What Sort of Man Is This?

I don’t know about too many things.
I know what I know, if you know what I mean.
Philosophy is the top of a cereal box
Religion is a smile on a dog.
--Edie Brickel

I can paint. I can sew. I can cook a mean pasta Alfredo with fresh vegetables, and I can make wine soup.
I’m a licensed hang glider pilot, and I am an EMT-1, so that means I can deliver a baby and zap people back to life with an automatic electronic defibrillator.
Animals like me, especially dogs—probably because I speak their language.
Little kids like me too, and I them…well, for the most part. I’m not very keen on babies, and once they get past the age of thirteen or so and turn into little shits, I’m pretty happy to wash my hands of them, but ten-year olds are A-OK as far as I’m concerned, and the admiration of a bunch of second graders is a fine thing indeed.
I get along with just about everybody, but there will always be one or two people in, say, a room of thirty whom I really rub the wrong way. I don’t know what it is, it just is.
I’m allergic to horses, but nothing else, and I don’t drink milk because I just don’t like it—not because I’m lactose intolerant.
I strive to be gentle and kind. It takes quite a lot to make me mad because I endeavor to look at all sides of an argument, and when it really comes down to it, I just don’t take life seriously enough to make me mad.
But I worry a lot.
I don’t have any children of my own, nor will I since I had a vasectomy as my personal step to ensure there will be no population growth on my part, and I have no plans to adopt. All the same, I worry about other people’s kids and the difficulties they will face in the world as it becomes even more toxic and overpopulated and frightening.
I spend a lot of nights awake; sometimes writing, sometimes reading, sometimes ranting. But I can’t sleep, because I have the most distressing nightmares—usually about the horrible things, I see on the news or hear about on the radio or read about in the paper.
In the past year, I have taken steps towards a healthier me. I got rid of my TV. I got rid of my car. I became a vegan. Even more than that, I have eliminated as many refined, multi-processed foods from my diet. I eat most things raw except yogurt, cheese, and eggs, and I don’t miss the sickening sweet candies and sodas and meats. I gave up drinking alcohol, not because I had a problem with it, but rather because I just didn’t care for the taste or the expense, and most especially because I really don’t enjoy hanging around other people who have been drinking because it almost always turns them into assholes.
Back in the day, I used to use a lot of drugs, and that did become a huge problem for me for several years. But I managed to go clean and stay clean because when it comes right down to it, I came to realize most drugs aren’t very much fun either. And the kinds of people I hung out with when we were using drugs were not the kinds of people I would like to hang out with sober, so I moved on.
I’ve tried a lot of different hats in my day, working in homeless shelters or with the disabled or volunteering for various AIDS/HIV-related programs, but I still haven’t found anything that I feel especially passionate about.
I’ve traveled all over the world, mostly working in resort restaurants and lodges as a waiter or bartender or manager, and I have about ten friends from all those travels who I call my “family,” which is cool because my blood relatives are mostly drunks, drug addicts, and pedophiles. Life’s funny that way.
I know myself more intimately than anyone else on this planet does. I am the expert on Dan Tyler, and that is the only thing, about which I profess to be an expert. I know my moods, my motives, my body chemistry, my passions, my desires, my dreams.
I wish more than anything that someday I’ll meet a man like me—oh, not a mirror image, no, I just want to meet a guy who knows himself as well as I know myself, and that he will want to share his stories with me as I share him mine.

*(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I’m a bit of a romantic…)