"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.

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

Wild Cards

In less than two months I'll turn 52. I will have spent 52 years on this planet. One year for each card in a deck of cards. I'm thinking of celebrating this coming birthday as the beginning of my "Wild Card Years", every year after 52 being supplemental to the full deck.

This winter is proving unusually tough. No longer deadening my mind with alcohol, I stare at reality every evening, eyes unshaded. Worse, I no longer have that disinhibition that allowed me to "get it all out" at least once a week. To laugh, bawl and allow myself to be stupid. Nowadays it's just mute horror at the realities of existence.

Add to that my cat is having some kind of urinary trouble, and will have to go to the vet as soon as I can pay for it. His behavior is otherwise normal: he's not sluggish. He just wants to pee frequently, and when he does, he just gets a few drips out at a time. I've made an appointment with the vet, after payday. But the wait is making me crazy.

In the meantime, I make sure his behavior doesn't otherwise change. He plays with his toys, gives me 'sugar' when I get home from work, and eats and drinks normally.

And I feel totally inadequate as a human companion for him.

Dry

It's been three months since I had alcohol. I was more dependent on it than I'd realized. It was an emotional dependency, rather than a physical one. Still, I leaned on it too much. A crutch.

I'm glad I don't use alcohol now. I do need to learn how to fill the time with something else. Cable tv and Tumblr can only do so much, LOL.

I Do Not Deserve This

I spent T-Day chilling at home, and then met a friend for a meal out the early evening. It was standard T-Day fare: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. of which I ate too much. Our 'server' was in drag as Pocahontas. I can't make this shit up. Since it was a buffet meal, all Poca had to do was bring us rounds of iced tea. So she got steadily drunker herself in the back. All in all not a bad day; yes, I'd rather spend the holidays with drunk drag queens than with biological family members.

On Friday I did do some shopping, for myself, and most of the spending was with local establishments. Books from Politics & Prose and Second Story, and a skater t-shirt from Palace 5ive. If you haven't visited Palace 5ive and it's sister establishment Federal, I highly recommend it. The clothes, shoes and gear are sweet, and the staff are friendly and helpful.

Saturday I went to a mall to see the menagerie, and realized once I got there I needed nothing from a mall. Anything I need to get now, I'd do well to buy online. I think I'm going to miss the trips to shopping malls more for the long commutes giving me plenty of reading time, than for any experiences at the malls themselves.

Periodically I checked my online dating site. I had one message, from a guy wanting "friendship". I responded saying if that was what he was interested in, I was fine with that, but not in anything "more". He never responded, LOL.

I've come to realize that my frustration with the dating web site, and with dating in general comes from the feeling I deserve to have a fun, smart and sexy boyfriend. Of course I do not deserve this. If I get it, it will be a gratuitous blessing from the universe and the other person involved. As I've written before, no one deserves love, especially romantic/sexual love — to say such is to imply that some other person out there is obligated to put out for you. Love is a gift; one does not deserve gifts. They are gratuitous blessings. A 'gift' that is deserved isn't a gift, it's a payment.

But knowing this intellectually, and feeling it in one's bones are two different things. Sometimes the loneliness overwhelms my good sense, and I turn into the whiny man I exhibited recently, railing against The Way Things Are for the 'injustice' of not having a fun, smart and sexy boyfriend. Life is inherently unfair. My job is to suck it up.

Survivng Just Isn't Enough

I've been having some bad days at work. Inadequate tech. Archaic practices. Arcane systems. Human neuroses. The bottom line: a lot of frustration and bass-ackwards processes.

I used to deal with such bad days by promising myself a beer after work. I'd look forward to pouring a delicious ale or stout down my gullet, or in extreme cases, a sip of bourbon. I'd melt away the lingering frustration along with the ability to feel my toes. My brain would soften, and if I weren't alone, I could bend the ear of my drinking buddy and spill out all my frustrations with work.

Of course, that also meant that there was a high risk that the Asshole would come out.

Now I don't drink, and I'm happy I don't drink. There is a difference between not allowing oneself to continue a negative behavior pattern, and pursuing a positive behavior pattern. In other words, I now realize that not drinking has left a void that needs to be filled with something else. It's not enough to not do bad things; I need to replace doing bad things with doing good things.

What can I do that I will relish doing, that I will look forward to doing at the end of my workday, a reason to put up with the bullshit, a stress reliever, a promise I make to myself to reward myself for having got through a shitty day?

A Good Little Thing

When I was in high school, my mom bought me a t-shirt that said, “I’d like to be an optimist, but I doubt it would work out.” The irony is, every bit of pessimism in my psyche came from her. She is a bitter, sarcastic woman who fights herself to gain any shred of hope, and usually loses the battle. I don’t know what happened to make my mom that way (her mom? marital disillusionment?), but I do not want to end up like her.

People change. Usually people change by drifting further in whatever direction they’ve already been heading. Some people, however, seize the rudder of change and strive to tack in a different direction.

I would not be comfortable with being an optimist, but I also do not want to be a pessimist. Frankly, both views seem unbalanced. I like balance. I like the middle path.

The other day I realized my utter insignificance, and it comforted me more than anything has in recent years. That may sound weird to some, that my insignificance was comforting. Let me explain. I realized that the universe is incredibly vast. I’m one person among 7 billion currently alive on this planet, orbiting one of billions of stars in one of billions of galaxies in the universe. My life will occupy a few paltry years in a universe already 13.75 billion years old. I’m incredibly insignificant. And that means I cannot really do any damage to the universe. I cannot fuck up so badly that the universe will register any lasting damage. I can’t wreck this planet significantly, much less any other planets, stars or galaxies.

What a fucking relief! I’d been raised by fundamentalists, for whom each action and decision was fraught with eternal, immeasurable consequences. God was breathing down my neck, and Satan whispering in my ear, and even how I ate my dinner or wiped my ass could shatter the world. When you’re raised with such dire consequences hanging over you 24/7, discovering your insignificance is a tremendous relief.

And with that easing of the burden, I can now approach life with a lighter touch, and a much more sanguine outlook. What I do doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. I don’t really matter in the scheme of things. So if I undertake changes or actions, I do so out of what I determine to be beneficial or personally significant. Being relaxed could even lead me to be a better person. Who knows?

So, reveling in my insignificance, I’m adopting a phlegmatic attitude toward life. However good or bad it gets, it is all so very, very limited in scope as not to matter a whole hell of a lot. And that, to me, is a good thing. A good little thing.

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.