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.