Gladly Rendered

Prominent:  Widely and favorably known.


And then there's this: "Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be.  Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with god's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort . . . "


Boy, I'm not sure who Bill is talking about but it sure isn't me.  I DESIRE to be a leader of prominence.  I DESIRE to be on the top of the heap with the sharp, bright light of notoriety focused directly on me.  I want reporters and archivists taking note of everything I say and saving it for posterity.  I have no interest in rendering or squarely meeting anything and I have even less interest in doing it gladly or well-accepted-ly or being part of anything!  


Unless it directly benefits me, of course,  

Drive to the Hoop

Drive:  In psychology, any of the basic impulses and urges.

I read this recently, very recently: “But today in well-matured people these distorted drives have been restored to something like their true purpose and direction.  We no longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain self-importance.  We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be praised.”

The primary definition of instinct is concerned with behavior that is pre-programmed into the human form: for food, for security, to satisfy the sex drive, to be someone in the company of our fellows.  In short,  an inborn tendency to behave in a way characteristic of a species.   The secondary definition implies that we all possess tendencies or talents that are learned or acquired.  The first definition gives me some wiggle room to behave like an ass; the secondary implies that I need to take ownership of my behavior.

It seems to me that our literature is packed with instructions on how to minimize my ego.  My friend EdRom said to me today: "When my ego comes into play then I get in trouble."  Something about trying to get things that he wants or some such shit.  I personally don't see that I spend any significant time trying to get things that I want although I can also see - possibly, maybe, to a tiny extent - some similarities in our behaviors.

I am continuing a full frontal assault on my impulses and urges for more more more and different different different.  I'm here - I look over there.  I want this - I get this - I want something else.  I'm the four year old sitting in a huge pile of toys whining to mom: "I'm BORED."

I  see the ego part of the Big Esses -- Sex, Security, Society - as the most insidious.  Sex and money are right up in your face and difficult to misinterpret; a desire to be the most important thing in the world, pampered and amused, is more difficult for me to get my arms around.

Ego Destruction Continues . . . Sort Of

Spectacular:  Unusual to a striking degree; characterized by a great display, as of daring.


This I read recently : "We can be the ones who take on the unspectacular but important tasks that make good Twelfth Step work possible . . .  Whether our audience is one or many, it is still Twelfth Step work."


I read that.  I didn't say that I LIKED what I read.  I'm trying to pay attention to the reminders that I'm only one person in the great scheme of things, and not an especially important one at that.  I don't want to do unspectacular things.  I want to be noticed.  I want my nickname to be something like Spectacular Steve instead of the very popular Half-Measures Seaweed.


I don't want to share my story in front of a small group.  I want to give the keynote address at the next international convention.  I'd be the one knocking Bill W off the stage to get at that microphone.  Look at me, Look at me!


All of this stuff helps me to continue to break down my ego.  My ego is made of very, very hard rock.  It isn't possible to tap at it gently with a small ball-peen hammer.  It requires repeated blastings with dynamite and even then I'm lucky when a small piece is dislodged, and even luckier still when I don't make a mad rush through the lingering dynamite and hard rock smoke to try to superglue the small bit right the #$!! back on. 


Where's that tube of superglue?

Hypocrite in Action

Hypocrite:  A person who pretends to be what he is not; one who pretends to be better than he really is, or pious, virtuous, etc, without really being so.


The tighter I grip things the more control they have over me.  I have quite a grip.  In fact, I have a GI Joe Kung Fu grip.  I can crush rocks with my grip.  I can turn coal into diamonds.  I can . . . OK, you get the point.  And unfortunately, I'm only talking about a mental grip.  I can't even open a jar of garlic stuffed green olives without enlisting SuperK's help.


"Help!" I have to yell.


I gave a buck to a street guy this morning on my way to purchase a $3 cup of overpriced specialty coffee.  The same cup of coffee at home would have cost me approximately nothing.  I don't know why that simple act of generosity - so small that is almost doesn't even qualify as generosity - is so difficult for me to make.  And coming on the heels of my harangue about people at my home group being a little careful with their money. 


There is nothing like a hypocrite in action.

Restless Desires.

Discontent:  Lack of contentment (Ed. Note: Duh.); dissatisfaction; restless desire for something more or different.  (Ed. Note: "Restless Desires" would be a great name for a trash novel).


This from a Step meeting today: "Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?"


Of course I was called on to share.  My first inclination was to say: "I don't understand the question."  What I actually said: "That's is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."  Normally I tell people not to say the first thing that comes out of their mouth because it usually isn't that good.  In my case you have to get to like the 13th thing out of my mouth for it to even begin to have a hint of being any good.


So many times in our literature I read suggestions on how I can right-size myself to the actual size of my life.  It's awfully tempting to look greedily at big things and big expressions and big accomplishments.  The literature is constantly reminding me to take joy out of the small satisfactions of living.  Quit asking life to provide more than it does.  You can always ask for more.  You can always be disappointed in your serving size.


I really like that the definition of discontented implies that I'm looking for something different.  It doesn't say "better."  It says I'm looking for something else.  People asked me at the end of my drinking: "Why do you keep doing it if it makes you so miserable?"  It was hard to convey to them that all I wanted to do was get away from myself.  It wasn't about feeling better - it was about feeling different.  It was about being somewhere else, out of my own skin.

I REALLY Like That Hat

Compliment:  A formal act or expression of courtesy or respect.


I have to watch myself where my opinion is involved.  Especially when I'm dealing with people who rub me the wrong way.  That used to be everyone but because I'm such a totally healthy and well-adjusted guy today the number does not go much over 10 billion different and distinct individuals.  You might notice that this number far exceeds the population of earth.  You might deduce that I'm being forced to include several billion extraterrestrial types.  You would be right.  Give yourself a pat on the back.  Wonder why you believe in extraterrestrials.  Worry about the state of your mental health.


Anyway, you know you're dealing with a drunk when the guy has to go off-planet to find more people as targets for his self-righteous ire.


My best bet is to keep my mouth firmly shut when an urge to share my opinion arises.  This is also great advice when the urge to talk arises, unless I want to pay someone a compliment or maybe give sketchy directions to someone from out of town.  If I must speak I need to really pay attention to what I'm saying, how I say it, the tone and tenor and timbre of what comes out of my mouth.


To wit: If I don't particularly care for some dude I used to make subtle comments, always behind his back, like: "That guy is a real asshole."  After a few bloody noses administered by hoary heads in recovery I quit doing that.  Instead of stopping the behavior totally, the right thing to do, I opted to make some slight improvement, as you might expect from someone who's nickname used to be "Half-Measures Seaweed."  Maybe it still is.  What do I know?  The action that I decided to take was to hone my passive-aggressive tendencies.  I shifted to comments like this: "My opinion of this guy -- and I want to stress that this is only my opinion, it may or may not be a fact, and you're free to think or act any way that you wish -- is that he's a real asshole."


I convinced myself that I was really making some progress when I did this.  I have trouble being nice to people I don't particularly care for -- again, a large number -- so I mask my disdain with a "compliment."  You know the type: "Wow, have you lost a ton of weight!" or "I really admire the courage you're showing wearing that hat out in public."


As you can clearly see, I have a long way to go.

AM Chippy

Opinion:  Applies to a conclusion or judgment which, while it remains open to dispute, seems true or probable to one's own mind.


I was at a meeting this morning that I thought got a little chippy.  This is as it should be from time to time.  We're difficult people, passionate and opinionated, and we're working a Program that is very suggestive in nature.  We're not using a prepared script led by seasoned professionals who have undergone years of education and training.  So sometimes when someone says: "I do it like this," what we hear is: "You should do it like this."  We let it get under our skin, especially if we've tried what is being suggested and found it lacking.  We think it's wrong and we can't suppress the urge to say so.


A little chaos first thing in the AM is to be expected.  The way I look at it is that I need all of you.  Each and every one.  I need to hear from people who make me swoon with admiration and with whom I closely identify.  That sense of belonging helped me feel like I was in the right place, after a lifetime of feeling that I didn't fit in anywhere.  It helped me stick.  But I also need the people who make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  If I'd rather hear fingernails being slowly dragged the length of a chalkboard than hear an individual share their experience, strength, and hope, then I need to pay close attention to what that person has to say.  This is often where I REALLY learn some good lessons.

Yin Yang

Yin Yang:    The concept,  which is often referred to in the West as "yin and yang", literally meaning "dark and light", is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn.


Here's an interpretation of the ying and the yang, from deep inside the rotted brain of a recovered alcoholic. 


Where's the good?  Where's the bad?  I see no reason to waste my time pondering the positive when I can spend so much time concentrating on what's wrong or the possibility of what could go wrong, in the future, in the near future.


Why should I attribute a good motive to someone when the fact of the matter is that some poor motive might be lurking right below the surface, ready to spring and devour me?  That would be a great use of my emotional energy.  I call it The Ying and The Worrying That I May Get Screwed Yang.  It's from a less well know Far Eastern philosophy called "What the Fuck Are You Looking At?"  It's not as prevalent as Buddhism or Confucianism but more popular among those who drink too much Lotus Wine, made by fermenting lotus leaves in sugar water.  I've heard it can be a pretty good buzz unless you mix it with a fine Bordeaux from the late 60's at which point the hangover is beyond belief, not that I'm going to find out.


Should I not be able to locate the poor motive at first cursory glance I find that if I dig and dig and dig I can usually ferret something out.  Should the impossible occur and I'm not able to locate the poorness, the poorosity, then I can create something out of thin air, like Kreskin.  I can bend a good motive into a piece of evil, whole wheat spaghetti through sheer force of will.  I never underestimate the ability of my fevered brain to turn anything into some real crap.


Surely something can go wrong today.  Is it any wonder that I've had trouble with anxiety and depression in my life?  Honestly, when my eyes open in the morning the anxiety machine is on, fully energized, operating under full power and at maximum efficiency.  It's only through repeated practice, a habit formed by working through The Twelve Steps, have I managed to even locate the reset button.  It's still not a given, though; sometimes the button is stuck, all gummed up with organic peanut butter, or it's broken and doesn't respond to repeated pushings, even if I hit it repeatedly with my sledgehammer, the only tool in my toolbox if you don't consider machine guns and dynamite (to shoot things and blow things up) as tools.  Often I can't even be bothered to hit the Reset button, preferring anxiety and fear over relaxed happiness.


Reset, reset, give me your answer, do.

The Rules Do Not Apply

Rule:  A fixed principle that determines conduct.


SuperK and I were taking a stroll along a busy commercial street today -- "taking the air," to go all Victorian on your ass -- when we came upon a parking cop -- "Lovely Rita, meter maid," to go all Lennon/McCartney on your ass -- giving a ticket to a Lexus SUV parked right on top of a crosswalk -- "burning someone's ass but good," to go all 50 Cent on your ass.  We watched some woman come scurrying across the street with a bundle in her hand, waving furiously at the meter maid.  It appeared to be a "here I come stop what you're doing!" wave as opposed to a "hey, how's it going?" wave.


 Three facts, in the milleau of indisputable: the car was right on top of a cross walk; it's illegal to park right on top of a cross walk; the law prohibiting people from parking right on top of a cross walk is a good law, unlike speeding or running red lights which are really more discretionary than mandatory laws, because people are actually using the crosswalks to get across this busy street without getting run down by your occasional Lexus SUV.  She was blocking the little downgrade ramp to help wheelchairs navigate the otherwise unnavigateable curbs, for chrissake.


"Oh, oh," she yelled.  "I was only parked there for a minute!"


The meter maid has undergone, I'm sure, a lot of very official training on how to respond to people who are unhappy about the fact that they're in fact getting a parking ticket and there's absolutely nothing they're going to be able to do about it.  This isn't a negotiable situation.  The car's in the crosswalk.


"It doesn't matter how long you parked here," she said authoritatively.  I enjoyed the felon's interpretation of the law: "Thou shalt NOT park in the middle of a clearly marked cross walk, UNLESS you're only going to be there for a minute or two.  Under five minutes is OK but really, that's it."


"I just ran in to pick up a package," the felon continued, missing or ignoring the authoritative tone.  She was invoking a corollary to the aforementioned interpretation; namely, "You MAY park in the middle of a clearly parked cross walk if as long as you're just running in to pick something up."


Rita, the meter maid, was unswayed.


The felon was probably a drunk.  She sure acted like one.  We don't think that the rules, regulations, and laws apply to us, and I'm talking about man's rules, regulations, and laws.  We don't even think the laws of nature should apply to us, for chrissake.  I pick up a hot skillet, burn my hand, and immediately start looking around for someone to blame for the scorching.


There's a great scene from the Simpson's where we, the viewers, are brought into a town meeting.  We catch the end of a statement by the mayor, Diamond Joe Quimby, who's gaveling in a new regulation thusly: "OK, so it's agreed -- anybody can park in a handicapped spot as long as they're just running in for a pack of smokes or maybe to get some pop tarts for breakfast."


That's me.  That's how I think.  I'm special.  I'm exempted from all the stuff you, the great unwashed masses, have to do.  I can show up late for work.  I can drive drunk.  I can commit to something and then not show up.  I can spend money I don't have.  


I enjoyed the whole exchange, I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit.  I nearly chimed in to help the meter maid.  I hope it was like a fifty dollar ticket.  That would be a special ticket indeed.

F.F.A.

Serious:  Concerned or dealing with grave or important matters, problems, etc.; weighty; important.


For the longest time my life was marked by an incredibly powerful tendency to take myself way too seriously.  Way, way too seriously.  I was totally lacking in the ability to laugh at myself or to find any of my foibles or ridiculous exploits amusing in any way.  What in the world was so important?  I have no idea today.  Whose opinion was I so consumed with, anyway?  I don't care what anyone thinks of me today, for the most part, so I marvel that there was once a time when I was so obsessed with what everyone thought of me, even though no one was thinking about me just as I was not thinking about them.


Today I have managed to develop a wonderful ability to laugh at myself.  It's a skill that frees me from so much.  I no longer try to hide under a bush when I make a fool of myself, which is a good thing because there isn't enough shrubbery in the forest for that.


I was bedeviled by a vague sense of slight dis-ease today.  I was having no luck in putting my finger on any specific cause, nothing that I could deal with or work on.  Free Floating Anxiety.  Out into the sun I went, to sit at the coffee shop and be around people.  And a meeting, too, of course.  I left early and found a park with a farmer's market near the meeting place, and I sat out there, among some more people.  I got asked for a dollar to assist in solving some vague medical complaint;  for seventy five cents to help with a bus fare, by a guy who was smoking - not a wise technique by someone panhandling, holding on to a 25 cent cigarette; to sign a petition to put measures legalizing marijuana and eliminating the estate tax on the next ballot, which seemed like a strange marriage of two principles existing at opposite and extreme ends of the political spectrum -- maybe the heirs of the people who save money by the elimination of the estate tax are expected to use some of their windfall to buy a shitload of pot, thereby stimulating the economy; to make a contribution to help "my son's school"; and if I would mind sharing my bench in the sun - this from a nattily dressed and vaguely unbalanced man with a dog named Fred who ignored the fact we were in the shade - he sat there for a minute before jumping up and running over to a nearby statue of Abraham Lincoln to probe a cavity in Abe's clenched left hand to "see if anyone had stuffed anything in there."  They had not.  I wondered what he had hoped to find. 


All of that fending off helped me feel better about myself.  That, and the meeting.

Oily Glop

Glop:  Not in Webster's, which infuriates me.  It's a good word and a pretty funny one at that.


One of my Be Good To Myself Because I’m Worth It, Doggone It! goals in recovery has been to eat better.  At the beginning this could be translated as “Eat, Period.”  I couldn’t be bothered to eat much solid food that didn’t fall into the donut category when I was still working on my lead.  Food harshed my buzz and I was all about the buzz.  Plus, I figure I was drinking 1500 to 2000 calories of pure glucose each day (beer calories = glucose calories) and this helped to polish the rough edges off my appetite.

Once I managed to work my way through the early Kraft macaroni and cheese or 3 bowls of Cap’n Crunch cereal phase – not impressive but an improvement over not eating at all – I dipped my toe into non-packaged foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables.  Occasionally I even go organic, but the German peasant in my mostly rebels at the cost and inconvenience.  

Anyway, because I don’t eat much meat I suck down a lot of peanut butter.  Good old Skippy or Jif, full of sugar and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.  I’ve always wondered why the good folks at Skippy didn’t just go ahead and use fully hydrogenated vegetable oil.  It sounds like a wonderful marketing ploy to me: “New and Improved Skippy – now with FULLY hydrogenated vegetable oil.”

Because I consume so much partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which sounds somewhat menacing and not all that good for me, although I don’t know why, I once bought some organic or “natural” peanut butter.  If I worked at Skippy or even Jif I’d be a little defensive about this – it implies that their product is unnatural, which adds to the overtone of menace, not a good adjective to have associated with your product.  I try natural foods from time to time.  I’m not a fanatic about the practice; I’ll stick with the natural brand if the taste is acceptable and the price premium isn’t too objectionable.  The natural stuff is often a lot more expensive.  I thought things like partially hydrogenated vegetable oils were added to the product.  It’s unclear to me why the removal of ingredients would increase the cost but there you go.

The peanut butter experiment was a failure.  Apparently the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and the highly processed and refined white sugar adds a lot of flavor.  Imagine that.   Plus, the non-hydrogenated vegetable oil separates from the peanut part, leaving the consumer with an inconvenient, gloppy, oily mess that has to be manually stirred together to produce the spreadable peanut butter that I so love to eat.  So I returned to Jif.  Or Skippy.  Whatever’s on sale. 

Editor’s Note: When Jif was first introduced the Jif mascot was the “Jifaroo.”  No word yet on what type of animal this was.

Jifaroo, Jif Peanut Butter, 1950's

Editor’s Updated Note: The Jifaroo is a blue kangaroo type animal, partially clad, in motion, ecstatically happy.  It’s an active trademark of the Procter and Gamble Company so I would NOT screw with it.

The point here, which I've almost totally forgotten about, is that I was at a warehouse club that SuperK and I belong to.  I noticed that they were carrying a new organic peanut butter.  The only available container for this product could best be described as a 55 gallon drum.  It was big.

I grabbed one and inspected it.

“Don’t buy that,” SuperK said.  “You don’t like it.”

“I’m going to try one,” I said.  “It looks good.  It’ll be different this time.”

“Look at all the oil on top already,” she pointed out. 

Yesterday I cracked the seal on the top of the drum.  I take a sandwich with me to my 8AM meeting.  I eat all the time.  I rarely stop eating.  I’m eating right now.  I get pissy if I don’t eat pretty often.  I plunged a big wooden spoon into the oily, gloppy mess, which was filled right to the top of the container.  A fair amount of oily glop ran down the side of the drum even though I didn’t get any effective stirring done.  I stirred some more and some more glop overflowed.  I decided to spoon a bunch of the peanut butter into a separate plastic container so I could free up some stirring room.  This was mostly effective in transferring the gloppy oil onto the counter and all over the second container.

It went on like this for a while.  I’m now late for the meeting because of all of the stirring and transferring.  I'm angry now.  I'm also anal retentive so I couldn't leave before cleaning up the oil glop, famously resistant to wiping up, what with all the oil.  I'm rushing so I forget to put on the honey, which is the most important part of the sandwich, except for the bread which you really need to transport the peanut butter and honey.


I choked down the sandwich.  It was dry and fairly tasteless.


Beware the glop.

Gold Doubloons and Willing Virgins

Gratitude doesn't come easily for most alcoholics. Sometimes it doesn't come at all or only after vigorous exertion. We drift most naturally into the problem. We dwell in the problem as if it were a condo in Maui. It's amazingly easy for us to concentrate on what's wrong. It's irresistible if we are indeed having some kind of problem, which is inevitable for all of us. For people that bitch so much about what's wrong we sure spend a lot of time contemplating it.

I personally get up in the morning ready for trouble. I pick up my sawed off shotgun and start firing. Back hurts -- kaboom! Boss is an ass -- kabang! Not enough money -- kablooey! I could be sitting in that Hawaiian condo up to my armpits in gold doubloons and willing virgins and complain about the view.


Seriously.  I'd be complaining about something.

Inside Looking Out

Introvert:  To direct (one's interest, mind, or attention) upon oneself; introspect.


I had convinced myself that being an introvert was installed in me at birth -- a tendency to look within rather than without -- and that it was a characteristic rather than a character defect.  The word of Webster is a little harsh on that impression but I'm going to continue to stick with it, ignoring the wisdom of people far wiser than me, which is everyone that I know.  I prefer the pop psychology definition: namely, that introverts need time alone to process the world; that energy is drained from an introvert by being around other people; that introverts learn by thinking and reading and writing and reflecting.  I prefer to differentiate alone time with isolation, although I do both.


Anyway, SuperK and I joined a bunch of Program People at a comedy club yesterday and then for dinner afterwards.  On cue, neither of us wanted to go as the time to meet approached but we ended up having a good time, as we usually due.  On cue, I was the pain in the ass about the plans - even though it was my friend who invited us to the outing - because I don't like anyone or anything.  I confess to not being amused, as a general rule, by comedy clubs.  I have a great deal of respect for someone who can stand in front of an audience and try to make them laugh.  I think comedy is much more difficult to portray or evoke than tragedy -- that's why there are so many more heavy movies than light-hearted ones.  And with comedy the results of your spiel are immediate and obvious -- you need to hear people laughing.  Not so with tragedy, except for the rare cases the performance is so unbelievably tragic that there is a great deal of very public weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and hands being thumped on breasts in the general region of the heart.  And less talented comedians often resort to low quality bits -- fart jokes and sex stuff and lots of swear words.  As if saying "that guy's a fucking idiot" is a lot funnier than "that guy's an idiot.  Still, it happens a lot.


The show was pretty good.  I don't need to go back to a comedy club for a long time, though.  It wasn't that good or, more accurately, it wasn't something that itched where I needed to be scratched.  I'm more of a guy with a dry funny bone who sees the humor in snarky, sarcastic little asides (I originally wrote "sees the humor in teasing someone until they begin weeping" but that was even too snarky and sarcastic for me).  I find a lot of the humor that is expressed to be more in the vein of silly and I'm almost 100% German, possibly the least silly race on the face of the planet outside of the French, who are very silly to everyone but themselves.  


The tickets were free but you had to buy two items from the very reasonably priced menu as long as $4 for  glass of diet coke is reasonable.

Black-out:  A momentary lapse of consciousness, such as an aviator often experiences coming out of a steep dive.


I'm pondering the black-out today, a concept that has always intrigued me.  I personally never experienced the black-out although I know a lot of people who had them.  I was more of a brown-out drinker, a grey-zone kind of guy.  The more I drank and the longer I stayed at it the more fog the fog machine pumped out.  I forgot a lot of specific details and events blurred together until they were pretty goddammed blurry but I never forgot whole evenings or woke up driving a car in a faraway country.  Sounds pretty scary.


I think what piques my interest is that people always seem to do a lot of really bad stuff in black-outs.  There is a total exclusion of any good stuff.  People are always sharing tales about waking up in strange places with strange people or coming to in jail or in the hospital, sporting a lot of gruesome wounds and shiners.  They regret the things they've done and what they might have said.  There's a lot of shame and remorse.


Here's what I want to hear some day: "I woke up from a two day binge and I was painting my neighbor's garage."  Why don't we walk around and pick up all of the litter in our neighborhood in a black-out?  I mean, at least I'd liker to get some chores done when I'm in a black-out.  If I'm not going to remember what I've done then I'd like it to be a little unpleasant.   I would PISSED if I had sex in a black-out, an event that happened so rarely when I was drinking that I'd like to have remembered it in exquisite, techni-colored detail.


Seems kind of suspicious.

Stuff This

Stuff:  To put fraudulent votes into (a ballot box).


The final topic that dominated my journal was Stuff -- the current condition of and possible ramifications surrounding moving, selling, buying, using, comparing, and dispensing of said Stuff.  Boy, I worry a lot about my Stuff and then I forget what I was worrying about and then I remember and start worrying again unless some new Stuff related situations rear their ugly heads, which they invariably do.  There were pieces of Stuff that seemed incredibly important at the time and it was devastating when they were lost, stolen, damaged, scratched, ruined, thrown or given away, or ferociously ground into microscopic bits of cosmic dust, left to circle some dead planet devoid of all life with an atmosphere of methane gas in a solar system far, far away.  I can say today with a great deal of honesty, as implausible as that may sound: I really don't care.


Sometimes I ponder how it's possible that we're living in a Space that is 25% as large as the last place we had.  How did all of that Stuff fit into such a small place?  And I miss the luxury of all the extra Space that we didn't need or really use all that much.  I miss some of the Stuff that filled all of that Space in an indefinite, useless-craving sort of way even though I can't really remember what any of it was.  I never say: "Damn!  I could really use that particular piece of Stuff."  I don't miss any of it.  It must not have been all that important. 


So much of the Stuff that was damaged during the move and is now gone.  I don't know where it is any more.  I can't believe I was so upset about the damage done to those things.  We gave a lot of Stuff away and I still have a tendency to calculate how much I paid for it and how much I got for it and I feel a twinge of regret for getting so totally and completely screwed.  Just a twinge, though, because most of this Stuff was virtually worthless.  But the Stuff I tried to sell!  Wow, that was an eye-opener.  I've always liked the theorem that "you aren't as interesting to other people as you are to yourself."  A wonderful, fabulous corollary is "your Stuff isn't as valuable to others as it is to you."   It's very easy for me to say: "I paid $100 for that piece of Stuff and I only sold it for $15."  It seems a huge loss of income for me even though the thing was old and outdated and worn out and broken and basically a piece of crap.


Stuff.

Otherwisely Occupied

Preoccupied:  Occupied with or absorbed in one's thoughts; engrossed.

Unless we want to talk about my preoccupation with my body and physical well being.  This is another of my ancient riffs of pain and anguish and totally unfair treatment.


I know, I know, you're probably saying: "Little Stevie, how could such a magnificent, sexy beast like you be worried about your body?"


Much to my surprise I've found that as I grow older pieces and parts of my body aren't working as well as they used to.  This inevitable fact of nature -- that we all begin to break down and eventually die -- is a source of constant amazement to me.  I'm surprised every time I consider some routine ache.  I don't understand why it's happening, what I could have done to delay it indefinitely, and how to get rid of it so it never comes back.  I'm still under the impression that I can get out of here alive.


"No one here gets out alive."  Jim Morrison


I have had every possible disease known to man and several more that can't be found in any known medical journal or be supported by any available research.  They are unique to me.  Cancers are my specialty owing to their difficult diagnosis and ultimately fatal outcome, although I do have a minor in diseases of the eye that lead to loss of vision: "blindness" to those of you without medical degrees.  The normal sicknesses that afflict us all like the common cold, influenza, and Wellington's Ooze, quickly metastasize into various types of cancer before changing back into the original ordinary sickness, frustrating the attempts of health care professionals to properly diagnose the problem.


I have an old friend who is a physician.  Whenever I get particularly close to death I give him a call.  He listens for a minute and says: "You're not sick.  Call me when you get sick.  I'm busy goodbye."


"The alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so."


"The Rules don't apply to me!"  Little Stevie Seaweed.

Molten Brimstone

Molten:  Melted or liquefied by heat.


The other topic that is prolific in my Journal du Complaints is the weather.  I complain about the weather in kind of a free-floating, existentially depressing way a great deal of the time.  I'm tall and skinny with lousy circulation and low blood pressure so cold weather really does affect me.  I hold hands to say the Serenity Prayer after meetings and I feel like I'm grabbing onto an electric hand warmer.  "If only I had hands like that then I'd be happy," I think.


Note to self: Never use the phrase "then I'd be happy" when talking to sponsor.


I see hell as very, very cold - frozen waterfalls and biting winds and that damp chill that sinks into your bones and just won't get out.  None of the stores in hell carries warm coats or sock caps.  This vision is one of the main reasons that I don't want to go to hell; that and all the really boring people that must be there.  Molten brimstone, my ass.  I hope heaven has molten brimstone in a big cauldron that I can soak in while I'm having my Quiet Time.  I'll be the guy wandering around in either heaven or hell -- wherever I end up -- looking for the thermostat to turn up the heat while I'm shedding excess clothing.  I'll be tapping other wraiths on their insubstantial shoulders and saying: "Is it just me or is it cold in here?"


I doubt that there's anything in the world that I have less control over than the weather as long as we aren't talking about SuperK.  

Apartment 202

Obsess:  To haunt or trouble in mind; beset; harass; preoccupy.

One of the things I highly recommend to newcomers and old timers and everyone in between – but never do myself – is to make a Problem List every day and write it down in a Problem Book of some kind.  This appears gruesome at first glance but I don’t mean it to be so.  The idea is to periodically review the Problem List so that you can see just how much time you waste worrying about things that never amount to a hill of beans, which devalues the hill of beans.  They don’t come anywhere near the worth of a good hill of pinto beans or red beans or Lima beans or black beans.  Black-eyed peas, maybe.

Actually, I do keep a journal in which I frequently write down the stuff that’s bugging me.  When I go back through and re-read the journal from time to time I invariably say: “Really?  Really?”  I can’t believe I devote so much time to such a load of crap.  And the date associated with each particular bitch is very helpful, too.  It helps me see how my bitching evolves and changes over time and then ends up right back where it started.

I’m amazed at how much time I spend worrying about noise coming in my environment.  If one of my neighbors is doing something that makes noise that I object to – which is any noise whatsoever - then I worry about it way too much.  Obsess is a word that comes to mind.  For instance, the owners of the apartment directly above us are doing some remodeling.  The building seems to have been constructed with special noise-transference material like concrete and steel that I assume has some stability and strength qualities important to a 10 story apartment building but which is doing nothing more than effectively transferring construction noise through the building and directly into my brain.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a peep out of the residents who actually live there but the construction people are taking special pains to annoy the hell out of me. 

I surmise that they started by ripping out the entire kitchen; either that or they have been taking a collection of anvils and dropping them at strategic times and places from high places in the dwelling; they might have broken into the apartment still another story higher and drilled big holes in the floor so that they could drop the anvils from an even higher point.  And they had the dropping of these anvils or pianos or large chunks of concrete on a venomous schedule, too.  Sometimes they’d subject me to a flurry of constant, regular droppings.  Then there would be relative silence followed by a massive drop of an especially large anvil.  Normally they work steadily during normal business hours but sometimes a silence which lasts all day is broken by anvil dropping which lasts through the evening.  It is Chinese water torture.

After they tired with all of the anvil fun they went into a scraping and tapping mode.  People – multiple people, maybe hundreds of people – were moving randomly about the apartment and tapping and scraping with metal tools, targeting particularly sensitive sound transference points.  The tapping I can visualize; it could be one of a dozen different construction related activities.  The scraping baffled me.  Tap, tap, tap.  Scrape, scrape, scrape.  This sound was very steady.  The tapping/scraping people were very diligent with their activity.  They didn't take a lunch break.  They didn't take a smoke break or they smoked while they were tapping and scrapping.  I used to smoke when I was riding a bicycle so I know a person can tap and scrape and smoke all at once.  It's no big deal.

Growing weary of the irregular torture, they tried something new, to great effect.

Today there is a lot of pounding and high pitched, screaming, whirring cutting noises; I can only speculate on the material being cut: wood, tile,  . . .  well, that's all I can think of.  I imagine a band saw or a jig saw or the ominous rip saw.  I don’t know what any of these saws do.  I’m forbidden by SuperK Edict #2 to ever use any kind of saw whatsoever.  Because I can’t use a regular hand saw the thought of me using a saw powered by a motor is especially laughable.  I would cut off an important finger before that saw ever got anywhere near biting into wood.  I would cut the finger off setting the saw up.

I went up one day and knocked on the door.  The electrician let me in and showed me what he was doing.  He was pretty nice.  I mentioned that I might want to have some work done in my apartment some day – which is more lie than truth.  I was trying to get the electrician to like me and maybe not make so much noise.  He said the construction manager would get in touch with me, but I knew he wouldn’t.  That seems to be the nature of the beast.  He showed me why the activities he was engaging in was causing so much noise in my apartment which was edifying but not particularly helpful.

I went up the next day to talk to the scraping and tapping people.  They were actually removing tile from the floor and they weren’t quite so nice.  They looked tired.  I imagine it was hard work scraping tile off of a floor.  They didn’t offer up any information and continued to work as I snooped around a little bit.  I didn’t lie to them, at least, figuring what was the point since they didn't like me already. 

Now it’s the sawing and thumping.  I have enough construction friends.  I've left these people alone so far.

I know it’s going to end eventually.  I just wish I knew when.  I can take an incredible amount of pain as long as I’m in control of the process.  I think it’s the not knowing that is the worst part.

No, it's the noise.  That's the worst part.

The Will! Whatever That Is!!

Will:  Denotes the power of choice and deliberate action or the intention resulting from the exercise of this power (freedom of the will, "Thy will be done.")


I really like the fire analogy when it comes to describing my life.  Fire can be good and fire can be bad.  Here I am, a dude trying to move though life as best as I can, and some power comes along and gives me a little container of fire.  I'm not saying who this power is because it isn't clear to me.  I'm not sure what the fire represents, either.  Maybe my life force or better yet, my LIFE FORCE!!  Maybe it's my will, whatever that is.


Anyway, the power suggests some uses for the fire, which I ignore.  Instead, on day one, I get up and spread gasoline all over my house and burn it down.  I don't bother to formulate an escape plan so I get pretty burned up, too.  Not killed, just disfigured and the injuries are painful.  But Wait!  That's not all!  I take my box of fire and I visit my family members and try to burn their houses down, too.  Then I burn some friend's houses before going downtown to try to burn up the police station and the court house and whatever retail or commercial institutions are currently annoying me.


I have quite a day. I sleep like a baby with all of the running around to burn things up and all of the medications I have to take because of the 3rd degree burns on my face and hands.  I vaguely remember some of the suggestions the power made as to appropriate uses of the fire and warnings as to what could go wrong if the power is misapplied.


Today I wake up and go get my little box of fire.  I ignite the pilot light on my furnace and heat the house up a little.  I cook some oatmeal for breakfast with my fire after lighting some candles so I can see what I'm doing.  I often burn half the curtains off the kitchen window or singe the wallpaper.  I forget what I'm doing and stick my hand into the oatmeal water as it heats up, impatient that it's taking so long.  But I don't try to burn down the world.  Then, believe it or not, I start taking the fire next door and helping my neighbor out.  Not everyone has a nice box of fire like me so I can do some good with it.


An appropriate use of the fire.