Enter the Rabbit

It's that time again when the years shift gears, and the sights and sounds of the past make way for the hopes and fears of the future. This upcoming year, I seek to focus on the hope aspect as I make my Ass Burgery resolutions for 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, my year.

Bun
I want to keep exploring religious experiences and learn how to better understand and connect with the divine. This will mean being more open about religion with the people in my life and asking to attend services with them. I may start reading the Bible at some point in the year; I just need to figure out pacing.

Meat
I need to re-think my workout routine to incorporate more variety; instead of just doing weights during the week, it will be important to work on my cardiovascular health and flexibility. I'd like to find some new activity groups and take a class or two, if I can find one that is convenient and affordable.

Cheese
I want to make some more friends, and I want our friendships to be unmasked, which means cutting down mightily on the showmanship and focusing instead on reality and intimacy. I always vow to work on correspondence, but really, it's a struggle all the time. Surrounding all of these elements, I will be developing healthy boundaries to stave off the psychoses.

Lettuce
This will be the year I learn to love myself. This will involve taking more pride in my accomplishments, reflected on The To-Smite List, and really letting go of the past. I discovered a new technique for handling demons, which is to feed them rather than fight them. I look forward to putting this technique to the test and tending to my family of pet demons.

Tomatoes
I want to get a stable job and put my finances in order. I'm already taking steps toward this by creating a budget chart and investing in Personal Finance for Dummies. Learning to be aware of and to manage my bank accounts will be a revolutionary step toward responsible adulthood. Also, I want to train my focus so that I can finish my projects in a timely manner, while taking into account the fact that I do need to have fun here and there.

Onions
This will tie in with my demon work, but I want to learn to embrace my emotions instead of hide from them, both in my mind and in expression. I want to revel in both happiness and sadness.

Ketchup
I want to find someone who will treat me with respect, who can handle my light and my dark, and who will actually enjoy my devotion. I'd like to be in a relationship longer than three months.

The Massager

Holy crap. My parents gave me a seat-back back massager for Christmas. I'm trying it out now. Again, holy crap. This thing actually works really well. I freakin' love back massages and before now, I had to rely entirely on the two people I dated a year for anything like this, but now, this device may just be my key to independence. Reminds me of a song...

Jesus and the Purple Dinosaur

It's nice having young cousins. They have an uncanny skill to help relive the rambunctious days of yore, whether they're hitting you in the face with a lightsaber, throwing screaming toy monkeys at you, or just clobbering each other. When the family came over for Christmas night dinner, these two reminded me of an old chant I hadn't heard since Kindergarten:

Joy to the world: Barney's dead.
We barbecued his head.
Don't worry 'bout the body;
We flushed it down the potty
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round it goes,
And 'round and 'round and 'round it goes.

The actual parody has been updated for the times, but I can't, for the life of me, remember who is the modern equivalent of Barney the Dinosaur. Regardless, in my younger years, I and my fellow young men never questioned the content of this song. It was perfectly justifiable to deliver the fate of Benito Mussolini upon Barney the Dinosaur because of one song:


"Love? Eww... Who talks about love? Who gives hugs and kisses? That's disgusting. We may only be seven years old, but we are MEN, and MEN do not do these things! In fact, to show our disdain, we're going to concoct our own version. As MEN. That'll show 'em."

I hate you. You hate me.
Let's gang up and kill Barney.
With a gun to his head
And a knife to his neck,
Pull the trigger; now Barney's dead.

I bring this up because the memory of my young MANHOOD happened to get triggered on the traditional birthday of another conveyor of love, who said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind—this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40) This fellow, like the purple dinosaur, was murdered by MEN.

Is it natural to choose bread and circuses over the more complicated concept of Love? To this day, I still have a difficult time just saying the word "Love." it has been ingrained in my head that "Love" is the purple dinosaur, that Love is stupid, saccharine, and superfluous, not to mention unMANly. Not only is it difficult to say the word, but it's also impossible for me to demonstrate genuine, unmasked affection, especially through great big hugs and kisses. In order to make them more tolerable, they have to be accompanied by the lust factor. I wonder why this defense mechanism has persisted all this time.

It's not unusual for people to favor bread and circuses to the more complicated sensation of Love. It's the same reason I instantly get defensive when Christians say the name "Jesus." The ideas behind Jesus are simple, yet they feel complicated and intimidating. It is easier—and even more widely promoted among MEN—to embrace the brain-dulling ideas of anger and lust than the challenges of Love, and I have spent many years enamored of both. In the process of despising the dinosaur, I have denied myself the very thing that he preaches.

With the Year of the Rabbit starting soon, the challenge of letting go of my anger and learning to love remains at the top of my priorities. It is terribly difficult to let go of something that has been a part of one's personality since childhood. It will require new sources of support and a new degree of reward and punishment to accomplish in a new year. Once and if, however, it can be accomplished, the change will revolutionize the very foundations of my life. Super-de-duper amen!

You Know... (Part 2)

You know your love life has gotten stale when you wake up in the morning with a big hickey on your nose... from the Breathe-Right® Strip keeping your sinuses open.

You know your family knows you well when, after years of turning down alcohol at family functions, you get beer for Christmas.

You know you've been subjected to false advertising when your Bark-Off® ultrasonic device doesn't actually stop the dog from barking, but instead pisses him off and everyone else as well.

Gooble Gobble

I won't be offended if you don't get the title reference. That being said, I logged onto Meetup.com and joined a group for people with Asperger's Syndrome and other forms of High-Functioning Autism. I got a kick out of the symptoms list on the About page. The familiarity is frightening. Should I start going to meetups with my fellow aliens, I may have a blast or find myself amidst a great gaggle of miscommunication. In any case, pretty much all of the symptoms apply to my life, but these especially:

• People think you are an ass, and you have no idea why.
• You can't make accurate social conclusions: You can get a joke (stated conclusion), but you will not know someone is angry, or that they are angry with you (or you assume anyone angry around you is angry with you).
• Ever get these responses? "You think too much," "I have another call," "That makes my brain hurt thinking about it..."
• You can mimic/mirror people and an environment for a couple hours. You may have a "speech" mode and use tricks to get through social situations (feels like a performance).
• You do have facial expressions, they just don't always match. Your response will not always be perceived as as you expected it to. Example: You are excited about something, but people think you are angry. Same thing with voice inflection. You won't know why they think that, or what to do about it.

My Kid

The focus of this blog will soon shift into the realm of boundary setting, following the guidance of this marvelous book I've just completed; however, before I do, I would like to refer to a recent violation of my boundaries in which I was approached on the street and told that I would, then and there, sponsor a child with Children International.

Lacking the ability to say no, I caved, even though I was not sure I wanted to or could do it. I then spent the next two weeks resenting the decision and telling myself to get out of it as soon as possible. I'd keep forgetting, and so, inevitably, I got the packet in the mail. Ergo...

This is Carlos:

Carlos is 6 years old. He lives in Chile. He loves soccer and art. His family makes $160 a month. But I... But boundaries... But... Okay, I confess. This kid's cuter than an armadillo wearing spectacles and a cravat. Apparently he's going to write me a letter in a few weeks. Then how do I respond to a 6-year old? I don't think he'll have much appreciation for an onslaught of my average existential drivel, so maybe I'll stick to drawing him pictures. Lots of pictures. Of el PieGrande.

I'm going to give this another chance as long as I can handle it. This could turn into a really cool experience, as I'll basically be helping raise a kid who has nothing. Who knows? Maybe he'll grow up to be artsy fartsy like his Unky Kyle. (Wouldn't recommend it, kiddo.) I'll add updates here as I get them, probably starting in three weeks or so.

Damnster: The Damned Hamster

Picture a hamster. Cute little devil, isn't he, albeit a little gluttonous? Well, to work off his gluttony, he decides to go for a jog on his wheel, but don't that beat all... some sadistic bastard has decided to hang a juicy strawberry just out of reach beyond the wheel. Oh God, that strawberry looks good!

So the hamster, glutton that he is, starts running. He runs and runs, or rather waddles at high velocity, over-sized testicles wobbling to and fro and catching on the bars of the wheel ever so often. In any case, this hamster is on a roll. He can see that strawberry. He can smell it. He can nearly taste it. It's a few friggin' centimeters in front of his face, and he's hustling as fast as he can to get it.

Of course, he's going nowhere. The strawberry stays suspended before the hamster's greedy, beady eyes and slowly dries up and withers. That verklempt hamster just keeps going, tears mixing with sweat as he watches his prize fade, not noticing that his own body is withering away from exertion. His own balls just aren't dragging anymore. With a groan, he seizes up and rolls out of the wheel into his wood shavings.

He stares up at his prize with his greedy, beady eyes and realizes that it's still hanging right in front of him, but now there are no bars between them. Yet, he's exerted himself so much that he just can't grab it. Damned be the hamster who cannot step off his wheel!

I won't write an essay on the symbolism behind this anecdote about greedy little rodents, but let's just say the hamster and I have a lot in common. However, today I learned how to get off the wheel. Once I get my strength back, I just hope the Powers-That-Be will replace the stale strawberry with one that is fresher and more delicious.

Be Strong, My Heart

Be strong, my heart
In time of doubt,
And trust that you
Can do without.

The gold has cracked,
The lead revealed,
But have some faith
And so be healed.

Be strong my heart,
Through darkness, shine,
Though you're not his,
You're always mine.

See Saw

My cousin sent me a text message the other day, the first I'd really heard from her in nearly two years, and that includes the times we shared Christmas Eve dinner. Apparently, she just wanted to clarify that, no matter what our grandma may have told me, she wasn't really a bitch. Small talk progressed from there, though I was able to glean that the point of contention in the conversation was myself. My cousin had brought up her current problems, and our grandma had countered by saying that I had it worse.

I continue to be astounded by how opposite my life runs to the remainder of the world. When I'm at the bottom of the world and all is doom and melancholy, everyone is suddenly busy with their own affairs, yet when I'm on top of the world and all is sunshine and peaches, I become the talk of the pity papers. It makes no sense.

It may be dependent on who gets what side of me more. I noticed the other day, as my good friend asked me to write a letter of recommendation for his marriage visa, I realized that for the last four months, the only words I'd received about his fiancé were complaints, and consequently, I felt no inspiration to write such a letter, regardless of how much my friend proclaimed his love for this person. Having received only that side of his relationship, I could not see the positive in it. I think that may be the case with how my life comes across to others.

After many years of self-loathing and fishing for compliments in the pity pool, I've found that it is much easier to change one's own attitude toward oneself than others' attitudes toward oneself. One is with oneself for every mood swing and inflection, but it is not so with others. Thus, there is a delay, and all falls to confusion when, on a bright and cheery day, you are approached with condolences. Once things are sorted out, it's hard to be certain how you felt before the conversation took place, and by the time you've convinced the other person that you were in high spirits, their negativity may very well have reversed that, putting you in a foul mood while they saunter off under the impression that you're just dandy. It's a right mess, it is.

Boundaries

I've been reading a really useful book for the past two weeks called Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I've responded to every chapter on The To-Smite List, and so far it's been very helpful at giving me a jumping-off point for clarifying where I end and the rest of the world begins. Check it out.

Ah! Ooh! Ah!

My body is screaming this morning. No, not literally; that would just be weird. More like a rusty gate being blown by the wind. My back is stiff, my legs are stiff, my arms are stiff, and there is a large abrasion at the edge of my armpit. And I'm still just getting started with my 20s!

My friend/grasshopper suggested we go running yesterday. I thought this would be a great idea, because I've been slacking a little too much lately on the running front. We settled on Runyon Canyon at 1:00. Swell. Well, as it turns out, this Saturday happened to be the first of the month, which means that my running group goes to Santa Monica, which is one of those things I just don't miss. So I went, and nobody else showed, which meant that I got to choose my own run, about three miles across the sand (and through flocks of snowy plovers, which, I might add, are arguably the most adorably squeaky birds in the world). It was cold, but the beach was empty and the sand pleasantly squishy. I felt pretty good by the end.

By the time young Grasshopper and I arrived at Runyon Canyon, I still felt pretty good and even suggested that we take the steep trail, just for some extra hill work. The only problem was that the last time I had done these hills, I'd been hiking, not running. Big difference. It didn't take long for Grasshopper to hop ahead of me, perhaps fifty feet after the trailhead.

By the time we reached the top of the tallest cliff/hill, I was staggering with legs of Jell-O and lungs of dust. He was tired, but hardly doubled over and wheezing. He'd joined a marathon team, on my own recommendation, and clearly, it was paying off for him. By contrast, I've been running with this group for almost two years, and I've been getting less and less enthusiastic about it by the day. Why?

I joined the group solely because it was a gay group, intent on finding instant commonality and perhaps romance. Not so. After two years, I'm still regularly the youngest person in the group by ten to forty years. I'm still regularly the fastest person in the group. Once in a while, there will be a visitor who pushes me, but as was made painfully aware to me on the run yesterday, I have been slowing down, a lot.

I acknowledge that my competitive days ended in high school and that my passion for running has largely eroded away, yet the realization that I was the struggling old man, reluctant to take that second lap, hit me hard. I'm still sitting too much for work, driving to the gym instead of running, losing my flexibility, to the point that, although I will never be a medal-winning runner again, I miss the potential. I think that I need to seriously rethink my workout plan, i.e. find a new group with better workouts and faster, more passionate runners. I'll add that to the list of New Year's Resolutions, and maybe next year, the Year of the Rabbit, I'll be ready to face those hills of Runyon again and show that young whippersnapper what's what. First, though, some hot tubbing and an Advil may be in order. Ooh... Ah...

The Final Drug

It's sad, but true. In my ongoing pursuit of self-control, which has otherwise been going swimmingly, there remains one drug to which I submit in addictive kowtow: flirtation. I love the feeling of the flirt, even though ninety percent of the time I'm flirting, I'm neither talking to the other person nor even holding eye contact. The flirt is in the glance, the gaze, and perhaps, in the unlikely event that opportunity and courage should present themselves at the same time and same location, the question.

Of course, throughout the history of Kyle, this particular drug has led down all sorts of unpleasant paths, through secrets, lies, and dreadfully inappropriate Facebook stati. Now that I'm no longer on said book of faces, and perhaps on account of the imminent winter (the season of romance), the urges are coming more strongly now. Of course, in order to hold my course and veer deftly around the jagged rocks of past mistakes, some new conditions are in order, a code, if you will. I shall call it:

Kyle's Code of Dating

1. Neither person sets foot in the other's place of residence until, at the earliest, the third date. After that barrier is broken, then both must be equally welcome in each other's home.
2. First meetings should be in the morning or early afternoon when both people are in the process of waking up and are thus either more energetic or less capable of deception.
3. If a plan is made and interrupted, it should be pushed back, not brought forward. Rushing tends to evoke a sudden sense of impropriety and convert attraction to guilt.
4. While nearly everyone deserves a chance on a first date, it is impolite, when feelings aren't mutual, to wait until the third date or beyond to set the boundaries.
5. Stick to your standards, which in this case are:
• Creativity and passion
• Optimism
• Kindness, not just "niceness"
• Solid boundaries, a code, if you will
• Healthy self-esteem
• No more than five years on either side of my age
• Enough projects that I don't need to be one of them
• Effective communication skills (verbal, honest, regular, purposeful)
• A sense of wonder
• Conflict resolution skills
• A stable family relationship
• Long-term goals
• Good grammar
• Gratitude
• A pleasant face and a pleasant smell
• An enormous... sense of humor

While this may seem like an excessive list to the unfamiliar reader, considering my long past of lacking self control, it is essential to take a rigorous path in order to get back on track. Then, once my behaviors are balanced out, I may decide I don't need to be so strict anymore. Ideally, this will be because I've met someone who actually fits in with all of them. However, the world has a talent for crushing ideals after a while. In any case, I'm hoping that this relapse gradually turns into a valuable stage of progress, as I learn how to incorporate what I've been learning about boundaries and the power of "No" into real human-to-human interactions.