Hip, Slick, and Cool

Hip:    Cool; groovy.
Slick:  Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy.
Cool:  Happening; hip; in; trendy.

One of my friends was fixing up his coffee at the meeting this morning at the coffee-fixins table.  I snuck up behind him and gave him a big bear hug.  I'm a guy who hugs Guys a the drop of a hat - whether they want a hug or not - and Gals when I'm sure they know I'm married and harmless and scared to death of my wife.

He said: "Come outside a minute - I want to talk to you."

This guy has had a rough life.  He's not educated and he's not articulate and he has about half of his teeth.  He looks like he's seventy but I bet he's younger than me.  He didn't earn his living sitting on his ass in a car, I'm sure of that.  The point is should you care about the point is that he's not a guy that I would have gravitated to when I was drinking.  But I've learned in this most democratic of institutions that I don't know where my friends are going to come from.  I tend to walk into a room and mentally separate people into groups and then I decide where I'm going to best fit in.  You're really cool like me or you're not.  The problem I keep running into is that the really cool people like me are jerks half the time.  Like me.

This guy basically told me how happy he is that I've moved here and become an active member of the group.  He's a little disjointed when he talks but I got the drift.  One of the cool guys in the group, one of the guys I thought would be a good fit for me - he lives on his yacht - blew by with nary a wave.  We're friendly but the relationship hasn't gone further than that.

Go figure.  Maybe . . . possibly . . . could be . . . that I'm somewhat less hip, slick, and cool than I thought.

What Is and What Is Not

There is What Is and there is What Could Be.  One is good and one has the creep of perfidy.  I'm not even going to check the fluid level on What Is Not.  Give me a anything - give me a person, place, or thing - and I'll tell you what's missing.  I'm the Master of Holes.

I'm eternally grateful and often enraged at our slogan One Day At A Time.  Initially it kept me sober - now it keeps me sane.  It reminds me that This Is What Is - Something else is not What Is, being rather something else - and it tell me to keep my grubby hands off What Could Be.  If I so much as broach the topic of What Is Not kindly hit me with a cattle prod.

Nothing has helped me inhabit the What Is more than meditation.  Focusing on where I am, right now, the breathing, the sounds of life going on around me, is What Is incarnate.

I guess.

Con Science

Conscience:  The moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects one's own behavior.  

One of my favorite groups is being bedeviled by a few individuals who are DRIVING ME CRAZY!  This means that they need to change their behavior.  If I don't like something then it can't be good because I am, of course, without a flaw, blemish, or defect of any kind.

A few of my friends are similarly OUTRAGED! so we're kind of bitching quietly among ourselves about how to fix these broken people.  I'm dancing right around the fiery edge of gossip without actually crossing the line, or so I've convinced myself.  My reasoning is dubious because I do so enjoy a nice bout of character assassination draped in a cloak of righteous indignation.

Here's the kicker - these individuals really are annoying and they really do avoid talking about recovery and the 12 Steps.  They're frustrating a lot of the group members.  So be it.  I'm sure I was a shining beacon of sound reasoning who was applying the Steps to every moment of my waking hours.  I'm sure I didn't annoy anyone.

Being a great Joiner-Inner my OUTRAGE! has been stoked by these talks to the point where I was ready to take some unilateral measures to fix everything.  It's not important what I was going to do if by "not important" you mean "it's a little too embarrassing to repeat here because I'd look like a real ass."

I began to wonder how I would act if someone that I annoyed - as incredible as that remote possibility is to contemplate - tried to change my behavior.  I'd be like "Yeah, and who appointed you %$!! pope and president, you arrogant %$!!"

I guess this is why we have business meetings and group consciences.  That's where all of the members get together to make a structural change in the meeting instead of relying on one self-absorbed guy to do what he thinks best.  I've been on the losing end of a lot of group decisions, I'll tell you that.  I've brought up matters that I thought needed to be changed and I've been annihilated in the group conscience.  It was a slaughter.  I wasn't even close to being in the majority.  Nothing was changed and guess what?  Those groups are still there.

So I wrote our national office for some counsel.  I will keep my mouth shut.  I will adhere to a group decision, avoiding a Seaweed decision, should a group conscience be called.  I will not be asking for one myself because I think I need to learn something about myself here, not change something in someone else. 

Always a good idea, actually.

An Evil Constitution

Guilty:  Responsible for a dishonest act; judged to have committed a crime; having a sense of guilt.

Here's another stupid thing about me: I am often plagued by guilt and misgivings when something good is going on in my life.  I'd almost rather have bad things happen to me.  I'm more comfortable with them.  I feel like I deserve them, that I'm reaping my just desserts for an evil constitution.

Is it any wonder that I drank?

Reprisals and Consistencies

Consistent:  Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature.

I'm going to reprise some commentary about my family because NO ONE gets tired of hearing someone complain about their birth family.  If we drunks were all telling the truth about our blood relations the world would be populated with folks who have the approximate moral fiber of Stalin and Ghenghis Kahn.

Things with my parents are running much more smoothly back in The Old City, and this is a good thing - I'm really glad that stuff has leveled off.  Because things are running much more smoothly I have been re-relegated to the backest of the back burners on the stove located way, way in the back.  And this is a good thing in it's own weird way - I make all of them vaguely uncomfortable and irritated.  While I'm undoubtedly overstating my impact on them I'll repeat this fact: no one is calling me anymore and no one is returning my calls when I initiate the contact.  I'm not offended and I'm not surprised.  This is behavior of long standing and has a very intimate feel for me.

I'll say this: sometimes I behave with my family in a way that doesn't look good on paper.  But there's a long history that helps explain this behavior and I'm consistent.  They may not like it but it doesn't surprise them.  It shouldn't surprise them, anyway,C

Of Cats and Peanuts and Alcohol

Allergy: A hypersensitivity to a specific substance which in similar amounts are harmless to most people.

Alcoholics suffer from alcohol allergies. It reacts with our bodies in a strange and fantastic manner. A non-alcoholic who has a drink might mention that the alcohol relaxes him a bit. Or he does it to be sociable or to celebrate a special occasion. He doesn’t consider the morning,

any time he is conscious, or periods of happiness, sadness, and any level in-between to be special occasions. Alcohol blows off the top of an alcoholic’s head. It makes him feel better when he needs some cheering up and it makes him feel great he is already feeling good. He takes a drink and the sun shines, the music plays, and the Heavens part. Angels come down and minister to his every need.

Most people think that allergies are not good things. Folks that are allergic to cats generally don’t own one. They may love cats. They may worship cats. But they decide that gasping for breath, uncontrollable sneezing, and dabbing at red, runny eyes are too steep a price to pay. 

If someone eats a mollusk and their head swells up to the size of a cantaloupe, they don’t order the shellfish next time they go out. They might even avoid seafood restaurants altogether. But an alcoholic sits on the curb outside the emergency room and thinks: “Let’s see: I just had my stomach pumped and almost died from alcohol poisoning. What can I do differently tonight?”

If you drink it, you will die.

Sorry Isn't Going To Cut It, Reader!

Shriek: To utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in sudden fright, in horror or anguish. 

I'm enjoying my favorite Overpriced Specialty Coffee Drink at Starbucks yesterday - minding my own business, thinking about myself, wondering why other people weren't being more diligent in their efforts to think about me - when I become aware of a ruckus nearby.  Perhaps this ruckus had been going on for a while.  I really couldn't say.  My ability to block out every external stimulus to think about myself is unparalleled.  

It was a man in a suit jacket screaming into his cell phone.  He was extremely upset at Karen.  I gleaned from the shrieking that she was a customer service rep at a cell provider, or maybe an internet provider.  I was too busy ducking the flecks of spittle showering the immediate area to be entirely sure.  It sounded like Karen's company had interrupted this guy's service.

"Sorry isn't going to cut it, Karen!" he'd yell.
"I'm not getting off the phone until I speak to a supervisor, Karen!!" he'd shout.
"I've referred a lot of people to you, Karen!!!" he'd bellow.
"I've been with you for two years, Karen!!!!" he'd scream.

(I know - I hate exclamation points, the most overused punctuation mark out there, but the guy was really shouting.)

If I was Karen I would have hung up.  I don't think this guy understood the mechanics of a phone conversation.  I would have said: "Buh-bye."  I might have said: "Stay on your phone all you want, dude."  It wouldn't have been out of character for me to whisper menacingly: "I could have you killed."  THAT might have shut the guy up.

I particularly enjoyed that this guy was sitting at a Starbuck's themed table and using some free Starbuck's wi-fi without actually . . . you know . . . purchasing an overpriced specialty drink.  I was confused as to why he stayed with a company that treated him so poorly and why - in god's name - he would refer other people to said company.  What was he, some kind of sadist?

I don't believe he was thinking about me.

Mountains and Molehills

Worse:  (Comparative form of bad); more bad.

To Make A Mountain Out Of A Molehill:  To treat a problem as greater than it is; to blow something out of proportion; to exaggerate the importance of something trivial.  

My ability to Make A Bad Thing Worse is exceeded only by my skill in Making A Mountain Out Of A Molehill.  The other day I was finishing up a busy morning of attending a meeting and sitting on my ass drinking coffee in the sun when I decided to wax my car.  I figured I should try to do something productive in case someone asked me what I did that morning.  I stopped at a car wash on the way home and then wasted a smaller amount of time sitting on my ass at home before heading out to my garage to get my car wax, if by "garage" you mean "large, flimsy, tin shed smaller than the smallest car made."

Alas, I could find no wax in my cursory search.  I searched more thoroughly.  Still no wax.  Then what I do is deny the facts of my problem.  I continued to search because I knew the wax was there.  I couldn't believe there was no wax.  I spent a fair amount of time looking at all of the places that I had already looked at, apparently believing that the wax would materialize.  I'm good at ignoring facts and at creating reality out of fiction.

I was quite pissed.  I get in my car and drive to a nearby grocery store.  The drive took about 10 minutes.  I know this because I checked the clock before I left.  I wanted to see how much of my precious coffee-drinking and ass-flattening time I was wasting.  I pop out of my vehicle, slap the back pocket of my shorts, discover that I had left my wallet at home.

I stood there and contemplated this for a moment.  I considered going into the store, taking the wax through the checkout line, then saying: "Omigod, I forgot my wallet."  I was calculating my odds at talking them into giving me the wax and not giving them any money.  "I'll come back," I would assure them.  I was pretty sure I could pull it off.  I'm a salesman and a liar and a charming, charming guy.

I thought "What if they say no?"  Then I would have wasted another 10 minutes and still be no closer to owning a can of wax.  I cut my losses and drove home - carefully drove home.  I wanted to rush but I have experience making matters worse when I'm pissed and in a hurry.  I didn't want to wreck my unwaxed car over a $6 can of wax.

I retrieve my wallet, drive back to the store, and locate the auto care aisle where I find exactly zero cans of wax.  I did find products to treat my leather, repair my leather, remove tar and bug gunk and bird shit, make my black parts even blacker, shine up my tires, do all sorts of things to my fuel injection system, carburetor, brake lines, and transmission, even a product to treat my windshield so that water runs off more easily, which is what I thought . . . you know . . . windshield wipers were for.

I purchase a 99 cent head of lettuce.  I didn't want to look like an idiot with an unwaxed car walking around a grocery store.  I have an image as a VIP that needs to be maintained.  I declined the plastic bag to transport the lettuce home where I lay down and took a nap.

I had been way too productive already that day.

A Call Too Late

I spoke to a friend of mine yesterday who quit his job in a hailstorm of "#%!! yous" and "Go #%!! yourselfs."  He had called the day  before so when I saw his number pop up on my caller ID I figured something was up.  I didn't agree with what he had done and thought he got what he deserved but I didn't say so during the call.  He felt bad about what he had done - he called his boss the next day to try to retrieve his job, with predictable results - so I didn't see the need to pile on.

I mulled it over and sent him this note this morning.

"Upon further reflection . . .

I say these things so that I may hear them for myself.  They come out of my own experience, not any one else's.  Your day yesterday made me think about myself and how I behave, is all I'm saying.

I try never to act when I'm angry, pissed, frustrated, upset, angry, angry, or angry.  It never works out well for me.  Especially with my wife.  I can say the same thing later and get a better response - after I've calmed down, done some writing,  talked to someone, got my thoughts in order.

Sometimes from trauma comes pleasure.  Sometimes I just will not make the changes I need to make until I'm in a world of hurt.  Moving from The Old City to The New City comes to mind.  We had sold our house and were looking at apartments there - we wanted to visit some other towns and decide where we wanted to end up.  SuperK said: "If we were going to stay here we shouldn't have sold the house."  So we moved to The New City in the dead of night.  I can remember sitting in a hotel at the airport waiting for our stuff to arrive, all of our valuables and important papers stuffed into a few suitcases, no place secured to move into, watching the rain fall, thinking: "WTF have I just done?"  But I might still be in The Old City if we hadn't made that leap of faith.  Everyone in The Old City thought we were crazy but it was time to move and I'm not sure we had the guts to do it without that leap of faith.  

I never do well when I'm not regular with my meetings.  Some people can do it but I'm not one of them.  Should you choose you're now in a position to step up your program.  Maybe talk about what just happened - I bet you get support, advice, etc that you never excepted.

I try never to beat myself up for what I've done.  I make decisions to the best of my ability.  Some of 'em work out and some of 'em don't.  Welcome to life.  If they work out I try to enjoy them and if they don't I try to learn a lesson.  It's ridiculous for me to think it's going to be one smooth ride.

Spoken without judgment and so that I can hear myself speak."

Here's the deal - call before running your mouth.

Nice. Nice.

Nice:  Charming, delightful, friendly, kind, lovely, pleasant, sweet.  

The other day my Old City sponsor - my "This, too, shall pass" sponsor, my "Have you had your quiet time today" sponsor - threw me an early morning curve.

"What have you done nice for someone else today?" he asked.

It gave me pause.  Now there's a 3 hour time difference between us so he got me fairly early in my day.  Not that I would have done anything nice had I been given a few more hours.  I'm up and at 'em by 5:30 or 6 on most days and after some old man stretching and that goddam quiet time, I almost always either go to the pool for a swim or to a meeting before diving into other tasks.  Still . . . . 

I  know the guy who cleans the locker room at my club.  I know his name.  I know how many kids he has.  We always talk for a bit.  I think he appreciates it - a lot of people look right through him.

The women at my coffee ship know me.  "Seaweed!"  they shout when I come in.  I know their names and what they're studying in school.  I'm pretty sure they like seeing me.  They're pretty good actors if they don't.

I make it my business to know everyone at my morning meetings.  I know the regulars and I know who's new.  I make it my business to ensure that nobody stands around with their hands in their pockets when the meeting is over.  I'm the last one to leave the parking lot - if you've got something on your mind I'm happy to listen to it.  I'm pretty sure this is appreciated.  I know damn sure that I'm loved at these meetings.

I felt good going over these things in my mind.  I'm such an egotist that I forget nice is often small and unnoticed.  It doesn't have to be a big show.

I've always liked the saying: "Don't sweat the small stuff because it's all small stuff."

!!!!

There:   In a place or location (stated, implied or otherwise indicated) at some distance from the speaker.  

It's pretty amazing how many other "I'm not doing it right" people are out there.  It can lead to a lot of angst or discomfort, unhappiness, anxiety, whatever you want to call it.  A syndrome of not measuring up, of not lining up with the majority.  A sense that it could have been done faster, better, bigger, mucher.  

It doesn't have a lot to do with what has been done, either.  It's a failure to have a little balance, a little restraint in our expectation of what the world expects or delivers or is.

I've been thinking about a friend of mine in The Program.  This guy has been sober about 10 years.  He's hard on himself.  I think he's looking for more than life is going to be able to supply him.  I think he's looking for more happy than he's going to be able to get on a regular basis.  There are a lot of us out there like that.  This guy is much loved by the group so I know he's doing something for someone, just not all that he thinks he could be doing.

I figure that in a good week I'm really happy about 20% of the time; I'm borderline homicidal about 5%  of the time; and then there's the 75% of my life that, when I really look at it,  is no big, fucking deal.  It's frustrating for a Big Deal guy like me.  I want everything to be Amazing!  So Amazing!!  All the Time!!!

!!!!

Chatter Fills the Airwaves

Chatter:   Talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk.

I'll tell you what else - I've almost always got  a head chock full of chatter.  The number of voices talking to me is without number and not because I haven't counted them or am unable to count to a number so large - a not unreasonable supposition given my tendency to lose focus after the number 2 or 3 - but because there are a lot of them up there.  They are whispering; they are shouting; they are shrieking; they babble on and on.  It's not like they're always pissed or discontented, either, like they were when I was sobering up.  They're just dominating the airwaves, filling it full of noise.  It's no wonder I can't get my thoughts lined up with all the babbling. 

It's like trying to have a normal conversation about a good, quality tofu product at a Black Sabbath concert.

This is perfectly normal.

I'll Tell You What

Introvert:  One who focuses primarily on their own mind, feelings, or affairs.

I'll tell you what: I need a good chunk of time on a daily basis by myself for myself and I'm not talking about moving around, doing something time, either.  I'm talking about idling time, time where I'm awake but not in motion.

The battle cry of the introverted alcoholic.

I seem to get a lot done when I'm not getting anything done.  Thoughts organize themselves, answers come, solutions appear from out of nowhere.  I solve most of my problems by not trying to solve my problems.

$15

When I was in The Old City I thought that a few sessions in the swimming pool might help me keep a tenuous grip on my sanity.  I had some frustrations to release.  Little Westside Jonny chipped in by offering me some guest passes at his gym.

"Just give them my name," he said.  "I have a lot of free passes."

Free is good so one morning I get up and head to his club.  I drive right by another gym that charges $5 for a guest day pass.  Because this place was literally in the shadow of my parent's apartment I waved at it forlornly as I passed by.  I probably used $6 of gas to get my free %$!! guest pass.  

I leaned in at the reception desk when I arrived.

"LWSJ," I said quietly, in a conspiratorial tone.

"That'll be $15," the gatekeeper said, totally unimpressed by my name-dropping.

I was miffed.  I was ticked.  I started to say something that was going to include the adjective, the noun, and the adverb %$!! but thought better of it, kept my mouth shut, and forked over the cash.  I could see that if I continued to move restlessly forward in this peeved state of mind that the day was going to deteriorate quickly, the curse of LWSJ following me like an evil wind.

A few days later I called the gym next to my parent's place.  I figured I'd stay local.

"How much for a day pass?" I ask.

"That'll be $15," they said.

Yes, that was an amount I was familiar with.  I drive over and slap down my credit card, noting that the club prominently advertises a "lap pool" above its reception desk.

"I'm going to swim laps," I tell the attendant.  "So I want to make sure there's no exercise class or anything tying up the pool this morning."

"We don't have a pool," she replied.  I hesitated, wondering about pointing out the inaccuracy of their %$!! sign, grateful when the woman gave me directions to another club in their chain, ironically located about 10 miles away.

"I'd like a day pass so I can use your pool to swim laps," I wearily informed this attendant.

"That'll be $5," he said.  I began to suspect a giant Seaweed-centric mind-$#!! going down at this point.  People were following me with cameras and walkie-talkies, trying to fry my already damaged circuitry.

On my Last Day I noticed the key ring on the car that I was borrowing had a membership tag for this particular chain.  I handed it to the attendant, who scanned it, and cheerfully waved me in.

"That'll be $0," I said.

Bob The Spider

Spider:  Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods most of which spin webs to catch prey.

In the Seaweed household, I - Little Stevie Seaweed - have been banished to the guest bathroom. SuperK has spoken - she has flexed her considerable muscles and she roams the large master bathroom like a caged beast, alone and in control.  Sometimes when I'm in the guest bathroom I use the facilities.  Sometimes I stand and sometimes I sit down.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

One day - while sitting, if you must know - I noticed a spider peeking out from the space created where the flooring veers away from the bottom of the wall in my well-made home.  On a whim I blew on this spider and he backed further into the space.  I could see him there.  He was hiding but not completely hidden.  

"I can see you there," I said.

I'm fond of spiders.  Anything that can make a living finding something to eat in my sterile home is OK by me.  I figure the odds of a spider inflicting grievous bodily harm on me is going to be less than any damage caused by whatever said arachnid is catching and eating.

I named him Bob.  He looked like a good, spider-of-the-earth spider.  He wasn't particularly big but he wasn't small, either.  He had long legs and he was black, black, black.  Sometimes when I blew on him he vanished back into the wall and sometimes he held his ground.  Usually he was half-in, half-out but then again it wasn't unusual for him to be skooched out completely.  From time to time: No Bob.  But he always came back.

I began to look for him eagerly.

"Hi, Bob," I'd say.  Sometimes I'd shout out with great enthusiasm: "Bob!" I wanted him to know I was glad to see him.   Sometimes I'd say his name with an inflection meant to convey that I knew he was up to something.  I didn't know what, exactly, but something was going on.  It was admonishing and affectionate at the same time: "Bahhhhhhhbob?"

I couldn't decide what his deal was exactly.  He never built a web which I thought was spider Job One.  Was he a stupid spider?  Was he a lazy spider?  Was he a visionary, certain that he had a system to lure his prey right into his floorboard home?  It crossed my mind that he might have been tasked by a more managerial spider with protecting something of great value in the spider world, although what that might be I couldn't say.  Bob could have been spider muscle, a spider bouncer as it were.

Maybe he was a great spider preacher, trying to convince other spiders to follow his teachings.  This became curiously attractive to me.  Spider the Baptist, roaming the desert, eating locusts and dressed in whatever passes for spider rags.  I mean: c'mon, he was hanging out on the floor.

I never saw him catch anything but he was there for several days, which surprised me.  I thought spiders lived for a few brief, shining moments.

On the last day I walked by the bathroom and Bob was on the move - he was making a run for the door.  Across the linoleum he skittered, dancing up and over the rim of the hall carpet, vanishing in its pattern.  "Bob's on the move!" I shouted to SuperK, alarmed.

He has not been seen since.

Nor has SuperK.

Maybe they're one and the same.   I've never seen those two in the same room at the same time. 

I'm uncertain as to what this has to do with recovery.  I don't think Bob was a drunk.  He doesn't attend the same meetings as I do.

Godspeed, Bob.  I hope you find what you're looking for.

A Statement Of Fact

It has been helpful discussing The Old Town and parents with people who never left and also with expats.  The former may drift into a sense of outrage at my abandonment while the latter feel some sense of resignation and powerlessness.  I mean: if being a caretaker was important to me - and being taken care of - I wouldn't have left.  It is a statement of sorts.  If those relationships were critical on a daily basis I'd still be there.  Obviously they're not - and this doesn't imply a lack of love rather a lack of need.