Man, I Hate Moving

I spent so much time in pain when I was drinking that it became a state of mind for me.  I expected it.  I didn't know what to do when the pain wasn't around, so I did my best to generate more of it.  I was quite good at it.  I subjected myself to a lot of pain.

I think that while there is a lot of truth to the idea that we grow by surviving difficulties, I have managed to warp this concept out of all recognizable shape with my demented and twisted mind.  For instance, it is possible to learn something without all of the pain.  It is possible to live easily and not feel guilty about it.  When things go well, when a plan set in motion moves forward, doors opening smoothly, one by one, all in good time, I don't always know what to do.  I start cringing a bit, waiting for The Nasty Surprise.

I've packed my dictionary.  I don't know where it is.

Ulysses S. Grant

Take for Granted:  To consider as true or already settled.

As we get closer to The Big Move, it gets weirder and weirder.  The release of possessions has been relatively easy, including a house that has been my home for 8 years.  A little tearing away, a little tearing apart happens from time to time, but it's still just stuff.  Once it's out of my sight I don't miss it much.  It is odd how an seemingly insignificant thing can provoke an out-sized reaction, though.  A friend took all of our houseplants, for instance, and it was depressing watching some cacti go that I have had for years and years.

One of SuperK's friends said this to us: "I can't believe you're going.  I thought you two would always be here.  I think I took you for granted."

Isn't that the way?  Taking things for granted.  Several years ago I survived one of those winters where I had a bad cold followed by 2 weeks of the flu.  I was weakened enough that I managed to stay healthy for a week or two before I got another cold.  I was sick for about 6 weeks, more or less.  Spring saved me, eventually.  I remember how grateful I was to not be sick.  For a long time I was acutely aware of how good it felt to be well.  That passed, naturally, and I started bitching about something else.

It's pretty amazing to think that I have had an effect on people.  I made a difference.  I wasn't making much of a difference when I was drinking.  That's the hardest part about going.

Super Nice Guy King of the World Horseface

Stress:  The condition that arises when the mind overrides the body's desire to choke the shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it.

I took a phone call from my real estate agent today.  He was calling to check in.  He wanted to see how things were going.  Moving is very, very stressful.  While I realize it's a problem of prosperity, a problem I wouldn't be having if I was still drinking, the simple fact that I'm sober doesn't insulate me from stress and moving your shit to a new city is stressful.  This guy does this for a living and I'm sure he sees this all the time.  I, on the other hand, move infrequently and am always amazed at the uproar.

I've known this guy since high school.  He's a good friend although our paths don't cross all that frequently anymore, which is what happens when you start to get old.  I think I've behaved pretty well as we've navigated this process but the famous Horseface temper has come roaring over the horizon from time to time if I feel threatened, and I've felt threatened on a daily basis.  And because it's a business transaction he gets to see Money Horseface and not just Super Nice Guy King of World Horseface like everybody else who never, ever sees me behave badly.

I appreciated the call.  I talked for 20 minutes without drawing a breath.  It wasn't any different than taking a call from someone in The Program, really.  It was two people talking.  I like to make a lot of phone calls because invariably I catch someone who needs to talk.  They apologize for monopolizing the conversation.

If they only knew.

Large People

Alcoholics are Large People.  We have the ability to help those who walk among us in despair.  Remember what it was like when you were drinking?  I do.  I remember the hopeless state of mind -- day after day of despair.  It was not a pleasant time.  I was not enjoying myself.  Sometimes I think of all the years and opportunities that I wasted and I feel a tinge of regret.  But I try to remember that I had to go through all of that to get where I am today, with a unique ability to help people who don't think they can be helped.  We can do more than doctors and religious leaders and folks with PhDs in all kinds of people helping disciplines.  They can't do what a guy who was homeless can do for someone who has lost all hope.  That's power.

I sobered up in Chicago and I spent a week there when I was about 10 years sober.  I went to some of the meetings I frequented in my early sobriety.  I got to see folks who were Large People; they helped me learn how not to drink on a day by day basis.  I remembered a lot about them but I could see that many of them didn't know who I was.  I was surprised but I didn't take it personally.  I was another new guy who probably wasn't going to stay sober, and they didn't invest their emotions in me like I did with them.

That happens to me sometimes.  Someone I couldn't pick out of a police line-up will tell me about something that I don't remember saying at a meeting I don't remember attending.  I smile, tell them it's good to see them again, too, and pretend like I know what the %$!! is going on, which I don't.  I can't find the water glass that I filled up 2 minutes ago.

I make a difference.  I'm loved.  I'm appreciated.  That's amazing.

The Winds of Change

Perspective:  A proper evaluation with proportional importance given to the component parts.

As the great Winds of Change blow and buffet me I often wonder what the hell I'm doing.  I will never cease to be amazed at how uncomfortable I get when a plan I have sketched out and prepared for over many months starts to come together in a vague approximation of what I had envisioned.  I'm uneasy when Things I Want might happen.  I don't have a great track record of desiring things that are good for me or appropriate or reasonable.  My track record is me shouting:  "More Money!  More Power!!  More Sex!!!" 

I have been feasting on my treasured exchanges over a distance of many thousands of miles from Herr Luber, a man who has lived all over the world for relatively short periods of time.  Although he happens to be an Earth Person I value his advice tremendously when it comes to Great Uprootings.  People who are turned outward look for advice.  There are a lot of smart people out there with great ideas and different perspectives and experience that can help us form our own great ideas.

The great Winds of Change seem to be sweeping me toward a long distance relocation.  It's exciting and it's frightening.  The reasons to stay where I am are melting in the summer sun and the doorways to someplace else are opening wide.  That's what I see through my dirty, old, broken rose-colored glasses.  That's why I'm keeping that phone on fire.  I need to hear from other people.  I need these friends to tell me when I'm drifting off into Never Never Land.

I never seem to know.

Analogy Steve

Analogy:  An explaining of something by comparing it point by point with something else.

I got a note yesterday from a good friend chipping in some good natured thoughts on my incessant house angst.  He came up with the analogy of someone holding on to one of the ropes that keep a helium balloon on the ground.  If something bad happens, Hindenburg-wise, we do have the option of letting go of the rope.  I feel like I've been preparing for months to cut the permanent moorings of one of my own personal Hindenburgs, confident that I can control the beast with my own control rope.

I am now 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth and I passed a couple of F-16s getting to that altitude.  I didn't think things out as well as I had thought I had thinked them out.

There's a good movie called Danny Deckchair.  Danny has a crappy life and he hooks some big balloons to a  . . . well, deckchair . . . and floats away.  He lands somewhere else and starts a new, better life. I like the idea although the premise was pretty implausible.  It required one to suspend one's belief system temporarily.

I also like the analogy of the roller coaster.  It takes a long time to get to the top of that first hill.  You can look around and jam your feet under the seat in front of you and generally prepare for the big drop.  But once you crest the top things start to move fast and there's precious little you can do about it.

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

Horseface Steve: Pilot

I don't have any official statistics in front of me but I'm guessing the murder rate per real estate transaction expressed as a percentage would be approaching the 100 percent mark.  Or maybe I'm confusing that with the suicide rate.  In any case, so we don't get bogged down with messy details, I'm just saying that doesn't somebody have to die every time a house is bought or sold?

I feel like I'm the pilot of a small plane that's having engine trouble.  It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to make it all the way to the airport.  I can see some fields up ahead that might work, but no tarmac.  I think I'm going to get the thing down with out any loss of life but it might not be a smooth landing.  I'm coming in hot for a meadow full of cows.

Anonymous "friend" at the meeting yesterday: "Are you still complaining about that house?"

Yes.  Yes, I am.

Got a Suspicious Mind

Suspicion;  The act or an instance of suspecting; believing of something bad, wrong, harmful, etc. with little or no supporting evidence.

And ANOTHER thing . . . my ability to ascribe bad motives to people is world class. 

Personally, I'm never  . . . well, rarely . . . out to screw somebody else over and most of the people I know are the same way.   All of us are self-centered to some degree and are naturally looking out for our own interests, but we aren't on a rampage to damage other people for no good reason.  I have this image of sociopaths sitting in sterile rooms of tile and stainless steel, idly sharpening their fingernails, flicking switches to deliver electric shocks to my genitals.

Where does this crap come from?

And Your Pilot Today is Horseface Steve

Control:  To exercise authority over; direct; command.

There's a great scene in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" that surfaces in my mind often.  Tom Hanks' character is pinned down on the beach right after a bloody landing.  Bullets are whistling by, bombs are exploding, people are being cut to shreds, all is total chaos.  He grabs a portable radio, cranks the handle to energize the device, and starts screaming for immediate assistance from the fleet standing off shore.

"Hello?  Hello??" No response.  He looks down at the phone.  There is a short section of chord dangling from the handset, going nowhere.  He throws it on the ground in disgust and gets to work.

That's me.  That's me screaming instructions that are going nowhere.  Nobody is on the other end of the line.  That's not me, too.  That's not me getting to work.  I prefer to scream into the useless handset.  Maybe if I scream louder it will start to work.

I also like the image of a subway car that is controlled remotely.  The thing works perfectly.  Quiet, efficient, on time.  I'm the guy who climbs into the child's safety seat installed for idiots like me and starts turning the little plastic steering wheel furiously, beeping the little red horn, hurling obscenities at the other passengers.  None of the controls I'm trying to operate are connected to anything.  An unseen force, a Higher Power, is in charge and doesn't need any instructions from me.

When I'm agitated I have a posse of Go To Guys.  I was talking to Baldweenie yesterday about the house angst.  He was spending a lot of time laughing; at me, I assume.  Normally I laugh along with him.  Yesterday I failed to see the humor.

"You know, you're really starting to piss me off," I said, in all seriousness.
That got him laughing harder.  I think he actually started choking.
"Don't get mad at me because you can't accept the fact that YOU'RE NOT IN CONTROL!"

I hate these guys sometimes.

King of the Chumps

Chump:  A stupid or silly person; blockhead; fool.

Boy, would things be easier if I could predict the future.  Accurately predict the future.  I can't seem to get past that.

It's very easy for me to swing wildly between extremes.  If I sell my house now and the market goes up, then I'm a chump.  If I don't sell my house now and the market goes down then I'm a chump.  If I don't quit talking about my house and all of the problems I have not getting as much money as humanly possible out of my house then I'm going to be the King of the Chumps.  Not just a Chump of Earl like I am now.  I try to be grateful that I'm not doing this under duress.  I think this is stressful?  What must it be like for someone who has lost their job or is behind on their payments.  I'm irritated; that's stressful.

I like to assign bad motives to other people, too.  The buyers are trying to screw me.  Screw me, Horseface Steve, personally.  They are not, of course, thinking about me except to probably imagine that I'm trying to screw them.   People are trying to protect their own interests is all.

Bob Newhart had this advice for people who were all caught up in their head about something: "Stop it."

And the Survey Says!!

Find:  To happen on; come upon; meet with; discover by chance.

And so the inspection report comes back. 

This is a report that a "qualified inspector" hired by house buyers puts together to scare the shit out of everybody.  I'm assuming they always find a bunch of problems.  That's what they're being hired to do: to find problems.  I can imagine I wouldn't be too happy shelling out $500 for some guy who says: "Eh.  Looks pretty good to me." 

Interestingly enough they do a great job of finding things that might be a problem some day.  Maybe I should become a house inspector -- it sounds like a great job for an alcoholic.  I have a long storied history as a decorated Worrier and Problem Finder.  I wouldn't even go into the house.  I'd just stand on the curb and start weeping and screaming.  Maybe I'd carry around a silver cross that I'd thrust in the direction of the accursed, doomed dwelling.

"Just run away," I'd say to the buyers.  "Run as fast and as far as you can."
"That'll be $500," I'd add.

I'm a prophet, for chrissake.  That didn't take much work to get done.  I can't imagine that it's going to be harder to become certified as a house inspector than to become a certified prophet.  I have a laminated business card that says I'm a prophet. 

You can't get more official than that.

I guess I should have seen this coming.  I really am a pretty poor prophet.

Things I Wonder About . . .

What percentage of the things that we worry about individually actually happen?  It can't be more than 10%.  It's probably less than 5%.  I'm willing to lay odds that it's a fraction of 1%.  Think about it: for every 100 things that I worry about at least 90 never happen.  Those are brutal odds.  I'd never do anything if there was an almost certain probability that I would fail.

It's remarkable that I keep right on worrying.  You'd think I'd give it up after all of this time. 

Turkey Gravy

Worry:  A troubled state of mind; anxiety; distress; care; uneasiness.

Here is one of the bits of wisdom that I love to ladle out like turkey gravy: "What can you do about it right now?"  It's pretty good advice, actually; it has its origin in the world famous slogan One Day at a Time.  Alcoholics, especially new ones, are always trying to solve future problems.  It's a compelling thing to do.  We learn quickly that a lot of stuff has to work its way through The System.  Many things resolve all by themselves and with no input from us.  This doesn't mean that we always put this excellent, practical knowledge to good use, preferring to wile away hour after hour in stressful, unproductive worrying.

As a general comment apropos of nothing right now, if someone were to say that to me this morning, my reply might be structured along the following lines: "I can punch you in your #*#!! nose is what I can do."  Not polite, but clear in its intent.

When I give this advice to others, I'm on my toes.  That's some practical advice for you.

Attack of The Gas Monsters

Remediate:  (Ed. note: not a word.)

When buying real estate one of the most popular "defects" to find is the existence of radon gas in your house.  There are a million companies who will put equipment in place at no charge to you, the buyer, to detect this colorless, odorless gas that may or may not affect your health.  "They" aren't even sure your health would be affected if you sat around sucking down 100% radon gas through a sterilized network of surgical tubing connected to the kind of face mask you would wear if you were in a room full of weaponized leprosy particulate.  

Naturally the people who detect radon then "remediate" the radon.  They hook up a cheesy looking device which may or may not be connected to anything and take some "readings."  Then they spirit away the device to "interpret" the results somewhere else.  As the seller you aren't invited to attend the gala reading party.  I bet they detect the presence of radon gas.  Why wouldn't they?  It's in their best interests to find some.  I'm not in the mood to pay a thousand dollars to fix a problem that I don't care about for the peace of mind of someone who has offered me too little money for my house.

I have spent a lot of time, of course, holding furious power-driven arguments in my head with my real estate agent, the house buyers, and anyone else who can't get away from me when I'm complaining.  I'm telling them how it's going to be.  I'm countering their arguments with air-tight reasoning and iron-clad logic.  It's never a good sign when I'm arguing out loud with someone who isn't there about something that might never happen.  It's a poor use of my time.  I'm still not sure why I like to do it so much.

Super K sticks her head in my office: "Who are you yelling at in there?"
"What?" I say innocently.
She rolls her eyes: "I thought you were on the phone.  The cat isn't even in here.  At least you could pretend you're yelling at the cat."
"I like the cat," I say.  "I never yell at the cat.  The cat uses irrefutable logic on virtually every topic."

I wonder if anything will come of this.

Problems of Prosperity

I've probably mentioned that I have had my house for sale.  It's been on the market for like a hundred thousand years.  Recently we had decided that we were getting tired of having strangers gawk at our stuff and tell us that our price was "too high" or that they "didn't like radiator heat."  I'm not sure why someone who didn't like radiator heat would come and look at a house with radiator heat.  It's clearly listed as having radiator heat.  It's not like we said we had passive solar heating or a forced air convection heat pump, then surprised them with a different heating system.  Personally I wouldn't waste my time looking at a house that had a feature I didn't like.

"Yes, I'd like to test drive one of your SUVs, please."
"Certainly, sir, what type of SUV are you looking for?"
"Oh, I hate SUVs.  You couldn't give one to me."

No one said the house was priced too low. Curious.


So just when we've had enough we get an offer from someone who looked at the place once.  I can't buy a shirt without trying 87 different shirts on.  I have no clue about that kind of behavior.  That is way too adult for me.  The offer is slightly below the least amount of money we said we'd take.  The price we paid for the place was slightly above the maximum amount we said we'd pay.  Now we are waiting for the results of The Inspection, where somebody who gets paid to find problems comes through and finds problems, then charges to fix them.  It's a great system as long as you're the guy finding then fixing the problems.  It's not often great if you're the guy paying for fixing things right before you move somewhere else. 

Look, if I was going to pay to fix this stuff I would have done it when  I was still %$#!! living here.

The Holidays (play spooky music)

Ah, yes, The Holidays.  I like to remind people that this is the time of the year when there are the most suicides, except for the fact it isn't true.  However, when it fits my narrative to lie I'm not averse to the practice.  As someone Great once said: "I never lie unless it's absolutely necessary." 

Amen, Brother.

It does seem like everything is magnified this time of the year.  There is great potential, fraught with great peril.  There is the tendency to try to pack a whole lot of everything into a awfully short period of time.  It can be great and it can turn out otherwise.

I was with my birth family today -- a perfectly lovely bunch of people -- thinking how much more I would be enjoying myself if I were hanging out with the motley crew of guys that show up at my 7AM meeting.  It just seems so much more real there.

Let's Try Something New

Travel.  Travel does not need to involve an epic journey.  A simple trip to the coffee shop can awaken a latent, childlike sense of wonder at the world around us.

Travel removes us from our familiar comforts and security, taking us into new situations, alone and vulnerable, our minds open to the world and its sensations, bringing about an enhanced sense of perception.  It can allow us to rediscover parts of our own selves that are normally obscured by the humdrum routines of daily life.  It allows us to tap parts of the self that are generally obscured by chatter and routine and also to realize how subjective our certainties are.

I lifted that almost verbatim from a newspaper.  It really spoke to me.  Whenever I think about doing something new, getting out of my comfort zone, I start to get revved up and anxious, even when intellectually I know all is well and if it isn't, then it will be anyway.

Something To Say

Vested: In law: fixed; settled; absolute; not contingent upon anything.

Much to my surprise the couple whom I am marrying . . . that doesn't sound right.  I'm not marrying them -- I'm already married.  I'm conducting the service which will conclude with them being married to each other.  I actually get to say: "With the authority vested in me by the State of Ohio, I now pronounce you husband and wife."  Sheesh, our societal structure has to be breaking down if someone like me gets to say something like that and have it be legally sanctioned by anybody.

The point is that they asked me to write a sermon? remarks? barely coherent free association? to be delivered during the ceremony.  I thought I would be reading some brief remarks from a standard marriage template or something that the couple wrote themselves.

"I want to hear what you have to say," the woman told me.

I'm not so sure that will be the case. 

Nevertheless, it made me think about how people pursuing a spiritual life -- in The Fellowship, in a church, however, wherever -- do grow and change as individuals.  When I was drinking no one wanted to hear what I had to say about love and relationships and what it means to live a spiritual life.  They didn't want to hear what I had to say about much of anything.

But when I started to think about what I would say, I found out that I had something to say.   I don't mean to suggest that the remarks are especially profound or anything, and nobody else at the wedding may think so either.  But I know that when I listen to people in The Rooms who have been sober for a while and have put in the work and continue to put in the work, I find that they often have something to say, something meaningful.

This is one of those promise-y things I didn't value when I started this journey.

Blankety Blank

So I begin trying to alarm the bride to be at the coffee shop every morning.  I threaten to talk two hours or maybe two minutes, to flail each of them mercilessly, to encourage audience participation, on and on it goes, straining my imagination, getting more and more outlandish.

She is nonplussed.  "Sounds good," she says.  "Whatever."  I'm not sure why I thought I could unsettle someone who picks me to conduct a legally binding wedding ceremony.

Today I asked if I could use bad words.
"What kind of bad words?" she said.
"Well, let's say I was to call Jimbo a dumb blankety blank." I reply.

She thought about this for a minute.  "I don't know about the blankety part," she said.  "But you can call him a dumb blank.  I do that all the time."

I have great friends.

Let Us Prophesize

Prophet:  A person who speaks for God or a god, or as though under divine guidance.

I spend a lot of time in the best coffee shop in the world, Lookout Joe's.  Too much time, I think.  I have my own personal chair on the patio out front.  A friend from The Program was jogging by one morning and circled back to yell: "I can't even picture this place without you sitting there."  If someone is in my chair when I show up, I ask the manager to turn out the interloper, which she has yet to do.  Apparently it really isn't my chair. 

I have gotten to know the young woman who runs the place and her fiancee.  We share a similar sense of humor and also a somewhat irreverent view of life.  A few weeks ago the guy, Jimbo, called me up and asked if I would meet him one morning.

"What's up?" I asked.
"I just want to go over a few things," he vaguely replied.
"Uh-oh," I thought.  "Cold feet."

When we were seated comfortably outside with our drinks Jimbo mentioned that he wasn't the most religious person in the world.  He then told me that it had come to his attention that it was relatively easy to become certified or authorized or whatever it would be called to perform legal wedding ceremonies in the state of Ohio.  I was already lying on the ground, in hysterics.

"Oh, absolutely," I screamed.  "Absolutely I'll do this."

I figure a few minutes in front of a captive audience that's in a good mood, with a microphone and carte blanche to say whatever I want?  What's not to like?  I've never been one to shy away from the absurd.  It takes a lot of energy to locate the absurd so I'm not going to run away when the absurd is dropped right on my lap, gift-wrapped.

So I am now ordained.  I am a Prophet.  There were a lot of titles to pick from but Prophet seemed best.  I also liked missionary and evangelist but SuperK nixed those.  We didn't consider minister or pastor or any of the more traditional choices.  Probably I could have made up any title I wanted but Prophet seemed to be pretty good. 

Really, I have a business card -- a laminated business card so it has to be real -- that says I'm a Prophet.  Business cards really lend an aura of respectability to the position.  I bet there that the church that ordained me doesn't have too impressive a building.  I bet it doesn't have a building at all.  Probably a couple of guys in a garage somewhere.  But, really, how is this any different that some guy in an Elvis jump suit in Vegas performing a marriage?  Or a part time mayor in some hick town in Arkansas?

I'm really going to enjoy this.

Real Men are in My House

There have been some guys in our house, fixing things.  Apparently, this is what people do: they put up with broken, worn out, unattractive things for years until they're ready to move, then they fix everything up.  It would seem that the smart thing to do would be to fix the stuff up when it needs fixing up so that you get to enjoy the results.  This is especially true for someone who takes absolutely no joy in the pleasure of others, especially people enjoying things that I paid to fix up.

I find it very upsetting when men are working on my house.  Real men, not just biological men like me.  I'm sure that subconsciously I feel emasculated.  A dull-witted chimpanzee with a hammer would be more productive fixing up things than I would.  It would have more success accurately identifying different hand tools by their silhouettes than I would.

"Is that a monkey wrench or a ball peen hammer?" I think.  "Damn." 

Part of it, I'm sure, is the loss of control.  I don't understand what's happening and it's not happening fast enough and it's costing me money so I'm afraid.  I never behave very well when I'm afraid.

"You again?" I say when the men show up the next day or not, depending on which way the wind is blowing.  8 o'clock means just that to me.  Not to these guys.

Anyway, one of the more irritating of these guys did something that I found especially irritating, and I lost my temper.  Not vintage drunken Horseface, with the yelling and swearing and throwing of things, but I was ticked off, and it came out.  I've learned that I need to talk to a friend or two and one wife to see if an amends was in order and an amends was in order because that's always going to be the case when I don't feel good about how I've behaved.

So I approached this guy and made an apology, which he graciously accepted, which I didn't like much.  He had behaved badly and I wanted to hear him say that the whole situation was really his fault and I shouldn't worry about it and I didn't do anything wrong, anyhow.

Something is coming to mind.  Something about sweeping my side of the street.

Nowadays, Anon.

Egocentric:  Viewing everything in relation to oneself.

I'm so self-absorbed that I can't even contemplate how self-absorbed I am.  I can see when other people are riddled with character defects but have a strange blind spot when I'm similarly afflicted.  It's against my nature to accept the blame for anything.  And as always criticism of others is more enjoyable than trying to find my part in things. 

I have always associated egotism with noisy, outgoing people who have a big need to be stage center, playing to a packed house.  While that's a very recognizable form of egotism, it's by no means the only kind.  Cheerful extroverts can be as humble as the next guy.  As a life-long introvert, I harbor a secret resentment against those outgoing types.  So needy, so hungry for attention.

Today I think that it's more about the mind set than the actions.  I can sit quietly in the corner, in a trench coat, behind a potted plant, hat pulled down over my ears, lost in my own thoughts, thinking furiously about what I want or don't want, oblivious to the rest of the world, humble in appearance only but in reality consumed with myself to the exclusion of all other life forms.

Oh, the curse of the outgoing, self-absorbed introvert.

"Self-centered -- ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays."

I Was Hoping For Something a Little More Expensive

Whenever I hear someone in The Program talk about how their life has improved since they got sober I'm often surprised at my reaction to what they say.  I guess somewhere deep in my white matter I'm programed to want stuff, to base my happiness on standards that are dictated by our physical, material world.  My instincts always shout out: "More Money! More Power!! More Sex!!!"  These desires don't elevate me much beyond the common yard aardvark. 
I hear people talk about a calm acceptance of life.  I listen to people who are comfortable in their own skin, grateful for what they have.  Life makes sense to these folks.  They care about other people and they have a connection with something or someone greater than themselves  They aren't consumed with fear.  They're so calm and peaceful they seem to be sedated.  They move through the day one step at a time, always moving forward but never rushing.

I wouldn't have asked for those things when I was drinking.

Zen I Found the Answer

Zen:  an anti-rational Buddhist sect developed in India; it differs from other Buddhist sects in seeking truth through introspection and intuition rather than in scripture.

Being a skeptic and a know-it-all, I spent some time in early sobriety investigating other religions and approaches to a spiritual life.  I was fed up with the church of my youth and thought it would be cool to pick some obscure, ancient Far Eastern religion to be the new foundation of my life.  I wanted to be something that no one else was, I think.  I wanted to be different so I bought books and I read a lot.  I wanted to strip away all of the dogma and tradition and find Truth.  I'm not saying this wasn't admirable -- I think if you're sick of something then you owe it to yourself to go try and find something else.  But I was a little arrogant while I was doing it. 

I can hear SuperK saying: "You're not a little anything."

Of course what I found was that if you strip away all of the tradition and the dogma and the doctrine everything starts to look pretty much the same.  Especially when you get rid of the people:  the saints and the leaders and the prophets.  It was very illuminating. 

Lose the self-interest.  Love everybody.  Quit pursuing pleasure and running from pain.  Try to find a strength outside of yourself.  Be quiet and calm and peaceful.  It's all been around for 1000s of years.  People have come to the same conclusions.

Like what did I think I was going to find?

Really Good Ideas

I'm constantly amazed at how easily I forget that I don't know what's best for me.  Each morning I get up and figure that today will be the day that everyone will see how brilliant my ideas are.   The main reason that I try to write a little every day is that it's a good way to work out problems that otherwise would get trapped in my head and bounce around in there like a bottle rocket in a steel drum, like the idea that I know what's really going on.   I can't seem to get a grip on the idea that my ideas are not that good.  They seem to be good, when I'm walking around mumbling to myself in public places.

"%$&!! god's plans," I might say.  "My plans are clearly better."
"Mommy, what's the matter with that crazy man?" a little girl will say, as her mother tugs her furiously in the other direction.
"Wait!" I shout after them.  "I have some really good ideas to share with you."

One of the great things about a little sober time is that we start to see that stuff works out for the best, in the long run.

Willie

I'm having some more trouble understanding exactly what the proper use of my will is.  You'd think that after a while I'd get the hang of it.  And it's not that there aren't a lot of good tools available to me.  Our literature really tries to address this issue.  It explains in great detail that a lot of our problems arise when we try to bludgeon the world with our wills.  I don't think that it says that we should lose our will entirely and flop around like a fish out of water.  We aren't supposed to be will-less.  Rather we need to learn how to use our wills in an appropriate manner.  I figured my will was a great battering ram.  I'm the general of an army of mongol hordes with burning torches using my will to break down the door to the castle.

I get to fire my will up every morning.  This is permitted in a spiritual life.  My will growls like a 70s muscle car with a bad muffler.  I should fix the muffler.  I run into difficulties when I get into traffic or forget to open the garage door before I floor the accelerator.  When I'm working a somewhat good program I start to get a feel for the ebb and flow of life.  Sometimes I pull into the street and it's a nice day and there isn't any traffic and I get that bad boy cranked up and moving fast toward whatever it is I want to get to.  But sometimes I need to inch along, in a snowstorm falling on rush hour traffic.

I don't believe we need to lose the will.  Just get a net over the damn thing.

Unnatural Tendencies.

Tendency:  An inclination or disposition to  move in a particular direction or act in a certain way, especially as a result of some inherent quality or habit.

I have a tendency -- a strong tendency -- to imagine that the worst is going to happen.  I may have mentioned this in the past.  I may have droned on and on about it interminably.  I really have no idea.  I'm lucky if I can find my car keys or the glass of water I poured 28 seconds ago.  My future would be bright if I could figure out how to get paid for walking around in mismatched clothes mumbling to myself.  I feel a strong kinship to people who do that.

"That poor soul, " SuperK will say if we see someone who dresses in a similar fashion.
"Maybe he's looking for his glass of water," I'll say.
"You know," she'll say.  "He has a little better sense of fashion than you do."

A few years ago I noticed that our mass media was increasingly obsessed with whatever bad thing was happening or might happen in the future, no matter how ridiculous or implausible said bad thing might be.  Remember swine flu?  Bird flu?  SARS?  Little girls being abducted by deranged loaners?  Don't travel, or you'll die in a bear attack or shark strike or terrorist incident!  Do you know anyone who got bird flu?  Neither do I.

I quit listening.  I've found that meditation is a better way to spend my time.  I have enough trouble trying to remain positive without the encouragement of people who are trying to attract viewers by scaring the shit out of everyone.  Apparently it's easier to show pictures of the guy recovering from the bear attack than to try to tease out the differences in the Mideast peace process.

Anyway, remember to be very aware of your surroundings today.

I'd Like to be In Control

I wish that people did what I wanted them to do.  All of the time, and promptly.  I wish that they would be respectful while doing what I want them to do.  A deferential attitude would be nice, given my standing in the world.

Things would g more smoothly for me, I'm sure, if people did what I wanted them to do all of the time.  If I were in control of the actions of everyone else, I'd definitely have an easier time of it.

If not me in control, who?  You?  Seriously?

Very Bad Things

One of the greatest lessons that I have learned in The Program has been understanding how critical it is to my well-being to move beyond the unpleasantries of life.  First of all, The Program helped me understand that there were going to be unpleasantries, which was a particularly nasty unpleasantry in itself.  Then I had to learn how to deal with stuff I didn't like, and there's a lot of that.  There are the things I don't like that happen to everybody and are unavoidable, like hemorrhoids and bad weather.  There are the things I have brought upon myself.  This is a large list: DUIs and firings and broken relationships.   But the most frustrating things are the unfair things.  Suffering a serious injury or losing a child to illness or a job to downsizing.  Things that weren't caused by my behavior but happen anyhow.

I could never get beyond the anger I felt because something crappy was happening to me.  Today I have been able to reduce the list considerably by starting to behave in a quasi, semi-responsible fashion.  Bad behavior leads to bad outcomes.  The real gains have occurred when I began to address problems like an adult.  Sometimes I can fix problems and sometimes I can't.  There are situations that are beyond my control to repair.  Maybe some counseling can fix the bad marriage and maybe it's time to move on.  I could never figure that out when I was drinking.

Like I can figure it out today.

Dream On

Dream:  Anything so charming, lovely, or transitory, etc. as to seem dreamlike.

Dream big.  Dream on.  Personally, I hate to restrict myself to sane, manageable choices.  Swing for the fences, I say.  Dreaming's free, I say. 

I used to play Small Ball.  I was so afraid that I was going to strike out and make a fool of myself that it was all I could do to get into my Uniform of Life, which was a pretty cool uniform.  Kind of an amalgam of super hero and sports hero and rock star.  Practical in a way, but very flashy and hot. 

No more.  Today I get in my cuts.  I whiff at plenty of pitches in the dust and wave at the occasional fastball 2 feet over my head, but every now and then I really smoke one.  It's gratifying to watch the ball sail over the center fielder's head and clang against the wall. 

There was an old Pittsburgh Pirates catcher named Manny Sanguillen.  Manny would swing at anything.  Manny got his cuts in.  I loved that guy.  He made me laugh.  He struck out a lot, though, but it didn't seem to bother him that much.

"Joy is just the shadow made by pain."  Swedish National Curling Team Member.  Not a real one.  One on The Simpsons.

In This Corner . . . Weighing in at 180 pounds . . .

Fight:  To struggle against opposition; try to overcome someone or something; contend.

I'm not quite the fighter that I used to be.  I don't want to suggest that I never fight anymore.  I just don't fight all the time.  In the past if I wasn't fighting I was itching for a good fight.  I did whatever I could to get something started.  I was quite the provocateur.  Unfortunately, I lost far more fights than I ever won.  I got slaughtered half the time.  Made no difference to me.  I kept fighting.  I was born to fight.

For a 98 pound weakling I had a remarkable lack of fear when it came to The Opposition, which was anyone who wasn't me.  I would take on an entire army of well-armed aliens without blinking an eye.  It never occurred to me to turn around to see if there was a hole I could crawl into until the aliens went pillaging somewhere else.  I was the guy who put my boat in the water and paddled upstream, right into the Raging Rapids of Doom.  I didn't see the point in going with the flow.

Today I try not to fight so much.  It takes a lot of energy to be at war all of the time, to say nothing of all of the wounds and blood.  Our Book suggests that we have to quit fighting everyone and everything.  It suggests we have to do this or it kills us.

I still like to fight. 

Better, Then a Little Worse, Then a Lot Better

One of the main reasons that I don't pick up a drink today is simple fear.  I don't think I would make it back in if I go back out.  Moreover, I found it hard as hell to get sober the first time.  I don't want to go through that again.  It wasn't that I couldn't grasp the concept of not drinking but that I didn't want to do the work necessary to stay sober.  It's hard work, frequently, and the results aren't always immediately evident to me.  It seems that sometimes things got worse, not better.

And it's true for many of us that the simple act of not drinking doesn't solve all of our problems.  It solves the headache problem and it sure cuts down on the in-the-backseat-of the-police-car problem and the punched-in-the-nose problem.  But some of our problems don't improve right away.  Judges and family members and employers don't wipe the slate clean just because we get sober.  This wasn't clear to me when i came in.  I'm assuming this was because I wasn't listening to people when they were talking to me.

Imagine that.

The Visual Horseface

I have a fondness for trying to visualize myself from a vantage point other than inside of my own head.  There isn't much room to back up and take an objective look at things in there.  It's a pretty small space.  There's a lot of noise, too, machinery and dive bombing Stukas and weapons being discharged.  It's very bright and fast.  There are hundreds of strobe-lights blinking wildly.

I can't seem to think in there.

I like to let my essence loose so it can float up above my body for a better vantage point.  Not way, way above my body -- that would be ridiculous -- but 5 or 6 feet or so.  Mostly I see this pleasant horse-faced guy sipping coffee and reading the newspaper, friends stopping by to chat, eating a snack from time to time.  He doesn't seem to be under too much pressure.  It doesn't look too bad, actually.

"I wish I had that guy's life," I think.

Usually, I catch myself.

People Are Strange

I've been thinking about myself again.  I find it very pleasant to do this.  I take great comfort in idly pondering my own plights and circumstances, my wants and my wants and my wants, and how I might satisfy them or remove any impediments to their being satisfied.  On the rare occasions when I think about someone other than me it's along the lines of how they can help me get what I want or why they should cease and desist in doing things that get in the way of me getting what I want. 

I guess that we animals are probably hard-wired to be egocentric.  For most of our history we have been scrambling to feed ourselves and stay warm and breed.  IPods and fast cars and other unmentionables are relatively new concepts.  Not so long ago being stout was a sign of prosperity.  It meant that you could afford to eat regularly.  Anyway, I do know that alcoholics have taken self absorption to new and dizzying heights.  We really do spend too much time thinking.

I have always believed that The Fellowship is a program of As Ifs.  Should you have trouble with the idea of a Higher Power, pray As If you believe in one.  If you think your boss or the judge or a neighbor is an idiot, behave as if that person is quite sane.  At least pretend that you're interested in people you see in The Rooms.  I think that I should know a few things about anyone I see at a meeting regularly.  It means I'm listening to them when they talk and not thinking about myself.  I try to mention these things when I talk to these people.  Not that, in my evil core, I give a #$@!! about your job or your ex-wife or your new car, but when I pretend As If I do then a funny thing happens.  I start to generate a little genuine interest, not the fake interest of the active drunk.  I try to resist but it actually becomes more and more natural to care about other people.  I can see the light in someone's eyes burn a little brighter when I inquire after their health and well-being.

I know it blew me away when someone I didn't recognize remembered what I had said a week ago.  It made me want to get to know that individual.  Slowly, achingly slowly, despite all of my efforts to resist caring about other people, it started to happen.

It was weird.

One Something or the Other at a Time

I heard something interesting at a meeting once.  Something about staying in the minute.  Something about today being the only day I have.  A nifty little slogan that irritated me no end at the time and for many months after that but which stuck with me, interestingly enough.

Since then I have fallen under the spell of One Day at a Time, a concept that is transcendent in its workable simplicity.  Not tomorrow; not yesterday; today!  I still can't get my arms around it half the time, preferring to wallow in the distant past or tinker with what has not yet occurred.

My advice to you is to heed this slogan.  I don't do it very often or well or consistently but I do like the idea, at least in theory or when someone else is doing it.  I like talking about it.  That makes me sound like I know what the hell I'm doing, at least.

I was talking to a friend in The Program who is consistently all wrapped around the axle about her job.  I said:" Here's the deal: in 5 years or 2 years of 3 months this day won't mean anything.  It won't be important.  You won't remember anything about it."

Man, that's great advice.  Maybe I should try it sometime.

The Big Hawks On the Concrete Poles

Consequences: A logical result or inference.

I have been pondering the ins and outs of life, the whys and wherefores.  This is typically not a productive activity for me but it doesn't seem to stop me from doing it.  I was thinking about how ironic it is that when I get my hands on some situation or problem and try to manipulate it to my liking, things often go awry. 

I was reminded of the story of The Farmers and The Hawks.  This isn't really a story in the sense that it's written down or passed along in some kind of oral tradition to teach young people in a clever and ironical sense how to not make a mess of things but let's pretend it is so we don't get bogged down in some dead end loop of circular semantic logic.  And I should admit that I'm not certain I have any of my facts straight as far as the animals involved or anything like that but I'm going to forge ahead to make a point that is important to me, at this moment, but which I'll forget about in the next hour.

I was in Costa Rica.  I was in a car being driven into the jungle.  On the way we passed miles upon miles of fields full of crops.  In each field were many tall concrete poles with big bird houses perched on top.  There were big hawks sitting on top of some of the poles.

"OK, what's the deal with the poles?" I asked the driver.

He explained that each field used to have the occasional palm tree.  The palm trees were home to the big hawks.  Some MBA business guy hundreds of miles away probably decided that if all of the palm trees were cut down, then there would be more arable land to plant money making crops.  So in came the chain saws and down came the trees.  The big hawks lit out for the Territory Ahead because they didn't have any place to live.  The MBAs were happy because they increased the amount of land that could be used for making money.

Alas, the big hawks were making their living eating the rats that enjoyed eating the crops.  With the big hawks gone, the rats ran wild and devastated the fields.  So the MBAs had to hire people to come in and build synthetic palm trees.  The whole system was working fine until some one messed around with it.

That's me.  I'm the MBA.  I'm always trying to game the system.

 Need:  An urgent requirement of something essential or desirable that is lacking.

I watched a documentary on The Television that followed the lives of 5 different people who won unconscionable amounts of money in the lottery.  I assumed that most people who go from having no money to having a lot of money make a mess of things.  Predictably, a couple of them blew through their money quickly, wasting it extravagantly, foolishly.  One guy was homeless; he took a room in a cheap hotel and seemed content to live quietly, not really spending money on much of anything.

The family who won the most obscene amount of cash was an interesting case.  They had convinced themselves that money wasn't important to them and wasn't going to change the way they lived their lives.  But they bought Ferraris and mansions and an 80 foot yacht, and they donated money regularly.  They didn't donate anything anonymously, curiously enough, preferring the face to face donation.  They seemed to be a little smug.  They seemed to be a little more humble than everyone else, always a bad sign. "Who are their friends now?" I wondered.  "The other people living in big mansions?"  I didn't see how.  The people in the big mansions probably weren't looking to make friends with lottery winners.

I'm probably a little jealous of this family.  They didn't snort everything up their nose or try to get to know some rappers, but it still seemed a little off to me.  They seemed proud of their good fortune, not grateful.  Stuff didn't seem to change them appreciably but they became defined by it.

One of the winners was a Vietnamese refugee who was working in some godawful food processing plant.  This man spent a lot of money building houses for his kids and relatives so they could all live near each other.  Then he went back to Vietnam and built a huge housing complex for like 50 or 60 of his extended family, people who had been living in poverty.  He looked to be pretty happy, but he looked like he was living in some other person's house.  Kind of how I would look hanging out with rock stars.  Out of place.

I thought the most interesting case was a mathematics professor who thought he wanted to buy a Bugatti and a villa in the south of France.  His wife left him almost immediately, taking half the fortune, I'm sure.  He ended up buying a new car -- a Cadillac -- and fixing up his house a little bit but that was about it.  He did nice things with his money for his friends.  He did quit his job, thank god, but wasn't an idiotic rich guy or a splashy rich guy or a miserly one.  He did some things he always wanted to do but never had the time for like taking singing lessons.  He really seemed to enjoy singing despite the fact that he was terrible.  I don't think he cared.  He liked to sing and now he had the time to do it.

"I realized," he said, "that I was buying a lottery ticket so I could dream.  Once I had the money I realized that it wasn't anything that was going to make me happy."  He would have looked ridiculous in his villa in the south of France, with his red Bugatti.

Sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you get what you want and you say: "WTF!?"  It doesn't work out like you think it should.  It goes all weird and sideways on you.

Mostly, you get what you need.  Hey, if the Rolling Stones can put those lyrics into a song then it can't be that profound.

Bend To My Iron Will

Expectation:  A looking forward to as due, proper, or necessary; anticipation.

I think that my understanding of the concept of expectation tends to be a little harsh.  I have a tendency to warp most things until they no longer resemble their original state.  Often I confuse expectation with something that is more like demanding.  If I think something is due me or I must have it or it's my birthright then I get in trouble.  That's insistent.  There's no play in that attitude.

"Things will happen like this," I think, rigidly.  I get on my bulldozer and fire up the diesel.  But when I step back and try to analyze what's really going on I find that half the time I don't even know what I want.  And god forbid I get what I think I want.

That's usually a total disaster.

Weeds and Termites and Monsters, O My.

Here are some concepts that you may find helpful when they're after you.  You know who "they" are.  Not the concepts.  The concepts aren't after you although my clumsy sentence structure in the lead sentence might have thrown you off.  The "theys" that I'm referring to are The Ones who want to do you harm.  Often they are nowhere to be found when I wake up in the morning, off tormenting someone else, no doubt.  Some times, though, there's a whole crowd of them lurking in the shadows, mumbling with malevolent intent.

This sounds a little spooky.  Really they are more irritating than dangerous.

Monsters have always been a good characterization and pretty self-explanatory.  I also like the visualization found in out of control vegetation, weeds, brambles, climbing vines.  Sometimes I'm standing on a freshly mowed lawn and sometimes I'm chest deep in weeds.

"How ya doin' today?" Sponsor Ken will ask.
"The weeds are about chest high," I reply.
"Roger that," he says.

I use termite infestation as well.  The Book has a great sentence about fear termites ceaselessly devouring the foundation of the new life we're trying to build.  We can't see them, but we can feel the destruction. 

Satchel Paige once famously said: "Don't look back -- something might be gaining on you."

Plan:       To devise a scheme for doing, making or arranging.
Scheme:  A less definite term that plan, often connoting either an impractical, visionary plan  or an underhand intrigue.

If you want to god to laugh, make plans.

It's not the plans per se that get me in trouble; it's the outcomes that I insist on that's the problem.  I can sketch out any plan that I want as long as I stay loose on how they work out.
I spend too much time saying: "This is how it's gonna be."  I need to do a little more work on the "Let's see what happens" attitude.

I used to be depressed and miserable and then I decided to turn my life upside down.  Now I'm miserable and depressed, which would be a great name for a rock band.

Walk All Over You

More thoughts about living a life of service, a phrase that does not now roll easily off my tongue and will never roll easily off my tongue even if I live to be as old as Abraham or my sponsor, both of whom are quite old.  I'll never be able to fully grasp the concept of doing something for someone else with no expectation of getting something in return, which is my understanding of the main reason that you would do something for someone else.  Otherwise, why do it?  It's a loser's game.  It's win-win.  I want I win-you lose.  That's my game.

"What's in this for me?" I mutter.

Every day I pray that my higher power will show me how I can be of service.  I really do this.  I should add that I do it while I stick my fingers in my ears and sing AC/DCs "Walk All Over You" as loud as I can.  My motives might be a little muddled.  Nonetheless, I think HP gives me lots of opportunities, most of which I miss or ignore.  In my defense I'm keeping my eyes open for the big, splashy opportunities where I help a lot of people to great public acclaim and heavy media coverage, hopefully making a lot of money in the process.  I don't see the point of quietly talking to another drunk in a corner of a ratty clubhouse.  Who's going to see that?  What's my reward?  If nobody knows that I did something selfless did I do anything at all?

I was in my seat a Lookout Joe's, in my black pork-pie hat, which I think makes me look very cool - I'm too humble to admit that openly - when a buddy from The Program swings by.  Spandex thinks I have a great plan: just keep showing up in the same place over and over, until people know where to find you, then wait for them to stop and chat.  That's assuming they want to stop when they see you, quite a leap of faith in my case.

My buddy tells me that he is giving a lead on Saturday night.  Normally, I don't go to lead or speaker meetings to hear people qualify their membership.  I can't pay attention for more than 10 minutes or so and frankly, most people aren't nearly as interesting to others as they are to themselves.  Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.   We exaggerate and embellish and create.  We have lived in a fantasy world for so long that we don't have a great grasp on the real world.  We don't mean to do it, it just happens.

I went anyhow.  I think my friend appreciated it.  I think he appreciated the fact that I made an effort to stop by. 

It was not the kind of service I had envisioned for myself.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity.  I have crossed that line.

Grat ... choke . . . grate ... gasp ... Grateful!

Grateful:  Feeling or expressing gratitude; thankful; appreciative.

I think that I have been drifting into the Ungrateful Zone recently.  Trust me, it's not my first time there.  I am very familiar with this Zone.  I have visited it many, many times.  Apparently, it's easier to be ungrateful than the other way around.  I can't even say the word that deals with the other side of ungrateful. 

It's not that I get furiously ungrateful anymore, or all the time, I guess I should say.  I get mildly discontented.  I start noticing what I don't have (stuff) or what I do have (ahem) or what I haven't been getting to do or . . . you get the picture.  When I'm in this zone you could give me a Porsche and I'd wonder what happened to the Ferrari.  "Sure, a shitty old German super car," I'd grouse.

Where's that narrow path again?

Gossip: Not the Bad Kind, The Good, Helpful Kind

Gossip:  A person who chatters or repeats idle talk and rumors about others.

I've been to a few meetings recently where the discussion has centered around the slow improvement we make on our defects.  At least we're supposed to make slow progress, or try to make slow progress, or pay lip service to making slow progress while actually doing nothing at all.  The idea is to get rid of some of our defects, I guess.

The 6th Step talks a lot about the fact that most of us are going to have to be content with steady progress.  We don't do "steady" very well.  We look wistfully at the 1st Step and recall how the desire to drink was lifted from us completely, as soon as we asked, with seemingly little effort on our part.  The power of god, or some such nonsense.  We wonder why this shadowy Higher Power won't lift the rest of our defects out of us, too.  One day we're impatient; the next day we have the patience of Job, boom! just like that.  Gone, bye-bye.  Perfectionism, delivered by express mail right from Olympus towering top.

Usually what we see is improvement, assuming we keep doing the work.  Gossip seems to be a popular defect that resonates with a lot of alcoholics.  We start out awash in malicious, vindictive, venomous gossip (aren't those great adjectives?); we begin to move into idle telling of tales behind another's back, and justify it by our lack of venom or our belief that the talk is more along the lines of constructive criticism, despite the fact the person is no where to be seen and can't benefit from something he is unaware of.  The people we gossip with gets smaller and smaller.  "After all," we think.  "I have to get my frustration with this dude off my chest somehow."  This way we can keep gossiping and pretend that it really isn't gossiping.

I guess Nirvana would be not even thinking poorly of others.  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.

The Future of Circumstances

I am definitely one of those guys who spends way too much time engaged in the losing proposition of imagining future happiness . . . as soon as circumstances change.  "I'll be happy when," I say to myself.  At least I'm sure I'll be happier than I am now.  And the point isn't whether I'll be happier or not, or whether I'm relatively happy right today.  The point is that I crap all over the present, which is the only time that I have available to me.  Sometimes the future ends up being worse.  "Shit," I say.  "I wasted a whole nice day trying to get into the future and it ended up being crappier."

I need to position myself in the here & now, and not in the what ifs.  Get with The Program.  Today is the day.  Tomorrow may never come.  I could get hit by a bus today.  I could get hit by a much smaller car, too, like a Toyota Yaris, which would be just as deadly as a bus given its much larger mass and velocity vis-a-vis my 180 pounds.  Why is everyone so obsessed with getting hit by buses, anyway?  Maybe they're not; maybe it's me.  Anyway, it's foolish to think that my life could be snuffed out by a bus or a falling anvil or a runaway grand piano which has gotten away from some cartoonish movers and crushes me after it rolls down a steep hill, which I do not live on.  I guess with the piano scenario I'd have to be out running some errands in a hilly area.

I get restless and bored and start imagining the circumstances of a pleasant future where everything is set up to provide me with maximum pleasure, maximum happiness, Max Power.  Meanwhile perfectly fine todays march off into an endless distance, alone and unloved.

Max Power would be a better nickname than Horseface Steve.

Apology:  An acknowledging and expressing regret for a fault, injury, insult, etc.; asking a person's pardon.

Apology Incoming.

I also believe that a very important benefit of the apology process is that we learn how to accept an apology.  We learn how to forgive someone else.  On the rare occasions that one of my drunken, drug-addled friends apologized for something the general tone of my response was "Goddam right, you're sorry."  I felt like I had won a contest.  It made no difference to me whether or not I was owed an apology in the first place.  Mostly, I wanted to feel superior.  YOU wronged ME.

I was so disarmed by the fact that many, many people were gracious and forgiving to me when I was making my amends.  For these good souls, that was the end of it.  I thought I was going to be slaughtered, especially when I was revealing an action that might have gone unnoticed.  There was never an end to it with me.  I was a master of the Eternal Grudge.  The Hatfields and the McCoys and the Horsefaces.  Maybe the Hatfields and McCoys could no longer remember what they were feuding about, but I sure could.  I never forgot a slight, real or imagined.

It feels good to forgive someone.  It takes all of the power out of the grudge.  The anger and frustration and resentment that used to rule my life has waned to a dull roar.  It's not gone but it's no longer my master.  I start to understand that sometimes people just make mistakes.  And everybody is bedeviled by a spiritual malady or two, not just me.

Finally, I believe that we owe people the opportunity to forgive us.  I think it's an important part of the process.  If they want to get mad, that's fine.  But a lot of people want to be magnanimous.  It's like not beeping your car horn when someone irritates you with their driving expertise.  Maybe someone made a mistake or is lost. 

I have started to accept compliments in my life, on the rare occasions that I receive them.  I used to wave them off, believe that the giver of the compliment was lying or being insincere.  Now I say: "Thanks."  It's not right to deny someone the pleasure of handing out a compliment.

Sheesh.

The Apology

The Apology.  Sounds like a bad movie.

What a concept.  With the exception of sharing my gut-wrenching 4th Step inventory -- with a real, live human being who was going to be shocked and disgusted and appalled -- nothing was so intimidating as the thought of making a face to face apology to another person.  And a lot of these people deserved an apology from me.  I didn't behave properly when I drank.  Hell, I don't behave properly half the time now.

It was important for me to learn how to apologize.  And to mean it.  I apologized all the time when I was drinking regardless of the fact that I was almost never sorry.  I was sorry I got caught.  I was sorry whenever I was in any physical, mental, or emotional pain.  But sorry that I had harmed someone?  Yeah, whatever.  I know that I would say anything to stop emotional discomfort.

Step 9 was my first attempt at the sincere apology.  I was a master of The False Apology, the Hollow Amend, and the Qualified Expression of Partial Sorrow.  After a searching, fearless, and thorough inventory it was time to learn how to apologize properly.  It really stuck in my craw at the start.  I didn't know how to do it.  I didn't like doing it, either.  I wanted it to be a two way street.  I wanted my overture of remorse to the wronged party to be met with a response something along the lines of: "Oh, don't worry about it.  No problem, Horseface.  No problem at all.  Forget about it."

Some people did that but a bunch of them just fixed me with an icy glare.  They were familiar with Fake Apology Horseface, not Sincere To The Best Of His Limited Ability Horseface.

That's OK.  It's my amend.  It's for me.  I'm cleaning up my side of the street, not your side.  Moreover, people are definitely suspicious.  That's what happens to someone who lies repeatedly.  People expect to see some sincerity in action.  We call that Living Amends.  We have to do both: we have to apologize directly then act better.

Yeesh.

The Big Elk Naps

I was at a meeting recently with my friend The Big Elk.  He retired from a career that involved a lot of physical labor and, while he is in relatively good health for a guy in his 70s he understandably feels some aches and pains.  Recently he put in a lot of hours on a project; far more than I could do at this point and I'm 15 years his junior.

The weekend rolls around and he plops down on the couch, which makes sense to me.   Almost immediately, he feels guilty. 

I understand this.  I fall into the "It's never good enough" syndrome all of the time.  It's one of the big reasons that I drank.  I always set myself up to fail.  I could never be satisfied with anything that I had accomplished.  I couldn't live up to the impossibly high standards that I had set for myself.

It wasn't that everybody else was judging me by these ridiculous standards.  It was all me.  It's always all about me, living between my own two ears, in a ridiculous, nightmare world.

Take a nap, Big Elk -- you deserved it.

The Numbers Guy

I'm kind of the numbers guy in my marriage.

"I almost majored in math," I told SuperK.

"Why didn't you? she asked.
"I wasn't very good at it," I replied. "And I didn't like it very much."

Before we bought the house that we live in now -- the one we are trying to sell for no understandable reason -- I crunched The Numbers and assured my wife that it was a transaction that made sense, in a numbers kind of way.

Later, when I was asking myself what the hell I could have been thinking when I came up with this ill-conceived, hare-brained scheme, giving up a perfectly good house to buy another one -- and I apologize to any hares reading this; some of my best friends are hares -- I spoke to SuperK about it.

"How could you let me do that?" I asked.

"You were so confident," she said. "You really seemed to know what you were doing. I just went along with it."

She just went along with it.

I'm not sure this is going to work out in the long run.

Control The Process!

Control: To exercise authority over; direct; command.

I'm not even sure that I want to sell the house anyway. I think that I want somebody else to say that they want it bad enough to pay me what I'm asking for it, which is probably too much. I'm kind of afraid of somebody will, now that I think about it. I'm not sure what I'd do if they did want to buy it. I'd probably freak out and run away.

"How much for that house?" they'd say.
"$100," I'd say.
"OK, here's $100,"they'd say.
"What? Huh? Really? What's this for?" I'd say.
"Hey, just kidding," I'd say. "Changed my mind."

"Buh-bye," I'd add.

It's all about control. I want to be In Control of The Process.

"What are you talking about?" they'd say. "What process?"
"Are you still here?" I'd say. "Beat it. Get out of here."

Someone is Out to Get Me

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded."

My 7AM meeting today concentrated on a most irritating concept: that I don't always know what's best for me. In fact, I rarely know what's best for me. OK, OK, I never know what's best for me.

"Fear somehow touched every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it."

I like the phrase "evil and corroding thread."

"When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us . . .



I also like the phrase "soul sickness." That would be a great name for a rock band. At least a great name of a song.


"Every time he tries to look within himself, Pride says, 'You need not pass this way,' and Fear says, 'You dare not look!'"

I think it's pretty cool that the original writers of this material -- which I definitely did not lift verbatim out of established texts no doubt covered with iron-clad copyright protection -- like to capitalize fear and pride. FEAR! PRIDE!! See how effective it gets when I punch it up a little bit?

Anyway, my Higher Power knows what's best for me. My HP is quite firm about this. Personally, I don't always care for this arrangement. I'd prefer to be in charge of my trials and tribulations, which would vanish like smoke in the wind. I'd scratch the phrase "trials and tribulations" from the dictionary.

Skipping down the flat, broad, well-landscaped path of destiny.

Huh?

I'm not even sure why I want to sell my house. I don't have anywhere particular to go. I think I'm bored. I think some chaos will fix what ails me. Trust me, you could put together all of the best medical minds in the world and they couldn't fix what ails me. They wouldn't even try.

"Nurse, would you please disconnect the life support system there?" one of them would say.

Willie called me today and left a message. It was a pretty long one which is a losing proposition with me. I can get through the first couple of sentences -- maybe the third sentence on a good day -- then I quit paying attention. Apparently he was calling to apologize for missing a coffee date that I had forgotten all about three minutes after we talked about it. Maybe we didn't even have a time scheduled. Maybe he was just fucking with me. Like when my "friends" used to dress me up with make-up and the like as I snoozed peacefully on the floor of a crowded party, passed out.

"Dude," I exclaimed. "What did I tell you about the long messages? Didn't I tell you no long messages?"
"Huh?" he said. "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

Anyway, the house thing. I'm a little embarrassed to talk about it without the flimsy veneer of anonymity I'm using here, on the World Wide Web. It's one of those "my Ferrari's in the shop" kind of problems, especially for a guy who was living with his parents when he was 30.

It made for great pick up lines: "Hi, I'm Horseface. I'm 30. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents. Your place or your place?"

Just Kidding, Just Kidding

Concerning the whole sordid coffee shop experience, it has crossed my mind that I left out some crucial background material.

This is another one of the coffee places I go to regularly. I believe that I have mentioned that I'm quite outgoing, and that the part of the brain that normally gets between what one thinks and what one says was pretty well burned up by all the alcohol and marijuana. When we go out together, SuperK grabs my arm and holds on tight.

"I'm sorry," she'll say to some clerk or waiter, cutting me off, "but I'm here to shield normal people from my husband.

Anyway, the crew at the coffee shop know me. We exchange pleasantries, follow up on brief conversations. They give me a grande at the price of a venti from time to time - I'm not sure whether this is a kindness or they're screwing me -- and we go our separate ways. One of the nice men always asks what my plans for the weekend are. A lot of the time I'll go to a meeting, visit with friends at my main coffee shop, read a little and take a nap, go for a swim, stuff like that. It doesn't sound too impressive to me.

I want to say: "I'm flying my extreme ultralight out to the Rockies so that I can do some extreme skiing or extreme white water rafting, I haven't decided which."

Prior to Farmer Bill's arrival I said: "I just bought some heroin and I'm going to stay high for the next couple of days."

The conversation experienced a lag.

"Good luck with your heroin," my barista said.

3 Shots and A Massage

So I'm sitting at my coffee shop, talking to SuperK, who is out of town, and Farmer Bill strolls by. He obviously tried to avoid me, but I caught his eye so he had no choice but to sit down for a minute, just to be polite. While I finished up the call, he went inside to get a drink. I walked in, catching him finishing off something in a paper cup. He was standing at the fixins' bar. He didn't even sit down. The whole transaction took a minute.

"I guess a triple shot of espresso right before I get a massage isn't such a great idea," he remarked.

I laughed pretty hard.


"You looked like you were knocking back a shot of cheap whiskey," I said. "When's your massage, anyway?"

He looked at his watch. "Five minutes," he replied.

This makes sense to me. I was the guy who drank a pint of whiskey every time I did too much coke. It never occurred to me to not do the coke. That was crazy talk.

Anyway, to be honest about it, I was having my cup of coffee right after a long swim. I know that when the endorphins are pumping after a work out, then the coffee is a real booster shot. I'm going to assume that the calm sense of well-being after exercise is the point for most people. I'm an alcoholic. I never pass up an opportunity to accentuate good feelings or mask bad ones.

Bartender! A shot for me and three for my horse!

More People Ignoring Me

Ignore: To disregard deliberately; pay no attention to; refuse to consider.

I went to visit my parents this week. They had a meeting with a financial guy who helps them manage part of their savings. I have offered countless times to take a look at how they have their savings invested. I think my advice would be brilliant even though I have no training in finance and have never taken classes on anything relating to finance and do not work in the financial field. My advice on everything else is brilliant so I'm going to assume it would be brilliant in this area as well. I never, ever let a lack of training or expertise or experience stop me from providing my opinion.

It was a major coup to get my parents to even allow me to look at the numbers. In my family we didn't talk about money or sex or religion or politics or anything else even remotely personal. We didn't have too much to talk about most of the time. These restrictions pretty much limited our conversations to sports and when was I going to get a fucking haircut. I think my mother believes I'm going to seize control of their assets and force them into THE NURSING HOME! and use the money to live an extravagant life, buying up dozens of pork pie hats and bargain bin vegetables.

While I like money as much as the next guy, I'm no longer in its murderous clutches. I have learned that it's a fleeting and illusory pleasure most of the time, assuming my basic needs are met, with all of my pork pie hats and the like. Damn those Program People for helping me get my priorities straight. I could be living a shallow and deeply dissatisfying life amassing money that wouldn't make me happy if they hadn't stuck their big noses into my business.

Honestly, I wouldn't take $20 from my parents if I thought it would interfere with my zen-like ability to sleep the peaceful slumber of the dead, or at least the heavily medicated. Anyway, I thought the financial guy was reasonable and fair and honest. I left comforted and waited to hear from my parents before they made any rash financial decisions.

I am still waiting for the call.

MORE people who don't value my advice.

Thinking About Acting

Think: To form or have in the mind.

I like hearing from people who work The Steps. I like it more than actually working The Steps myself. I do not, however, mind thinking about working them. If I have to be personally involved with The Steps in some capacity thinking is the way to go. Otherwise listening to some one else who works The Steps is the next best thing.

If I'm not working The Steps I'm not doing anything, really. I'm just hanging out with some moderately pleasant people who don't drink any more. While it's an accomplishment it doesn't necessarily produce an attractive individual. There are a lot of jerks who don't drink. It's The Steps that make us cool. Working The Steps inevitably leads me to service which, I believe, is my higher calling.

And by service, I mean getting the service, not being of service.

That's for suckers.

Quirky Feedback

Quirk: A peculiarity, peculiar trait, or mannerism

As a general rule, I don't care what people think of me. While I don't go out of my way to act like an ass anymore -- it comes so naturally that I don't have to make a special effort -- I don't do the chameleon, presto-chango, Horseface Steve becomes DonkeyHead Don becomes MuleTeeth Mike thing, either. I used to break my back trying to make sure everyone loved me. And if someone didn't like me or I thought someone didn't like me -- perception being 9/10s of the law -- I would become obsessed with changing their opinion. I LOVE people who don't like me. They're my favorite kind of people. I'm drawn to them like a moth to a flame.

So somebody looked at the house yesterday and didn't like it. They called it "quirky." Probably, the real estate agent responsible for the "feedback" (translation: I don't remember what my customers said and it's really not that important to me to help you out) made some stuff up to get us off the phone.

"Quirky?" I said. "What the hell does that mean? The house isn't quirky."
"No. No, of course not," SuperK said, eyeing my pork pie hat and long, grey hair flying all over the place. "Why would you like something that's quirky?"

I kind of took it personally. Which is funny because ordinarily, if you said you didn't like my house, I'd think: Who the hell cares what you like? Now it's an extension of me. And money is involved.

Money money money money.

Stimulation

Stimulus: A goad, sting, torment, pang, spur, incentive.

SuperK and I put our house up for sale. We are not really sure why. It's a thing to do, I guess. I'm not that hip on the process but I'm guessing that if someone buys it, then I have to move, which seems like it would be a big pain in the ass, especially since I don't have anywhere specific to go.

"Maybe we could move in with my mother for a while," I suggested.
"Where did I put my murdering ax?" she muttered.

I believe my comment the last time we moved was something along the lines of "never doing this ever again." Alcoholics love pain, I think, because then we have an excuse to blot it out or handle it or blame it on someone else.

Actually, it's exciting. It's fun to try new things. I'm not afraid of a little chaos. It's so . . . stimulating. It doesn't always work out the way I want it to but I'm almost never sorry that I gave something a whirl. All those years sitting in dark bars and dark rooms, bathed in the glow of the television box, thinking great thoughts and dreaming great dreams.

The trick for me is to be careful that I'm not planning outcomes.

The Big Rubber Band

Rubber Check: a check that is worthless because of insufficient funds in the drawer's account (from the notion that it "bounces").

I watched a documentary once about aircraft carriers. Not to be too technical about it, but my understanding of the process of launching the planes off the deck of the carrier is that the army men move the plane into position, hook a Big Rubber Band onto the back of it, then fling it off the end of the ship like they're operating a big sling shot. It must be quite a thrill to be in one of those planes.

After they hook up to the Big Rubber Band but before they get flung the jets lock their brakes and rev their engines up to full power, preparing to "floor it" when the army men activate the Big Rubber Band and the pilots take their foot off the brake, or whatever they have their foot on to make sure the plane stays put. I'm sure I've made the process a little more complicated than it actually is but you get the picture.

This is what I used to do as I nodded off at red lights late at night. "Why won't this car go forward?" I'd think, as I sat there with one foot on the brake and one foot on the gas and one foot on the clutch, listening to the engine make horrible noises that I couldn't easily explain.

"Wow, that's me," I remarked to SuperK.

"What's you?" she asked. "The plane that you can't fly or the boat that you can't sail?"

I feel like that jet most of the time. I feel like my engine is cranked up to full power and I'm ready to blast off. Most days I wake up in the morning, open my eyes, and I'm already at full power. And my rubber band shoots me right into the day irregardless of what's in front of me. It's OK when my jet is pointed in the right direction; it's less fun when there's a brick wall in front of me, or someone else's jet airplane. Sometimes there's a brick wall in a bramble patch hidden by some sticker bushes.

"No! NO!" I shout to the army men. "Hang on to the Big Rubber Band!"

Whoosh.

Advice or Just Vice?

"Live and Let Live" has got to be one of the most irritating of the many irritating slogans that can be seen in the frames that hang on the walls of so many meetings all over the world. For someone like me who has a brilliant insight on how everyone else should live their lives it is particularly frustrating. None of the slogans apply to me, and this one is no exception. I'm sure that it's disappointing for other people, too, and it's the feelings of other people that are most important to me, assuming that I have some spare time after I'm done thinking about myself, which is a rare and unusual occurrence. It's a full time job thinking about myself.

After all, I've been so successful managing my own life that I feel the need to help you manage yours. Give me a call if you want to learn how to throw up properly; lose, wreck, or sleep in a car; or to alienate everybody else who comes within a 100 miles of you -- these are my three areas of expertise. I'm like the neighbor who steps out of his burning house that has been sinking into a swamp to help you understand the finer points of Bonsai gardening.

"Uh, any plans to replace the roof on your house?" my neighbors would ask. "Or the front door?"

Busy bodies.

Today I figure if someone wants my advice that they'll ask for it.

No one ever asks for it.

I don't ask any of my friends for advice and I have some pretty cool friends. When I do ask for advice, I never do anything that anyone suggests, so they have pretty much given up dispensing any suggestions.

Why in the world would I think I can run someone else's life? I can't remember if I've actually said something or just thought it.