Yadda Yadda Yadda

I'm going to be happy as soon as blah blah blah.

I'd be happy if only this or that thing or person or place yadda yadda yadda.

I have GOT to get better at sitting still, comfortably, in my own skill, in the here and now.

That damn "One Day at a Time" again.

Smilin' Horseface

Smile: To have or take on a facial expression showing pleasure, amusement, affection, friendliness, irony, derision, etc. and characterized by an upward curving of the corners of the mouth and a sparkling of the eyes.

Shorty and I were talking about a couple of social issues today, wondering how we make a difference in an impossibly large arena. We decided that all we could do was to change our own behavior for the better and hope that others would notice. This is in sharp contrast to my inherent interest in changing other people's behavior after hours of haranguing and lecturing.

I'm impatient and grandiose and don't want to burn up any energy unless I can change everything all at once on a global scale. This is why I never took that journey of 1000 miles. I never took the first step.

If I want to make the world a better place than I should smile at the next person I see. I was so busy day-dreaming about the public ceremony announcing my 10 million dollar contribution to open the Horseface Steve wing of the children's hospital for 3rd world orphan survivors of war, poverty, and abuse, that I couldn't be bothered to be nice today, right now.

Smile, Horseface, Smile.

Banker Dan

And then I think about my relationships with people and how rich they can be and also how disappointing.

I run into my friend Banker Dan a few times a week at early morning meetings. Even though I've only known him 5 or 6 years he's more dialed into my daily life than my birth family. A lot of people are interested in me to the extent that it directly affects them. They don't remember to ask how I'm doing or what I say if they do. I don't want to suggest that they don't care or are acting in an especially egregious manner. People are naturally egocentric, to varying degrees, and it takes practice and effort to change that.

A few months ago Dan had a couple of biggish things going on in his life. When we got together, I remembered to ask him how things were going, and he talked. I really don't care that much about what's going on in other people's lives so this is an unnatural act on my part. For a few weeks, he didn't ask about me and this is how it should be. While he was handling these situations in a sane, acceptable manner, they weren't insignificant. I expected him to want and need to talk, and I genuinely wanted to know how he was doing.

After a bit the pressure on Banker Dan lessened, mostly because stuff works out on their own accord and not due to any brilliant maneuvering on his part. Recently, the shoe has been on the other foot, whatever that means. Now he has been asking how I'm doing and it feels good to talk about it. There's something about repeating the same story over and over that takes away a lot of its power. In fact, I've told the story to so many people, who have asked and then listened, that it's starting to get boring even to me. It's losing its significance.

I'm getting saner in no small part because guys like Banker Dan are listening.

The Big Step

My aunt with leukemia passed away last week at an area hospice. She was a lovely, lovely woman and will be missed. Her last days were spent heavily sedated. We're all glad she has made that big step into the next, better place.

I went out to visit a couple of times. One time, actually. I don't know why I said "a couple" except that it makes me sound better. This is why I try not to talk much or to use numbers when I do. I usually exaggerate my actions to make myself appear more impressive than I actually am.

Believe me, it's not how I wanted to spend my precious free time. Cancer is a dark and ravaging disease. It was not pleasant being with an unresponsive person who was close to death. It isn't the cancer that kills a person, per se -- it's that the cancer cells overwhelm normal functioning systems until they can't run the body anymore. It was a losing battle.

It occurred to me at some point that it would be the right thing to do. Not the pleasant thing, certainly, but the right thing. This awareness is a big enough jump for me; the acting on the realization is a whole 'nother thing. For much of my life everything that I did had to have "pleasant" attached to it. I worked hard at avoiding unpleasantness. I really dislike pain.

It also occurred to me that maybe my visit would be some comfort to the immediate family. This is probably obvious to most people but not to me. And today I think there is a seamless connection between this life and the purely spiritual realm that follows. We step over in the blink of an eye, smoothly from here to there, just like that. It's like watching the last bit of light wink out as the sun drops below the horizon. It's a powerful thing being around when that is happening. It's part of life in a weird kind of way.


I did find myself enjoying some delicious self-satisfying judgement over the behavior of some other people. Some people are eager to be around during the good times, then melt into the background when when the atmosphere sours.


Recovering alcoholics, we can handle the pain.

Through the Lens, Darkly

One of the things that I find so attractive about The Program is watching alcoholics do their best to squeeze every last bit of pleasure out of every circumstance imaginable. We even give it our best shot when things are not going according to plan. It's an art form. Good, bad, awful, whatever, we work our asses off extracting every morsel of positivity that we can. We're not perfect -- we're prone to fits of depression and pissy outrage from time to time but it's not our default setting anymore. We're in the game, at least.

Then I find myself in situations where I have to spend time with my Earth People family. They're certainly not bad people; they just get quickly swept up in the swirl of negativity that envelopes our world. It's not hard to do; our news media, our politicians, our entire culture is fascinated with the dark side of things. We like to ladle up a dark roux of pain. It's easier than focusing on the positive.

I get to see people take difficult situations and make them totally miserable, for themselves and for every one around them. I took a fake cell phone call yesterday simply so that I could remove myself from a particularly painful situation. It wasn't bad externally for the unhappy players -- it was bad internally. While technically what I did wasn't honest, it was better than freaking out and saying what I thought of the behavior I was witnessing, which would have broken my cardinal rule of Keeping My Mouth Shut!

I will tell you that I sold that fake phone call. I should have been in the CIA. I would have been a great secret agent.

Hidy Ho

I got up yesterday and went to a speaker meeting. I don't normally attend lead meetings, being a solid member of the ADD MTV generation, and horribly judgemental to boot. If anything lasts more than two minutes and isn't as fascinating as I am -- no mean feat -- then I can't be bothered to pay attention.

The guy who spoke is an old friend who had 5 or 6 years of sobriety when I first staggered into The Program. I've known him for a long time and always identified with his opinions and experiences. After I heard him speak, I knew why. We did a lot of the same things: the Marijuana Maintenance Plan, the collecting of sobriety tokens while not bothering to actually stay sober, the atrocious behavior in early sobriety while we were learning that there was a lot more to sobriety than just not drinking.

It's not that people in recovery don't have any problems. It's that we face them with such good humor and optimism most of the time. It really is a choice to look on the bright side of things, not something that you have or you don't. I felt good when I left. I felt like I was part of something amazing.

On the flip side of the coin the last week has seen some family struggles: an aunt passed away, a mother in law losing her independence, a father back in the hospital. None of this is good stuff but it's not half as bad as some of the participants are implying. I like how in recovery we buckle up and get to work when things are a pain in the ass. We don't sit around and bitch about.

Well, we do sit around and bitch about it but not forever.