I stumbled upon this a while back and bookmarked it. What brings it up today is that many, many times in the past week or so people have told me that they love me. I find it very uncomfortable, because I can't just say that...especially to a female friend, even if it is in the "not IN love with you, blahbity blah" way, because saying it has gotten me in trouble before (i.e. bye-bye friend who thought I was, you guessed it, "IN love with her")...the thing is, it leaves me in a position where all I can say is thank you or "me too" or something else and I probably sound ungrateful or uncaring, or like a doofus, or something. But it's just that if ever I am able to say "I Love You" to a girl, I want it be be meaningful, in the IN love sort of way...like what's in the love list.

I went to the bar last night (after midnight, concluding Buy Nothing Day...though I didn't buy anything anyway) and some girl gave me her phone number. I didn't ask for it, nor would I have because she just reeked of not being my type (lots of make-up, two-thirds of her tits exposed, picking up guys at the bar, etc...), but a friend of mine talked her into doing it, telling her that I was interested or something. But this puts me in an akward position that I don't like being in -- not calling someone that I may very well see around in the future. I mean, I'm an often guilt-ridden person as it is, and when I take an action that may hurt someone else's feelings, it just makes it that much worse. And to then confront that person and see the hurt that I've cost them...there are no words really to describe those feelings. And what's worse is that I know damn well that in my mind, the pain that I feel that they are going through is probably twenty times or more than that which they are really going though...because, come on, I didn't even talk to this girl aside from "I'm Kyle. Nice to meet you" so there won't be any love lost in my not calling...but maybe it's that I've been rejected so many times in my life that I instinctively take on all those feelings that came after a girl I'd been after for months, or even fell in love with over time, rejected me after I finally worked up the courage to say something...I don't know.

But it's that rejection that defines me, I think, sometimes...at least my love life. I'm afraid now to take risks, afraid now to admit that sometimes feelings develop in friendships, afraid now to ask girls out. Afraid to make the first move.

But I don't think that that has anything to do with this girl. I mean, I should respect her for making the first move (God knows I'm turned on by that)...but the thing is, I don't want to get into a relationship that's not going to last and that I know is not going to last from the get-go (and I have no interest in casual sex or dating). There's nothing for me there, only more guilt. So why bother if it's only going to hurt me? It just doesn't seem a risk that's worth taking to me.

Day after Thanksgiving...Buy Nothing Day...sitting on the computer....nothing to say...too much on my mind...nothing on my mind...lost in a sea of confusion...drowning...in denial...lost...confusion...lovely.

They say that "good things come to those that wait" and that "patience pays off in the end" but "they" are liars...or so I think most of the time. But my open heart, inherent trust in the common man, and my optimistic hopefulness sometimes tell me that I am dead wrong in my cynical assessment. Too often I tell myself that I am due any day now to get a meaningful job where I am over-paid for the work that I do and enjoy doing, knowing that I am making a positive impact on the world at large. Too often I tell myself that I am due a beautiful girlfriend, who is kind and sweet, understanding and appreciative of the little things and the fact that I would give her the world, my life, in an instant if I could. Too often I let myself believe that my debts will be a thing of the past because of the death of a rich relative or the opportunistic drawing of six numbers in the lottery. Too often I belive that things will turn around, that all the shit that surrounds me will dissappear and be replaced by my wildest dreams. I honestly believe that. But then I don't. Fucking karma.

But as it were, I did a quick search to see just how many of "them" say "nice guys finish first" and found this little tidbit...short and sweet, it speaks to the issue of my loneliness but of course works on the premise that nice guys do not, at all, finish first. Oddly enough, though, in this little scenario I would be the best of the "good guy" and "bad guy" worlds...or maybe the worst of both worlds...or something.

Shit...I was going to do some good ol' fashoined writing today as well as read The Stranger...But there's too much on my mind and I can't get myself off of this damn machine. I hate it when the thoughts overwhelm you so much that you cannot focus on anything, instead being forced to waste time. Oh well, hopefully the stuff I just posted will entertain and educate someone, somewhere...and if that's the case, then my day off of work is not wasted.

My favorite holiday...something I look forward to every year. Join me, won't you?



Buy Nothing Day
Buy Nothing Christmas

Why Oil Sheiks Love A Good Hummer
Even the muckety-mucks in Detroit are starting to get the message. Ford, for instance, whose executives met last week with representatives from the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign, has pledged to boost the overall fuel efficiency of its SUVs by 25 percent over the next three years, and plans to introduce a hybrid gas-electric model that will get around 40 mpg.

Of course, much of the industry's "we care" message is little more than a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable and put a pretty PR bow on a very ugly reality. Their real message is: "We care about making money, and if doing that now means we have to make it seem like we care about the environment, then so be it." Take, for example, this "faux" socially-conscious reminder offered in the new Hummer brochure: "With the power to cross any terrain comes the responsibility to protect that terrain and its potentially fragile ecosystems."

I like these guys:

From huMouse™
A design for creatures that are half man, half animal has raised fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Two critics of biotechnology want the U.S. Patent Office to answer them.

link obtained via cursor

I find this promising, but I find myself skeptical. If nothing else, it tends to exemplify the blurring between the lines of Democrats and Republicans in this country and give more fodor to the argument that Republicans are for less government/spending. But in the end, I'm glad to see that Dubya is willing to at least look at diplomatic means that don't involve bombing the hell out of foriegn countries:

from Bush Plans New Agency to Dole Out Billions in Aid
:
Taking on critics who say the United States does not provide its fair share of foreign aid, Bush has promised $5 billion a year for the new program starting in fiscal 2006. Money would begin to flow in the fiscal 2004 budget, which will be unveiled in February, but officials said the dollar amounts for 2004 and 2005 have yet to be set.

But still, I can't help but feel that this foriegn aid will be dealt out to those willing to buy weapons to blow up their "unsavory" and "unAmerican™" neighbors.

I was inspired today by a guy on NPR. I forget who it was, but he more or less said that you have to be crazy to write a book these days if you want to affect people. Money and movies are the means to influence society these days he said...but it's still good to write. Well, I have had two books that I was writing shelved for the last nine months or a year...one was almost a quarter done...I'm going to start work on them again though. I don't know why. One is non-fiction, a travelogue of a sixteen-day blitz through Europe that I took a couple years back (the e-mail journal I sent back to folks back home is here in case you're interested), the other is a novel exploring the nature of the religious/spirituality dichotomy (or, if you're into Kierkegaard, the differences between Christianity and Christendom). I don't know...I've had the gantlet thrown down at my feet and I'm ready to fight the ol' "there's no point" argument.

I am confused. Sometimes things in life seem to have direction, sometimes things seem to be going somewhere and I just feel it in my belly that I know where...but then things happen, words are said, reality sets in, the future re-morphs itself and I find myself staring down yet another fork in the road wondering if I should just start walking or step back to take a good hard look at my other options. It isn't fair, it really isn't. Fate intervenes too much, so do the thoughts, words, deeds, and emotions of other people and there's not a damn thing you can do about any of it. You can only control your own destiny to a point, the rest you have to trust others, trust your instinct and even though things may not seem to make sense at the time, you have to just go with the flow, like it or not. I don't. I like to know where I am, I like to know where things might lead, I like to know all of my options and be able to decide from there what is best for me, for fate, and for all those involved. Do I move away to never-never land, do I hook up with so-and-so, do I take a certain path and hope to God that I made the right decision to do so? I don't like that, there's no way to go back and change what decisions I have made, and frankly it scares the living crap out of me. And I face these fears every day of my life: always have, always will. Do I feel content with what I have and never take risks or do I go for whatever, trusting my feelings and my take on things and take a chance of screwing everything up in the process? Do I follow my heart and believe that I am guided by some higher, benevolent power, or do I weigh my options to death, to the point where those options dry up and die -- leaving me stuck in the mud of conservatism and sameness...my life never evolving.

I wish I had the strength to take a chance, but I over-analyze everything which leaves me knowing that things could very well be worse for me than they are right now...things could be better, but maybe not. I just wish sometimes that the road of life was lined with bright, flashing, neon signs that told me what was going on, where my decisions will take me. But there isn't...there isn't even a manual around to give me a shot at making educated guesses...and that leaves me in the position that I am -- cold and naked on the floor, pondering what to do in all areas of my life, too fucking scared to get up and move it, take chances, speak up, and follow my heart.

Wow...ridiculosity extremus: 11-21, local: Police find 17 sex toys in local woman's car during DUI traffic stop

Again, I want to post something but nothing feels appropriate and/or entertaining enough to post. And I've had too much to drink to come up with something "mysterious" to say that I might not regret later down the road... It's a small wonder I'm leaving up the post from last night. Hmph.

The thing about chess is that I always end up being white (it befits my hat, I guess) but I don't like being delegated to that position on behalf of my 46th chromosome...I just wish someone would play with me, and let me be black. For once.

I wanted to post something, but I'm not going to post it because I want to be mysterious for awhile...drive everyone nuts...just be mysterious (and, of course, sexy). Hoo-ah!

A good enough reason for me to pay the extra ten bucks a month for HBO (I miss that guy):

Electronic Media Online -- Daily Television and Media News Maher gets talker on HBO
Bill Maher is returning to television in a new late-night one-hour HBO talk show.
The show, debuting Feb. 21, has a 20-episode commitment. "Politically Incorrect," Mr. Maher's political talk show on ABC, was canceled after advertiser and affiliate defections that followed his post-9/11 remarks that were perceived as critical of U.S military tactics. Mr. Maher's supporters at the time pointed out that the show was meant to be provocative and decried what they said was censorship.

The new series will be produced by HBO in association with Brad Grey Television. The executive producers are Brad Grey, Bill Maher and Marc Gurvitz.

Among the other issues that I have been mulling over in my life, I have spent a lot of emotional energy as of late wrestling with God. I live my life in Love, I try at least, and for the most part it has done me well, giving me a sense of purpose, a sense of worthiness, an understanding of humanity greater than I ever had before I learned to Love. But the fact of the matter is, even with all of this goody-goody stuff, I have felt very, very alone...as if no one else accepts this view of life nor is willing to understand what it is that I am doing, and why. For many, religion is nothing but an excuse to live life the way that they want to...for Christians, this often means 167 hours a week of debauchery and general meanness towards their fellow man traded off in the end by an hour spent in a hard wooden pew on Sunday morning. Other religions offer the same sorts of excuses, I mean, look at history -- from the beginning to 9/11 and beyond. But I don't subscribe to that way of thinking, I once did, but no more. If you Love, if you honestly believe in God, then that Love should flow out of you non-stop, 24/7/365. But it doesn't.

And I don't understand how people cannot see this hypocrisy in them. They are satisfied with glorifying themselves on Sunday morning, praising a God who gave them the gift of life and standing on a pillar declaring themselves better than the rest of humanity. I do not understand how someone can honestly accept the idea that someone was tortured, killed, burried for them and not feel a single ounce of guilt, instead galloping around through life happy that Jesus died. What is that? If someone took a bullet for me, if someone suffered and died for me so that I might live, I would not be happy about it...I would probably be overcome with guilt to the point of being suicidal. But I go to church on Sunday morning and I look around, even on Easter when the smell of death still lingers in the air, and people are smiling smug little smiles while I sit their silently weeping, trying not to draw attention to myself. They laugh at the sermon, they dance while they sing, they smile as they take communion, not even showing any sign of remourse or guilt. Either they do not really believe what it is that they profess to believe or else they are so egomanical as to be able to accpet guilt-free the idea that they are somehow worthy of having another person die on their behalf. And my tearducts open wider.

I watched Saving Private Ryan a week or so again, and again cried at the end when the old man asked his wife if he had lead a good life, because he realized that he was alive only because of the sacrifice made by other people. He did not stand over those soldiers' graves and celebrate the fact that he was alive still because of them, he did not sing praise songs to glorify the generals that sent them into harm's way and their eventual deaths, he cried, guilt-stricken, to the point of falling on his knees and begging for those around him to tell him that the gift that he was given -- life -- was well-earned.

And that is how I feel about God. I don't know what I believe about the nature of Christ, whether he was God incarnate or just a man that was full of God's Love, but in either case I do believe that he was a real person that suffered and died because he believed in humanity, believed in the power of Love, and was not willing to let go of it in an effort to show the rest of us what Love is all about. He died on our behalf, whether figuratively or actually, and I feel guilt for that, I feel that I must do everything in my power to make up for that sacrifice, earning what was given to me. I cannot accept that sort of freebie without justifying it in my heart, and justification is just so hard when life is just so cruel sometimes. But then I think that maybe that cruelty is the price of justification, the thing I have to go through so that I might earn the gift, the suffering that I must sometimes endure in order to fully understand Love and ultimately come to grips with God.

God is Love, and those that abide in Love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in Love. We Love because he first Loved us. Those who say "I love God," and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 1 John 4:16b-20

	Tenderheart Bear You are thinker, organizer, peacekeeper, and leader all in one. You have a power to command attention and people listen to you. However, you are often so concerned about not hurting others' feelings that you don't tell them what they need to hear and this gets you both into trouble. But you always have loyal friends to help you out.
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

Man, I should be getting laid like a full 747 touching down in Honolulu according this article: 4 Secrets of Sexy People.

edited: D'oh! Dead link.

Sometimes, like a child, I clamor for attention in a way annoying, but not in the cute kiddy kind of way. I scream out "watch me! watch me!" and when no one does, I feel let down, unwanted, annoyed, as if I've wasted some time of my life that I will never get back, some energy that could have been spent on something better. And I feel like an idiot for having done something so childish for the sake of mere attention. The problem is, this frustration that I feel is understandable when it comes from a child, but as an adult, it is seen as jealousy by those that witness it. Jealousy -- such an ugly thing. But jealousy is something different entirely than what I go through, I think. Jealousy is an anger directed towards someone else -- a yearning to be in someone else's shoes in a given situation, a fearfulness of someone else stealing your glory, a sense of resentfulness -- but the frustration that I feel is towards me. It is feeling of inferiority, a gnawing sense of idiocy, a massive of case of "D'oh!". I hit myself on the forehead and wish that I could turn back time and not be such a damn fool the next go around. It isn't a sense of blaming someone else for my position, but rather a blaming of myself for my own position, an entirely different issue, quite opposite in the details, but rather the same in appearance -- maybe.

The thing is, I have been wondering lately if I am a jealous man, and it comes down to the fact that I don't really think I am. I have always thought of myself as being relatively immune to jealousy. I mean, I do not wish to be in anyone else's shoes, I do not want to be anyone but me, I do not want anyone else's experiences. I am, however, very lonely in this world (existentially) and I get really down when I try to speak and no one is listening -- especially considering that there are few times when I can summon the bravery to get up and speak my piece. It's not their not listening that bothers me, it's the question of why it is that what I have to say is so damn uninteresting, a why it is that no one is there, a nagging that keeps me up at night and doesn't go away the next day. I blame myself, and I wish I knew what it was about me that it was so that I could fix it or learn to cope with it if it's not something fixable.

Not in Our Name

This is disgusting. In a war that has declared as being between the forces of good and evil by both sides, I sometimes wonder what side we're on given the way we treat people. I'm sorry, but after seeing this one all that came to mind was this. Now I realize there's a difference in guilt and innocence, at least at the perceived level...but I see too many similarities in the disrespect of human dignity.

I am a dreamer. I dream of being comfortably without debt. I dream about changing the world. I dream about writing a novel. I dream about photographing. I dream about staying up with a girl and talking until the sun rises. I dream of furthering my education. I dream of travelling to far-flung places. I dream about learning Spanish, and German, and Czech. I dream about waking up sometime in a world without war, or hunger, or disease, or fear. I dream of being safe. I dream of things yet to come, things that may never come to fruition, and I dream that my dreams are not just dreams. I am a dreamer, I have built my castle in the sky, where they say it is supposed to be built, and now am left having to build a foundation...but I am a just a dreamer...not a doer...and the nightmare is figuring out where to begin.

Egads...I could say so much about this, er, shit (I don't think the word is too harsh for this situation) except that I'm thinking of suing the Pulitzer people for not giving me the prize for this blog...

From Father files suit after son fails to win MVP award: Michael Croteau is seeking $300,000 in psychological and punitive damages from the association. He is also demanding that the MVP trophy be taken from the boy who won it and given to his son, Steven, as well as the league's playmaker award, which was awarded to a different boy. Croteau also wants Steven to be guaranteed a spot on the New Brunswick Canada Winter Games roster.

Ain't technology grand? I'm beginning to think that all of those people that say "my vote doesn't matter" actually are right...close to a quarter of the votes in Broward County, FL were almost missed. Geez. Funny thing is, there's a simple way to fix the problem...go lo-tech: A sheet of paper with a box that you mark 'X' in with a big, fat marker will not leave a hanging chad or get lost in a long list of ones and zeros...but then again, what do I know?

From The Miami Herald | 11/06/2002 | Broward reports wrong vote totals: More than 100,000 votes went missing on Tuesday between the time they were counted by electronic machines and the time they were reported on cable-access television and on the Supervisor of Elections web site.

I am sorry to those few that regularly read this blog for the stuff that I have been posting these last few days, it's just that this blog has taken over as my main "journal" and also tends to be the only sort of conversation time that I have in my sad, little, pathetic life. Even if the conversation is one-sided...it still feels good to know that there might, just might, be someone out there reading this and understanding what it is that I'm trying to say. I can't put into words how lonely I feel...not just romantically, socially, or what have you, but alone as the only person on this goddam planet that sees things the way I do, that thinks too much, that loves too much. I just don't see it anywhere else...

But maybe it is out there, maybe it's me that's the freak that's gotta go blabbering it all over the internet, maybe everyone else just bottles it up. The thing is, I can't. And if that makes me a shitty human being, well so be it. Because I'm not going to change...even if it means the death of me. I just wish that standing up for individuality, standing up to not playing fucking games when it comes to interpersonal relationships, calling them as you see them was not so fucking stigmatized in the eyes of our society. I feel shunned like a leper more days than I don't. I feel shat upon, stomped on, passed up, spat at, looked down on, lead around, and otherwise dragged through the dirt everyday of my life by total strangers and those I care about alike. And the thing is, I can't bring myself to hate any of them...come to think of it, I can't bring myself to do have anything but love in my heart.

I am Kyle. Maybe I wish I wasn't, but I don't think that is the case. This is just the state of my life, take it or leave it. I will stand strong, I will prevail, but it's probably going to hurt like hell by the time the game is over.

I have been doing too much soul searching lately (as if there is such a thing...at least I never thought there was) and it's driving me insane. I have discovered that for too long I have been hiding the "real me" (pardon the self-help-ish lingo there) in favor of someone that "gets along" with others. I have buried that side of me that feels a wierd urge to sometimes greet others with kisses on the cheek, that side of me that enjoys nothing more than watching the sunset or staring at the stars, that side of me that likes to sit and watch people and try to "figure them out" and never find out if I was right, that side of me that cries whenever he sees something truly, and simply, beautiful, all because other people think those things are ridiculous or creepy, or (in some cases) gay. Hell, I've been holding back on the child-like innocence that I have worked my damndest on trying to retain all of these years -- seeing the world through non-judgemental eyes and all of that. I have been going out of my way recently to please others, to not get in their way, and to certainly not have them dislike me...but in the process I have found myself discontented, like I am but a shadow of my true self, and though I don't not like the way that I behave when I am that shadow, it's still not as pleasant as a bright autumn day.

But what I fear the most is that if I allow myself to slip, to break out of my shell as it were, is that my friends will distance themselves from me, that they will think that I've changed. Even if I haven't. And I don't want to go back to not having any friends, I've spent too many years down that road, and even though I still do not have any "best friend" types (you know, the types that will gladly offer a shoulder to cry on, try and make you happy even at their own sacrifice), I do have dear friends, "almost-best-friends", that I would not be able to ditch, nor stomach if they ditched me. I really, really fear that. And so I think that it best to bottle up myself and serve the same old shit that I have...watering myself down so that I'm palitable to the masses. Keeping my true self for when I write and dream. I don't know.

It's not easy being green...suddenly the tao of kermit seems so relevent.

Life has had a very surreal feel to it lately. It's wierd, because I feel like I'm awake...in fact, I know that I'm awake, except that things seem to be constantly not going quite right for me; as if fate is intervening at every step making sure that things don't go as I would wish they would. And it's not just the big stuff, but the little things too...everything from red lights all over the place while I drive to not getting a girl that I'd like to ask out to even pay me attention to always having something bigger intervening whenever its my turn to say or do something that needs to be said or done to finally building up a buffer in my bank account in time for my car to need that much money worth of repairs. It's like a dream, or maybe a story where the main character is always being shat upon by the author in order to create tension, to force him into a situation that will ultimately prove to show the reader the point that the author's trying to make...and I don't know what the point is, but I don't like the fact that I feel like I'm in a canoe going down the river of life without any paddles...

And I don't think I'm being paranoid or depressed or anything, because I don't feel like that at all. Things have just been "wierd".

But then I think about this past weekend and how, my birthday having been on a Sunday this year, I was pretty much granted a two-day birthday by my friends -- one that included a weekend night and my real one on a worknight. In any case, the only thing that I have ever asked for my birthday is a sort of carte blanche of social engagements so that we can do the stuff that I want to do. And we rarely do a lot of those things. I mean, I wanted to go to the arcade and blow twenty bucks on skee-ball, I would have liked to have gone to the symphony, maybe the art musum, I would have wanted to go the see the local improv group, I would have wanted to kareoke or bowling, or just do something spontaneous and, well, stupid. Those are the things that I like to do, varied as they are, and I never get a chance to share them with my friends because no one else is even as close to interested as I am...or maybe I've given up hope and stopped asking? So I see my birthday as the one day out of the year that I can really let go of my fear of being looked at like "you want to do what?" and suggest the things that I really, really, really want to do. But when I did this past weekend wveryone kind of shrugged their shoulders and made it clear that they wouldn't be interested. I mean, a couple of them were broke and I didn't want to either alienate them or force them out, that was a consideration, but for the most part, the things that I wanted to do were thrown out the window by everyone else and I gave in, followed the suggestions of the crowd. On my birthday, the one night I ask to be in charge, it was taken from me, by my friends.

I mean, I'm not bitching about it, but it does seem to exemplifiy the sort of thing that I'm talking about. I mean, perhaps I'm just too timid to grab life by the reins and lead it where I want to go, or maybe I'm just a follower, or maybe I need some new friends (as addition to the ones I have, not at the expense of my present ones...for those who may read this, I wouldn't turn my back on my current friends for the world) who share the same whacked out -- sometimes cultural, sometimes childish -- interests that I do. I don't know. It just seems that things should be going better for me, or rather, that things shouldn't be going so badly for me. And I don't know what to do.

It's my 26th birthday today...and so I'm writing a poem:

Child at Heart

I still like arcades,
Mac & Cheese,
morning cartoons,
playground swings,
climbing trees,
sledding,
and sandboxes.

I like to hang with my friends,
eat peanut butter from the jar,
drink milk from the carton,
stay up late on weekends,
watch squirrels play,
fly kites,
and rockets.

I still stare at the stars,
dream of flying,
get excited about Christmas,
watch Disney movies,
draw with crayons,
ask questions,
annoy.

I still worship my Mom,
wish to grow up,
learn,
imagine,
play,
dream.
innocence.

But I still stay naive,
I still eat too fast,
sit too close to the TV,
don't turn off the lights,
wander away,
run with scissors,
cry.

I still don't appreciate,
starving for attention,
tugging at shirts,
talking out of turn,
concerned about myself,
believing I'm king,
selfish.

Eh...I don't know, I'm too tired to care what I'm posting...it probably sounded better in my head.