"Mike check! 1-2-1-2-1-2!" [UPDATED]*

Twelve-twelve-twelve is as good a time as any to write a wrap-up of the "year that was". This year I chose to stop drinking. Without a doubt, that is the smartest thing I've done all year. That choice may have cramped my social life, but I have to say it wasn't much of a social life if it required alcohol to keep it lubricated.

Other than that milestone, for most of 2012 I just coasted along. Still there are some highlights:

I went to see the Chesapeake Bayhawks - twice! This was my lacrosse year, and I enjoyed it. I got to see two Bayhawks games in Annapolis. (The Bayhawks went on to win the 2012 Steinfeld Cup, the Major League Lacrosse league championship.) Also, I finally got out and tossed some lacrosse balls with a friend, and went to see Crooked Arrows in the theater (cheesy, but sweet).

In April I downloaded Stereo Typical by Rizzle Kicks, and for the next four weeks that was all I listened to. It's an amazing album! I know hip-hop is not everyone's thing, but this album has a lot to give. "Mama Do the Hump" is a fun little knees-up, "Traveller's Chant" is beautifully meditative, and "When I Was a Youngster" is an antidote for the blues.

I bought Pierce the Veil's Collide with the Sky this past fall. I don't exaggerate when I say this album helped me get through the fall. The music is fun, and expresses everything from rage to sadness to hope. I felt some of my life in the lyrics, and to this day I still tear up listening to some of the songs. I obtained a lot of music in 2012, but these two albums by far outshine the rest.

I've read 39 books so far this year. The best of these, IMHO, were:

1.Damien Echols, Life After Death: this is the memoir of one of the falsely accused and imprisoned "West Memphis Three". The memoir is fascinating and inspiring.

2. Augusten Burroughs, This is How: An "anti-self-help self-help book", Burroughs engagingly presents down-to-earth advice on negotiating life's trials, dealing with such issues as sadness, addiction, love and suicidal thinking.

3. John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game: A fun, fascinating and moving book about sports.

4. Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish: A surprisingly subtle novel about growing up Pakistani Muslim in the US. It's a beautiful, touching book.

5. Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World: A literary sci-fi novel involving ninjas, world war, and fallout from the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The prose is fun, and the story is engaging.

6. Thomas Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War: Vennum has created a fascinating exploration of the origins and meaning of what became lacrosse. He peppers the book with imaginative re-creations of events in history. An excellent companion volume to Fisher.

---

*I forgot to mention Collide with the Sky. I cannot write about 2012 without mentioning Collide with the Sky.

Great Weekend; One Disappointment

This weekend I struck a perfect balance between time alone and time socializing. It was the most enjoyable weekend I’d had in months.

Friday evening I did my errands, going to Wheaton to pick up a few things, including a ‘motivational’ pair of jeans, and I scratch box for Manuel. I came home and watched tv, then went to bed.

Saturday I got up and watched my Saturday morning cartoons, then headed down to brunch at the Diner in Adams-Morgan. I wandered around Dupont Circle, and eventually ended up at Zenobia Lounge in Georgetown, with turkish coffee, a hookah and my journal. It was inspirational.

Sunday morning I met a friend for brunch. We went to Medium Rare in Cleveland Park. The food was extremely good. The atmosphere was a bit fancy for me (I had to leave my plain black hoodie on, because I was wearing a graphic t-shirt and would’ve stood out like a sore thumb in the sweater and tweed crowd – fashionista-gay I am not), but the company was enjoyable. We walked around town, and had coffee at Illy. I bought too many books.

Monday looked gloomy, so I planned to stay in and finish reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. A friend texted me wanting to know if I wanted to get the lacrosse stick and toss some balls. I did. We had a great time, and I learned a few things. Best of all, I got my stick broken in, and we played the Creator’s game on Indigenous People’s Day.

I returned home, finished Tocqueville, and watched my Monday television shows. The only down note was this: I’ve been reading Vincent Bugliosi’s new book on agnosticism. I’ve been looking for a clear and eloquent defense of agnosticism, and his book promised to take down the arguments of both theists and atheists alike. I had gotten a few chapters into it, and so far, so good. Yes, his style was a little quirky, and at times I had wished he’d gone a little further, or considered some points he did not consider. Then before bed last night I read his chapter on Darwin and evolution, and I was appalled. It was weak beyond excuse, and his argument basically boiled down to: “I’m not a scientist, but I don’t understand evolution, and since I find the evidence inconclusive, I cannot say that evolution is indeed a fact.” Well, Mr. Bugliosi, I’m not a scientist either, but I understand evolution, and geology, well enough to see how evolution must indeed be a fact. I was heartbroken: my hoped-for manifesto was so flawed, I cannot even make myself continue to read it at this point.

Brief Notes

1. I've been researching meaning-making, and while what I've learned has been interesting, it's also left me a little bummed. Frankl, for instance, says meaning is found through love, work or courage. I doubt that I'm capable of love, I've never been able to find a meaningful career, and the last time I had real courage was 20 years ago when I came out. I don't know whether there are any other sources of meaning-making. I'll keep looking, but I'm not optimistic. For the time being I'm just faking my way through this shit.

2. I want to get through this Frankl book as quickly as I can (I have a second book by him, but I'll hold it for later); I've got a mental list of books I'd like to read next. Two that I've already started are proving to be quite good. The Ball by John Fox is about why people play sports, and has chapters on basketball, soccer, lacrosse, and even the old Mayan ball games. It's actually very inspirational. The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner is a classic survey of economics which I read over 25 years ago and desperately needed to re-read. I'm particularly interested in the chapter on Adam Smith, since I've come to believe today's "conservatives"* don't really understand him. After that I plan to read Smith himself; also Vennum's book on lacrosse.

3. Speaking of lacrosse, I've begun to collect the parts to make a long stick. I don't play, and never will (I'm too old and too poor), but I want to learn how to toss with both short and long sticks. I have a short stick, which I purchased whole; but I want to put together the long (defensive) stick, including stringing it, just for fun.

4. I also want to get back into hand-crafts more. I feel better when I engage in some kind of creative work.

5. I thought it was odd that last night five of my must-see television shows came on. I don't really have a whole lot of must-see shows. Even shows that used to be must-see for me have begun to feel old and less enjoyable. I would love to be able to cut my must-sees down to almost nothing. I hear of more and more people cutting the cable completely. That would be a very interesting experiment.

6. Speaking of cutting down on things, yesterday's entry highlighted how I've begun to feel about my use of substances, particularly alcohol and caffeine. I, too, am tired of feeling poisoned. I want to feel better. Cleaner on the inside.

---

*I put the term "conservatives" in quotes because the people today calling themselves conservative are not actually conservative. Our country as a whole has been dragged so far rightward, words have lost their original meanings. Today's "middle of the road" folks are actually very conservative, while the "conservatives" are actually reactionary radicals, bent on destroying the country as we know it in order to create some monstrous vision of "purity" from the ashes. There is no longer an effective left in this country, just moderates, conservatives and radicals. Also, we don't really have capitalism in the US any longer, as Smith, et al., understood it. Capitalism is investment in the production of goods and services, and exchanges based on that. We have "financialism": making money from money, all profits based on ethereal instruments, without true goods/services/entities underlying them. Thus, the seeds of our doom.

Three Books

Sometimes I read one book at a time, and sometimes I read several at once. These days I'm actively in the middle of three books.

I'm reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. Ever since Ta-Nehisi Coates mentioned he was reading this novel as part of his own personal studies of the literary canon, I've been intrigued. Then when I found out that Virginia Woolf considered it one of the few adult novels in the English language, I was even more intrigued. The fact is, until now I've never enjoyed Eliot that much, and I think that I've never really been mature enough to read her for her art.

I'm also reading Thomas Vennum's American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War. This is the second book by Vennum I've read. In addition to being a thoroughgoing researcher, he writes very well. My interest in lacrosse springs not only from the grace and brutality that the game mixes together, but also the history and culture. Lacrosse is the oldest team sport in North America. It's the Creator's game.

Finally, I decided to start reading Plotinus. This is the culmination of my readings in Classical European philosophy. Once I finish Plotinus, there are so many different directions I can go in: Medieval European philosophy; Islamic philosophy; Islamic mysticism; Christian mysticism; Kabbalah; even Indian philosophy. I haven't decided yet which comes after Plotinus. Rest assured I have a ton of books in all those categories.

A Few More Books I Cannot Live Without

Last month I post a list of essential books from my library [Ten Books I Cannot Live Without (11 November 2011 Edition)]. In the post I mentioned that these lists are constantly being modified. However, without substituting books on the list, I've realized it is nevertheless incomplete. So, to make a "baker's dozen" of books, I would like to add three more essential texts:

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony, The Ethics of Identity, (2007). Appiah is undoubtedly my favorite living philosopher, and this is his best book. His writing is profound, rational, accessible and shot through with wit. Furthermore, the implications of identity are important to me.
• Fisher, Donald M., Lacrosse: A History of the Game, (2002). Starting with the widespread, ritual play of "the Creator's game" among the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands in North America, Fisher traces the evolution of the game via eastern Canadian and northeastern US sports enthusiasts up to the point of the creation of Major League Lacrosse. Throughout the text he pays attention the the interactions between the indigenous cultures who spawned the game, and the elite scholastic institutions who took it up and modified it, giving each group their due. As sports histories go, this is simply the best I've ever read.
• Weinberg, Bennett Alan and Bealer, Bonnie K., The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, (2001). Weinberg and Bealer survey the worldwide influence of caffeine by looking at it's three most popular vehicles of consumption—coffee, tea and chocolate. They especially focus on how these grew in popularity during the age of European exploration. Also, they devote a significant portion of the book on how caffeine works on people, what other products contain it, etc.