Expect: To look forward to, as to something that is believed to be about to happen or come.
Thoughts, here and there.
I continue in my low-grade suffering malaise. I wonder at the human spirit and it's relation to the spiritual world. I know I got to be in the room with my father as he died of alcoholism. I know that he's dead. I know that a deep, deep connection to a city was lost, sparked out. I know that there is a lengthening of relationships after several years of absence. I know all of this and I expected a different reaction.
I'd suggest not putting yourself in a box when it comes to your reaction to what life throws at you. It may not come out how you expected.
God, as jokester.
The big financial organization that has put together a brilliant playbook to drive me completely insane cycled back up to the top of my shit list today. Over the last two weeks I waited patiently . . . patiently . . . not so patiently . . . gritting my teeth . . . and then I picked up the phone because today was my day to be trapped inside a Kafkaesque wormhole. Against all odds I was hopeful but resigned. I had an idea what was coming.
You might recall that GWPMO helped me fill out a dizzying array of financial forms which he was supposed to forward to the Home Office. These were the people I called, the Home Office people, the shadowy, shadowy Home Office people, accountable to no one, man or beast. So . . . out of 6 forms the first guy I talked to had 3 of them and all was well. Form number 4 required an additional form that had to be notarized. He emailed me this form which, when opened, informed me that I needed to "Please wait for the form to populate." It never populated. No population appeared. The form had no people. I took my 3 out of 4 and moved on.
Forms 5 and 6 were being handled by scriveners at a different division or arm or leg of this malevolent organization and these scriveners were at a different address. They had received zero of the two forms. They offered to help me fill out the forms which I had already filled out. They couldn't explain why four of the forms mailed by the same office arrived and two did not.
"Here's the thing," I remarked. "Let's say I fill out this set of forms and then you find the original set of forms. What happens then?"
"By the way," I said. "These are complicated forms. That's why I went somewhere so someone could help me fill them out. I don't really want to fill them out again."
"Exactly," he said. "That's what we recommend people do."
He was good, this one, as a tormentor. I spoke to Tony, Sandy, and Travis today but I have lost track as to which one this guy was. I lost my temper a couple of times and there may have been some voice raising but no yelling and absolutely no profanity.
I was disconnected from Tony. Poor Sandy answered when I called back and she took the brunt of my pique.
I called the GWPMO and told them that the Home Office didn't have the forms.
"Well, they're wrong," he said. "They just called me a few minutes ago asking for clarification on one of the forms we sent in."
I was two hours in at this point and I waved my white flag of capitulation. I don't mean to suggest that the war is over, only that today the battle was bloody and fought to a draw.
I went out and got the mail today and found two checks from The Organization. If I had waited two hours all of this could have been avoided. God is amused, Seaweed is not.
Patience, Seaweed, patience.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
Lots Of Bad Words In This One
Timeline:
4/28: My father dies. I contact local insurance/investment agent to inform him of this fact. My folks liked this guy and he liked them - he said some nice things, blessed me, shit like that. I didn't have to call him so quickly but I'm a guy and I'm happier when I'm doing something, preferring any action to sitting with my grief.
5/19: Follow-up with local agent. Leave a VM. This guy will henceforth and forevermore be referred to as Guy Who's Pissing Me Off, or GWPMO (pronounced GWOMP-mo).
5/20: GWPMO replies that he has been in touch my sister. This is despite the fact that I'm the executor of the estate and we explained to him that I should be the first point of contact - part of the reasoning here is that my sister did so much work when dad was alive that I wanted to offload some of the paperwork stuff, which is a specialty of mine. Also, I think that a lot of men zero in on a woman assuming that she's going to be the weak link - that's where they start if they want to delay, dissemble, obfuscate. I don't have proof that this is so but I've never let facts get in the way of my paranoid, suspicious ramblings. Says that he has an appointment scheduled with her to discuss matters. My sister comments that she doesn't have no stinking appointment.
5/21: I contact GWPMO by EM thanking him for calling back (choking on some bile) while reminding him that he needs to start with me. I was nice. Really.
5/25: GWPMO calls my sister to set up the appointment and remind her that he needs the Death Certificate. At this point I'm beginning to work up some begrudging respect or burgeoning pity for GWPMO. He's either plowing forward doggedly or he's brain-damaged and doesn't understand simple, basic instructions spoken in unadorned English. Either way he's not veering off the path that he has chosen.
5/25: I return call to GWPMO in short order to find out that he's out of town and that he's going to be out of town for several days - he had actually called my sister from the road. I don't dig on this fact. I don't care where he's going to be or what he's going to be doing - he is the representative of a huge corporation and they can fucking well get someone else to help me in his absence. I ponder remarking - but do not - that I bet they'd have someone jonny-on-the-spot if I wanted to invest the same amount of money that I wanted to withdraw.
"Oh, sure," I wanted to say. "You're good at taking the money. Big deal. Anybody can take the money. (Here I would flutter my hands around in the air, grabbing at unseen bills, to mimic a taking action). But it's the paying out the money that's important for the client, now isn't it?"
I rejected this as too snarky.
5/27: GWPMO returns to office. GWPMO does not call me.
5/31: My sister alleges that GWPMO has the Death Certificate. I'll tell you this - nothing happens without the DC, which actually makes sense. It must prevent lots of people calling insurance agents and saying someone is dead and they'd like their money now, please.
Another part of the delay was that the doctor or medical examiner or whoever is responsible for filling out DCs sent my father's DC to Hospice of The Old City. Since he was never . . . you know . . . in Hospice this caused more delays.
6/2: I call GWMPO, who has maintained a flawless record of never, ever calling me back. He's like 8-0 at this point. He's got the upper hand. He's throwing heat and he's backing me off the plate. I've hit the dirt a couple of time, sent sprawling to get out of the way of a high and tight fastball. I dig back in, though. I'm a battler. I'm a singles hitter. I wear people out with my dogged, unimaginative persistence. You knock me down a couple of times and then I zing one right back through the middle, hustle down to first base, clapping my hands.
GWPMO gives me two options: he'll help me fill out The Forms (TF, pronounced Th' Fuck) or I can find an agent in Vacation City, set up an appointment with him or her, and get help with the forms that way. He does not offer any recommendations on any agents.
I ask him to send me the TF. I'm bruised and battered, pissed off, brushing dirt off my uniform, licking blood off my lips, but I'm down the road with this cat, right? I figure . . . some forms, right? Oh, GWPMO sent me TF - pages and pages of indecipherable legalese that a powerful, connected scrivener would have been unable to decipher. To my dogged credit, I make a start but get nowhere. I'm sinking into quicksand, into a tar pit. There are dinosaurs going down right next to me. Thunder lizards are more resigned than I am.
6/3: I leave a VM with GWPMO asking for some assistance in finding someone local who can help me fill out all of these fucking forms. I imagine him chuckling in a dark office, warming his hands over a fire made of furniture he has repossessed from destitute widows (for some reason he's gone from being an insurance agent to a collection agent). He indicates he has contacted the Home Office, or THO (pronounced Th' Ho) to request that a local agent contact me.
Silence on all fronts.
6/7: EM to GWPMO, following up.
6/8: Reply from GWPMO. He has put in an "urgent request" to the THO for someone to contact me.
"What urgent request?" I grouse to SuperK. "It's been five fucking weeks since my dad died. This is an INSURANCE COMPANY. They PAY OUT INSURANCE TO PEOPLE WHO HAD PURCHASED INSURANCE POLICIES THAT PAY OUT WHEN THEY DIE. I can't get anyone to do anything for me and all of a sudden my requests are 'urgent?' "
I mentioned that my father had died.
Nothing. Crickets
6/9: Fuck this. I call the THO. I talk to Scott. Scott is very nice. I ask Scott if he can help me with TF.
"Sure," Scott says. "What forms do you need help with?"
I read some form numbers off TF that GWPMO has sent me.
"I don't have any record of those forms," Scott says. "Maybe GWPMO sent you some old forms? I can help you fill out the correct forms. I'll put them in the mail today and you should have them in 5 to 7 business days."
I don't know what's more satisfying to my sense of absurdity here: that GWPMO has old forms - so old the THO doesn't have a fucking record of them or the numbers on them - or that the THO can't research the forms for me. How old were these forms? I mean what would have happened if I had filled all of these forms out and sent them in? I imagine Scott throwing his hands up in the air: "What the hell are these?" he'd yell. I can only assume they had a total rewrite of TF, and I mean a scrap-the-old-system, start-from-scratch, it's-a-new-day-at-this-organization kind of rewrite.
Or maybe they just changed the numbers and the forms were identical.
As a guy who is suspicious of the motives of large corporations on a good day I confess that at this point I was getting morbidly suspicious.
(My notes get a little fragmented here - I don't remember how I left it with Scott, that useless pustule. I feel like I've been trapped in a small, confined, metal space and insurance agents have been tossing in concussion grenades. My ears are ringing and I'm increasingly out of it).
6/10: I get up and research a list of local agents off of the interweb. I pick one at random and call him. I don't think that GWPMO or Scott are going to come through for me in the local rep research. Surprisingly enough or maybe predictably this guy immediately agrees to see me and we set up an appointment for the next day.
(I am often refereeing an existential battle between manly action and patient waiting. Usually patient waiting is the way to go but in this case - as you can clearly see - it has been a waste of time. Plunging rashly ahead has been the most productive).
6/11: I meet with this guy who I'll call Jeff. Jeff has some of the forms from my father's estate but not all of them. Frankly, I'm impressed that THO sent him anything. Still, Jeff and I come up with a game plan which includes parting ways for a couple of days so that he can get all of TF pre-filled out as much as possible, thereby saving me time for the actual final filling-out of TF. I'm vaguely uneasy about leaving Jeff's office without filling out TF. It seems like I'm so close.
6/13: EM to Jeff where I lay out a generous schedule for the week.
Silence.
6/15: EM to Jeff.
Silence.
Phone call to Jeff who says: "I got your emails." I hate it when people say that pursuant to the fact that they haven't responded to the emails. Jeff says: "I haven't filled TF out yet. Let's set up an appointment." He actually adds: "That'll force me to get them filled out." I was impressed by his honesty - honesty where the subtext was: "Your shit isn't very important to me. I haven't filled TF because I've had more important, interesting things to do."
6/17: Appointment with Jeff. When I walk into his office I see a 6 inch stack of paper on his desk. He laughs and then says: "It's a lot of work for which I'm getting paid absolutely nothing." I may be making up the exact words that he spoke but not the sentiment.
Again, I'm impressed/floored/flabbergasted/infuriated that THO has no procedure for getting accounts transferred to new agents or for compensating them for the work this entails. I'd suggest this as a company motto: "You better hope the guy who sells you this shit is around when you die. And don't move, either."
Jeff actually looks surprised at the stack of papers. I'm once again confounded that a task which would seem to be common and unsurprising to an employee is so surprisingly uncommon.
I'm smart enough to get a time frame from Jeff on the completion of the forms. He provides the date of 6/19.
6/21: some factotum at his office calls me to get additional information on the filling-out of TF. Jeff was way off with the 6/19 date.
6/23: seven weeks since my father died.
4/28: My father dies. I contact local insurance/investment agent to inform him of this fact. My folks liked this guy and he liked them - he said some nice things, blessed me, shit like that. I didn't have to call him so quickly but I'm a guy and I'm happier when I'm doing something, preferring any action to sitting with my grief.
5/19: Follow-up with local agent. Leave a VM. This guy will henceforth and forevermore be referred to as Guy Who's Pissing Me Off, or GWPMO (pronounced GWOMP-mo).
5/20: GWPMO replies that he has been in touch my sister. This is despite the fact that I'm the executor of the estate and we explained to him that I should be the first point of contact - part of the reasoning here is that my sister did so much work when dad was alive that I wanted to offload some of the paperwork stuff, which is a specialty of mine. Also, I think that a lot of men zero in on a woman assuming that she's going to be the weak link - that's where they start if they want to delay, dissemble, obfuscate. I don't have proof that this is so but I've never let facts get in the way of my paranoid, suspicious ramblings. Says that he has an appointment scheduled with her to discuss matters. My sister comments that she doesn't have no stinking appointment.
5/21: I contact GWPMO by EM thanking him for calling back (choking on some bile) while reminding him that he needs to start with me. I was nice. Really.
5/25: GWPMO calls my sister to set up the appointment and remind her that he needs the Death Certificate. At this point I'm beginning to work up some begrudging respect or burgeoning pity for GWPMO. He's either plowing forward doggedly or he's brain-damaged and doesn't understand simple, basic instructions spoken in unadorned English. Either way he's not veering off the path that he has chosen.
5/25: I return call to GWPMO in short order to find out that he's out of town and that he's going to be out of town for several days - he had actually called my sister from the road. I don't dig on this fact. I don't care where he's going to be or what he's going to be doing - he is the representative of a huge corporation and they can fucking well get someone else to help me in his absence. I ponder remarking - but do not - that I bet they'd have someone jonny-on-the-spot if I wanted to invest the same amount of money that I wanted to withdraw.
"Oh, sure," I wanted to say. "You're good at taking the money. Big deal. Anybody can take the money. (Here I would flutter my hands around in the air, grabbing at unseen bills, to mimic a taking action). But it's the paying out the money that's important for the client, now isn't it?"
I rejected this as too snarky.
5/27: GWPMO returns to office. GWPMO does not call me.
5/31: My sister alleges that GWPMO has the Death Certificate. I'll tell you this - nothing happens without the DC, which actually makes sense. It must prevent lots of people calling insurance agents and saying someone is dead and they'd like their money now, please.
Another part of the delay was that the doctor or medical examiner or whoever is responsible for filling out DCs sent my father's DC to Hospice of The Old City. Since he was never . . . you know . . . in Hospice this caused more delays.
6/2: I call GWMPO, who has maintained a flawless record of never, ever calling me back. He's like 8-0 at this point. He's got the upper hand. He's throwing heat and he's backing me off the plate. I've hit the dirt a couple of time, sent sprawling to get out of the way of a high and tight fastball. I dig back in, though. I'm a battler. I'm a singles hitter. I wear people out with my dogged, unimaginative persistence. You knock me down a couple of times and then I zing one right back through the middle, hustle down to first base, clapping my hands.
GWPMO gives me two options: he'll help me fill out The Forms (TF, pronounced Th' Fuck) or I can find an agent in Vacation City, set up an appointment with him or her, and get help with the forms that way. He does not offer any recommendations on any agents.
I ask him to send me the TF. I'm bruised and battered, pissed off, brushing dirt off my uniform, licking blood off my lips, but I'm down the road with this cat, right? I figure . . . some forms, right? Oh, GWPMO sent me TF - pages and pages of indecipherable legalese that a powerful, connected scrivener would have been unable to decipher. To my dogged credit, I make a start but get nowhere. I'm sinking into quicksand, into a tar pit. There are dinosaurs going down right next to me. Thunder lizards are more resigned than I am.
6/3: I leave a VM with GWPMO asking for some assistance in finding someone local who can help me fill out all of these fucking forms. I imagine him chuckling in a dark office, warming his hands over a fire made of furniture he has repossessed from destitute widows (for some reason he's gone from being an insurance agent to a collection agent). He indicates he has contacted the Home Office, or THO (pronounced Th' Ho) to request that a local agent contact me.
Silence on all fronts.
6/7: EM to GWPMO, following up.
6/8: Reply from GWPMO. He has put in an "urgent request" to the THO for someone to contact me.
"What urgent request?" I grouse to SuperK. "It's been five fucking weeks since my dad died. This is an INSURANCE COMPANY. They PAY OUT INSURANCE TO PEOPLE WHO HAD PURCHASED INSURANCE POLICIES THAT PAY OUT WHEN THEY DIE. I can't get anyone to do anything for me and all of a sudden my requests are 'urgent?' "
I mentioned that my father had died.
Nothing. Crickets
6/9: Fuck this. I call the THO. I talk to Scott. Scott is very nice. I ask Scott if he can help me with TF.
"Sure," Scott says. "What forms do you need help with?"
I read some form numbers off TF that GWPMO has sent me.
"I don't have any record of those forms," Scott says. "Maybe GWPMO sent you some old forms? I can help you fill out the correct forms. I'll put them in the mail today and you should have them in 5 to 7 business days."
I don't know what's more satisfying to my sense of absurdity here: that GWPMO has old forms - so old the THO doesn't have a fucking record of them or the numbers on them - or that the THO can't research the forms for me. How old were these forms? I mean what would have happened if I had filled all of these forms out and sent them in? I imagine Scott throwing his hands up in the air: "What the hell are these?" he'd yell. I can only assume they had a total rewrite of TF, and I mean a scrap-the-old-system, start-from-scratch, it's-a-new-day-at-this-organization kind of rewrite.
Or maybe they just changed the numbers and the forms were identical.
As a guy who is suspicious of the motives of large corporations on a good day I confess that at this point I was getting morbidly suspicious.
(My notes get a little fragmented here - I don't remember how I left it with Scott, that useless pustule. I feel like I've been trapped in a small, confined, metal space and insurance agents have been tossing in concussion grenades. My ears are ringing and I'm increasingly out of it).
6/10: I get up and research a list of local agents off of the interweb. I pick one at random and call him. I don't think that GWPMO or Scott are going to come through for me in the local rep research. Surprisingly enough or maybe predictably this guy immediately agrees to see me and we set up an appointment for the next day.
(I am often refereeing an existential battle between manly action and patient waiting. Usually patient waiting is the way to go but in this case - as you can clearly see - it has been a waste of time. Plunging rashly ahead has been the most productive).
6/11: I meet with this guy who I'll call Jeff. Jeff has some of the forms from my father's estate but not all of them. Frankly, I'm impressed that THO sent him anything. Still, Jeff and I come up with a game plan which includes parting ways for a couple of days so that he can get all of TF pre-filled out as much as possible, thereby saving me time for the actual final filling-out of TF. I'm vaguely uneasy about leaving Jeff's office without filling out TF. It seems like I'm so close.
6/13: EM to Jeff where I lay out a generous schedule for the week.
Silence.
6/15: EM to Jeff.
Silence.
Phone call to Jeff who says: "I got your emails." I hate it when people say that pursuant to the fact that they haven't responded to the emails. Jeff says: "I haven't filled TF out yet. Let's set up an appointment." He actually adds: "That'll force me to get them filled out." I was impressed by his honesty - honesty where the subtext was: "Your shit isn't very important to me. I haven't filled TF because I've had more important, interesting things to do."
6/17: Appointment with Jeff. When I walk into his office I see a 6 inch stack of paper on his desk. He laughs and then says: "It's a lot of work for which I'm getting paid absolutely nothing." I may be making up the exact words that he spoke but not the sentiment.
Again, I'm impressed/floored/flabbergasted/infuriated that THO has no procedure for getting accounts transferred to new agents or for compensating them for the work this entails. I'd suggest this as a company motto: "You better hope the guy who sells you this shit is around when you die. And don't move, either."
Jeff actually looks surprised at the stack of papers. I'm once again confounded that a task which would seem to be common and unsurprising to an employee is so surprisingly uncommon.
I'm smart enough to get a time frame from Jeff on the completion of the forms. He provides the date of 6/19.
6/21: some factotum at his office calls me to get additional information on the filling-out of TF. Jeff was way off with the 6/19 date.
6/23: seven weeks since my father died.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Grieving Grief
Grief: Pain of mind arising from misconduct from oneself.
All right, today I'm going to waste everyone's time so that I can rant privately, thus saving myself the embarrassment of apologizing to some people, places, things, and large corporations for indiscretions committed during a more public ranting; perhaps a whole series of public rantings. I'll admit that it is going to be difficult to tell the difference from whatever it is I normally do here. Sort of a semi-private releasing of demons. My whole life is kind of a series of screen-shots (Ed. Note: Vacation City is near Los Angeles so I'm very hip to the whole film industry lingo) from old Twilight Zone episodes where no one but the main protagonist can see a wavering, indistinct, smoky wraith flowing from the body of whatever character is currently damned to hell.
When I worked I used to call people with whom I had an objection and make an ass of myself. I learned - in lieu of the phone call - to write an email and then banish it for a few days to my Saved Drafts folder. That way I could go back and look at it when cooler heads prevailed; inevitably, I'd think: "Wow, am I glad I didn't send that one." Often I'd yell down the hall for SuperK - she'd pad into my office, read the note, gently suggest some edits, then some more edits, then mumble something about a "total rewrite." After a bit she started looking up and saying simply: "You're not sending that." I started to get suspicious that she wasn't actually reading the note. Eventually, she stopped coming to my office, just yelling: "You're not sending that!" down the hallway.
Can I tell you how much grief I saved myself by pausing a couple of beats before running my mouth? All the grief in the world, that's how much.
All right, today I'm going to waste everyone's time so that I can rant privately, thus saving myself the embarrassment of apologizing to some people, places, things, and large corporations for indiscretions committed during a more public ranting; perhaps a whole series of public rantings. I'll admit that it is going to be difficult to tell the difference from whatever it is I normally do here. Sort of a semi-private releasing of demons. My whole life is kind of a series of screen-shots (Ed. Note: Vacation City is near Los Angeles so I'm very hip to the whole film industry lingo) from old Twilight Zone episodes where no one but the main protagonist can see a wavering, indistinct, smoky wraith flowing from the body of whatever character is currently damned to hell.
When I worked I used to call people with whom I had an objection and make an ass of myself. I learned - in lieu of the phone call - to write an email and then banish it for a few days to my Saved Drafts folder. That way I could go back and look at it when cooler heads prevailed; inevitably, I'd think: "Wow, am I glad I didn't send that one." Often I'd yell down the hall for SuperK - she'd pad into my office, read the note, gently suggest some edits, then some more edits, then mumble something about a "total rewrite." After a bit she started looking up and saying simply: "You're not sending that." I started to get suspicious that she wasn't actually reading the note. Eventually, she stopped coming to my office, just yelling: "You're not sending that!" down the hallway.
Can I tell you how much grief I saved myself by pausing a couple of beats before running my mouth? All the grief in the world, that's how much.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
It Is What It Is
I wanted to post a comment that my friend David W left on my blog commenting on the post: "That Jeebus was a Doodle."
AA literature baffled me before I got into recovery. I took things out of context and truly just didn't get the concepts. It took me years to actually interpret the lessons to be learned from AA literature.
Good stuff. Makes me see that I'm not alone in my ability to misinterpret basic truths.
Now back to me . . .
Control: To exercise influence over; to suggest or dictate the behavior of.
I'm feeling a little out of control right now. This statement - implying that I'm in control at any point, ever, shows the depth of my general cluelessness about the general principles of life. Clearly, I have no clear idea what's going on.
I was aware that my father's death was likely to sneak up on me at some point and that it might sneak up on me stealthily or assuming a shape-shifting form that would take me by surprise. The void of his absence is part of the equation - the trauma of being there for his last hours is part of it, too. There's kind of an emotional PTSD going on, traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobe, home to our emotional reaction to stuff.
I know I'm feeling out of control when I start to get antsy about odd, unimportant things or worse yet, about odd, free-floating generalized anxiety things. You know how sometimes we all blow up or burst into tears about something and only later think: "What was that all about. The self-knowledge of this weirdness is scant relief.
Time takes time.
It is what it is.
AA literature baffled me before I got into recovery. I took things out of context and truly just didn't get the concepts. It took me years to actually interpret the lessons to be learned from AA literature.
Good stuff. Makes me see that I'm not alone in my ability to misinterpret basic truths.
Now back to me . . .
Control: To exercise influence over; to suggest or dictate the behavior of.
I'm feeling a little out of control right now. This statement - implying that I'm in control at any point, ever, shows the depth of my general cluelessness about the general principles of life. Clearly, I have no clear idea what's going on.
I was aware that my father's death was likely to sneak up on me at some point and that it might sneak up on me stealthily or assuming a shape-shifting form that would take me by surprise. The void of his absence is part of the equation - the trauma of being there for his last hours is part of it, too. There's kind of an emotional PTSD going on, traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobe, home to our emotional reaction to stuff.
I know I'm feeling out of control when I start to get antsy about odd, unimportant things or worse yet, about odd, free-floating generalized anxiety things. You know how sometimes we all blow up or burst into tears about something and only later think: "What was that all about. The self-knowledge of this weirdness is scant relief.
Time takes time.
It is what it is.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
That Jeebus Was A Doodle
Parable: A short narrative illustrating a lesson (usually religious/moral) by comparison or analogy.
I picked up the Bible again and started re-reading the New Testament. I was a religious kid who grew up in a religious family so the Bible was a big deal and a constant presence, especially on Sundays. I read the New Testament a bunch of times and I read it all lit up on many a night, post-carouse. I was also a compulsive kid so if something was on my list to do I usually did it. It apparently never occurred to me that Jeebus himself might have suggested that it would be more salutary (see? that's a religious word - I'm into old habits already) to lay off the Colt 45 and meth and maybe miss a couple of nights of Bible reading. He might have pointed out that the Bible and its parables would make more sense.
I like parables. I like that they're short. Jeebus was pretty crafty with the parables. He laid the heavy wood onto some powerful people by wrapping up snark in a parable. You know the kind of comment where you realize: "Hey. I think I just got slammed." He was good at those.
Some of my impulse has been to see what's in there after a 30 year absence. Man, I'll tell you -those stories come back like it was yesterday. It's a pretty good book, objectively speaking - well-written, moral, amusing. Lot of history in there and lots of parables and good lessons and common sense shit. I think Jeebus was a curser, to be honest with you - I just don't think that stuff cleared the censors. I don't know how half the stuff he did got by the censors - he was one liberal, radical dude. I don't know why the conservatives like him so much. I can't see how they're reading the same Bible as I am.
Being an irreverent guy I find that my hackles are forced into the standing position when I hear some of our more loud-mouthed religious experts provide back-up for the crap they're spewing with verses and examples out of the Bible. I'm not saying they're wrong - I'm wondering if maybe they're cherry-picking a little bit. I come across verses that seem to directly contradict what they're saying almost every day. I'd like to hear them toss some analysis of those verses into the mix - the phrase "fumbling for the right words" comes to mind.
I feel the same way about our main text in The Fellowship, too. I think we've oversimplified some really good concepts, to our detriment. I mean "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us?" That's ridiculous if it's taken out of context. I'd like to see someone make it through without ending up in the loony bin by always suppressing their anger. Or "Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today." If you fall down the steps and crack your skull be my guest and go right ahead and work on your acceptance - I'm heading to the ER.
I picked up the Bible again and started re-reading the New Testament. I was a religious kid who grew up in a religious family so the Bible was a big deal and a constant presence, especially on Sundays. I read the New Testament a bunch of times and I read it all lit up on many a night, post-carouse. I was also a compulsive kid so if something was on my list to do I usually did it. It apparently never occurred to me that Jeebus himself might have suggested that it would be more salutary (see? that's a religious word - I'm into old habits already) to lay off the Colt 45 and meth and maybe miss a couple of nights of Bible reading. He might have pointed out that the Bible and its parables would make more sense.
I like parables. I like that they're short. Jeebus was pretty crafty with the parables. He laid the heavy wood onto some powerful people by wrapping up snark in a parable. You know the kind of comment where you realize: "Hey. I think I just got slammed." He was good at those.
Some of my impulse has been to see what's in there after a 30 year absence. Man, I'll tell you -those stories come back like it was yesterday. It's a pretty good book, objectively speaking - well-written, moral, amusing. Lot of history in there and lots of parables and good lessons and common sense shit. I think Jeebus was a curser, to be honest with you - I just don't think that stuff cleared the censors. I don't know how half the stuff he did got by the censors - he was one liberal, radical dude. I don't know why the conservatives like him so much. I can't see how they're reading the same Bible as I am.
Being an irreverent guy I find that my hackles are forced into the standing position when I hear some of our more loud-mouthed religious experts provide back-up for the crap they're spewing with verses and examples out of the Bible. I'm not saying they're wrong - I'm wondering if maybe they're cherry-picking a little bit. I come across verses that seem to directly contradict what they're saying almost every day. I'd like to hear them toss some analysis of those verses into the mix - the phrase "fumbling for the right words" comes to mind.
I feel the same way about our main text in The Fellowship, too. I think we've oversimplified some really good concepts, to our detriment. I mean "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us?" That's ridiculous if it's taken out of context. I'd like to see someone make it through without ending up in the loony bin by always suppressing their anger. Or "Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today." If you fall down the steps and crack your skull be my guest and go right ahead and work on your acceptance - I'm heading to the ER.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Is A Resentment The Return Of A Sentment, Or Is It Simply Umbrage?
Resentment: A feeling of anger or displeasure stemming from belief that one has been wronged by others or betrayed; indignation.
Speaking of resentments . . .
I wrote a while back about the uproar that ensued when a certain clique in a large morning meeting that I frequent got honked off enough to take their ball and go home. Fair enough. I was glad they started a new meeting - the more meetings we have the better it is for everyone, and frankly these honked-off people were causing more tension being honked off than any problems that were arising from the stuff that they were honked off about. I was glad that they left - they were pretty vocal about their disapproval of the way the meeting was being run, pretty bleeding deacon-ish about it, so I enjoyed the calmness that bloomed in their absence.
Afterwards the remaining members were a little shell-shocked - a lot of sobriety walked out the door - but they pulled together and did a nice job of keeping the meeting running, and in fine fettle, too. Some men and women with some sobriety who were sitting in the shadows of the malcontents stepped up and really blossomed as members. It was a blast to see. We all like the wisdom of the long-timers but they can be a little preachy sometimes, with all of the "when I got sober" stories and the mildly condescending attitudes directed at anyone who wasn't doing it the way they were doing it. The Right Way.
Here's the funny thing - the malcontents believed, I think, that their new, great meeting was going to roar off into the stratosphere, drain the membership of the old meeting which would then wither and die. A year later they shut down the new meeting and came back. They didn't seem too abashed about it, either. I got the sense that they were taking some credit for the resurgence of the old meeting.
I caught up with a friend of mine after the Friday morning meeting, one of the guys who hung around and was instrumental in helping the meeting stay on course.
"David," I said. "I have to ask - do you feel any sense of resentment now that all of the discontented people are back, pretending like nothing ever happened?"
Holy shit, did I get an earful. I did not speak again in that 15 minute conversation. I wouldn't say that he was enraged - annoyed is more like it. I know that I look at the malcontents differently now. I didn't like the way they behaved and they don't seem to have changed in their outlook or feel any remorse for their actions so there has been a subtle shift in my attitude. I don't believe it's a resentment - it's not like I stay awake at night plotting my revenge but I have definitely taken a step back in those relationships.
It's helpful for me to admit to these human emotions. I used to seesaw between unleashed rage and simmering resentment. Neither was good for me - I need to acknowledge that I'm angry and deal with the anger, not by exploding and not by pretending that nothing is wrong.
Speaking of resentments . . .
I wrote a while back about the uproar that ensued when a certain clique in a large morning meeting that I frequent got honked off enough to take their ball and go home. Fair enough. I was glad they started a new meeting - the more meetings we have the better it is for everyone, and frankly these honked-off people were causing more tension being honked off than any problems that were arising from the stuff that they were honked off about. I was glad that they left - they were pretty vocal about their disapproval of the way the meeting was being run, pretty bleeding deacon-ish about it, so I enjoyed the calmness that bloomed in their absence.
Afterwards the remaining members were a little shell-shocked - a lot of sobriety walked out the door - but they pulled together and did a nice job of keeping the meeting running, and in fine fettle, too. Some men and women with some sobriety who were sitting in the shadows of the malcontents stepped up and really blossomed as members. It was a blast to see. We all like the wisdom of the long-timers but they can be a little preachy sometimes, with all of the "when I got sober" stories and the mildly condescending attitudes directed at anyone who wasn't doing it the way they were doing it. The Right Way.
Here's the funny thing - the malcontents believed, I think, that their new, great meeting was going to roar off into the stratosphere, drain the membership of the old meeting which would then wither and die. A year later they shut down the new meeting and came back. They didn't seem too abashed about it, either. I got the sense that they were taking some credit for the resurgence of the old meeting.
I caught up with a friend of mine after the Friday morning meeting, one of the guys who hung around and was instrumental in helping the meeting stay on course.
"David," I said. "I have to ask - do you feel any sense of resentment now that all of the discontented people are back, pretending like nothing ever happened?"
Holy shit, did I get an earful. I did not speak again in that 15 minute conversation. I wouldn't say that he was enraged - annoyed is more like it. I know that I look at the malcontents differently now. I didn't like the way they behaved and they don't seem to have changed in their outlook or feel any remorse for their actions so there has been a subtle shift in my attitude. I don't believe it's a resentment - it's not like I stay awake at night plotting my revenge but I have definitely taken a step back in those relationships.
It's helpful for me to admit to these human emotions. I used to seesaw between unleashed rage and simmering resentment. Neither was good for me - I need to acknowledge that I'm angry and deal with the anger, not by exploding and not by pretending that nothing is wrong.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Stewed Seaweed
I fucking stewed about this financial guy all day (btw, my blogs on the financial guys are inordinately popular with my small readership, a solid indication that I'm not the only dude who hates it when someone else has their hands on said dude's money). Took my nap; had a nice half hour meditation; picked up the phone and called the guy, who said: "Oh, yeah, I got your email this morning (he didn't mention the email I sent on Monday - maybe he didn't get it or maybe he deleted it or maybe, maybe something else). I just haven't filled out the papers yet. Let's set up an appointment - that'll force me to get them all ready."
Yeah, well, screw me? Screw you. It seems to me that the undercurrent of thought here was that I was expected to bother him so that he does his job.
Yeah, well, screw me? Screw you. It seems to me that the undercurrent of thought here was that I was expected to bother him so that he does his job.
It's so hard to figure out whether I'm upset because I need to take an action and I'm afraid to do so or because I need to wait patiently, and I HATE to wait patiently. Here, I needed to take an action. BUT I needed to wait for a couple of days before I acted because rash action would have been brewed in anger, marinated in resentment, and then I would have behaved poorly, because I was angry.
I'll say this: my comment - after the paperwork is submitted - will be to ask the guy why in the world would I invest any of my dad's money with him when he was so casual about getting money released to me? I can't figure people out all of the time. Most of the time. Any of the time. He knows how much money is involved and he wouldn't take the time to fill out the papers. I mean - am I missing something here? What is the matter with people?
Maybe this guy isn't thinking about me.
Post Script: I had my meeting. I didn't say any of the stuff that I had practiced and practiced. I didn't say any of it. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to say any of it before I went in to see him and I didn't come close. All of the anger had leaked out of my Furious Balloon. Much of the delay wasn't his fault and I wasn't mad at the part that was his fault and who really cares anyway? It's not like my life changed one way or another.
This damn Program, anyway.
Post Script: I had my meeting. I didn't say any of the stuff that I had practiced and practiced. I didn't say any of it. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to say any of it before I went in to see him and I didn't come close. All of the anger had leaked out of my Furious Balloon. Much of the delay wasn't his fault and I wasn't mad at the part that was his fault and who really cares anyway? It's not like my life changed one way or another.
This damn Program, anyway.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Seaweed: Unsmart
Temper: A tendency to be of a certain type of mood.
I'll tell you this - all of these financial people are really taking up a lot of rent-free space in my head right now. I woke up pissed at one of them; I started a conversation, a thread in my mind which I have repeated over and over, where I am cutting but kind, funny but pointed in my criticism, and devastatingly accurate, dry, witty, and wise. I swam for 35 minutes, giving my speech over and over. I tinker with the timing and the content, reorder the phrasing, pause for a beat or rush confidently through the whole thing.
I have not, of course, actually spoken to a live human being. I have not spoken to a dead human being, either, for what that's worth. I haven't even spoken the words out loud, preferring to think them to death.
Aren't you glad I'm spending my time productively? Actually, there is some wisdom in this. As a man with a bad Temper I have to be careful to channel my emotions in a productive way. "Hey, fuck you," doesn't move the ball toward the goal, as a general rule. It doesn't endear you to anyone. The typical response to that isn't a pivot to even more helpfulness.
So what have I learned here? Have I learned anything? Have I learned nothing? I'm leaning toward nothing at the moment - for a guy who considers himself an eager, willing student of all things I learn nothing a lot of the time. Maybe I suck as a student.
I'm under the impression that I spent an entire morning arguing with a phantom in my head, a figment, a figurative person, a wraith that does not exist. And I've only got a certain limited amount of time left in my life, a rapidly diminishing amount of time, and I wasted it in a virtual reality battle, a battle that isn't all that acute, a battle that will certainly work out in my favor eventually.
I'm not very smart.
I'll tell you this - all of these financial people are really taking up a lot of rent-free space in my head right now. I woke up pissed at one of them; I started a conversation, a thread in my mind which I have repeated over and over, where I am cutting but kind, funny but pointed in my criticism, and devastatingly accurate, dry, witty, and wise. I swam for 35 minutes, giving my speech over and over. I tinker with the timing and the content, reorder the phrasing, pause for a beat or rush confidently through the whole thing.
I have not, of course, actually spoken to a live human being. I have not spoken to a dead human being, either, for what that's worth. I haven't even spoken the words out loud, preferring to think them to death.
Aren't you glad I'm spending my time productively? Actually, there is some wisdom in this. As a man with a bad Temper I have to be careful to channel my emotions in a productive way. "Hey, fuck you," doesn't move the ball toward the goal, as a general rule. It doesn't endear you to anyone. The typical response to that isn't a pivot to even more helpfulness.
So what have I learned here? Have I learned anything? Have I learned nothing? I'm leaning toward nothing at the moment - for a guy who considers himself an eager, willing student of all things I learn nothing a lot of the time. Maybe I suck as a student.
I'm under the impression that I spent an entire morning arguing with a phantom in my head, a figment, a figurative person, a wraith that does not exist. And I've only got a certain limited amount of time left in my life, a rapidly diminishing amount of time, and I wasted it in a virtual reality battle, a battle that isn't all that acute, a battle that will certainly work out in my favor eventually.
I'm not very smart.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Affectivity
The Mind: The non-material substance or set of processes in which consciousness, perception, affectivity, judgement, thinking, and will are based.
I have been holding my father in my mind right now. I try to pay homage to all of my relatives who influenced my development during my morning Quiet Time. I allow my mind to roam about during my afternoon meditation sessions. I don't try to control my thinking or force it into shapes or patterns; I don't judge it or label it; what comes and goes and happens is not right or wrong. It is a mind and it wants to think - that is what minds do.
There is some joy in this and there is some pain. Sometimes in my mind I walk through my childhood home or the places my grandparents lived or dad's last apartment. Some of these spaces I can reconstruct as if I was standing there. I can see them decorated for holidays, imagine their differences in cold weather and hot, fill them with long-gone people. It can be pleasant and it can be unpleasant.
Sometimes I'll walk into a room, engrossed in thought, and imagine that a shoe or book on the floor, caught out of the corner of my eye, is my beloved cat, dead almost two years. I keep flashing on the Buddhist graves right in the middle of the Vietnamese rice fields, accessible to everyone on a daily basis as they trudge merrily out to work under the scorching sun. I don't want to forget all of these things but I don't want to linger on them overmuch.
Living in the past.
I have been holding my father in my mind right now. I try to pay homage to all of my relatives who influenced my development during my morning Quiet Time. I allow my mind to roam about during my afternoon meditation sessions. I don't try to control my thinking or force it into shapes or patterns; I don't judge it or label it; what comes and goes and happens is not right or wrong. It is a mind and it wants to think - that is what minds do.
There is some joy in this and there is some pain. Sometimes in my mind I walk through my childhood home or the places my grandparents lived or dad's last apartment. Some of these spaces I can reconstruct as if I was standing there. I can see them decorated for holidays, imagine their differences in cold weather and hot, fill them with long-gone people. It can be pleasant and it can be unpleasant.
Sometimes I'll walk into a room, engrossed in thought, and imagine that a shoe or book on the floor, caught out of the corner of my eye, is my beloved cat, dead almost two years. I keep flashing on the Buddhist graves right in the middle of the Vietnamese rice fields, accessible to everyone on a daily basis as they trudge merrily out to work under the scorching sun. I don't want to forget all of these things but I don't want to linger on them overmuch.
Living in the past.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
The Liver, In Short
Bleeding esophageal varices: Scarring (cirrhosis) of the liver is the most common cause. This scarring cuts down on blood flowing through the liver. As a result, more blood flows through the veins of the esophagus. The extra blood flow causes the veins in the esophagus to balloon outward.
When one of these swollen veins ruptured the amount of blood loss is shocking.
"There is currently no way to compensate for the absence of liver function in the long term."
(Ed note: That kooky liver, anyway. You do not want to screw around with the liver).
I got a call from my sponsor the other day - he passed along the phone number of another sponsee. This guy has a son who is living in The Old City and struggling with The Disease. My sponsor suggested that I might be a good reference vis-a-vis the recovery community there. My sponsor is irrationally optimistic in using the word "good resource" as something that I may be. Delusional, perhaps.
I called this man and we had a nice talk. His son is not fooling around. He has lost a few jobs and his wife, too, the woman wisely taking their children with her. He has been in the hospital a few times for some scary-sounding bleeding episodes. He did spend some time in one of the more rigorous treatment modalities in town - one where the residents are not permitted to work and are held to strict guidelines as far as . . . you know . . . partying is concerned. Your whereabouts are monitored. Your behavior is closely monitored. Your presence is required at many events that the recently sober may find onerous. Your opinion is unnecessary.
He had, of course, differences with the director, a man who has dealt with many, many drunks and is not at all interested in operational suggestions. Out the door he went. The drunk - not the director. His father explained to me that his son was looking for a residential living arrangement that permitted him to work, ostensibly so that he could continue to provide for his children. Admirable if true - unsurprising if a feint.
My go-to guy in this arena in The Old City is Shorty, who provided some options. We reflected on the ability of drunks to deflect and delay, to seek the most rope, the longest, strongest rope with which to hang oneself. We marveled - with empathy, I hope - at the mental gymnastics that a man who is dancing with death has to go through to justify putting himself in a totally unsupervised environment in an empty house, relying solely on his own willpower to get out and get to a meeting.
That, my friends, is a tall order.
When one of these swollen veins ruptured the amount of blood loss is shocking.
"There is currently no way to compensate for the absence of liver function in the long term."
(Ed note: That kooky liver, anyway. You do not want to screw around with the liver).
I got a call from my sponsor the other day - he passed along the phone number of another sponsee. This guy has a son who is living in The Old City and struggling with The Disease. My sponsor suggested that I might be a good reference vis-a-vis the recovery community there. My sponsor is irrationally optimistic in using the word "good resource" as something that I may be. Delusional, perhaps.
I called this man and we had a nice talk. His son is not fooling around. He has lost a few jobs and his wife, too, the woman wisely taking their children with her. He has been in the hospital a few times for some scary-sounding bleeding episodes. He did spend some time in one of the more rigorous treatment modalities in town - one where the residents are not permitted to work and are held to strict guidelines as far as . . . you know . . . partying is concerned. Your whereabouts are monitored. Your behavior is closely monitored. Your presence is required at many events that the recently sober may find onerous. Your opinion is unnecessary.
He had, of course, differences with the director, a man who has dealt with many, many drunks and is not at all interested in operational suggestions. Out the door he went. The drunk - not the director. His father explained to me that his son was looking for a residential living arrangement that permitted him to work, ostensibly so that he could continue to provide for his children. Admirable if true - unsurprising if a feint.
My go-to guy in this arena in The Old City is Shorty, who provided some options. We reflected on the ability of drunks to deflect and delay, to seek the most rope, the longest, strongest rope with which to hang oneself. We marveled - with empathy, I hope - at the mental gymnastics that a man who is dancing with death has to go through to justify putting himself in a totally unsupervised environment in an empty house, relying solely on his own willpower to get out and get to a meeting.
That, my friends, is a tall order.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Par-Tay
Party: To celebrate at a party; to have fun; to enjoy oneself.
(slang): To use recreational drugs.
"What am I going to do for fun?" I asked, over and over, even though everything pleasurable had been sucked out of what I was doing long ago. My drinking was a grim, purposeful death march. It was marked by an escape from pain and loneliness and not by some sense of joy.
I told people that I was a natural partier.
"I like to party," I'd crow. "I am a walking, talking party." I would point out my long, black trench coat in which I could hide drugs, the gear to use drugs - including a 3 foot high purple bong - and several quart bottles of alcohol without anyone being the wiser. I loved that coat more than I loved my family.
Eventually, someone tired of my references to partying. This was not uncommon - people tired of most of the things said. I was, after all, a tiresome individual.
"Seaweed," he said. "You weren't partying - you were drinking."
He was pointing out the obvious.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Hey
Every now and then I run into one of those optimistic people that are skulking about, lurking in the shadows, afraid to show their smiling faces in polite society. You know the people I'm talking about? They're happy. They're optimistic. They envision a future where good things are happening. They don't spend all of their time focusing on flaws and defects.
Frankly, these freaks creep me out. I cannot get away from them fast enough.
Pessimism: A general belief that bad things will happen. (Ed. Note: Not a lot of nuance in that definition.
I wonder if we're hard-wired into anxiety. I can't imagine cro-magnon man relaxing around his recently discovered fire his a cozy, not damp at all cave, enjoying a nice brontosaurus steak, wondering at a strange noise coming from the direction of the cave entrance, brushing it off: "Nah, can't be a saber-toothed tiger. I'm not going to let that disturb my sleep on this nice, soft rock."
I remember a guy in a meeting in Helsinki contending that the normal state for most people is mild anxiety. He used the example of waiting for a bus. He pointed out that everyone is looking in the direction of the still unseen bus. Nobody is sitting there calmly waiting, patient, certain the bus is going to show up. We're all thinking: "Maybe this is the time the bus doesn't come."
Just that close from a padded room with no door handle on the inside.
Frankly, these freaks creep me out. I cannot get away from them fast enough.
Pessimism: A general belief that bad things will happen. (Ed. Note: Not a lot of nuance in that definition.
I wonder if we're hard-wired into anxiety. I can't imagine cro-magnon man relaxing around his recently discovered fire his a cozy, not damp at all cave, enjoying a nice brontosaurus steak, wondering at a strange noise coming from the direction of the cave entrance, brushing it off: "Nah, can't be a saber-toothed tiger. I'm not going to let that disturb my sleep on this nice, soft rock."
I remember a guy in a meeting in Helsinki contending that the normal state for most people is mild anxiety. He used the example of waiting for a bus. He pointed out that everyone is looking in the direction of the still unseen bus. Nobody is sitting there calmly waiting, patient, certain the bus is going to show up. We're all thinking: "Maybe this is the time the bus doesn't come."
Just that close from a padded room with no door handle on the inside.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Factotum V Functionary
Functionary: A person employed as an official in a bureaucracy who holds limited authority and primarily serves to carry out a simple function for which discretion is not required.
One of the financial institutions that holds a portion of my father's assets has been a great big pain in the ass to deal with. I don't think they're nefarious - I think they're lazy or incompetent or uninterested in doling back out that which they had previously harvested, perhaps a combination of the three. I say again - the taking of the money is the easy part; it's the letting go of the money that seems to cause so much corporate and institutional heartbreak. With this particular company I feel like I've been teleported back into the 1950s. I imagine the phone being answered in a gloomy old building with steel desks and 20 foot ceilings and creaking, scarred wooden floors, slow-moving scriveners and factotums hidden behind reams of paper, performing mind-numbing tasks, sloth-like, while fluorescent lights shed a sickly light on the whole morass.
My point of contact has been a fittingly sluggish man back in The Old City. He takes a day or two to respond to my messages, a response unbefitting an important functionary like me and one that sets my blood to a low boil. He can't help me on some matters because he isn't licensed in Vacation City so he sends "urgent requests" to the home office asking them to "reach out," to "pick up the fucking phone" and "fucking call me already." He did send me a huge collection of forms that a nuclear physicist couldn't figure out.
Silence.
Today I escalated the conflict and called the main office where a very nice woman named Tina listened sympathetically and transferred me pronto to a very nice man named Scott who quickly sucked me into his own personal institutional tar-pit. Now I know how the sad brontosaurus (which means "thunder lizard," btw) felt 150 million years, castigating himself for wandering into a real tar pit.
Scott promised to connect me with a representative in Vacation City. I'm beginning to think that if you want to disappear off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again, you should join this company as a representative in the Vacation City. These people are seriously hard to locate.
I asked Scott if he could help me navigate the forms.
"I'll put them in the mail. They will arrive in 5 to 7 business days," he intoned.
I asked Scott if he could email me the forms.
"Unfortunately, our system isn't permitting me to email attachments right now," he said.
I asked Scott if he was fucking kidding me.
"I am not fucking kidding you," he replied politely.
I thought about asking Scott if he had a smart phone. I wanted to point out that any obstacles to emailing attachments vanished into thin air in 1996. I wanted to point out that he had competition out there, that I could conduct my business with someone else. This seemed self-evident to me but not to Scott. if his behavior was any indication.
I got off the phone with the implacable Scott, winner by TKO, and decided to work off my irritation by taking a walk and having a cup of coffee. I walked; had a cup of coffee; and walked back, never quieting my mind. I have tried to show some patience with this estate unraveling stuff - I expected some delays, inevitable with legal matters, but not to this extent. I have tried to wait quietly. I have decided that raising a big stink to get something done in a week instead of two weeks wasn't in my best interest, and that's the only interest that I care about.
"Hmmm," I thought. "Why don't I pick up the phone and just call someone I choose randomly out of the phone book?"
You know, that worked really quite well. This guy got the forms transferred from the home office and I have an appointment with him tomorrow.
I always marvel at the tension between taking an action and then having to wait patiently with not having taken all of the actions necessary to move the works forward. I can't always discern between the two. I was all proud of myself for practicing calm waiting - patient waiting not being one of my strong points - and here I was, needing to take more action. I really had no idea. I really didn't.
I'm sure this is not Round 12.
One of the financial institutions that holds a portion of my father's assets has been a great big pain in the ass to deal with. I don't think they're nefarious - I think they're lazy or incompetent or uninterested in doling back out that which they had previously harvested, perhaps a combination of the three. I say again - the taking of the money is the easy part; it's the letting go of the money that seems to cause so much corporate and institutional heartbreak. With this particular company I feel like I've been teleported back into the 1950s. I imagine the phone being answered in a gloomy old building with steel desks and 20 foot ceilings and creaking, scarred wooden floors, slow-moving scriveners and factotums hidden behind reams of paper, performing mind-numbing tasks, sloth-like, while fluorescent lights shed a sickly light on the whole morass.
My point of contact has been a fittingly sluggish man back in The Old City. He takes a day or two to respond to my messages, a response unbefitting an important functionary like me and one that sets my blood to a low boil. He can't help me on some matters because he isn't licensed in Vacation City so he sends "urgent requests" to the home office asking them to "reach out," to "pick up the fucking phone" and "fucking call me already." He did send me a huge collection of forms that a nuclear physicist couldn't figure out.
Silence.
Today I escalated the conflict and called the main office where a very nice woman named Tina listened sympathetically and transferred me pronto to a very nice man named Scott who quickly sucked me into his own personal institutional tar-pit. Now I know how the sad brontosaurus (which means "thunder lizard," btw) felt 150 million years, castigating himself for wandering into a real tar pit.
Scott promised to connect me with a representative in Vacation City. I'm beginning to think that if you want to disappear off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again, you should join this company as a representative in the Vacation City. These people are seriously hard to locate.
I asked Scott if he could help me navigate the forms.
"I'll put them in the mail. They will arrive in 5 to 7 business days," he intoned.
I asked Scott if he could email me the forms.
"Unfortunately, our system isn't permitting me to email attachments right now," he said.
I asked Scott if he was fucking kidding me.
"I am not fucking kidding you," he replied politely.
I thought about asking Scott if he had a smart phone. I wanted to point out that any obstacles to emailing attachments vanished into thin air in 1996. I wanted to point out that he had competition out there, that I could conduct my business with someone else. This seemed self-evident to me but not to Scott. if his behavior was any indication.
I got off the phone with the implacable Scott, winner by TKO, and decided to work off my irritation by taking a walk and having a cup of coffee. I walked; had a cup of coffee; and walked back, never quieting my mind. I have tried to show some patience with this estate unraveling stuff - I expected some delays, inevitable with legal matters, but not to this extent. I have tried to wait quietly. I have decided that raising a big stink to get something done in a week instead of two weeks wasn't in my best interest, and that's the only interest that I care about.
"Hmmm," I thought. "Why don't I pick up the phone and just call someone I choose randomly out of the phone book?"
You know, that worked really quite well. This guy got the forms transferred from the home office and I have an appointment with him tomorrow.
I always marvel at the tension between taking an action and then having to wait patiently with not having taken all of the actions necessary to move the works forward. I can't always discern between the two. I was all proud of myself for practicing calm waiting - patient waiting not being one of my strong points - and here I was, needing to take more action. I really had no idea. I really didn't.
I'm sure this is not Round 12.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Grieving Seaweed
Somewhat mollified, looking forward to ingesting caffeine that I in no way needed, I head outside, vaguely annoyed but simultaneously relieved that I had to endure, then survive, a whole series of barista negotiations to get my cup of coffee, my properly prepared cup of coffee. I sit down and begin thumbing through my "borrowed" NY Times. Perhaps, you think, I should be analyzing my tendency to borrow newspapers meant only for purchase instead of smugly criticizing overworked Starbucks' employees. Perhaps, I think, mulling it over, you should mind your own business.
It's a beautiful day and the outside patio that Starbucks shares with a number of restaurants is pretty crowded. I notice that there are a few people eating at tables that are meant for Starbucks customers. You can tell because they have big umbrellas with "Starbucks" emblazoned on them - the tables, not the renegade customers. I find this vaguely annoying. I don't know why: I have a table and it's really none of my business what anyone else is doing at an establishment with which I have no official connection. The Starbucks employees themselves don't seem to care, occupied as they are with customers trying to reorder perfectly fine drinks and chasing homeless people from their bathrooms.
The power of these people who aren't bothering anyone to draw my attention away from my borrowed newspaper astounds me. I am really quite acutely aware of their presence. They aren't behaving properly.
It has occurred to me over the last six weeks that this is likely some back-splash from my father's death and not a rational, disinterested analysis of table squatters.
It's a beautiful day and the outside patio that Starbucks shares with a number of restaurants is pretty crowded. I notice that there are a few people eating at tables that are meant for Starbucks customers. You can tell because they have big umbrellas with "Starbucks" emblazoned on them - the tables, not the renegade customers. I find this vaguely annoying. I don't know why: I have a table and it's really none of my business what anyone else is doing at an establishment with which I have no official connection. The Starbucks employees themselves don't seem to care, occupied as they are with customers trying to reorder perfectly fine drinks and chasing homeless people from their bathrooms.
The power of these people who aren't bothering anyone to draw my attention away from my borrowed newspaper astounds me. I am really quite acutely aware of their presence. They aren't behaving properly.
It has occurred to me over the last six weeks that this is likely some back-splash from my father's death and not a rational, disinterested analysis of table squatters.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Intrigue at the 'Bucks
I was at an alien Starbucks yesterday - not the home 'bucks where they fix my drink without comment - where I ordered a Tall Americano. I'm not sure what this drink is anymore or if I even like it - it's more of a routine than anything else. In fact, every now and then I order something different just to fuck with them and they bring me the Tall Americano anyhow. "Tall" in Starbucks means "small." If you want a medium sized drink you order a "Grande" which actually means "Large" in Spanish. I'm not sure why they're using a Spanish word to designate sizes in what is ostensibly an Italian-themed coffee shop but I don't question the wisdom of Starbucks. Maybe it means Large in Italian, too - what do I look like, a language major. And the final nail in the linguistics coffin is a large drink is a "Venti" which I believe means twenty in Italian so I got no idea about that one.
Anyway, the Tall drink comes in a Tall cup. Sometimes they don't have any clean Tall cups so they put my drink in a Venti cup. I'm OK with this, generally speaking, as long as the proportion of espresso to water stays the same. If you take the espresso - a fixed amount - and then fill the much larger Venti cup with water all the way to the rim you get a diluted coffee drink. I think. This is what happened at the road Starbucks.
I generally don't complain about caffeine delivery systems but today was different, to my detriment.
"Pardon me," I said with exquisite politeness. "This is a tall drink and you filled the venti cup -which is bigger - with water all the way to the top." I didn't elaborate. It seemed clear to me what the problem was. Diluted espresso.
"I'm sorry," said the barista, pouring a third of the drink out and handing the cup back to me with a smile.
I had to pause a beat, collect myself.
"Well, you just poured out a third of the espresso - which I dearly want - with the excess water," I pointed out, handing the cup back over the counter. I was in for the duration at this point, regretting my decision to even bring up the whole matter of the water. If I had kept my mouth shut I would even then be drinking the full amount of espresso and tolerating the extra water.
She held onto the cup and looked at me. She wasn't angry but confused.
"So you want more water in the cup?" she said tentatively.
"Would it be possible to remake the drink and not fill the cup full of water?" I offered, punting back to square one, clearly on the run at this point.
Clearly relieved, she emptied the cup, and began to remake the drink. I felt kind of like an ass for some reason so I tried to explain the mathematics around the water to espresso proportion to this woman who did not care at this point and barely paid any attention to me at all. It reminded me of looking over the shoulder of an English teacher in high school who was trying to calculate the average of two test scores. She added 82 to 78 for a total of 160 which she then divided by 2 to reach the correct conclusion that the average was 80. She wrote down these numbers on a scrap of paper to do the math.
Anyway, the Tall drink comes in a Tall cup. Sometimes they don't have any clean Tall cups so they put my drink in a Venti cup. I'm OK with this, generally speaking, as long as the proportion of espresso to water stays the same. If you take the espresso - a fixed amount - and then fill the much larger Venti cup with water all the way to the rim you get a diluted coffee drink. I think. This is what happened at the road Starbucks.
I generally don't complain about caffeine delivery systems but today was different, to my detriment.
"Pardon me," I said with exquisite politeness. "This is a tall drink and you filled the venti cup -which is bigger - with water all the way to the top." I didn't elaborate. It seemed clear to me what the problem was. Diluted espresso.
"I'm sorry," said the barista, pouring a third of the drink out and handing the cup back to me with a smile.
I had to pause a beat, collect myself.
"Well, you just poured out a third of the espresso - which I dearly want - with the excess water," I pointed out, handing the cup back over the counter. I was in for the duration at this point, regretting my decision to even bring up the whole matter of the water. If I had kept my mouth shut I would even then be drinking the full amount of espresso and tolerating the extra water.
She held onto the cup and looked at me. She wasn't angry but confused.
"So you want more water in the cup?" she said tentatively.
"Would it be possible to remake the drink and not fill the cup full of water?" I offered, punting back to square one, clearly on the run at this point.
Clearly relieved, she emptied the cup, and began to remake the drink. I felt kind of like an ass for some reason so I tried to explain the mathematics around the water to espresso proportion to this woman who did not care at this point and barely paid any attention to me at all. It reminded me of looking over the shoulder of an English teacher in high school who was trying to calculate the average of two test scores. She added 82 to 78 for a total of 160 which she then divided by 2 to reach the correct conclusion that the average was 80. She wrote down these numbers on a scrap of paper to do the math.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Pong
Progression: The act of moving forward; a proceeding in a course; motion onward.
I am walking as carefully as I can through the world right now. I'm a guy with a bit of a temper if by "bit" you mean "a huge bag." I'm also not very patient when I'm not getting my way. I'm not very patient when I am getting my way, come to think of it. I like things to move steadily forward to a conclusion of which I approve. When this doesn't happen I get impatient and when I'm impatient I get pissed. See how this works? It's called a progression, like malignant cancerous cells marching inexorably through a healthy organism.
I'm also dealing with the unknowns of a world absent a father. Who knows how this is supposed to go? It's not like you get a bunch practice deaths to figure out how to do it. It isn't sex, for chrissake, it's death.
I'm kind of an Atari pong ball right now, slowly bouncing back and forth between clumsy paddles. I have four or five tasks on my "Dealing With Dad's Death List" and one day they go well and I'm happy, and then the very next day my list goes to shit and I'm inconsolable in my outrage at the world for not working out the way I want it to work out.
I had a day like that yesterday. I went to bed last night thinking: "I'm going to take tomorrow off. I'm not going to try to return the Atari pong ball back to an uncaring universe." So I get up, check my computer, see some messages come in, see that most of the problems - while not solved - are marching forward. I guess I do stuff and it helps or it doesn't and I wait and I wait and I wait for an answer or I don't have to wait for very long at all.
I have no idea what's going on most of time.
I am walking as carefully as I can through the world right now. I'm a guy with a bit of a temper if by "bit" you mean "a huge bag." I'm also not very patient when I'm not getting my way. I'm not very patient when I am getting my way, come to think of it. I like things to move steadily forward to a conclusion of which I approve. When this doesn't happen I get impatient and when I'm impatient I get pissed. See how this works? It's called a progression, like malignant cancerous cells marching inexorably through a healthy organism.
I'm also dealing with the unknowns of a world absent a father. Who knows how this is supposed to go? It's not like you get a bunch practice deaths to figure out how to do it. It isn't sex, for chrissake, it's death.
I'm kind of an Atari pong ball right now, slowly bouncing back and forth between clumsy paddles. I have four or five tasks on my "Dealing With Dad's Death List" and one day they go well and I'm happy, and then the very next day my list goes to shit and I'm inconsolable in my outrage at the world for not working out the way I want it to work out.
I had a day like that yesterday. I went to bed last night thinking: "I'm going to take tomorrow off. I'm not going to try to return the Atari pong ball back to an uncaring universe." So I get up, check my computer, see some messages come in, see that most of the problems - while not solved - are marching forward. I guess I do stuff and it helps or it doesn't and I wait and I wait and I wait for an answer or I don't have to wait for very long at all.
I have no idea what's going on most of time.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Behaving Well
I spend a lot of time in mental warfare. I'm a warrior of the mind. I don't actually fight anyone or anything in the real world but the battles in my skull are epic and bloody and fierce. People are getting fucked up in my head. You do not want to go toe to toe with me in my own head. This is home territory for me and I'll smoke your ass if you trespass.
One of the companies that holds some of the money that my parents have saved doesn't seem to me to be too fired up about . . . you know . . . giving it back. Oh, sure, everybody knows how to take the money. Everybody is taking, taking, taking all the time. It's the returning of the money that seems to be the problem.
So I'm calling this guy and he's not . . . you know . . . calling me back. This aggravates me. I am Little Stevie Seaweed and people shall call me back. They know who I am or they should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing who I am. And to compound this assault on my Ego there is also Money involved. If I was having Sex with this guy and he was withholding that while disrespecting me and keeping my money we'd have a perfect storm of Offended Instincts. Being a competitive, easily annoyed, impatient, judgmental, intolerant, Type A psychopath I take these offenses to heart, and get all jiggy.
After several active hours of mental warfare spread over several days I actually get the guy on the phone. Here's the thing: my folks really liked him and he really liked my folks; he works for a pretty good company; and he's going to do the right thing. And here's the other thing: he's not thinking about me at all. He's not doing anything to me. He's flailing around in his own worldly soup, trying to keep his head above soup, like the rest of us. He had finally returned my call when I was flailing around in the lap pool, trying to keep my head above water, and he left a really nice message about my folks.
So I start out by asking about his son. He had not been able to return my first phone call because he was in Florida helping his son get settled in school. Now I could give a flying shit about his son, to be honest about it, just as I could give a flying shit about anything that doesn't have something to do with me. Really. Seriously. I'm not making this up. I have found out, however, that when I feign an interest in someone else then I start to generate some real interest in them. I know, I know, it make my head hurt thinking this way, too. He was happy to talk about his son. I think his son is probably pretty important to him.
Then I told him how much I appreciated his kind words about my parents (you know how we are about our folks - someone says something kind about them and we think: "Really? Dad? My dad?") and that those sentiments had been reciprocated. My folks really liked the company he worked for, one associated with the church denomination that they attend.
The rest of the conversation was fine. It was just fine. I pretty much knew I was going to behave well. I pretty much knew it was going to take some serious prep time to psych myself up into behaving well.
One of the companies that holds some of the money that my parents have saved doesn't seem to me to be too fired up about . . . you know . . . giving it back. Oh, sure, everybody knows how to take the money. Everybody is taking, taking, taking all the time. It's the returning of the money that seems to be the problem.
So I'm calling this guy and he's not . . . you know . . . calling me back. This aggravates me. I am Little Stevie Seaweed and people shall call me back. They know who I am or they should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing who I am. And to compound this assault on my Ego there is also Money involved. If I was having Sex with this guy and he was withholding that while disrespecting me and keeping my money we'd have a perfect storm of Offended Instincts. Being a competitive, easily annoyed, impatient, judgmental, intolerant, Type A psychopath I take these offenses to heart, and get all jiggy.
After several active hours of mental warfare spread over several days I actually get the guy on the phone. Here's the thing: my folks really liked him and he really liked my folks; he works for a pretty good company; and he's going to do the right thing. And here's the other thing: he's not thinking about me at all. He's not doing anything to me. He's flailing around in his own worldly soup, trying to keep his head above soup, like the rest of us. He had finally returned my call when I was flailing around in the lap pool, trying to keep my head above water, and he left a really nice message about my folks.
So I start out by asking about his son. He had not been able to return my first phone call because he was in Florida helping his son get settled in school. Now I could give a flying shit about his son, to be honest about it, just as I could give a flying shit about anything that doesn't have something to do with me. Really. Seriously. I'm not making this up. I have found out, however, that when I feign an interest in someone else then I start to generate some real interest in them. I know, I know, it make my head hurt thinking this way, too. He was happy to talk about his son. I think his son is probably pretty important to him.
Then I told him how much I appreciated his kind words about my parents (you know how we are about our folks - someone says something kind about them and we think: "Really? Dad? My dad?") and that those sentiments had been reciprocated. My folks really liked the company he worked for, one associated with the church denomination that they attend.
The rest of the conversation was fine. It was just fine. I pretty much knew I was going to behave well. I pretty much knew it was going to take some serious prep time to psych myself up into behaving well.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Highway To Hell
My sister and I fought like cats and dogs when we were growing up - I was the bad kid that everyone thought was good and she was the good kid who everyone thought was bad. She was a typical teenager, pushing boundaries, mouthing off, skulking around but never really getting into any serious trouble. I was a model citizen on the surface - polite, successful in school, quiet in demeanor, all the while moving apace down the Highway to Hell. I fooled a lot of the adults but not my little sister.
I have characterized our relationship over the years as friendly but not warm. Distant. Not a bad relationship but not a close one. As I'm sure is common in the human experience we've grown closer with the death of our last surviving parent. I think both of us realize that a common bond has been severed and if we don't put in some effort to maintain the relationship it isn't going to thrive. I also see that death causes people to reminisce, to reflect on the past (Ed Note: I believe that the definition of 'reminisce' is 'to reflect on the past,' making this sentence a partial waste of time) and share personal stories. I told her that I was a little surprised that mom and dad had saved so much money while asking me to bear most of the financial load of my education when I didn't have the time or money to do so. I think she might have harbored an enduring resentment, believing that they lavished a lot of money on me, that she had gotten the short end of the money stick.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess I'm glad to have a real little sister.
I have characterized our relationship over the years as friendly but not warm. Distant. Not a bad relationship but not a close one. As I'm sure is common in the human experience we've grown closer with the death of our last surviving parent. I think both of us realize that a common bond has been severed and if we don't put in some effort to maintain the relationship it isn't going to thrive. I also see that death causes people to reminisce, to reflect on the past (Ed Note: I believe that the definition of 'reminisce' is 'to reflect on the past,' making this sentence a partial waste of time) and share personal stories. I told her that I was a little surprised that mom and dad had saved so much money while asking me to bear most of the financial load of my education when I didn't have the time or money to do so. I think she might have harbored an enduring resentment, believing that they lavished a lot of money on me, that she had gotten the short end of the money stick.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess I'm glad to have a real little sister.
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