Horseface Steve: Cog

Cog:  An unimportant individual in a greater system.

I'm trying to settle into a new town.  This is my 7th so it isn't like I've never done this before but it's still a challenge.

One thing I have learned is that you live somewhere or you don't.  Once you're gone, you . . . are . . . gone.  I'm definitely a visitor here even though I've only been gone a month.  I should have known this was going to happen.  I always think that relationships won't change but they always do.  It's different when you don't see someone on a regular basis.  I was a cog in a big piece of machinery and I was taken out and put in another big piece of machinery.  The machine here readjusted and is running fine without me. 

I don't mean to suggest that I'm no longer welcome or loved, just that I'm no longer part of the scene.  I can't pretend that I am.  It's a new machine now.  Part of me thought that the world would stop and realign itself to my schedule.  Part of me thought that.

Silly, silly man, but consistent.  I have always believed that I'm the center of the universe and I think that I always will.

I'm going to ship home the car I left behind and fill the trunk full of all the clothes and trinkets and geegaws that didn't make it on the big moving truck.  I thought that I was going to stock the larder here so to speak, have a little auxiliary life that I could pick up and put on whenever I wanted; a new identity or an alternate reality.  I guess I'll bring what I need in a suitcase when I come back, like any visitor.

I have been telling people I don't know that I'm from the new place, pretending I don't know the old place.  I feel like I'm trying on a new personality.

That Is So $%#!! Funny!

Here's another one of those funny stories.  Not "ha ha" funny but "$%#!! You!" funny.

The boss I didn't like is swept away by unseen forces.  This didn't upset me in the least, which shows how much I have grown spiritually during my time in The Program.  I wish him well in the most abstract way but mostly I'm glad that I don't have to deal with him anymore.  It's not like I want bad things to happen to him but my first thought was: "Ah, thank god.  He's somebody else's problem right now."  I used to actively hope that a giant anvil would conk him on the head so maybe I'm getting a little better.

The thing is that he pretty much left me alone.  It probably pained him to have to deal with me as much as it pained me to have to deal with him.  I make my numbers so he never called.  Now I have to deal with his boss who seems to be a pleasant, professional fellow.  Who has called me more times in the last 3 days than my old boss called me in 3 months.  He wants to know what I'm doing.  He wants reports and feedback and updates.

The thing is I don't work a lot of hours.   Now I got someone on my ass who expects me to work a lot of hours.  I'm wondering if it's possible to get my old boss back.  I'm nostalgic for one of those tense conversations with a strong sub-current of ire and ill will.

Don't you just hate it when you get what you want?

My first day back I got a phone call from the Guy Who Used To Be My Boss.  He is a large man who talks loudly -- shouts almost -- in a way that can be intimidating.  I think this is why he does it.  He always seemed to be trying to knock me backwards with a belittling or sarcastic remark, hidden under the guise of a joke or manly camaraderie.  (Sarcasm: Hate with a Smile).  What a great technique: say something cruel then pretend it was all in good fun.  There's nothing worse than trying to defend yourself against some mean spirited sniping only to hear: "What?  Can't you take a joke?"

Yes, yes I can.  When it's really a joke. 

Anyway, I was pissed when I hung up the phone.  I argued with him which is something that I rarely do.  This is one of those guys who doesn't fight fair -- he gouges eyes and pulls hair and does . . . you, know . . . groin stuff.  He's a bully.  I was a little light in the meeting department because of all of the traveling so I decided to walk a few miles in a snowstorm to a noon meeting.  You should have seen me trudging through the snow, winning argument after argument with brilliant, irrefutable logic against someone who wasn't actually there.  I was showing him, I can tell you that.  Or I was talking to myself.  I'm lucky I didn't walk into traffic or fall and break some bones.

What made matters worse was that he set up a conference call with his boss for later on in the day.  I assumed that he was going to feed me to the wolves. So I made up my mind: I wasn't going to take any more shit from this man.  I lined up my facts and figures; times, dates, voice mails, lengthy email trails.  I was going to throw him under the bus.  I was going to get fired.  I was going to be falsely accused.  I was going to be hung in effigy.

I spent an entire day doing this.  An entire day, non-stop, arguing with people who weren't there.  I've not spent too much time in psych wards but I imagine this is the kind of behavior you would see: people arguing with spirits.

Do I have to tell you how the call went?  The perfectly pleasant, bland phone call?

I went to bed early that day.  I felt like I had been in a car accident.  Don't let anyone tell you that stress is not a debilitating thing.

Rodney And Me.

During my morning Quiet Time I do a little praying, as long as it doesn't interfere with the furious, power driven arguments I'm having with bosses and spouses and other rivals who aren't actually there, or the wildly imaginative sexual fantasies I conjure up, or the speculation on whether to buy 2 or 3 Ferraris when I beat the 563 million to 1 odds and finally win the lottery that I have never actually bought a ticket for.
My Quiet Times are the envy of the recovery world.

"How does one have an effective Quiet Time?" my wide-eyed sponsees ask me.
"Sit at my knee, my son, and I will tell you," I say, with a twinkle in my eye.
Anyway, I try to restrict my prayers to simple requests that can't blow up in my face. I got tired of things blowing up in my face. I guess what I thought I was asking for wasn't what I was actually asking for because I never seemed to get what I wanted, what with all the willing and enthusiastic sexual partners and bloodied victims I was imagining. I missed some important instructions at some point. I probably wasn't listening when the process was explained to me.
I almost always ask god to help me be the best person I can be today. I figure even I can't screw up that request. There are many variations on this prayer depending on the length and quality of one's sobriety. Early on in my Quiet Time Quest I would say this simple prayer: "God, help me not act like a total ass today." I know I'm an ass; I just hope I'm not an ass all of the time. I strive to be a part time ass. I don't think it's going to get any better than that.
When I got to my hotel yesterday I was tired. I didn't feel like being friendly. I wanted people to Get Away From Me. I had a little trouble finding the place so being an atypical male (read: wuss) I actually stopped and called for directions. I spoke to Rodney. I was parked at a bank next to an auto parts store which was blocking my view of the hotel. It was pretty funny to get back on the highway and sail past my hotel, the one that I could have walked to from the bank parking lot. It's funny now, I mean. It wasn't funny yesterday. I said some bad words yesterday.
Anyway, I gave it my best shot with Rodney when I walked into the lobby, even though I didn't feel like it. Really, what do I care about Rodney? Rodney is not me; ergo, he is unimportant. Odd thing is when you are nice to people they respond. Rodney gave me a really nice room in his substandard hotel. So I made a point of walking by the desk whenever I left and waving at him: "Rodney!" maybe saying something mildly witty.


When I checked out today Rodney asked me how I was doing. I told him that I had slept well and he said he thought I looked much more rested than I had the day before. As I walked out the door he said: "Be careful on the roads out there. You're a treasure." I think he said treasure. Maybe he said: "You're a train wreck" or "You're having a seizure."


"Yes," I thought. "I am a treasure. I really am."

Crispy, Cheesy, Bean Burrito Supremo, #26, Your Order is Ready!

I got up this morning at 4AM and drove 3 hours through the dark and fog on winding country roads that were unfamiliar to me to conduct a series of seminars for a company that I don't care about anymore. 

If I ever write a novel I think I'll use that sentence to kick the thing off.  I wanted to add something about the boss that I can't stand but he quit or got fired or something.  I'm disappointed that I couldn't manage to work him in somehow.

Actually, I don't mind running these seminars.  It's not stressful or anything.  I've done a of them and I'm pretty good at it.  I'm relaxed and casual and not at all serious.  It's not the end of the world.  The people are pretty nice and they seem grateful for my efforts.  I'm not sure what I'm complaining about unless it was the 4AM wake-up call. 

Anyway, I end up at a marginal hotel in a tiny city located in an economically depressed area of the country.  It was spitting rain under a lowering sky, almost cold enough to snow.  I left the hotel to stretch my legs and sauntered down a long strip mall kind of shopping area that bordered one side of the frontage road, the other side lined with fast food restaurants.  The strip mall was depressing: cut rate grocery stores and discount marts and vacant store fronts.  I bought a jar of off-brand crunchy peanut butter at a moldering grocery mostly because I was embarrassed about walking around a grocery store for 15 minutes without buying anything.

I walked by the food places on the way back.  There was a Mexican place but that looked like a whole procedure, sitting there by myself eating dinner.  Then I passed a place called Huddle's that I feinted at once or twice I couldn't make myself go in.  The name was too weird.  I was worried there would be groups of people in a huddle.

Finally, I enter a Taco Bell.  I haven't been in a Taco Bell in 25 years.  I was clearly out of my element.  I keep waving people ahead of me as I tried to decipher the menu items.  I couldn't tell what most of them were.  There were a lot of adjectives like crunchy and crispy and supremo and stuffed, all with different prices.  Finally, I selected two cheesy bean burritos.

They called my number, I grabbed my sack, and got the hell out of there.  I checked the bag as I cut in between the incredibly long line of people waiting in their cars at the drive thru lane, eschewing the empty restaurant for the safety of their own car.  There was one item in the bag.  I kept walking.  I didn't pause.  I'm not sure what I ordered and I'm not sure I took the bag that was meant for me.  I could have grabbed someone else's bag.  I'm not too good with numbers and I've mentioned this problem I have with paying attention.

I threw the peanut butter away when I got back to my room.  It was terrible.

Horseface Steve: Time Traveler

My boss resigned today, or got fired.  The phrase "pursuing other opportunities" is deliberately vague.  I don't really care which occurred, I'm just glad to see the guy fouling someone else's habitat.  I confess to being irritated that he took so much time to chew me out when he knew he was out the door.  The guy really didn't like me.

Someone clipped my rental car in the last couple of days, probably backing out of a parking space.  There has been so much dirt and road grime and snow on it I really didn't see anything.  I'm sure this is going to cost me a lot of money, which is going to further feed my fear of financial insecurity, a beast with an inexorable appetite.

I have to get up at 4AM tomorrow to drive to a series of small towns: Hazard, Paintsville, West Liberty (I wonder if there is a Liberty proper?), Jackson, and Manchester.  My heart isn't in this any more.

The last month has been a steady stream of anxiety.  I feel like I did when I first got to college; I was so homesick that all I wanted was to go home. 

It's going to take some time.

Crazy Insane Horseface Steve

The funny thing -- not Ha Ha funny but crazy insane funny -- is that when I came back home I tried to stay with my parents.  The lying, deceitful part of me which screams the loudest and gets the most attention hypothesized that I could relieve some of the trauma my leaving caused by spending time with these good and decent people.  The quiet part of me, truthful and honest, knows I was trying to save some money.  It was not inexpensive making such a big move and I hate to see the money flowing out and not flowing back in.  It has been the cause of some anxiety.

My parents have a small house which is stuffed to the rafters with "antiques" and "collectibles" and "keepsakes" and "crap that should have been thrown in the dumpster 37 years ago."  They aren't scary pack rats, hoarding newspapers and empty soda cans -- at least from what I can see.  There are a lot of big piles scattered about so the newspapers and soda cans might be in there somewhere.  They're people who grew up during the depression and worry that the money they could get from something that might be worth something to someone will come in handy some day.

I came back to help with a big project that is ongoing at my company.  I'm frustrated easily right now, understandably so with all of the big change, and have been losing my temper over little niggling things that normally wouldn't give me pause.  On day two of my stay I'm sitting in my very small childhood bedroom, having kicked my elderly father out of his bed, trying to link up to an unsecured wireless network coming from a neighbor's house, under some pressure to get the work done from my unreasonable boss.  I had a big argument with him a few days before which I should have written about already if I were interested in keeping any continuity with my writing.  The argument wouldn't have been as strident as it was if I had had access to the internet, which I didn't have.  I was able to occasionally piggyback on the neighbor's system for short, frustrating bursts.  It would almost have been better if I hadn't been able to get on at all.

"What am I doing?" I muttered. 

I called a hotel that offers a weekly rate and booked a room.  I tried to gently tell my folks I was leaving so that their disappointment wouldn't be too severe.  They didn't seem too disappointed.  They didn't try to stop me from leaving.  As in: not one word. 

I think they were relieved when I told them.

I'm sitting in my hotel room right now in my Bambi PJs, eating a block of cheese the size of a car battery and watching "The Simpsons."  It's pretty great. 

Oxygen Oxygen!

I feel like the last month -- which seems to have lasted several months in Horseface Mental Time (H.M.T.) -- has been one big, long blitzkrieg.  Things have been coming at me relentlessly.  Some of them are large and have a lot of momentum built up.  Most of them are small, really, but I make them large by endowing them with powers that they don't really have.  It's one of my favorite party tricks: make something relatively unimportant very important, then complain about it incessantly, blaming anyone and everyone else.

By the way -- H.M.T. is notoriously inaccurate.  It's a method of marking the passage of time where good things seem to pass in the blink of an eye and bad things seem to last forever.  I don't think that's what is really happening but I'm mentally ill and don't have a good grasp on reality.  Maybe I'm one of those guys who hides from some killers in a mental institution then when I try to get out by protesting that I'm not crazy the guards say: "Yeah, that's what all you crazy people say."

Reminder to self: never hide in a mental institution. 

Anyway, it's like I've been trying to make headway against some bad dudes who are blasting me with a water cannon.  I advance a few steps then get knocked down.  I struggle to my feet and take a long stream right in the mouth, so I'm choking for air, but then I get up and race forward a few yards before getting floored again. 

Today, in my hotel room in the city I just moved from but which I had to come back to for three fucking weeks, I watched a basketball game and took a nap and did some yoga.

It felt great.

The Stuff is Being Liberated

I am still astounded at how acutely the loss of control over my stuff affected me.  I like my stuff but I'm not married to it, and it still choked me to see it slowly slip out of my control.  I was in my house and I knew where everything was.  I was Master of My Things, lord of the manor.  Then the movers packed some of it, unseen in boxes, and my control weakened; the the boxes were stuffed in a truck; then the truck drove away, into the cold, into the dark, into the night.  I was left with a small valise of Very Important Stuff.

All of the stuff showed up two weeks later, of course.  Some of it was a little worse for the trip but that was to be expected.  The stuff had a long journey.  We still haven't found some things and others show up in the weirdest places. 

"I found your sock caps!"  SuperK will yell triumphantly.  "It was in the box with the chain saw, some drapes, and all of the baking supplies.

How did it get in there?  I think some of the things have been cross pollinating.

Dang It. Dang it. Gonna Take a Rope and Hang It.

I'm sitting here trying to absorb my new space, or be absorbed by it.  I've moved from a cold climate to a rainy one, from an old house to a new one, from a conservative place to a liberal one, from a busy street to a . . . well, busy street.  I must like busy streets or I'm not smart enough to move to a quiet one.  We looked at one place to rent on a quiet street and it seemed too . . . well, quiet.  The great thing about busy streets is you can always complain about how noisy they are.  I have got to have something convenient to complain about.

I was up first and tried to sit quietly and . . . well, not freak out. Mostly I haven't been freaking out but it sure is easy to get upset out of all proportion to what I think is upsetting me. This is not unexpected, frankly. It's not an insignificant thing to move from a place that I have called home for 20 years. Everything was a known quality there, which is one of the reasons that we moved. I hate it when everything is too familiar, then I hate it when everything is all new and shit.
Yesterday I couldn't find the grocery store I wanted to find, then I couldn't find the things that I wanted to buy at that grocery store, then the things were too expensive or they didn't have the brand I wanted, etc. etc.  Small stuff became large stuff because of all of the change, and I became impatient.

We went to a meeting yesterday near our house.  First one in 3 or 4 days, which is 1 or 2 days too long normally and way too long with all of the change.  It was full of tattooed, pierced, young people.  I was definitely the oldest person there and I'm not that old.  The topic was a section from our text that talked about pausing when agitated and doing something or the other, I can't remember exactly what but it sure wasn't what I had been doing, I know that.  And it was brought up by an especially tattooed and pierced young woman.  I thought of the fit I threw not 20 minutes earlier because I wanted Florida tangerines, not California ones.


Those young people.

The Horsefaces Are Going Someplace!

Have you ever seen one of those TV commercials where the happy young couple, so in love, so compatible and secure in their relationship, is moving into a new place?  They dress in sexy, fashionably rumpled clothing so they can paint their cute living room in vibrant and whimsical colors, playfully dabbing each other's nose with paint, then they sit down to a romantic dinner of pizza perched atop unopened boxes, in the soft glow of a romantic candle? 

Have you ever seen a video of the Horseface family moving into a new place?

Here's a sampling of one of our whimsical exchanges:
"Where are the car keys?"
"What do you mean, where are the car keys?"
"Where are the %$#!! car keys?"
"How do I know where the car keys are?  You had them last.   Have you found my wallet yet?"
"For chrissake you don't know where your wallet is?  What the hell's the matter with you?"
"What's the matter with me?  What's the matter with me?"

Getting the drift?

Something Could Happen

I think I need to do a study of the nature of fear.  Fight or flight.  I guess that's probably going to be the result of the emotion that I'm trying to complicate.  I get the basic idea: if some big dude with a crowbar approaches me menacingly, spewing swear words and epithets, in a dark alley in a bad section of town in a lawless foreign country, I should be afraid.  It's the weirdness of anxiety about things that aren't currently happening but may happen some time in the future, but probably not that can be unsettling. 

That seems to be a waste of my time.

Lunch Special: Stuffed Intestines

I'm starting to feel like I'm on the back side of The Chaos.  I'm not freaking out every couple of hours with all of the Big Change; now I'm freaking out every 4 or 5 hours.   I know that doesn't sound great but it's a hell of a lot better than the big, long, constant freak-out that marked the start of the adventure.  At that point I could put myself into a mild anxiety attack at the Drop of a Hat.  Now I'm in more of a resigned, let's-get-this-over-with state of mind. 

Before we packed up our Stuff I sent a note to a young woman I know from The Program who moved to the Southwest from my home town about a year ago.  At the time, I was very upbeat and encouraging.  I like it when people take a flier on something new.  I think it's what makes life interesting.  I like interesting.  If stuffed intestines is the specialty of the area I order the stuffed intestines.  Then when I'm throwing up the intestines in the restaurant bathroom I know what's to blame.  I know that I don't have to order the stuffed intestines a second time.  And of course I have gotten to enjoy some new and unbelievable dishes.  Just not the stuffed intestines, which I really did order and gamely pick at in a small town in France many years ago.  I did not throw up in the restaurant bathroom, either.  I have a cast iron stomach.  But they were maybe the most truly awful food I have ever attempted to eat.  They were worse than they sound, if you can believe that.

I can't verbalize how this kind of thing comes about except to say that One Day At A Time is a major, major concept.

One Day At A . . . Er . . . Uh . . .

I have been advised that living in the moment is highly recommended.  It's a lifestyle that really works when I give it a shot.  In the last couple of weeks I've had to deal with a lot of major changes and decisions, and I'd be lying -- which I do normally do often and with relish and skill -- if I didn't admit that it has been easy to go flying off into the future trying to force an outcome that I think is in my best interest but usually isn't because what I'm trying to get is More Money!  More Power!!  More Sex!!! delivered to my room on a silver platter, or at least in a pizza box.

It's like I'm climbing a steep hill.  I'm looking for handholds and ledges and slowly making my way up.  Sometimes I have to go sideways and sometimes I hit a dead end and have to go back down a bit and find a better path.  Unfortunately, the problem with this analogy is that I'm afraid of heights and I'm getting a little nauseous even thinking about climbing a steep hill.

Maybe it's more like getting in a canoe and going downstream on an unfamiliar river, not sure if there are rapids ahead or calm pools or fricking waterfalls, for god's sake.  Unfortunately, there's no way I'm getting in a canoe and going down a river.  I'm not even going to get in a canoe sitting in a store somewhere.  The last time I got in a canoe I was drunk and I fell in the lake.

Really, it's more like watching a good movie about international espionage and intrigue, where the plot takes twists and turns and you have to unravel the mystery as the story unfolds.  Except I can never figure out what the hell's going on.  I can't follow the simplest of plots let alone something that's twisting and turning.  I'm daydreaming, then leaning over and whispering: "Why did he do that?  I thought he was one of the good guys.  He's one of the bad guys?  He's the head bad guy??"

"Would you be quiet," SuperK hisses.

Anyway, things are working out.

The Big Move

In an aside I'll say that this Big Move feels pretty right at the moment.  It has been incredibly stressful but purifying in a way.  There is some truth to the idea of No Pain No Gain.  Whenever I do something that causes some stress in my life I find that I come out the other end a changed person.  I try to limit any self-generated stress to reasonable things.  I don't swallow metal cutlery, for instance, that worry if I'll survive the stunt.  I'm talking about doing new things, trying new things, making myself uncomfortable, pushing the envelope of what I know and like.  I always say I can tell it's going to be a good vacation when I feel like throwing up a little when I get on the plane.

People are respectful when we tell them that we have ripped out some pretty deep roots to do this thing.

The Moving of the Crap

A couple of years ago KK and I started talking about making this big change, and we started taking concrete steps to head down this big path.  They were easy things at first and they seemed theoretical, implausible, unlikely.  It was like we were going to take the space shuttle to the moon.  A cool idea but never going to happen.

We started in our basement, a repository of fear based items.  We had a big, old house with a big basement and it was easy to chuck stuff down the stairs and close the door.  And the space attracted the junk of relatives, too, who used it as a free storage pod for the crap they didn't want any more and were too afraid to get rid of.  We had stuff that we hadn't used for 20 years.  We had moved it and moved and moved it even though it was clear we were never going to use it ever again.  We had stuff that was perfect for a house with a big deck.  We didn't have a big deck any more.

So we moved a big pile of the stuff into a corner and called one of the local halfway houses who came out and took it all, and seemed grateful for the donation.  It hurt a little seeing it go.  I'd think: "I paid this much for that thing I have no use for anymore and will never use ever again, and I'm just giving it away?"  A few days later I didn't remember what crap I had gotten rid of.  Clearly, it was unimportant crap to me, but had some use for someone else.

The point is that it had a lightening effect, and a sobering one, too.  It felt real, tangible.  I imagined that I was telling god what I wanted to do, and god was saying: "OK, get started and see what happens.  I haven't made my mind up yet and if I have, I'm not going to tell you what I've come up with."

I hate it when god does that.

The Manager

Wheels down in a new city.  While everything has gone pretty damn well, actually, I'm really, really, really, tired of NOT BEING IN CONTROL!

I think I recall something in the First Step about powerlessness.  It's vaguely familiar, in a nagging sort of irritating way.  We start with understanding that we're powerless over alcohol, which is painful enough, then are asked to grasp the fact that we are powerless over everything.  This can be very frustrating to a guy who needs to have control over everything.  It's pretty much the exact opposite.  What I get versus what I want.

People came into my house and put a lot of my stuff in boxes.  Not all of it; just enough that I had the illusion of still being in control, which lasted a day or so.  Then they put the boxes in a truck and drove it away.

"Bye-bye, stuff," I trilled, tears spilling from my bloodshot eyes.  "Bye-bye!"

Still, I had some suitcases packed with my "important things."  I gave these to a man at the airport who tossed them on a belt which went into a black hole.

"Bye-bye, very important things," I sang out.  "Bye-bye!"

Funny how I thought I was making some progress.

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turnin'

Wow, what a week.  What an amazing thing to do, moving away from a place I have lived for 20 years.  The tearing away process has been painful and slow and surprising in so many ways.  It feels like each little step in the moving forward has taken a tiny bit of flesh and bone with it.  It is a huge breaking down and breaking apart.  There are a million embedded hooks that have to come out before I can move on.  I expected a lot of upset and have not been disappointed. 

I'm glad for The Program as I maneuver through this.  Still, it's disturbing as hell from time to time.  It's unsettling.  My stuff is in a truck somewhere, hurtling down a dark and snowy highway.  I'm taking leave of friends.  I'm taking leave of family.  I'm moving away from people who have been with me through all kinds of problems and joys and triumphs.

But there's the thrill of the new adventure ahead.  Got to keep my eyes on the new adventure.  This being in between places sucks.  In a hotel in an old place, not really here anymore but unable to start a new life.

New life:  I like the sound of that.