This is the way life goes now:

I woke up with a minor hangover. Its unlikely it was the beers. Its likely it was the bourbons. I had just enough time to shower, throw on some clothes and rush to McDonald’s before breakfast ended, then jump on the Metro to head to Courthouse. For the first time ever, I carried coffee with me on the Metro, and kept looking over my shoulder for fear that the “Food and Drink Metro Cops” would find me and ticket me for my indiscretion. Thankfully, I made it.

The car battery was dead. To start and run the vehicle, Micah kept the battery from his boat plugged in. We couldn’t stop the car at Rudey’s house, and I will tell the story as if we had to keep coasting up and down Rudey’s street while he ran alongside the car, tossing in the car seat and buckling Mr. Muscles in while we coasted up and down again. Then we headed to Rudey’s parent’s house to board the boat.

We boated towards Tim’s Rivershore for lunch. I say “towards” because we got almost there, stopped to gas up at the bikini gas station (not a joke), and then the sky turned black. The Nothing was closer than I had ever seen it. Wisely, we high-tailed it back to the Elder Rudey’s where we decided on a more casual lunch of Gin & Tonics, Wine, Beer and food from the earth. Literally. The food was pulled from the garden, cleaned, cooked, and served.

Except the salmon and steak. That was pulled from the freezer.

Anyway, what follows are some pictures from this lunch.

The thing I wanted to say, though, was this: today reminded me of how lucky I am to be alive, and to have the life I have. Today was an experience that grew out of mishaps and complications. And it, for whatever reason, was my favorite day I can remember for years. At one point, riding the chop and admiring the mansions on the banks of the river, I just smiled and turned to Micah and said, with as much genuine affection and love as I have have ever felt – “Life is effing good, man. Life is effing good.”

It is. And I am so sorry that I forgot that for so long. I hope I never end up in that dark place again, so full of hate and loathing and apathy for myself and my existence.

Life truly is wonderful, and I am finding out what Home really is.

You can still see the dirt on the veggies from the GD ground they were just pulled from.

Phallic Squash!

G&Ts in progress.

Trub limes.

Da's potato boil.

The lunch spread. The yellow tomatoes were unbelievable.

The aftermath. Wine, beer, coffee, cordials, chocolate cookies, stomachache.