Plugging In

Before I travel I always use the Internet to look up meetings. I have attended meetings in about 20 different states and 8 or 10 foreign countries. It's a lot of fun and very stabilizing and reassuring to find out that The Program is pretty much the same everywhere, except for a few minor regional differences.

The CA experience was pretty typical. SuperK and I took a ferry out to Coronado island -- which isn't an island and had no visible kin of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado on display anywhere that I could see -- and hoofed it a couple of miles to the meeting address, which was clearly, unmistakably, undoubtedly a Sunglass Hut. I borrowed phone books at a couple of shops to verify the address, clearly telling anyone that asked that "I'm looking for an AA meeting." That always puts the fear of God into 'em and quashes any follow up questions. We dialed the number which rang and rang and rang. Back to the Sunglass Hut where a weary sales woman directed us to a small annex that could only be reached by using the alley behind the shop. Good meeting. Everyone thought I was from Iowa instead of Ohio. I liked that, too, and did nothing to correct the fact. I was a Hawkeye for a day, whatever that is.

The second meeting I tried to find by myself. I walked for about a half an hour on a pleasant enough street, which started to get a little seedy as I neared the location. I had to walk about 5 blocks on a side street to reach the place. Security bars started to appear on the windows of the houses, then security fences, then a whole lot of homeless people sleeping on the street. The ambiance was not to my liking -- a skinny hipster dufus in a wussy little jacket -- so I went and had a plate of fish tacos and gave myself an A+ for effort, C- for execution.

Back in the saddle again.