Some Stuff

 A new guy from NYC led our SoCal meeting today.  These thoughts popped up in the aftermath . . . 

He had to check with his sponsor because you can't lead a meeting in NYC until you've had a year of sobriety.  This struck me as pretty funny.  In SoCal you can pretty much do anything you want as soon as you want to do it.  I shared that I've lived in IN, Chicago, Cincinnati, Portland, and SoCal in sobriety and that one of my favorite habits is to return to the city that I've just left and complain about the meetings in the city that I've just moved to.  Think about it.  Consider the dissonance.  Apparently The Program is managing to survive without my input.

I often ponder the difference between Being and Doing.  I'm such a Doing guy.  I'm better at Being but is still strikes me as a lackadaisical approach to life.  My brain is always cycling forward to the next potential task.  Embrace the Boredom!  On Sunday I watched a couple of hours of professional football involving two teams that I could care less about.  I found it strangely satisfying.  Sort of like the feeling you get when you're getting over a bad cold and you don't feel great and you don't feel terrible, just sort of stunned.

Amazing to me how often people talk about Good V Bad.  I have to trot out my Pleasant V Painful screed, reminding everyone (if by "everyone" you mean "me") that I don't know how things are going to work out in the long run.  So often "bad" stuff leads me to a better place.

Denial of my disease.  Slow Progress.  Good things to keep in mind.

Gratitude.  I'm not familiar with the concept.  I need to look it up.

Gratitude:  Appreciative; thankfulness.  (Ed. Note: This is not a complex concept).

I Heard This

I've been sorta doing a year end review during my Quiet Time writing.  It has been pretty funny.  I'm always struck when I review recent musings how many things are really stuck in there - tasks I want to accomplish, habits I want to eliminate, nursed and intransigent resentments I want to release.  Sometimes I shout: "Just fucking do it already!"  I'm really a big teenager, bitching endlessly about something instead of scooping it off my plate.

I heard this in a meeting recently: "It feels good to matter."

I also heard this: "I think you're confusing boredom with serenity."  The transition from chaos and conflict to responsible citizen, worker, family member can be jarring.  We're so used to living in the middle of an uproar that we miss it when it's gone, in a weird sort of way.  A normal life doesn't have the edge that a drinking one does.  I like that phrase: "We'd rather sit in our own poop than get up and move."

Podge

Meditation is not about stopping my thinking - it's about letting my thinking flow by without judging it or trying to control it.

Wear the world like a loose garment.

Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be.

"Thy will (not mine) be done.  We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish.  It is the proper use of the will."

Proper:  Suitable.  (Ed. Note: That is a sucky definition.)

Prayer - how about just trying to send good thoughts someone's way?  This leaves the outcome in God's hands.  You don't have to worry about what the prayer should entail.

The last few years of my drinking saw me use three different routes home from my job.  That way I could stop at three different liquor stores.  God forbid anyone find out that I drink too much.  I was actually worried that liquor store owners would be judging my drinking.  I should have spent more time worrying about what my family and my employers and the cops and my doctor thought about my drinking. 

Avoid The Noid

 Random:  A roving motion; course without definite direction; chance.

Here's a thought: stay away from the bitching.  You know what I'm talking about.  You know how draining and deflating it is to be around negative people; people who can find fault with anything, with something.  I've found myself refusing to be drawn into political bullshit by saying definitively: "Nah, I don't want to talk about that."  There are people who are always tossing little probing comments out there that seem to me to be an attempt to incite.  Not going to bite.  Going to try not to bite, anyhow.

Here's another thought: be who you are.  It's just too fucking hard to try to be someone else and you're not fooling anybody anyhow.

One more: I can't live someone else's life for them even when the way I would live it is an obviously better path.  If I'm talking to some dude shooting heroin my inclination is to say: "Stop doing that.  That's a terrible thing to do" as if the junkie is unaware of that fact.  I don't know what that person's path is.  Maybe it's to OD on heroin.  Maybe it's to take the elevator of life way, way down before recovering and then being an incredible example to someone else.  I do not know what God's plan is for myself let alone for anyone else.

A concluding thought unless something else comes to mind while I'm typing this: Doubting the existence of God is no barrier to a spiritual experience.  So all of you atheists and anarchists and agnostics and fallen children you can stuff your objections into a sock, mister.  We're not having it.  We're not having any of it.

OK, I knew I'd come up with something else while I was only half paying attention to whatever it was I was writing about before.  A good prayer/thought/affirmation for your morning Quiet Time: God, give me the strength to whatever you have in mind for me today. 

Gimme Gimme Gimme!

Concepts 7 - 12

Dry, dry, dry, but I'm glad and happy to have studied them.

C. 7: The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.

Al-Anon C. 7: The Trustees have legal rights while the rights of the Conference are traditional. “…the legal system is not the only authority that can help us. When we consider traditional authority, we turn to the spiritual principles of the Legacies” [that is, the step, traditions, and concepts]. 

C. 8: The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.

Al-Anon C. 8: The Board of Trustees delegates full authority for routine management of Al-Anon Headquarters to its executive committees. With Concept 8, we are reminded that we have options.

C. 9: Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.

Al-Anon: For service work, I was advised to study the chapter on Concept Nine in the service manual that explains how to deal with criticism and how to make decisions as well as Bill W.’s essay on leadership there.

C. 10: Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.

Al-Anon C. 10: Service responsibility is balanced by carefully defined service authority and double-headed management is avoided.

C. 11: The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.

Al-Anon C. 11: The World Service Office is composed of selected committees, executives and staff members.

C. 12: The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.

Al-Anon C. 12: The spiritual foundation for Al-Anon’s world services is contained in the General Warranties [AA’s six listed above in the concept in bold].

Al-Anon: “When we keep our focus on spiritual principles, even in the face of strong controversy [such as unjust attack], we discover our protection is in [our higher power’s]  hands,” and “these principles represent a healthy balance each of us can practice daily in all our affairs.” 

Angry Joe

 The "F@#k you, Reuben" guy has been showing up at the Zoom meeting again.  I'm not exactly sure why.  The thing about this dude is that I kinda like him.  He's got a good sense of humor, usually at his own expense, and I can see that he's really working at his recovery.  He's had a problem with his temper from day one - his nickname was Angry Joe for the longest time - and like a lot of us he's often a child in a man's body.  So much of the behavior of new people is rife with immaturity.  We're just inappropriate.  I can see this guy yelling "F@#k you, dude" all the time on his job sites without any repercussions.  Sometimes it's okay and sometimes it's not okay - the trick is learning which is which.

Anyway, we read part of a story out of The Big Book.  One of the pitfalls with only reading part of a story is that you can get just the drinking part without getting to the quitting drinking part which, we all agree, is the important part.  A hazard of this partial reading style is that for many of us our drinking was fun and relatively consequence free at the start.  I find myself romancing the fun of drinking sometimes while glossing over the misery of drinking.

Because I didn't have anything to say about the reading - and I always have something to say - I got called on to share first.  I blathered and dithered about nothing of consequence and passed the mic onto the next person.  And because I didn't have time to prepare some canned, pre-planned remarks that everyone has heard many times several people commented on something I said.  Funny how that works, too - speak from the head and you got bupkus and speak from the heart and you reach people.

So Angry shared as well and he mentioned something that I had said.  After the meeting I texted him to congratulate him on what was really a good share.  One of the funny consequences of Zoom meetings is that, deprived of the feedback that comedians crave, the comedians are less jokey and their sharing becomes more heartfelt and more  . . . . adult.  Anyway, because I don't want ANY RESENTMENTS in my life I figure as a Long Timer I could at least make the first move and I did this with no expectation of no anything.  It's my action for me.  The response is not important.

Angry's text is: "Thank you.  And I'm glad I have your number now."  

Funny, that.

Good Reminders

 Good leader at the morning meeting today.  A different morning meeting - not the one that's on my last nerve at the moment.  It has occurred to me that I can go elsewhere if I don't like where I am.

I like the reminder that one of my struggles was the feeling that I didn't quite belong.  I didn't feel comfortable around people.  I felt alone even when I was in a crowd.  I felt like there was a manual for normal living and I didn't get one when they were passed out.

"Either we were shy, and dared not draw near others, or were apt to be noisy good fellows craving attention and companionship, but never getting it - at least to our way of thinking."  12&12, Step Five, P. 57.

I like the reminder that alcohol was - for a long time - a very effective solution to my alcoholism.  I felt alone - I drank and took drugs - and I felt a part of.  One of the big challenges of getting sober was to overcome that feeling of apartness that alcohol and drugs eradicated.

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol."  Big Book, The Doctor's Opinion, P. xxxviii.

I like the reminder that I find God through other people.  I had no luck finding God while I was wandering about in my spiritual wilderness.  I found God when I found The Fellowship.  God speaks to me through you guys.

Good phrase: "Self-Righteous Indignation."

An excellent version of The Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Give it to Me."  In my opinion that's the long form of the short form of The Lord's Prayer."  The Seaweed version goes like this: "Give it to me!  Give it to me!  Gimme Gimme Gimme!!"

Good aphorism: I'm a quick learner and a quick forgetter."

I like the reminder that I'm not better than you and I'm not worse than you.  I make sure I don't divide the world up into people I resent and people I disregard.  Balance!  Get in the middle.

And lest I never, ever, ever forget: no one wants my advice.  I can tell people what I've done (not what I think they should do, a matter beyond my capability); I can point out salient info in our literature; and I can urge them to talk to as many people as possible to get as many different viewpoints as possible (and gently suggesting that they talk to someone with some good experience - someone with relationship problem might not want to seek the counsel of the guy who's been divorced six times).

Ed. Note: I was kidding.  I'm better than you.

Politics and A.A.

I am trying to stay out of the middle of this.  I am trying to keep my resentments to a minimum and my outrage under control.  I have to admit that there may be some long-term, long-lasting resentments evolving at the moment.  If I stay as disengaged from the people involved as possible I stay more peaceful.

I cannot believe that our organization - one that professes a desire to be a responsible and salutary community asset - is ignoring both county and state laws.  And I cannot believe that it's ignoring the misery of our health care workers who are taking the brunt of the awfulness of the pandemic.  And ignoring our fellows who may not have health insurance at all or who can't afford PPE or who may be in such a precarious financial position that that they have to go to work - sick or not, risking spreading the disease even more - and then return to a home that may not be big and roomy and comfy, where there may be extended family members present who are much more at risk.

So what's the message to the newcomer?  Live a lawful, respectful, ethical life . . . unless you don't happen to agree with the laws or the ethics?  I don't think it works that way.  That's chaos.  That's how criminals justify criminal acts: "This company makes a lot of profit so I can shoplift to make ends meet?  Do what I want if it makes sense to me?  Selfish.

My opinion here is not unique.  There are a bunch of people who are as outraged as I am, some of them with very long term sobriety, people who have seen lots of ups and downs in the recovery community but still believe this is outrageous and threatening, a potentially dangerous tipping point.

I guess I AM lucky that most of the people behaving this way I either don't like much or don't respect at all.  But I can't imagine being in a meeting with them again and not having a positive message poisoned by my memories of this behavior.

Politics and A.A.  Whew.

The Twelve Concepts

One: Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole fellowship. 

AA: In the midst of the “exuberant success” of early A.A., Dr. Bob became fatally ill and Bill asked, “When Dr. Bob and I are gone, who would then advise the trustees and the office?” The answer, Bill felt, was to be found in the collective conscience of the A.A. groups. Rather than top-down leadership, “The AA groups are to be the final authority; their leaders are to be entrusted with delegated responsibilities only.” This Concept is rooted in Tradition 2 (the ultimate authority is the HP; leaders don’t govern).

Al-Anon: Confusion about roles and responsibilities can affect all our relationships. Our serenity depends on our ability to take responsibility for what is ours, and to let go of the rest (i.e., other people’s lives and work).

Two: The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs

AA: For the groups to carry on their primary purpose of working with alcoholics, they delegate their leadership role to the General Service Conference by each electing a GSR to represent them.

Al-Anon: I gain trust by letting go of some responsibilities, and giving them to someone else. This allows others to exercise their initiatives and skills, and I celebrate their accomplishments.

Three: To ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of  A.A. -the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives - with a traditional "Right of Decision."

AA: If the groups instruct their GSRs in detail, rather than giving them their own right to make decisions, then the area conference is hamstrung waiting for further instructions. “Our entire A.A. program rests squarely upon the principle of mutual trust.”

Al-Anon: Placing our faith in a power greater than ourselves helps us to trust the outcome of the decisions we make. And so we learn to extend the same trust to others (and their decisions).

Four: At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional "Right of Participation," allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.

There is a spiritual reason for the “Right of Participation.” All of us desire to belong. In AA, no members are “second class.” The “Right of Participation” (during voting in the service boards) therefore reinforces Tradition 2, that no member is placed in “ultimate authority” over another.

Al-Anon: Participation is based on mutual respect and gives us the courage to speak when appropriate, the maturity to be silent when needed, and the detachment to listen to other points of view without judgment. 

Five: Throughout our structure, a traditional "Right of Appeal" ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.

The presiding officer makes sure the minority has a second opportunity to present its views even after extensive debate on an issue, followed by a vote in which a “substantial unanimity” is reached: Those opposed are polled individually to see if they wish to speak further to their minority view. And any person in the service structure can petition for redress of a personal grievance directly to the General Service Board, without prejudice or fear of reprisal.

Al-Anon: All opinions must be heard in order to have an informed group conscience (and mutual respect).

Six: The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.

The trustees have the legal and practical responsibility for the operation of A.A. World Services. Although “our objective is always a spiritual one,” nevertheless our world service is a “large business operation” (involving millions of dollars annually and so on).

Al-Anon: This concept builds on the principles of delegation, authority, and responsibility found in the earlier concepts. No one person can do all things necessary in a relationship or entity. As we work together, we develop some level of trust in others (and ourselves). We also learn to link the responsibility of the job with authority to do it.

Resting Under My Laurels

 And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned.  That is how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

 It is easy to let up on the spiritual program and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

'Thy will (not mine) be done.'  We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish.  It is the proper use of the will.

All of this can be found on pages 84 - 85 of the Big Book.  I totally agree with all of it.  Except maybe for the "sanity will have returned" phrase.  I think my sanity is lurking in the neighborhood - "returned" may be pushing it a bit.  I'm also intrigued by the phrase "resting on our laurels."  A laurel is a shrubbery which used to be shaped into a crown and put on someone's head as an award for winning something; maybe a spelling bee or a flyweight bout of Greco-Roman wrestling.  How this got changed to "resting on" is perplexing.  What do you do - take the crown off and then squat on it?  I would change the phrase to "resting under your laurel."  I doubt anyone wore multiple laurels.  One laurel.  That's it.  That's all you get.

I like the references in our books to using willpower properly.  I think some of us believe that we completely lose our will and our willpower is useless.

I heard this referenced this morning: the difference between a "moment of clarity" and a "spiritual experience."  It was a nice turn of a phrase.  The guy speaking believed that the spiritual experience occurs after we've worked The Steps.  Maybe because the 12th Step - our last Step, by the way - says "Having had a spiritual experience as THE result of these Steps . . . "  Realizing that I was a drunken souse was no experience - it was an awakening.

I know this: no one argued with me when I starting admitting that I was an alcoholic.

During our last blow-out business meeting we had a brand new woman sit in.  She's still coming to meetings.  If you can survive an A.A. business meeting then you're officially IN.

Neat and Tidy Is Nice

Wal-Mart to pick up a few items.  I'm not sure this is a better choice than Amazon - both of them being huge, soulless, monstrosities - but at least this way I'm helping employ a local or two.  The guy who was running the check-out lane was energetic and outgoing, engaging all of the customers coming down his aisle.  He wished the woman in front of me a Merry Christmas, then turned to me and made a comment along the lines that it may be a little harder this year than others.  He wasn't bitching or being negative - it was more of a wry observation.

I enjoy talking to people I'm never going to see again for short periods of time - anything beyond that tries my patience.  After a few pleasantries and non-specific ramblings I asked: "So . . . they giving you enough hours?"

Floodgates and, again, not in the manner of someone airing a grievance.

"No," he said.  "Not even close.  Maybe 30 hours a week.  At $13-something an hour that's not enough for me to live on."

Apparently he's staying (if by "staying" you mean "living") in a residential hotel with his wife and two children.  Numbers guy that I am I clicked my mental abacus: 30 X 13 = $390 a week . . . before taxes.  I live in an incredibly expensive state where I doubt you could rent a one bedroom apartment for $1500 a month let alone pay all of your other bills.  This dude is thinking of leaving for a much less expensive state.  I wager he won't like the weather and the terrain and the general vibe as much there but hopefully he'll be able to enjoy a semi-middle class lifestyle (if by "semi-middle class lifestyle" you mean "a dwelling AND food AND a car").

I don't want this to be a economics lesson but rather a reminder than when I talk to new people I learn new lessons.  Is this guy more interested in staunching the spread of CoVid or is he more interested in having society open up so that he can work more hours and pay his bills?  Not an easy choice for someone living on the margin.  I'm reminded of the old bromide "money isn't that important unless you don't have any."

Our neighbor's son is a policeman.  He was sharing yesterday that a lot of his fellow cops have gotten sick (no deaths to this point, thank god) and that he's seen a big uptick in suicides over the last few months (partly due to the holidays where more despondent people kill themselves than during any other time of the year) and that he has three school age children who are at home, understandably bored and frustrated and lonely.

So what's the answer to all this?  Not neat and tidy, is it?

A Waning Resentment

Hypocrite: A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 

OK, last post bitching about the latest business meeting . . .   OK, could be the penultimate post . . .  Might be the last post in a concluding tranche of bitching posts . . . Or possibly I'll keep on bitching until I'm lying on my death bed in swaddling clothes.  I'll motion everyone closer and croak out in a hoarse whisper: "Rosebud."  No, wait, that's from an Orson Welles film . . . I'll say: "Business Meeting" and then die.  A murmur will go up in the room, no doubt crowded beyond fire department regulations (this will, of course, be post-CoVid so my death can be properly celebrated . . . errr . . . mourned while not breaking any of the regulations I'm currently bitching about): "Business meeting.  Business meeting?  What can that possible mean?"

Our state and our county has instituted a complete shut-down because of an alarming rise in the number of CoVid cases and a worrisome trend of fewer and fewer ICU beds.  Here's the verbatim notice from the state website: They (referring to the regulations) prohibit private gatherings of any size, close sector operations except for critical infrastructure and retail, and require 100% masking and physical distancing in all others.

From what I can tell the anti-maskers at the live meeting are continuing to meet.  They might be paying lip service to masking up and socially distancing but they sure as hell are continuing to gather.  The state reg is unequivocal.  It brooks no re-interpretation.  I'm assuming you could petition the appropriate regulator for an exemption if you wanted to keep holding a meeting but I doubt this has been done or the meeters would self-righteously crow about that, too.  And I know because I'm a self-righteous crowing jackdaw myself.  I know about the Better Than You philosophy.

I will state for the record that I have managed to successfully move past a sense of serious grievance here while managing to hold onto some information that may help me be successfully self-righteous down the road.  My opinion is that you are rule-follower or you are not.  My opinion is that it's bullshit to follow and enforce rules you think are wise and ignore those that you think are not.  I, personally, am not a huge rules guy.  My saving grace, if such a thing exists, is that I don't often complain when someone breaks the rules.  I avoid hypocrisy so that I may sleep well at night.

Here's my self-righteous point self-righteously made: some of the people who are meeting in-person, breaking the rules, rules they think aren't good ones, are quite strident when someone else breaks a rule that they think is a good one. C'mon, man, give me a break.

I have this information stored in my mental 12-Gauge shotgun and the safety is off.  I will break my Vow of Silence the next time one of these hypocrites complains about a rule-breaker.

Self-Righteous: Confident of one's own righteousness, especially when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.

See?  Can't you tell I'm over my resentment?  Aren't you happy for me?  Aren't you impressed with me?  Good, because I'm awfully, awfully impressed with myself.

Where is the 13th Tradition?

"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."  Tradition Twelve, which is the Twelfth Tradition.  It comes immediately after the Eleventh Tradition but because it's the last Tradition there are no Traditions to follow it.  It is, therefore, the Concluding Tradition.  You may ask: "Because it finished the Traditions should we assume that it's the most important Tradition?"

Don't assume anything. 

Anonymity -  Without any name acknowledged of a person responsible.

Many think (if by "many" you mean "I") that this Tradition is more important for newcomers than for old-timers.  After a while we become less concerned about what other people think of us.  I was perfectly fine rolling in at 3 AM with Sabbath cranking out of my open car windows, open whatever the weather because I needed to stay awake, and then parking either halfway up the front yard or 6 feet from the curb, but god forbid anyone should find out I had a drinking problem!   "Clearly every A.A. member's name - and story, too - had to be confidential, if he wished.  This was our first lesson in the practical application of anonymity."

Many others think (etc, etc, etc) that it's more important to protect The Fellowship than to protect the individual.  If someone who is known to the public credits A.A. for his/her sobriety and then relapses in a public way we're worried that this might give someone pondering our Fellowship an excuse to stay away.  "We simply couldn't afford to take the chance of letting self-appointed members present themselves as messiahs representing A.A. before the whole public.  If even one publicly got drunk, or was lured into using A.A.'s name for his own purposes, the damage might be irreparable."

Equality: The same in all respects.  (Ed. Note: Beautiful.  Short and simple.  No extra words, no wasted motion.)

"Moved  by the spirit of anonymity, we try to give up our natural desires for personal distinction as A. A. members both among fellow alcoholics and before the general public."

I'm not any more important than anyone else.

OUCH.

$20

 Here's a little tale, one that happened over several days but a tale that I'm going to combine into one day because it makes for a better story while painting an even more positive story about me, Little Stevie Seaweed.  I think I've dabbled these incidents out in drips and drabs already but they made such a big, positive impact on me, Little Stevie Seaweed, that I'm going to repeat them.  Plus, I have nothing new on which to pontificate.

In my Quiet Time I have a written and spoken Gratitude List.  One of the things that I'm extremely grateful for is that I'm no longer living on the edge financially.  When I got sober I had approximately no money, a 20 year old Plymouth Belvedere station wagon my granddad had given me, and I was living in my parent's house, rent free, sleeping in my childhood bedroom.  Today this is not the case.  I ask my higher power to help me be a good financial steward of the resources I have, being neither stingy or extravaganza, both conditions detailed in The Big Book as typical alcoholic behavior.

So a few weeks ago I stuffed some bills in my wallet with the intent of handing them out.  One of the consequences of the pandemic is that there are tons of hard-working, honest citizens who are struggling financially through no fault of their own.  As I often say when being generous with money . . . ummm, trying to be generous with money . . . is that the value of the bills was less than I could comfortably afford but more than I wanted to part with.  (OK, OK, $20 bills.  Happy?) 

My first stop was to drop off SuperK's car to get the oil changed.  (Ed. Note: This makes me a saint.  I should point out she spent the morning doing laundry.  Of course no advantage accrues for her contribution, in my opinion.  If I do something nice it's a big deal but if you do something nice you're simply fulfilling an obligation to me, Little Stevie Seaweed.  Funny how that works, especially since all I did was drop off the car and walk to a coffee shop for a face-to-face meeting (socially distanced and outside, of course) with a sponsee.    

On the way to get coffee I swung by my donut shop (you know you eat too many donuts when you have a donut shop).  The immigrant owner of the shop always says good morning and then loads a sack with my regular order (you know you eat way too many donuts when the owner of your regular donut shop has your order memorized).

(Ed. Note: A really weird digression: I looked up "donut" to check the correct spelling and a Google search informed me that a donut emoji can stand in for a butthole and indicts a possible interest in anal sex.  I am not making that up - it was pretty high up on the search algorithm, too.  I am also unhappy I looked up donut.)

The cost of the donuts is $2.20.  I always give her $3 and often $5 but today I said "Merry Christmas, "handed her one of the $20's and stepped into the doorway.  I believe she thought this was a general "Merry Christmas" and not a "you're getting a pretty big tip Merry Christmas" because she opened the cash register and got $17.80 of change out of the till.  She turned around, saw me in the door with a big smile on my face and another "Merry Christmas" on my lips, watched me head on down the road.  She looked surprised.  I don't think she said anything.

Then, at the coffee shop, where Everyone Knows My Name and where Everyone Knows My Order (you know you drink too much coffee when the baristas at your regular coffee shop just ring up your order without asking what you want), I slapped down another $20 and said: "That's good."  "Really?  Are you sure?" the young woman asked.  "Thank you.  Thanks from all of us."

At this point I'm flying high, feeling pretty good about myself, not yet regretting that I just paid $40 for $6 worth of products, only slightly miffed that the barista wasn't quite as effusive in her praise as she could have been thereby discounting my incredible generous tip, strolling back into the auto repair shop like I'm the second coming of King Shit.  I really like this small, individually owned mechanic.  The people are great.  In my opinion a good, honest auto mechanic is more important than a cardiologist.  I think I could catch a lying cardiologist in a lie but a lying auto mechanic has me by the balls.

As I pay for the work I ask if I can speak to the mechanic.  Sure.  They bring this kid out who looks like he's about 14 - one of the ways you can tell that you're getting old is that everyone under 35 looks like they're in middle school.  I hand him a bill.  He breaks into a big smile.  "You thought you were in trouble, didn't you?" I ask.  "Usually the case when the client asks to see me," he replied.  I slip into the restroom before I leave and when I walk back into the reception area the three service techs and the owner are all standing there.  They wanted to show me that the kid who worked on my car had been featured in the last flyer they mailed out.  Everyone was noticeably pleased.  There was just this great electricity, this great energy in the room.  

For $20.  Whew.

The Rant Continues

Fucking (name redacted to protect the innocent) meeting has irritated and frustrated me more than every other meeting I've ever attended . . . combined.  The group that split off to start a live meeting  in a "church" where they are not paying rent is really getting on my last nerve even though it's none of my business and I don't like so many of the attendees that I'm glad they're gone.  Generally I like smaller groups so this should be to my liking.  If I had my druthers I would have voted to split the group into two smaller factions.  Ya'd think I'd be happy by this development but ya'd be wrong. 

We get so used to death in America: opioid overdoses, gun violence, drunk driving, and now CoVid-19.  After 9/11 - when 3000 people died - our outrage at the insult led to two lengthy wars meant to avenge the carnage but now the 2000 a day we're losing produces a collective societal yawn.  It's one thing to be frustrated at the inability to socialize and another altogether to begin the socialization as the virus cases in our area spin out of control.  Now that our state has instituted a three week full shutdown - no private gatherings of any kind permitted - it'll be interesting to see if the group continues to meet.  We're not rule followers so I'm assuming that they will.  Again, none of my business.  But if I ever hear one of these people complain about someone not following the meeting format or fracturing a Tradition I'm going to unload my mental 12 gauge shotgun.  

This is why during the last two business meetings I took a Vow of Silence.  If I can't speak reasonably and charitably I don't permit myself to speak.  The shit that comes out is never good.

Again, why is this upsetting?  Because they're idiots?  Because the things that I love to do have been curtailed because of the restrictions that I'm following but some others are not?  Because I'm not getting my way?

Whenever I have a personal conflict my goal is simple - to show you that you're wrong and that I'm right.  The resolution of all of my personal conflicts is Winning.  

I'm only partly kidding here.

Two days later . . . .

I'm still pretty worked up about this.  I see the new meeting as the equivalent of joining the opposing political party, a faction I find nearly intolerable.  A line has been crossed, a line I saw forming several months ago.  A. A. and politics - wow!  The line was pretty faint and indistinct before The Breakaway but now it has been chiseled into the concrete.  The political/pandemic references are now on full display.  There are some hard feelings here.

Fuck you, Reuben!

And the live camera phone shots of people clearly not wearing masks after the meeting ended.  I find this idea of personal freedom, of getting to do whatever I want to do, the moral equivalent of saying: "I don't care what happens to you."

The other factor, beyond the politics, is that a lot of these types are BMOC - Big Men on Campus.  Big personalities, strutting, making themselves the center of attention, cocksure in their attitudes and beliefs, dismissive of yours.

Who made me the Center of the Universe?

Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations

Energy:  An intangible, modifiable force  (often characterized as either positive or negative) believed to emanate from a person, place or thing and which is (or can be) preserved and transferred in human interaction.

Many years ago a player from one of the sports teams that I follow signed with a different team.  He then spent some time publicly trashing the team I follow.  A reporter asked the coach of my team if he had any comment: "I don't discuss players from other teams," he said.  He wasn't rude or abrupt; he just didn't want to spend any time on things out of his control.  I've thought of this many times over the years.  It's a variation of the "Do you have a snake in this snake fight?" line of thinking.  If my snake is not in the fight then the snakes in the fight are none of my business.

My friend Suburban Bill has talked about Energy a lot over the years.  Good energy, bad energy, in people, in places, coming off of objects.  Being an incredibly literal, practical man, schooled in the hard sciences, I often rolled my internal eyes when the subject came up.  But I'm also a person who has learned to investigate new things, see if anything's there, and I've come to believe quite firmly in the whole energy aura thing.  I find that I can quickly pick up on bad energy coming from negative people and good energy coming from positive people.  

I was talking with a guy who does some work on my cars a few years ago.  We had just met, and I liked him immediately.  It was early in the morning and I was dropping my car off after attending my morning meeting.  He paused at one point and said: "Man, I'm really digging talking to you - all of this great energy is pouring off of you.  I feel jazzed."

That's what I want.  I want people to feel good, positive energy when they're in my presence.  I want to think positive thoughts.  This isn't always easy to do for a Problem Person adept at finding the negative in everyone and everything.

I went on to my Facebook page yesterday and found the "Fuck You, Reuben" character and de-friended him.  I'm not a big FB guy anyhow, but I simply don't want to see his face on my electronica.  He's a Bad Energy guy, an Angry Energy guy.  I'm in an existential battle with the forces of Evil on a good day so I don't see any reason to suffer fools in my life, fools putting out negativity.  I was going to say I like this guy well enough . . . but after yesterday he's got a hole to dig himself out of.  

F*#K You, Reuben

My regular morning meeting is called KIS - Keep It Simple.  For a while I thought that the name was tongue-in-cheek because it is the most complicated meeting I've ever attended.  The format sheet that the day's secretary uses to get the proceedings started is a little shorter than War and Peace and I'm almost not kidding.  It takes 15 minutes to wade through all the boilerplate and actually get to the . . . you know . . . actual meeting part.  And then - for some reason that remains opaque to me - we stop the sharing part at ten 'till the hour.  For a while I rationalized that this was to enable working people to get to their jobs but most of us are retired or work odd shifts or are ne'er do wells so that doesn't seem plausible.  Mostly I don't think about it too closely.  I'm trying to reduce dissonance so that I don't go insane.

There is always something brewing at KIS from a minor kerfuffle to a major conflagration.  The business meetings resemble a Texas Chainsaw Death Match.  A few years ago a group of malcontents broke away and started a competitive meeting at the same time of day.  This caused some hard feelings.  I keep this in mind whenever my actions indicate I'm rejecting the status quo of anything I get involved with because these actions say, in effect: "I know better than you - you're doing it wrong."  The people who stay - the people who think everything is just fine and see no reason to change - can develop resentments.  This is what happened.

Some of our current members, hungry for face to face contact in this isolating pandemic, found a "church" building that agreed to let them use a room for in-person meetings.  I think this is a stupid idea in a rapidly worsening pandemic but that's really none of my business.  No one from this group asked me for my opinion so I didn't give it.  In fact, even when people ask for my opinion I'm suspicious as to whether they really want to hear what I have to say.  I think they're patronizing me most of the time.  The group broke away without telling anybody who is staying on the Zoom platform.  The group also liberated for their own use all of the supplies from our regular meeting room - closed because of CoVid - again, without telling anyone.  And some of the people who left have commitments on the Zoom platform that they didn't bother to honor.

So, at a joint business meeting today, there were hard feelings.  If you didn't see this coming then you're too stupid for me to associate with.  Some of the resentments were heartfelt and touching - one man expressed sadness that no one let the entire group know that this move was being planned. Several people were annoyed that the supplies were liberated without clearing it with the group.  When one of our members called this stealing - a pretty harsh judgement that might have been best tempered a bit - someone off camera at the live meeting yelled: "Fuck you, Reuben."  This came through with exceptional clarity.  There was no need to electronically enhance the audio.  I've been attending meetings for 34 years and that was a first for me.  Clearly, the political divide in our country and the coarsening of our civility and respectfulness, driven by some of our top politicians, is seeping into Alcoholics Anonymous, and this makes me sad.  I hope the seep doesn't become malignant.

In my opinion this is a different scenario than the original malcontent break-away.  There are people who don't like virtual meetings and/or are eager for a more personal setting.  I truly believe that once the pandemic ceases to rage and society returns to a more familiar setting that these folks will come back to the one room.

But at what cost?  "Fuck you, Reuben?"  I hope that guy has a good sponsor because he needs to make an amends and not a quiet, personal amends, either, but one in front of the whole group.  I took some phone calls today.  People were jazzed.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Problems of My Own Making

 Problem:  A difficulty that has to be resolved or dealt with.

I personally believe I encounter three kinds of problems.

1.  Problems of my own making.  (This is a huge category.)

2. Problems that are common to everyone such as an illness or a death of a loved one.  (This is a big category.  Not as big as #1 but still big.)

3.  Problems of an unfair nature; to wit: getting screwed, fucked over, or otherwise treated poorly.  (This category is small.  Vanishingly small.  It's a faint afterimage seen at the extremes of your peripheral vision.  It's so small as to be statistically unmeasurable.  A mathematician would discount its validity outright.)

Here's the funny thing: in my mind category 3 is monstrous, gargantuan, Godzilla-like in size.  To everyone else's it's not even a category it's so small.

Perspective, baby.

Homer To The Rescue

 We don’t remember every single thing that has ever happened to us.  There’s a mistaken belief that it’s all in there somewhere and that if we could only properly and efficiently access the memory files then we could relive each instant of our lives.  Our brains are too smart for this.  Our brains fill in cracks.  The simplest analogy is our eyesight - there’s too much going on in the world and it’s happening too fast so our brains fill in the gaps.  There are plenty of studies done on people who have had retinal tears or an optical disease that deprives them of a chunk of their eyesight but they’re unaware of this - the brain combines the images of both eyes and glosses over the missing visuals so that the person manages well enough.

What’s even more interesting is that our brains seem to screw around with our memories to make them conform to our current perception of ourselves.  For instance, if you were cruel to an animal long ago and you’re no longer cruel to animals that sets up a dissonance in your head.  You’re uncomfortable with the fact that you were cruel.  It’s incompatible with the image you have of yourself so your brain begins to subtly alter this memory so that you think you didn’t behave the way you actually did.  Often this dis-remembering leads to some outrageous and easily disproved lies.  We look at people who have been caught making something up with our mouths agape and our eyes agog.  “How could he/she think she could get away with that bald-faced lie?” we think.  It very well may be that the person isn’t lying but rather listening to the crap his/her brain has made up.

Some people, of course, are actually lying.  There are lying liars out there.

Our brains have a lot going on.  The speculation is that some of this rewriting of history is a way to make sure that we don’t go absolutely batshit crazy.

“I HATE being called a liar.  Unless I’m telling a lie or I’ve just told a lie or I’m about to tell a lie.”  Homer Simpson

Shuttles and Hotels

The last time I flew into The Old City I arrived after midnight, which - taking into consideration a three hour time change - counts for the next day for someone my age.  In fact, sometimes it counts for the day after the next day.  It's not even the same week sometimes, it's so disorienting.

I made my way out of the baggage claim area and found the waiting area for the shuttle that would take me to where the car was actually located.  I suppose I could have spent a little more money and rented a car from one of the fancy agencies that have a spot right in the terminal. The airport was empty, eerily dark, as I stood there by myself, wistfully looking at the employees of Hertz and Avis, right across the street, doing nothing in their brightly lit offices, their lots packed with working cars.  No one was in line at their counters.  No one was in there at all besides the employees themselves, young people idly looking at computer screens.  They would have had plenty of time to wait on me as I signed up for one of their horrifically overpriced vehicles.

I stood there for a while, watching competitive car rental shuttles drive by, full of cheerful looking passengers going to get their cars.  Everybody but my company.  I noticed that the overhead sign indicated that I was standing in an area reserved for several of the agencies that have offices off-site, but not the one with whom I had actually reserved a car.  Apparently I had chosen a company who was even lower on the pecking order than the companies banished to remote corners of the airport; maybe this is why their prices were so low.  An arrow pointed me to a waiting area further removed from the terminals, a really creepy empty area, with no cars, no passengers, nothing but buzzing fluorescent lights circled by legions of biting, stinging insects.

A competitive company's shuttle eventually pulled up.  The door shushed open with a hydraulic sigh.

"Are you waiting for Enterprise?" the driver asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"They're closed," he stated matter-of-factly and with a lot of good cheer.
"No, I have a car reserved with them," I said stupidly.  I fished out my rental agreement and showed it to him.
"This happens all the time," the guy said.  "Hop in.  We'll rent you a car."

They rented me a car.  Sometimes I think that there's only one car rental company.  Sometimes I think there's only one airline company, too.  They just paint the planes with different logos.  How would you know?  I used to think there was one big factory that made all the various types of cars that you can buy.  It could be that each city has a huge underground kitchen which prepares the food for every last fucking restaurant, the meals coming up through a subterranean dumbwaiter system.  Thai, Japanese, Cajun, burgers . . . all made by the same group of cooks, laboring in a smoky, steamy, dirty cavern deep beneath the surface of the city.

The next time I came into town I decided to avoid the car rental agencies and just get a hotel room at the airport and pick up the car the next morning . . . when the office was open.  I'm not very smart.  The hotel offered a free shuttle with their hours listed as 7 AM to 12 PM.  I arrived at 11:30 PM and immediately called the reservations desk to make sure I was on the last shuttle.  I was immediately told that the last shuttle was at 11:30 and that I had missed it and good luck with everything.  I pointed out that their website listed midnight.  They pointed out that their shuttle driver worked until midnight but had to leave the terminal by 11:30 to get back to the agency.  They were not swayed at the logic of my arguments.  They did not pick me up.

It was okay.  Everything worked out eventually.  I got my car and I made it to the hotel and everything was fine.

The Mental Pyramid

The discussion of the Mental Pyramid is very enlightening, too.  It attempts to explain why people do things that are so obviously wrong by positing that an initial decision made long ago, a decision at the time that seemed so ambiguous and inconsequential as to be unimportant, can slowly snowball into such a huge disaster.

The perfect example is the gambler who loses $20,000 after vowing to stick within a $2000 limit.  Before he sat down at the table he assured himself that he wouldn't lose a penny over $2000.  The catastrophe isn't the last $500 he loses - it's the first $50 after the $2000 limit is researched.  Everything unfolds so slowly and so incrementally that it becomes more palatable, more reasonable.  When you see a politician caught with a prostitute it's likely that he didn't break this law his first day in office - he got away with little transgressions which became medium-sized transgressions and - suddenly! - there's his picture on the Internet in a hotel room with someone he shouldn't be with.

So back to my favorite aphorism: "Take care of the small stuff and it's all small stuff."  This is why I try to stick rigorously to the core principles that are at the heart of my make-up.  I fail every day, of course, but I strive for the goal of perfection.  Treat the coffee shop barista like a princess and I don't have to worry about embezzling a million dollars.  

The Mental Pyramid

When the person at the top of the pyramid is uncertain, when there are benefits and costs for both choices, then he will feel a particular urgency to justify the choice made.  But by the time the person is at the bottom of the pyramid, ambivalence will have morphed into certainty, and he will be miles away from anyone who took a different route.   The first steps along the path are morally ambiguous, and the right decision is not always clear.  We make an early, apparently inconsequential decision, and then we justify it to reduce the ambiguity of the choice.  This starts a process of entrapment - action, justification, further action - that increases our intensity and commitment and may end up taking us far from our original intentions or principles.