The Meet
I am certainly not living right…
My life is weird, and will stay weird until the day I die–and I’m willing to bet that there’ll be some strange circumstances around my death, too. I don’t know, maybe it’ll be linked to organized crime, or people will never find my body, starting rumors that I’m secretly buried under third base at Pac Bell SBC AT&T Pac Bell Park, or in the foundation of some new UC Berkeley facility. Maybe I’ll die under the massive pile of anime crap I’ve been accumulating since I was fourteen.
But anyway, it won’t come close to the surreality of my family relations these days.
See, my family has always known me as the loud, nerdy one in the family. Their recent discovery of the side of me known as “Kyle of Alberta” is a shock to them. In a recent trip to Texas, I overheard a conversation where they discussed stories they’d heard about me outside of the family circle, like how my cousin said that when I was at my job interview, I was a completely different person than she was used to.
Or, to put it in another cousin’s words, “There’s the Kyle we know, and then there’s Kyle of Alberta who signs tits.”
Now, before I go any further, I’d like to clarify one thing. I don’t sign tits. I signed one, ever, and it ain’t happenin’ again. So that statement really should be “and then there’s Kyle of Alberta, who signed a tit once and found the experience rather distasteful.”
But anyway, the point remains–I’ve kept the Canadian side of my life and the family side of my life almost entirely separate (largely due to the fact that one of the majour reasons is they won’t find me here), with the biggest anomaly being one dark, dark incident at Anime Expo which involved a cousin, his friend’s copy of “Strengthening Today, Securing Tommorrow” (The Coldwood’s financial plans - announcing the creation of TheAnime.Net), and a complete lack of eye contact.
Now they know, and not only do they know, my cousin’s wedding on Saturday (note that I’ve referenced four entirely different cousins in this rant–I have 5 that I know of, so if there is any cousin overlap, I’ll tell you) was marked with a conversation with a fifth cousin about the recent eBay auctions, in which Trey’s new appliance went for a sizable amount. That produced the following conversation:
“Dude, sell out. *pause, grab an in-law* Hey, Burns, tell Kyle what to do. If people are willing to spend that much money on computer boxes, how about you give them an original? It’s not ripping them off if they’re willing to pay that much for it!”
“My advice to you is: sell out. Trust me, work doesn’t get any more fun as you get older.”
There was a lot of swearing in that conversation that I’ve omitted, but there was a lot of alcohol involved that I’ve omitted too, so I guess it’s fairly even.