Plagarism

"Anxiety, like the most effective parasite, is indiscriminate in its choice of host.  It plagues the ignorant and dimwitted as well as the brilliant and clever.  But its message, of contingency, of risk, of skepticism, of flux: that is never dumb.  Anxiety's message can never be waved away.

And yet that - waving away - is precisely what the anxiety sufferer is always trying to do to anxiety's message.  Tortured as he is by the truth of uncertainty, he develops an adversarial relationship to that truth.  He loathes it.  He fights it.  He refuses it.  He wants it dead, silent, gone.  He wants it to end.

This is where the danger creeps in, for there is no surer way to compound anxiety's power than to reject it outright . . . hoping beyond reason for some panacea - the right job, the right partner, the right city, the right therapist, the right home, the right friend - to snap my constitution into stable order.  And I can tell you that the search is worse than useless.  Like the ropes that tighten around your wrists the more you struggle, the discomfort and confusion of anxiety deepen the more you try to elude them.  The harder you fight, the farther you fall."

I lifted this verbatim from a newspaper article.  It really resonated with me so that's that.

Seaweed, Ignored.

My father has been in and out of the hospital and rehab trying to regain his strength and mobility after a series of falls.  He hasn't been much of a robust eater as he's gotten older - not helping his balance at all - and he compounded this problem by losing his dentures.  he cleaned them and left them in a tissue on the bathroom counter and that was the last anyone saw of them, probably swept away by a diligent cleaning woman.

Getting the dentures remade by his current dentist - who doesn't do fittings remotely - is going to entail a number of visits to his office, no small task for a man who needs help to get out of bed.

I suggested to my mother that perhaps a different dentist - one that specializes in geriatric patients - might be able to accommodate an on-site fitting.  I was not upset when this suggestion was flatly, categorically denied, demonstrating that "contempt prior to investigation" is alive and well in the general population.  I remarked to SuperK: "i don't believe that my parents have ever taken one of my suggestions, ever."  She made no comment, biting her tongue, no doubt, marveling at my tendency to never take anyone else's suggestion, ever.

Fine.  A weak man doesn't eat enough to build up his strength and now he's forced to drink pureed cube steak and string beans.  Wonderful decision.  It's not so much the fact that my always brilliant suggestions go unheeded but that there's zero discussion.  No, and that's that.

At least when I get all stubborn on your ass I usually calm down to the point where I can eventually listen to some different points of view.

What do I know?

Dynamite Truck Driver Seaweed

Happy-Go-Lucky:  Carefree or untroubled.

An interesting turn of a phrase.  Are we to assume that you have to be lucky to be happy?  That you have to go someplace, get lucky, then you'll be happy?  I like Devil-May-Care, too.  That's more along the lines of "Go screw yourself because I'm going to do whatever I want."  What if the devil does indeed care?  There's an ominous taint to that.

I think I'm a devil-may-care guy.  Happy go lucky- not so much.

I don't get people who are untroubled in their minds.  It makes ABSOLUTELY  no sense to me. I assume that they're lying.  I mean you can't come up with something to worry about?  That's fucked up.  Give me 10 minutes and I guarantee I can infect your untroubled mind with something poisonous.  

The point is that while I'm kinda joking here I realize that I'm a long way from happy-go-lucky.  I don't have the constitutional makeup to breeze through life.  I'm always going to be fighting it, to some degree, swinging back at whoever's swinging at me.  I'm like a dynamite truck driver.  I've learned how to slow down and check my mirrors when I'm backing up but I still have a truck full of dynamite.

I Wonder What . . .

"Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress."

I'm guessing that someone was Bill himself, our shrinking violet of a founder.  I'm guessing he did a lot of slipping in of his own wisdom and passing it off as the words of a great sage.  He rightly assumed it wouldn't have looked too good to say: "I - a man who knows what he's talking about - etc etc."

God love him.  Where would we be without a big, loud-mouthed salesman as one of our founders?  (Ed. Note: I was a big, loud-mouthed salesman.)

I was doing some off-line writing today, scribbling some thoughts down about my proneness to anxiety.  I went back over my Anxiety List to see what was there.  I saw some topical, worry-du-jour entries, things that really were the cause of some temporary, easily identified anxiety.  It's OK to be anxious when you're facing something that generally causes anxiety.  It's understandable, at least.  These things come and go; they're dealt  with or they disappear of their own accord.

And then there are things that show up over and over and over.  I sure spend a lot of time worrying about my health.  My main objection to this is that I've been blessed with a strong constitution.  I don't often get sick; I don't have any serious injuries or conditions; my family history is strong; but still, with any ache or pain I'm sure the end is near.

I'm going to assume I should be learning something here.  I wonder what it is.

Circumstances On Rampage

Rampage:  To move about wildly or violently.

From time to time I get stuck in a shitstorm of circumstances that I don't care for.  I feel picked upon, of course, but it happens to all of us.   I'm better today than when I was drinking when stuff I don't like happens to me; I'm even pretty good when a few things happen at the same time; but I find myself in a backpedal when a handful happen all at once.  To make matters worse, when I'm in a backpedal then I react poorly to things that aren't all that important, effectively creating, all by myself, a few new things to be upset about.

Sheesh.

Hard Chairs

My dad is in the hospital.  After many years of wheedling and suggesting my sister and I finally convinced my folks to move into a retirement apartment where they have easy access to a lot of services that they need - meals, shuttles, medical care, etc.  Unfortunately, my dad continued to fall when they were still in their house, the by-product of a completely sedentary lifestyle and some surreptitious drinking.  He has been back and forth between skilled nursing care and a hospital bed - he's not doing all that well.  

My family has this weird habit of ignoring each other most of the time but demanding a heavy presence when someone is unwell.  My mom feels like she has to be at the hospital ALL OF THE TIME and because she isn't too swift behind the wheel of a car in the dead of a snowy winter and refuses to take a $10 cab instead, it has put a heavy burden on my sister, who's right there in town.  Frankly, I don't get it.  The few times either SuperK or I have been in the hospital the general attitude is: "Get the hell out of here.  Go home.  I feel like shit and having you sit there in a hard chair trying to cheer me up is frankly more irritating than not."

Now if I was at home - not 2500 miles away - I'd go to the hospital, muttering darkly at the injustice of it all, and sit there on the hard chair.  My sister I can't speak for - she's spending a bunch of time as a shuttle-driver and hard-chair-occupant and I salute her for it.  I assume she's being true to herself.  It's more than I would do.  Her behavior is probably more noble than mine, but I'm not all that uncomfortable with my behavior.  Somewhat uncomfortable, obviously, because I feel the need to write about it, but the positions I hold have been developed over a long period of time.

Ten days ago my sister and I decided that it would be more helpful for me to travel home after the busy holiday season than before.  There's a couple of weeks where the cost and inconvenience becomes prohibitive, especially since I just opened my wallet for a visit two months ago.  I continued to feed my sister updates on reasonable travel itineraries right up to the point when it was too late to do anything reasonable, at which juncture she and my mother decided that I should come home now rather than later.  

The cost to me would be significant.  I have taken great pains to assure people that cost is not paramount but that it is an important factor.  I'm not made of money.  So I have been trying to understand why they want me to come back now rather than in a month, using my already booked and paid for ticket.  I didn't get too clear of an answer besides some vague explanations of stress, which I think is somewhat self-imposed with all of the shuttling and hard-chair-sitting as a central feature.  I mean, he's in the hospital which is where sick people are administered to.

Here's the to thine own self be true part: I realize that my behavior may not look great on paper but I'm OK with it.  For the most part.  And there's a lot of history that goes into this.  It's like looking in on the Charlie Brown story where Lucy is trying to talk him into kicking the football which we all know she's going to pull away at the last minute so that he'll fall flat on his back.  If it was the first time she offered to hold the ball you'd think: "Yeah, go ahead and give it a whirl."  But you know it isn't.  Lucy has a track record that makes it inadvisable.

Which is kind of where I am with the whole thing.

To Thine Own Self - Or: "A Stroll Down Prevocalic Possessive Determiner Lane"

Thine:  Your; that belongs to you.  (Singular second person prevocalic possessive determiner - preconsonantal form: thy).  Ed Note: Huh?

To Thine Own Self Be True.

What a powerful sentiment that is.  I have taken so much strength from that short expression - found on our anniversary coins, by the way - over the years.  It gives me the resolve to follow my own principles.  I have to develop a solid-citizen spiritual way of life, with much counsel and study, and I then try to stick to these principles.  I believe that I live well, within myself and as a member of the general population, when I adhere to these principles.  I make mistakes.  I make a LOT of mistakes, but at the end of most days I can look back in peace as far as my behavior is concerned.

That doesn't mean I'm always comfortable with my decisions, some of which affect other people in ways that they dislike.  And sometimes these decisions don't look great on paper.  I'm out of the mainstream in my thinking and opinions from time to time.  And what's important to me isn't always important to other people, and vice versa.  I try to understand this when someone annoys me

Food in the Big Book

To the best of my knowledge the phrase "sour stew" does not appear in our literature.  Nor does the word "sour" or the word "stew."  In addition, salty is not represented

However, bitter and sweet are all over the place.

I'm hungry.

Will

Will:  One's independent faculty of choice; the ability to be able to exercise one's choice or intention; the act of choosing to do something. 

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god as we understand him.

This is one of those steps that I don't try to look at too closely because it would drive me to distraction, leading eventually to a state of insanity yet more severe than afflicts me already.

So my understanding is that I need to give up the ability to make choices for myself, in the Great Scheme of Things.  I don't think the step means that I can't choose between cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, except for those cases where I don't have either and/or oatmeal and it's not breakfast time.  Rather that I should defer to my Higher Power in all things great and small.

The problem is that with every issue in my life I'm driving hard to the hoop.  I've taken the kickoff and I'm sprinting down the sideline and I can taste the dirt in the end zone.  My instincts have something to say about everything.  They're not interested in deferring to someone or something else.

It's not easy to do.   It's not easy at all.  It's not easy to say: "Whatever."  To live my life well to the best of my ability and take what comes with equanimity and good cheer, secure in the knowledge that the results will be in my best interests.

Try it if you don't believe me.  

I want MY results!

Horrible Diagnosis: Confirmed!

I'm pretty sure that there isn't anything that I obsess about more than my health.  It is my great Go-To issue when I want to get upset, which is apparently something I really love to do given the fact that I'm upset so much of the time.  When everything is going fine - when the skies are blue, a gentle breeze is blowing, and the angels are singing nicely, I can always count on the status of my physical form to bring the pain if receiving the pain is what I want to do.

I am of the opinion that the internet was created so that people can confirm The Truth of whatever they're currently worrying about.  It's very easy to take a set of symptoms, log on, and find out that you have a terrible, craven disease that's going to take you down and take you down hard.  I mean, it's on the internet so it has to be true, right?  The only medium more irreproachable than the internet is The Television, the greatest teller of truth since that night I tried to talk my way out of a DUI.

And the cruncher is that I'm really remarkably healthy.  It's one of the things I'm most grateful for when I'm not too busy trying to find a horrible disease to afflict myself with on the internet.

I really should enter a monastery or buy a sensory deprivation tank and use it as my home - dark and quiet, sloshing around in a warm bath.  Sounds nice.  I went for many years to a semi-annual men's recovery retreat held in a Jesuit retreat house.  At first I wasn't too thrilled about a priest running a retreat - recovering alcoholic or not - but those guys drank as much as I did. The point is that there were no TVs or radios and phone use was discouraged - the individual rooms were spartan - a bed and a writing desk.  There were no distractions.  It was comforting. It helped me reduce the tumult in my head to a dull roar.

Mulling

I am mulling over the difference between the amount of time I spend worrying that something bad is going to happen to me with the amount of time where bad things are actually happening.  It has to be like a billion trillion to one.   I spend a lot of time - an inordinate amount of my time - worrying about bad things that never happen.  And when they do happen they usually aren't all that bad.  I handle 'em just fine.

Ch-ch-ch-ch- change! Change of Fools.

Change:  To become something different;  to make something into something different.

That's a lot of somethings in one definition.  That's not a very specific definition.  Pretty broad brush.

I hear this often and I believe it to be a great truth: I do not change something that needs to be changed until the discomfort of staying where I am becomes greater than the discomfort of the change.  I simply do not make this change.  It does not happen.  I can look at something that clearly needs to be changed, often something that is causing me discomfort, sometimes great discomfort, sometimes outright pain, and I will not change this thing.  I fear the change process more than the pain.  I'm sure that the change is going to cause me more pain than the pain I'm already in.  Facts are useless in the face of this kind of mental onslaught.  Evidence is ignored.

That's pretty much my world view: it's going to be worse.  Bad things are going to happen.  And they'll never go away.  This is why I'm such a cheery guy.

A Sour Stew

Secret:  Knowledge that is hidden and intended to be kept hidden.

That is a great definition.  I am hiding something and I mean to hide it.  The definition doesn't speak to the motivation for the secret, however.  I suspect in my case that's all for the best.  My motivations aren't top shelf.

"We're only as sick as our secrets" is a suggestion that resonates with me.  I am amazed at the power hidden things have to ruin my peace of mind.  I can take a small fact or an illusion or a hallucination, and let it marinate in the sour stew found inside my head until it becomes a monstrosity.  It usually feels great to let that stuff out.  

Thumb Bashings

My main man Willie is on the move again.  Apparently he's taken a liking to moving a bunch of times for reasons that are dubious at best.  There's nothing as relaxing as buying and selling houses, packing up all of your crap and moving it a long distance, all while ripping out well-established roots with violence and prejudice, and then trying to fit in someplace new, all while doubting and second-guessing the whole sorry enterprise.

Here's the thing: everywhere I got there I am!  The Men living inside my head are hot on my trail.  That's one reason I don't try to get too perfect with anything - I know I'm going to be just as unhappy in short order.

It's all very upsetting and all very exciting.  I like exciting.  I hate upsetting.  Can't figure out how to cleave the two asunder.  I believe, regrettably, that upsetting can be controlled.  I cling to the belief that I can make the upset go away as long as I manage the things well.  The idea that I can bargain away all emotional pain, psychic pain, is as ridiculous as believing that I can escape physical pain.  I can't bash my own thumb with a hammer - primarily because I'm forbidden to own a hammer or any other tools that can bash, cut, or pierce - and "manage" my way out of the pain.  I can deal with it appropriately but it's going to be with my for a while.

Doesn't stop me from trying.Ba

Thanksgiving

Thanks:  An expression of gratitude; grateful feelings or thoughts.

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday.  I went to a meeting this morning where the chairman chose gratitude as a topic.  It is the most beloved and most reviled of all topics.  We choose it a lot because we have so much to be grateful for and we need to be reminded of this fact, for some totally unexplainable reason.  And then we groan in frustration because we're so much more comfortable talking about problems.  It is UNBELIEVABLE  that we have to be reminded to be grateful.  

I have a gratitude list that I go repeat every morning during my Quiet Time and I 've taken the time to write the list down - I'm sick enough that I have to say it and read it.  If I could afford to hire a lackey to blast this gratitude list directly into my ear holes with an amplified bullhorn it wouldn't be a waste of money.   Gratitude is not my default attitude.  Bitchiness would be more appropriate.  I can find a problem anywhere.  I have yet to be stumped.

The chairman selected a handful of passages from one of our books.  I want to share an excerpt of a letter from Bill W:  "Though I still find it difficult to accept today's pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity . . . I can give thanks for present pain nevertheless.  I find the willingness to do this by contemplating the lessons learned from past suffering  - lessons which have led to the blessings I now enjoy.  I can remember how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God's grace, and so to a new freedom."

I loved how much of the sharing revolved around how we can be grateful when we're suffering something we don't want to be suffering, which is pretty much everything.  It was pointed out to me early on that "any idiot can be grateful when he's getting what he wants."  I was so attracted to the even-tempered balance of the members when I was getting started.  I was flummoxed that people could  be grateful for difficulties.  It's harder than being grateful when I'm getting what I want but I think the payoff is spectacular.

Can I Get an A-Men -Ah?

How shall I overreact – let me count the ways.

I had an obviously unqualified electronics technician attempt to install a satellite TV system in my house.  This work involved disconnecting and then reconnecting wiring on the TV set and satellite receiver, installing a few different pieces of hardware on the outside of the building (so lots of pounding and drilling, including an inch hole through the wood floor of my living room), and some mysterious crashing around in the basement.  I’m afraid of the basement area as a general rule – that’s monster territory in my book – so I still don’t know what he did down there.

When Mr. UnQualified left about six hours into a two-hour job, the system didn’t work as promised.  We were told that his company didn’t “guarantee” that it would do everything that we were led to believe it would do.  By the salesman.   In the store.  Before they had my money.   I’m sure that somewhere in the fifteen pages of microscopic legal chicken scratching that constitute the customer agreement that there is jargon that backs up his assertion.  At that point we just wanted this man out of our house. 

When I called to schedule the service call for the service call to fix the whole freaking mess, I had my finger on the trigger.  No more Mr. Mostly Pleasant-On-A-Good-Day Guy – I was itching to blow someone away with my justified, righteous indignation.  Can I get an amen –AH? I have been wronged-AH!  The service sector has it out for me-AH! 

 Some of the best advice that I got from the old timers when I entered recovery was: “Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut?”  As in Don’t talk even a little bit.  Not a peep, as my mama used to tell me.  The fact that I had nothing worthwhile to say was a factor here but these guys didn’t feel the need to fill me in on the reasoning.  My initial reaction was always wrong and they knew that I was going to save myself a lot of grief by simply not talking.

I nearly chewed off my tongue as the Replacement Service Guy came out and quickly remedied what was a minor problem.  The First String Service Guy probably was as frustrated as I was at the end of day one and wanted to go home as much as I wanted him to leave.  As my new hero left, I handed him ten bucks and said that I wanted to buy his lunch.  His face lit up like my old Jimi Hendrix black light poster.  “Thanks, Mr. Seaweed.  Have a great day.”

Amazing to think how much anguish ten bucks costs me when I think that I am being screwed somehow.  And how much pleasure that little bit of money introduced into my day.  Ten dollars.

The Man With The Plan. A Plan, Anyway.

Plan:  A set of intended actions, usually mutually related, through which one expects to achieve a goal.  

The other lesson the trials and tribulations of Little Westside Jonny brought back out into the bright light of day is this: I don't know what's best for me.  This is a lesson, regrettably, that doesn't seem to stick with me for very long.  I fall under the Grand Illusion that I'm the man with the plan.  I'm the man with his head up his ass, is exactly what I am.  I wouldn't know a good plan if it was deep-fried and covered in chocolate and served up on fine china.

I do, however, have a good handle on my actions.  I know when I'm behaving well and when I'm not.  For the most part.  Sometimes my instincts wrestle away control of my vehicle away and I go careening off into the ravine but most of the time I've got a feel for good actions versus bad actions.  Guilt and fear can warp everything into a totally unrecognizable shape, but if I do the work I can usually work through this part.

So I act.  And then I wait and see.  I'll know what god's will for me is in short order.

Short Shrift

Shrift:  The act of going to or hearing a confession.  
Short Shrift:  A rushed sacrament of confession given to a prisoner who was to be executed very soon.

(Ed. Note: I thought "shrift" was a made up word)

I've been engaged in a running dialogue with Little Westside Jonny concerning a big decision he has been pondering.  This is one of those "by choice" decisions fraught with ambivalence.  The question we ask: "Is this my will or is this god's will?"  It's not always clear when we're pursuing something that we want or think that we want.  If I'm in a burning building I don't parse the nuance of staying versus leaving, what's my will and what's god's will  - I head for the door.  LWSJ made his decision and now he's battling some fear.

So be it.  As is should be.  It can be difficult separating what I want from what god wants for me.  I'm not receiving any text messages from on my cell phone.  That's not how the system works.

On these Wish List decisions - these "this is what I want" decisions - I try to take care of the due diligence and then move forward.  LWSJ prayed about his decision; he sought the counsel of others; he might even have done some writing; and he didn't pay short shrift to the worldly side, either.  If I want a new ball I should see if I can afford the ball and if it's the right ball for the sport I want to play.  That stuff is as important as the spiritual stuff.

Then I act, in good conscience, and see what happens next.  If it's my will and not god's will I'll know soon enough.

Productive Seaweed

On the trail of productivity . . .  always on that trail.

I was pondering all the ways that I spend my time.  I think as an alcoholic I abuse terms like "killing time" or "wasting time."  It seems to me that "sitting quietly" or "talking to friends" would be more appropriate, but that's what I seem to do: get someplace, always get someplace, and fast.  Doesn't make any difference where I go, just get on the move and at a high rate of speed.

Lots of people ask me this: "So what do you do all day now that you don't work?"  I can feel a little disapproval but also the fear creeping in.  Work for money is interpreted as "productive" even when it isn't, which is often.
Productive:  Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.  

As an aside, I'm grateful that I had the ability to set aside the work-for-pay part of my life - I'm extraordinarily grateful that I could do this.  I clearly remember, as a 30 year old man, wondering if I would be able to keep myself in shelter and fed with food as I grew older.  It was no sure thing.  I was a couple of enabling parents away from a life on the streets.  I was a bad drunk - I didn't let school or work or people get in the way of my drinking and drug use.  I drank as much as I wanted to and damn the consequences.

I like the fact that  I can feel my way through the day at this point in my life.  I don't have to persevere when something is not productive and I can expand my world when it is.  I like being the last person to leave the parking lot after a meeting.  I like to linger a bit when I go for a swim - it takes half again as long as it did when my free time was short, but it's half again as pleasant.  I like the ability to sit quietly and . . . well, sit quietly.  Sometimes I'm sitting quietly in a quiet fashion, and I can extend that and sometimes my mind is on the prowl and the sitting quietly helps it get quiet.  I have trouble explaining this to people.  It's easier to say "I was at my desk from 4 to 5" than "I was sitting quietly with myself and my god from 4 to 5."

Ah, well, onward and upward.

Denial

Denial:  Refusal to believe that a problem exists.

The following quote is attributed to Mark Twain.  Maybe he said it - maybe he didn't.  I don't know who attributed it to him, either, except for me, a source of dubious credibility.  Furthermore, I'm probably going to butcher the quote, but here goes:

"I'm an old man who has suffered much misfortune, some of which has actually happened to me."

I've been reviewing the inventory steps of our program recently and I'm always surprised at how big a part denial plays.  As in: you actually ARE at fault; it really IS you; quit pointing a finger at other people - the inventory is yours, not the other man's; quit pretending that you didn't do anything wrong; quit pretending that when you did do something wrong it didn't hurt anyone else; stop pretending that no one else knew how much destruction you were causing, etc. etc.

I like the butchered Twain quote because it's all about comparing the reality of the world to the reality of Seaweed.  They are not often in the same room.  I don't see things clearly.  I interpret things to my own advantage.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so.  -- Samuel Clemens

Mrs. K and Me: The Helen Chronicles

Stoic:  A person indifferent to pleasure or pain.

I found out yesterday that the mother of one of my oldest friends recently died.  I wanted to send my condolences so I wrote the following letter and emailed it to the family.   I'm not the greatest guy at touchy-feely things like funerals.  I'm not overly emotional.  I'm a good, stoic German.  I wouldn't have been much of an addition at the wake.  I wouldn't have dressed right and I wouldn't have been sad enough.  This woman was 95, for god's sake, and she led a rich life.

My buddy sent the note to all of his family members and they all responded warmly.  My buddy said he wept at the remembrances, which were real and heartfelt on my end.  Mrs. K and I were two peas in a pod - fiercely competitive, passionate, stubborn, loud-mouthed.  It was inevitable that we would clash from time to time, but I really did feel the genuine concern hidden beneath our wars.

I want to be the Funeral Guy.  You know this guy - good at funerals, appropriate, sad, and all that.  But I'm the Write a Note Guy.  It doesn't feel like all that much because it isn't a grand gesture, but it's what I'm good at.  We all just get to offer what we can offer, I guess.

There are some people who have made a big impression in my life.  There are a few who have made a very big impression.  And then there is Mrs. K.

   When I was growing up I made some poor choices in my personal life, and by “some” I mean “a lot.”  Most adults looked away or got angry.  I knew how to deal with these people – I could manipulate them or hide from their disapproval.  Then there was Mrs. K – she got angry but she didn’t look away.  Frankly, I was flummoxed.  I hated being called on my behavior but I think I craved the attention – I could see the concern behind it even though I couldn’t put a name to it at the time.  I knew I wasn’t heading down the right path and it felt appropriate to have an adult holler at me.  And she was relentless in her disapproval.

   When I was getting dried out and cleaned up I was visiting Ricky one day.  Mrs. K walked into the kitchen and handed me a very nice piece of luggage - this at a time when I didn’t have any money to spend on nice things.

   “I always knew you were a good person,” she said simply.  “And I’m glad you got your life back on track.  I wanted to get you something nice.”  It was the greatest display of support I ever received as I was going through the early days of my recovery.  I’m never at a loss for words but I couldn’t think of a thing to say.  I hope I thanked her.  I used that luggage for years, finally throwing it away when it was too shredded and worn and soiled to be taken out in public.

   I always enjoyed looking in Mrs. K’s refrigerator – it was a solid wall of condiments.  It was not possible to put one more grape in that refrigerator and there wasn’t a thing to eat in there.

   However, there was The Dining Room Table.  Ricky and I would come in after playing Space Invaders in bars until we couldn’t focus our eyes more than 18 inches away.  I’ll never forget walking into the dark, quiet house, and flicking on the lights in the dining room.  There, stretching as far as the eye could see, deep and wide, were mountains and mountains of Servatti’s baked goods.  It was like she was a bootlegger or a smuggler – there was one of everything they made on that table.  I think I got on my knees and said a little prayer of thanks every time I set eyes on that bounty.  And there is nothing quite like eating 5,000 calories of unrefined white sugar at 2AM.

  I was still smoking at this time and – if you can believe this – I would try to light up in the K family room after my sugar binge.  I would light a match, take one puff, when the intercom would shriek: “Ricky!!  Is something burning out there?!”  If those smoke particles had traveled through two closed doors, down a long hallway, and into her bedroom at the speed of light she couldn’t have detected them that quickly.  But, incredibly, when I didn’t light up the intercom would remain silent.  I still don’t know how she did it.

   One bright fall day Mrs. K picked up the phone when I called.  I was usually polite but still didn’t want to extend the conversation too long.  I wasn’t clear on what to say.

“Are you enjoying the sunshine on this beautiful day?” I asked.

“I don’t enjoy the sunshine,” she said.

Again, the loss of words thing.

   Another time Mrs. K took Ricky and me out to lunch.  She was . . . ahem . .  . an interesting lunch companion.  Again, the facts are that if I were to add up all of the times all of the parents of my friends ever took me out for a meal it wouldn’t equal the dinners that she bought and paid for.  I can’t imagine I was much of a dinner companion but she was always generous.

   We walked into this restaurant and sat down.  After the waiter brought menus Mrs. K started grousing about being too close to a AC duct.  We changed tables and the waiter told us about the specials, then left us to ponder our choices.  We were now seated at a table near a young man who was playing an acoustic guitar.  Mrs. K began to complain about the noise.  We waved over the waiter and were re-re-seated.  She began to fidget.  We were under a skylight.  We tensed.

“The light is too bright,” she said.

“No!” Ricky and I shouted in unison. 

  Mrs. K calmly put on a pair of those huge black sunglasses with the huge side-car panels wrapping around her temples to prevent any sun from ever getting in to bother her eyes, and ate her lunch.

God speed, Mrs. K – you will be missed.

I Told You So

So my parents' living situation is unraveling at a rapid pace.  I suggested that they get their affairs somewhat in order over the years to protect against this kind of traumatic unraveling but they had other plans.  I quit haranguing after a while - after a long while - because what do I know, really?  Not much.  I don't know much at all, certainly not about how other people should live their lives.
Empathy:   The intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.

I should be feeling nothing but empathy, willing to help out in any way that I can, but I'm having trouble tamping down the urge to say: "I told you so."  I haven't, praise god, but I do want to let anybody and everybody know how capable I am in managing the affairs of the world, despite copious evidence to the contrary.  The facts of my life serve as this evidence.

I think there's a human tendency to get frustrated at people who make things worse than they have to be.  My attitude is if you want to leave late for work that's your business, but if you get get fired don't come bitching to me.  Your behavior led to consequences and you should deal with them.  Still, it's no fun being a dick when someone is in trouble.  I'm annoyed that my life is being inconvenienced by the bad choices of others - or choices that I didn't agree with when they were being made - but that shouldn't trump being kind.

I have gotten better.  In almost every case when someone's behavior has pushed me to the breaking point, when I'm ready to speak my mind the next time it happens, I almost never do.  I can't bring myself to be that self-righteous, at least publicly.  I'm going to make bad choices in the future and they aren't going to work out very well and I'm not going to want to hear someone tell me how right they were and how wrong I was.

Rear View Mirrors

In the "Whatever I'm Worried About Right Now Probably Won't Be Worth a Shit Before Too Long" category. . . 

When I moved from The Old City to The New City I was all wrapped around the axle about things that aren't even part of my life anymore.  This is why I try to stay away from axles - I always seem to be getting wrapped around them, then I sell my axles and buy something else.  I don't even live in The New City anymore so obviously whatever I was worried about is in my rear view mirror at this point.

Not long after I moved to The New City my friend Willie, after listening to hours of my bitching about how terrible everything was, made a similar big move.  I bet he was glad that he had feigned some interest in what was going on with me and pretended to listen to what I was saying because he spent quite a bit of time bitching to me about how terrible everything was in his life.  I feigned interest and pretended to listen.  Now - isn't it funny - he may be moving again.  The point is that most of the stuff he was upset about is going to be in his rear view mirror.

When I was looking at places to live in Vacation City Willie and I were discussing the relative merits of what I was currently considering.  He was sincerely trying to be helpful, comparing pros and cons, when I interrupted him: "Dude, it really doesn't make much difference because in a few months I'm going to be restless and bored with whatever I decide to do."  We both laughed.  I think we may have even broken off the conversation.  It was so true there was nothing else to be said.

Infallible:  Without fault or weakness; incapable of error or fallacy.  .

One of my favorite things to do at the end of a meeting is to sprint for the door but not actually go out through the door - I stand there as kind of a reverse-welcoming committee.  I don't like being someone who is actually on a welcoming committee because that entails way more human-to-human contact, and I don't really like people all that much.  People are the worst.  The Exit Committee is a lot easier because there are a lot of other people at meetings who also hate people and they can't wait to get out the door and down the road.

Actually, I don't hate anyone.  I dislike most of them but hate is a really terrible emotion.  I hate Brussels sprouts and ideologues but not people.  

When I was getting sober I traveled a lot.  I went to a meeting every day, often meetings I had never attended before.  I introduced myself as a visitor then was astonished at how often I was totally ignored when the meeting ended.  I was new and I frequently needed to talk so this was problematic. I understand that if I want to meet people I should stick my hand out - this is why I'm on the Exit Committee - but I also think for the first few years it's not easy for a lot of us, especially traumatized introverts like me.  So I try to make sure that everyone feels welcome.  It's easy to spot the guy standing by himself after the meeting and that's who I approach, even when I want to talk to my friends.

So I was at a regular meeting this weekend and I spoke to a young woman that I knew casually who was trying to get the hell through the door before this hipster doofus said anything.  I inquired after her daughter.

"Well," she said, kindly.  "I don't have a daughter.  I'm way too selfish for that."

I looked at her suspiciously, judgmentally. "I really think you're wrong," I replied.

"No, no I'm not," she said.

"Isn't it possible that you got pregnant, went through labor, and then raised a child without remembering it?" I insisted.

"Can you find someone else to talk to?" she said.

Actually, she was very nice about it.  We are very nice people and we try to make everyone feel comfortable.  I was okay with my gaffe - I'm pretty good about remembering faces and names and a little tidbit about most people but I'm not infallible.  

Well, actually I am infallible.  I did this on purpose.

A Mission From God

I've been pondering this Mission From God that I've been on for the last ten years to convince my parents to move out of their home and into a kinder, gentler retirement community.  They've listened to me and done what they wanted to do - as is their right - which is NOT move out of their home and into a retirement community.  They join a large crowd of people and institutions not doing what I want them to do.  This is a Big Win for the human race, given my ability to make almost everything worse.

Recently, my father took a series of falls and my mother can't get him back on his feet anymore. It appears that they've accepted the fact that they can't stay in their home anymore.  I hope things work out.  I'm not sure that they will - some people take change harder than others and leaving your home of 55 years on fairly short notice is a whopper.  My Mission included a slow, controlled liquidation of 55 years worth of stuff.  Also ignored.  Now with a sudden shift the liquidation is going to be hard and fast.  If only they had done what I wanted when I wanted them to . . . oh, right, that almost never works out well.

I recently returned from a tough trip home and it looks like I'm heading back there before too long.  My sister is doing all of the heavy lifting with my parents and my presence is going to be the Right Thing To Do.  It's all pretty inconvenient seeing as I just made the long trip back.  If they had only done what I wanted . . . oh, snap, I'm thinking about myself again.  

Funny thing, this service.  Doing what needs to be done not what I want to do.

The Here and Now

Now:  The present time.

I attended a meeting yesterday where we read from "As Bill Sees It."  The speaker chose as his topic "One Day at a Time."  I was not surprised to see that most of the selections were from the chapters in our literature that deal with prayer and meditation.  Again, my tendency is to look into the past - full of regret and remorse - or to flee into the future, where I face terrible obstacles sure to bring me much pain and suffering.  I forget about the minute.  I forget about where I am - a shame because most of the time I'm in a very enjoyable spot.

The prayer and the meditation - the meditation especially - brings me back to the Now.

Slow And Steady Ensures a 10th Place Finish

Steady:  Constant in feeling, purpose, or pursuit; not fickle, changeable, or wavering; not easily moved or persuaded to alter a purpose; resolute. 

I've mulling over the Long Haul the last few days.  When I was getting started my nickname was "Half-Measures Seaweed."  This is technically not true.  I heard someone tell that story when I was getting sober in Indianapolis and I liked it so much I made it my own.  I tell it all the time in meetings, happily, with no regrets, employing great poetic license.  It certainly could have been applied to me - I had taken doing as little as possible to stay sober to the Next Level, with the results that you might expect.  I did a little recovery and got drunk.  I did a little more, stayed sober a little longer, then got drunk.  It went this way until I was fully engaged in our 12 Step program of recovery and I've been sober ever since.  It's not like anyone is calling me "Full-Measures Seaweed" but my reputation has improved.

There's a guy from The New City who has been calling me since I've moved.  Good guy, clean and dry for a while courtesy of a long prison stay, now working hard on his recovery.  He's gotten busy in his personal life as his circumstances have improved - which is what we want and expect to happen - and it's crowding out his recovery life a tad.  I think he'll be OK but it bears watching.  It reminds me of all of the thousands of people I've seen cycle into The Rooms, work at this just long enough to get the trolley back on the tracks, and then cycle back into oblivion.  

This diligence with our recovery applies to so many other areas of our lives as well.  Slow and steady results in a tenth place finish but we're finishing and we're not tearing our Achilles tendons and we're in the race the next day, not like that flashy SOB who dusted us off in the last race.  That dude's in the ER getting his knee scoped.  It's like swimming across a wide lake - I don't get to swim for a while and then take a few days off, unless I like the sensation of drowning.  

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

Everyone Needs A Hobby

Whenever I don't feel well, the first thing I do is get on the internet and search for diseases with the same symptoms that I have, then I pick the worst one.  That's what I have.

It's like a hobby.

50-50

My recovery is a 50-50 partnership with my Higher Power - he does all of the worrying and I do all of the work.  Really a bit of a pity because I have demonstrated some real talent in the worrying milieu.  Moreover, I have not demonstrated much of a capacity for the work thing.  I find it kind of hard and burdensome.  

37

This is funny, in an "You're not all that, dude" kind of way.

A woman announced 37 years of continuous sobriety at our meeting yesterday.  She thanked everyone for their well-wishes and said: "This is the only Program in the world where we receive applause and a birthday cake for running out of a burning building."

Pogo and The Construction Workers

Pogo: To use a pogo stick.

I was reminded of this story recently:

Three construction workers eat lunch together every day.  And every day one of them opens his lunchbox, takes out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and proceeds to swear like a drunken sailor.  PB&J again!  He hates peanut butter and he hates jelly.  He hates bread.  If he has to choke down another peanut butter and jelly sandwich he is going to lose it.

Finally, his friends speak up: "If you hate those sandwiches so much why don't you ask your wife to make you something else?"

"Wife?" the guy says.  "What are you talking about?  I'm not married - I live by myself."

Pogo: "We have met the enemy - and he is us."

Herding Cats

Intolerant: Close-minded about new or different ideas; indisposed to tolerate contrary opinions or beliefs; impatient of dissent or opposition.  

I was asked to chair the meeting this morning at my home group which is embroiled in a mild "No, you're doing it wrong" controversy.  I should probably characterize it as a series of controversies because there's nothing drunks like to do more than making an mountain out of a molehill.  

I read this passage from the 12 & 12: "Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.  It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up.

We can try to stop making unreasonable demands upon those we love.  We can show kindness where we had shown none.  With those we dislike we can begin to practice justice and courtesy, perhaps going out of our way to understand and help them."

My intent was to help some folks who were behaving intolerantly to see the error of their ways.  The results were predictably hilarious.  The folks who took the most out of my brilliant, insightful, illuminating share were all of the people I find intolerable.  I was reduced to laughter.  I was trying to herd cats.

People hear what they want to hear.

Funny How It Works Out

I called up my Old City sponsor yesterday.  He was clearly sick and he didn't want to talk.  He always wants to talk so I knew he was really sick.  I called up today and he sounded a lot better. I think he was glad I called back.  I was checking up on him because he's not a young guy and he sounded pretty bad yesterday.  I sent a note to Little Westside Jonny, asking him to check in as well.  He's like two thousand five hundred miles closer to my sponsor than I am.  It's kind of what we do in The Fellowship - we take care of ourselves and we take care of each other.

It made me think of the difference in the relationship I have with my sponsor and with my own father.  I love 'em both but one of them has a whole hell of a lot of a better idea who I am than the other.  I think of the difference in attitude between the two guys and the sense of responsibility each takes for their part in the world.  My sponsor takes responsibility for his own actions while realizing that he needs help from time to time.  My dad does neither very often.

I'm very much like my father and not at all like my sponsor.  When I first started working with him we quickly found out that we disagreed completely on almost all levels whenever the topics of religion, politics, morality, or sociology came up.  We found out that these were areas best left alone and we developed a deep and effective relationship.  I'm much more engaged with my sponsor than with my father - some of this is my fault but it's mostly because one wants to be engaged with and one doesn't.  I'm not always behaving badly.

Just most of the time.

Entirely Ready

Entirely:  To the full or entire extent.
Ready:  Prepared for immediate action or use.

We read the Step today that contains the phrase "were entirely ready" for god to do something blah blah blah something or the other about removing defects or something like that.  I really don't know.  I don't have much of an attention span so I generally zone out after nine or ten words. I'm definitely a twitter generation kind of guy even though I've never used twitter.  That I'm aware of.

My lovely, lovely wife shares the story about the person who decides to go on a cruise.  This person is very excited.  She has always wanted to go on a cruise.

"Are you ready for your trip?" asks a friend.

"Yes!  Yes, I'm ready! enthuses the cruiser.

"Have you bought your tickets?  Do you have your passport?  Are you packed?" 

"No!  No, I haven't done any of that!" shouts cruiser girl.

This woman is ready.  She is not, however, entirely ready.

High Speed Dental Drills!

The dental work I had done recently involved the demolition of a major molar and the installation of a replacement.  I guess I could have passed on the replacement and left a big gap in my smile.  Might have looked kinda cool.  Probably would have been cheaper, too, but I have enough problems with my wife as it is.

Anyway, the new tooth felt weird.  There was a different feel relative to the surrounding teeth and my bite had changed and, frankly, the damn thing hurt for a while.  I did have a dude with a high speed dental drill excavate enamel awfully close to a whole lot of damp mucous membrane.  How could that not traumatize my mouth for a while?

The funny thing is that I had a sore tooth and I really did keep touching it with my tongue.  "Still hurts.  Wonder if I touch it again?  Still hurts.  OK, I waited 30 seconds, let's give it another try."  Ad infinitum.

I really enjoy  trying to make the worst of everything.

Judge and Jury

Judge:  To sit in judgment on; to pass sentence on.  

I have a couple of groups that I attend regularly.  I like both of them but that doesn't mean I can't find plenty to dislike as well.  It's what I do: find fault with things.  These things don't have to have any faults to uncover, either.  I can manufacture faults out of air.  It's a lot more fun than showcasing merits.  Who does that?  And why?

Today's meeting is my nominal home group.  The meeting has a lot of strong personalities, a fact that I like and that I hate.  Sometimes I wonder how we get anything accomplished at all.  We're opinionated and passionate and full of beans.  I'm not the only fault-finder attending meetings, either, I'll tell you what.  We're a prickly crowd.  We're people who would not ordinarily mix.  I've always liked the analogy of a lifeboat launched from a sinking ship - nobody looks around the boat, sniffs at the quality of the folks he sees, and slips back into the frigid, shark-infested, boiling ocean, even those who know that sharks don't hang around in frigid oceans.  Sharks are the beach bums of the large predatory fish.  You can either freeze to death in a frigid ocean or be eaten alive by a shark in nice, warm tropical waters - you can't do both.

This morning some of the more trying members talked and they talked too long.  It can be irritating.  There are some people I like to hear from and some I don't.  I try to remember that the meeting is a life preserver for the new person.  The meeting primarily exists to help the struggling newcomer.  The meeting isn't there so that pompous blowhards like me can dazzle the crowd with my wit and intelligence and wisdom.  I wasn't in danger of drinking today - I'm not sure that was the case for some of the people who talked, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to listen, as difficult a thing as that is for me to do.  I let people get things off of their respective chests.

And I have to remember that when I first showed up I was hip, slick, and cool.  I never acted like a pompous ass and everyone was thrilled when I raised my hand to talk.  They never wanted it to end. They hung on my every word.  They were saying: "Oh, please, Seaweed, keep talking about how bad you got it."

I thought there was a little not-so-subtle judging going on this morning.  Judging is another one of my favorite pastimes because I do it perfectly, whatever It happens to be.  My sponsor never listens to me bitch about another person.  Ever.  "Principles before personalities,"  he says.  And if I can't stop the bitching he'll tell me to go find another meeting or, better yet, start my own.  "Most meetings start with a coffee pot and a resentment," he says.  

There was a meeting in The Old City that I attended every week as did this woman who drove me completely, absolutely batshit.  It was like having a root canal every time she spoke - I could almost hear the whine of the high-speed dental drill start up.  One Saturday I got the bright idea to go to the bathroom and stand in there until the muffled sound of her voice ceased and desisted.  I enjoyed it so much I did it every week.  Until the Saturday  Little Westside Jonny waylaid me: "I know what you're doing," he said.  "I think you should stay in your seat and listen when she talks."  I ignored him, of course, because another one of my hobbies is ignoring good advice.  When I got up to pee the following week, if by "pee" you mean "go hang around the men's room," he caught my eye, tapped both of his ears, and jabbed his finger at his chair: "Sit down and listen."

I'm not sure I ever followed his advice but I never forgot it.

Up On My Soapbox

Soapbox:  A crate for packing soap, or, by extension, and inexpensive crude platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it, especially when used for speeches.

I don't say The Lord's Prayer at the end of the meetings I attend.  Here in the States it's very common to say this prayer when our festivities conclude although I understand, from correspondence with our Central Office, that it's rare in almost every other country.  I don't dislike the prayer.  I don't care if other people say it.  I'm just not going to say it myself.

There are a few reasons for this.  Mostly, I associate the prayer with my formal religious upbringing.  For the longest time this upbringing really burned my goat and stuck in my goat's craw, causing the goat to choke dangerously from time to time.  It really wasn't fair to the goat.  I objected to the rules and strictures of this organized religion.  I couldn't make myself go to church for the longest time and when I did I got really angry.  And this from a kid who attended church and a religious book study after I left home for college.  There weren't a lot of other college kids in attendance.  I was pretty religious.

A few years ago a group I attended decided to vote on whether we should close meetings with The Serenity Prayer or with the Lord's prayer.  Holy shit, were the grenades flying on that one.  People who never came to meetings were up on their soapboxes (soapbox: a crate for packing soap, or, by extension, and inexpensive crude platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it, especially when used for speeches) giving impassioned speeches that would make a country preacher proud.  The Lord's prayer supporters won and their behavior further irritated the Serenity Prayer advocates.

I wonder how those of us who support this prayer would feel if we had to attend all of our meetings in countries were the predominant religion is Islam or Hindu or Buddhist?  I wonder how we would feel if specific gods were brought up in the concluding prayer and if this prayer was unfamiliar to us?  

Here in Vacation City the meeting leader asks someone to close the meeting with a moment of silence followed by the prayer of their choice.  That's nice.

Scrupulous Seaweed

Honest:  Scrupulous with regard to telling the truth; not given to swindling, lying, or fraud; upright.  .

The topic of yesterday's meeting was honesty.  

I shared with a great deal of authority.  Everyone could tell that I was walking the walk, not just talking the talk.  I'm the Real Deal.  My voice is the Voice of Reason.

The people who live behind me have a tangerine tree which is loaded with tangerines.  The people next door have a series of small orange trees.  The woman right behind me has a tree that is full of ripening something or the others.  I'm not sure yet but they look to be spectacular.

Nobody in these houses appears to be interested in the fruit.  They fall off of the trees and roll into my yard, and I toss them into my compost pile.  One day I picked a couple of fresh tangerines and we had them for breakfast.  They were really, really good.  A few days later I picked several of them and a couple of oranges.  I had too many to eat at one sitting so I filled my vegetable crisper with the overflow.  I didn't take any of the mystery fruits but I have my eye on them.

I know some of my neighbors but not these particular neighbors.  Citrus fruit is no exotic specialty here and I'm willing to bet that if I knocked on their doors they'd cheerfully give me access.  I mean, the stuff is falling onto the ground.  I mean, it's going to waste.  It's almost a sin to see that beautiful fruit feeding the wasps.

The topic of yesterday's meeting was honesty.

Totally Unnecessary Meditations

So here's the deal: I've self-published a book.  It's available on Amazon for use on Kindle e-readers.  It's called "Totally Unnecessary Meditations" and it's a book of pretty much totally unnecessary meditations.  I thought about a title with all kinds of hidden meanings and subtle word play and clever references and then I asked my friend Spandex what to call it and he pretty much came up with this name right away and I said: "Eh, that's not too bad" and I slapped it on the cover.  It was better than any of the names I came up with.  I've decided to pay him 50% of the total commissions earned on the sale of the first three books which adds up to pretty much nothing. The great thing about Amazon is they'll publish your shit for free - the bad thing is that they pay you shit as the publisher.

Hey, I'm pretty much totally tickled anybody reads this crap.  I'm saying this: you people are the best.  I'm also saying this: don't you have anything better to do with your time?  I didn't do this to make money.  I did this to try to weasel my way into the minds of everyone and pretty much become Total Ruler of The World.  If I wanted to make money I wouldn't have quit working so I could sit out on my porch, drool dribbling from my slack-jawed horse-faced visage.

I used the nom de plume of "Horseface Steve," the origin of which would be manifestly obvious if you saw me.  Think Secretariat or Seattle Slew on a bad mane day.  Think Brad Pitt wearing a horse-faced costume.  Think . . . OK, that's enough mildly amusing analogies.  Nom de plume means, literally, Name of Zee Pen, even though the origin of the word is Latin and not French. Mercenaries in France preferred Nom de Guerre, or War Name, which allowed them to go out and maraud through the countryside anonymously.  You wouldn't want anyone saying: "Hey, isn't that guy with the blood soaked mace Stanley from over on Thornton Drive?"  The British changed it to Nom de plume because they wanted a cool sounding name for pseudonym and also because they really hate the French and don't want to borrow anything from them

I'm already at work on my next book.  It's called "Bow Down, Everyone, and Worship Little Stevie Seaweed!"  Horseface Steve is so played out.

I'll let you know when it's up and running.

Tape

I make a To Do list every day.  Yesterday one of the entries read: "Tape."  I have no idea what it means.  I've really tried to figure it out.  Sometimes I write things down and then can't read my own handwriting but this clearly says: "Tape."  It's written down firmly and confidently and I have no idea what it means.

I crossed it off as successfully completed.  It was the only thing I finished on that day's list.

The Grass is Always Greener

I've been talking to a friend who makes ridiculous demands on life - in other words, a man after my own heart.  Not surprisingly, he gets frustrated by life as a result.  I used to tell him how to counteract this tendency with the results that you might expect.  People love being told how they're doing it wrong and they love being told how to do it right, especially from a guy like me.

I'm a brother in arms with this dude.  I ask a lot of my life, too, and I'm not going to sit idly and watch life pass me by.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  I don't think there's anything wrong with being frustrated that I don't get to do it all.  The Grass is Always Greener is a well known aphorism for very good reasons - people wonder what it would be like if they were doing it differently.  

When SuperK and I travel I do a lot of the planning.  I compile a big list of  activities that I want included on our docket and sit quietly while she crosses off half of them with a big, red magic marker.  It used to make me mad when she did this until the one time she didn't and we followed my . . . um . . . ambitious schedule and we nearly killed ourselves.  We got to see a lot while not enjoying most of what we saw because we were rushing off to shortchange the next site.

My dream residence is a spacious, old apartment with lots of character and all new, modern appliances, the front door opening onto a busy thoroughfare in a cool, big city, the back door opening onto a beautiful garden with a nice view of the mountains and the ocean AND the desert AND AND AND etc. etc. etc.

If I felt like telling my friend what to do - which I feel like doing - I'd say make a list of what you want out of life; prioritize it; then cross off the bottom 50% of the things on the list.  You're still not going to get half of what's left.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach.

If I'm not happy with what I've got then I'm not going to be happy with what I want.

Something Else

I recently finished a book by the author James Salter.  It was a story about a young married couple who divorced in middle age, showing how the different choices they made in how to live their lives in the following years played out.  It wasn't especially riveting reading but it did make me think about how my actions lead to good outcomes or bad outcomes - at least in the traditional sense of those words - and how the things we think we want sometimes don't bring us much pleasure and how sometimes they do.  The woman chose a simple life in a rustic cottage, close to the things she had always known, and the man took a more exotic path.  The choices worked and they didn't work.   Each character was glad for the life they had chosen most of the time but were occasionally disconsolate that they hadn't done something else.

Something Else!!  I'm always worried that I'm not doing the right thing.  If I was only doing Something Else!! then I'd be happy.

It made me ponder warm, familiar routines and it made me long for new adventures.  They're both great and I can have both, but I can't have both of them at the same time.  I get myself into trouble when I'm doing one and pining for the other, which I do far too often.  The grass is always greener, etc. etc. 

Part of the trip from which I just returned involved a certain tearing away.  I saw what was and how it had changed and where I was now.  Take the county fair, for instance: it was so cool walking those familiar lanes, between food booths and amusement rides and carnival barkers, seeing how many things have not changed much over the last 50 years.  At the same time, it was somehow tired.  It was something that I had done and I couldn't do again.  I wanted to have walked those lanes every year for the last 50 years while being in a small town in rural France.  I want to take a good book and sit under an old tree, reading the day away, and I want to be on a fan boat barreling down a tributary of the Amazon, strange birds calling to me from the trees.

I want it ALL!

Reflection

Reflect:  To think seriously; to ponder or consider.   

I had some time for reflection yesterday at the connecting airport.  I had a five hour lay-over between flights.  To get to the airport early enough to return my rental car and make the flight I had to get up at 3 in the morning - if by "3" you mean "4."  I think 3 sounds a lot more impressive even though 4 is still pretty early.

I was thinking: "Who the $#!! makes a flight with a $#!! five hour layover, and who gets up at 3 in the morning to take such a flight?"  I didn't pursue this line of thinking very far because generally I make my own reservations. I suspected this was the case in this particular instance.

I did spend some time trying to parse all of the anxiety I experienced on my visit home.  I expected some but was frankly overwhelmed by the amount and the volume of the anxiety, and how difficult it was to dislodge.  

Sometimes I think the length of my sobriety and all of the time I've spent trying to enlarge my spiritual life should protect me from the foibles of the material world.  Ah, callow youth.  I'm a lot better than I used to be but I'm NEVER going to be insulated from problems of money, ego, and sex.  It's not possible.  Ain't going to happen.

In the last two months I've packed up my life and moved 1000 miles away - a wonderful move, to be sure, but a huge sea change.  I've lost a beloved pet.  I've tried to reconstruct my life in a new city.  Then I head home, a trip generally fraught with some nice booby-traps and land mines.  I was on shaky spiritual ground before I left.  Not because I was neglecting my spiritual life but because I had weathered some serious assaults on my serenity by problems of money and ego.  

It was tough sledding.  I could have handled it better but I probably did about as well as could be expected.

Musings

I try to practice the ABLs of recovery – Always Be Learning.  Just when I think I have it all figured out I discover that I have almost nothing figured out.  In fact, I’m totally in the dark.  There are no lights anywhere.  There are no matches.  There are not two sticks to rub together to get the dimmest, most ineffectual light.  You know the part where god said: “Let there be light.”  I’m in darkness roughly equivalent to the darkness right before that light came on.

 I’m in an airport halfway home and I’m damned glad to be there.  My trip, in my opinion, was effective and consequential but not very pleasant.  I couldn’t get passed some of the dynamics of old family relationships that trigger some pretty crappy behaviors.  Actually, I think my outside behavior was OK – it was what was going on inside my head that was so disturbing.  Think: Genghis Kahn and his Mongol Horde with automatic weapons.  If one could be arrested for what one thinks one Seaweed would be in a deep, dank dungeon somewhere far, far away.

I’m glad I made the trip.  I got to see a bunch of dear, dear friends that I miss a lot.  I spent some time with my family and I think it was something that needed to be done.  My parents have deteriorated significantly in my absence and the next 6 months could – should – see some big changes.  I wouldn’t know how to be a steward of these changes without being there for 10 days.  My sister, who is doing the lion’s share of the caretaking, probably doesn’t see the extent of the changes because they’ve happened so slowly over such a long period of time.

I found the whole thing upsetting, to be honest about it.  These family members love me and it’s hard to see the deterioration and it’s hard to feel so uncomfortable with my outlook on the relationships.  I’m  very much a guy who doesn’t often care what people think of me but what these people think is incredibly significant.  Stuff that I brush off with a laugh coming from almost anyone in the world sticks in my craw when it comes from my family.

I think my folks appreciated what we got accomplished.  I think my behavior was OK – it’s not like I’m known for my tolerance and calm demeanor and patient, sunny disposition.  Most people see it as a good visit if I don’t throw a TV out of an open window.  I realize – even before the trip – that I have plenty of work to do on my spiritual insides.  I know that there are always going to be people, places, and things that I’m going to have trouble with.  I’m a human being, after all – trapped in the material form of a god on earth, of course – so I can expect continuing problems with money, power, and sex.

 It’s the nature of the package.

The Teased

Gossip:  To talk about someone else's private or personal business, especially in a way that spreads that information.

I'm fascinated by how itchy my trigger finger is when it comes to my family.  I pride myself on at least working on my tolerance and understanding with people in general but, man, does that go out the window when it comes to my blood relatives.  I think that part of the phenomenon is that there's such a large body of work that I can access.  When someone I know doesn't treat me very well I'm pretty good at giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Even when my toes get trampled more than once I find that whatever anger and pissiness and desire for revenge I hork up evaporates like mist in the morning sun when the opportunity presents itself for me to deliver a crippling blow.  It isn't worth my peace of mind.  I take a lot because I don't get the satisfaction that I used to with silly little emotional victories, often over people I barely know or don't care that much about.

But with my family I have the patience of a shrew.  If you step on my toes a couple of times or a couple of dozen times I can default to patience but if you do it a few hundred thousand times I wise up.  The problem for me is that I almost never feel good when I do the retaliation thing even if I deserve to do it and the family member who is the target of my witty barbed witticism deserves it richly.  I hate that I've developed a conscience, however weak and vestigial it might be.

One of my blood relative families has it awfully good in our material world.  This is really neither here nor there and none of my concern - it certainly isn't any of my business - but they seem to think that this affords them a higher position in the human pecking order.  Again, none of my business but they trot out this opinion in my presence far too often.  My belief is that if you're talking about other people behind their backs then you're talking about me behind my back.  I play it close to the vest with gossipers - I don't want to give them any more ammunition than I have to.

A lot of the time people that engage in mean-spirited teasing are very thin skinned about getting teased themselves.  And I notice that they hide behind a veneer of innocence and tease and tease and tease, exclaiming: "Hey, why are you getting upset?  I'm just joking!" when the teasing becomes too much for the teased.

I may be too far gone to do much beyond cope with these relationships.

Crazy Train

Here's the truth: I am thinking of blowing something up if I have to spend one more minute with any member of my family.  I mean guns, big guns, machine guns.  I do a pretty good job with a lot of my relationships but my family presents problems that I have trouble transcending.  Buttons, buttons, and more buttons.  Big buttons, buttons with "Push Here" on them, buttons flashing with bright neon lights.  Most of the things that bug me aren't a big deal but I react vociferously.  I can't seem to help myself.  I'm around people who are far more irritating all of the time and I barely break a sweat but these people drive me CRAZY!

Part of the deal is that I have a lot of history with these people.  

Seaweed's Crystal Ball

I haven't been back to The Old City in about a year and a half.  I haven't seen my father in that time - I saw my mother a bit last winter when she visited us in Vacation City.  Holy shit, what a sea change has occurred in that time!  Holy shit!  Being very old must be like being very young - stuff changes fast.

Like a lot of people my parents don't want to leave their home.  Fair enough - they've been there 55 years.  My sister keeps an eye on them to make sure that things aren't getting too out of control and we're trying to be careful to respect their wishes.  Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially by their children.  In "The World According to Seaweed" - a very, very bad, scary world - they should have moved to a retirement home about 10 light years ago and, yes, I know that a light year is a distance and not a time, but it just sounds so impressively long.

I've spent a lot of time with them this week and they're clearly way past the time when they would have benefited from some help.  My dad is almost too physically feeble to move around and this terrifies him, and my mom is drifting mentally.  They aren't eating well; they aren't bathing regularly; the house is getting messy - it's not what I would want for them.

So . . . do I try to make them do what I think they should do,  given my track record in doing things not in the best interests of anyone?  Or do I try to be of service when asked, keeping my nose out of their business, risking a fall or a fire or something like that?  Sometimes when failing people leave their home and go into a retirement place they really thrive and sometimes it's the death of them.  Let me get out my crystal ball and see into the future. . . .

Normally my crystal ball is used to help me find my car keys or a glass of drinking water.  It's not a high end crystal ball.  I don't pull it out for big projects because I don't have a good track record of getting things right with this particular crystal ball.  It's more of a reverse crystal ball. It's good if you want to know what not to do.

I definitely don't know what to do here.

Large and In Charge

I am not in charge.

No one is interested in having me run their lives.  They're fine making their own decisions.  They believe that they're better qualified to manage their own affairs than I am.  My persuasive arguments don't sway them.  They look at the state of my affairs and they're not overly impressed with what they see.  They figure that they're better off taking their own chances.  And this is just about everyone, not only people who seem to be on the upswing in the world.  I'm talking about children, the homeless, and guys in prison.

God is not interested in my plans for his world.  God is comfortable in his position.  God has had this particular position for a long, long time.  It doesn't bother him that I'm constantly sticking suggestions in the suggestion box - which leads directly to a paper shredder, by the way - but it doesn't change his mind.

I'm not that smart is the main issue here.

Accept . . Accepta. gack . . . Acceptance

I heard this from a man who doesn't have as much going for him as some of us by which I mean me.

"Today I can accept people for who they are - not for who I want them to be."

Where do these people come from?  Where can I find these people?  And how come they're so much smarter than me?  I pray and meditate and write and still I can't duplicate the simple beauty of a statement like that.

I can only hope for that kind of wisdom.  But not content with projecting my bullshit template onto someone else I actively try to force them into said template, with predictable results.  It's bad enough that you're not who I want you to be so I try to force you to change and then I get mad at you when you don't make the change.  Arrogance at an advanced level.

Accept someone for who they are.  Can you believe that shit?

Dude Says

I was at a meeting yesterday wearing my typical garb: old suit jacket from Goodwill, pork pie hat clamped down on fly-away hair, Simpson's T-Shirt, dress slacks, clogs.  Dude shows up late, reaches over the guy sitting next to me to shake my hand enthusiastically when I return from my second cup of coffee, two more than I actually need.

Dud approaches me after the meeting: "It's great to see you!" he exclaims.

"It's great to see you, too," I say, somewhat warily.  I hate it when I've spoken with someone but can't remember a thing about the conversation.  It's not rare when this happens - I've definitely got some circuit damage up there, compounded by the fact that I don't generally listen to other people when they talk.

Willie told me the first thing he does when he reads my posts is to skim the text to see if he's mentioned.  I admire that level of shallowness in my friends.

Anyway, dude says: "Will I see you back at the house?"

Ah.  Dude thinks he knows me from a rehab or detox or some other sober living arrangement. I can't imagine he thinks I'm homeless but SuperK isn't so sure. 

Most people would be offended.  I fell in love.

Pew! Pew!!

I've come to the conclusion, after an extended, vigorous session of future-tripping, that everything will go better for me if I can keep my head down and my mouth shut during my upcoming trip.  I suspect this is what I'm supposed to be doing all of the time.

"Seaweed," my sponsor used to whisper in my ear, seductively.  "Do me a favor and try not to talk today.  Whatever comes out of your mouth is just going to make it worse."

I've been told that army men used to practice for the fear and terror of actually being shot at by actually being shot at during basic training.  The exercise was to crawl across a field while machine gun bullets whistled over your head.  I guess the bullets were aimed well above the ground so that the exercise was being shot at and not being actually shot.  Keep your head down, keep crawling, keep moving forward.  If you get up you might be able to get across the field more quickly but you also might get plugged.  

Doesnt this sound like bullshit?  Maybe I saw it in a cartoon or as part of a hallucination in an LSD fugue state.  I can see Foghorn Leghorn losing tail feathers to an errant round more readily than I can see actual kids getting strafed.  Anyway, it's a great visual for me.  SuperK and I were discussing how I should handle a potential series of conversations with one of my relatives.  She kept making solid, reasonable suggestions that made a lot of sense, all of which I had tried at least 30 times in the past with the result being a round right in the middle of my forehead every single time.  I'm not smart but I'm old - I've tried everything more than once.  I have a bullet-riddle helmet to prove it.

I'm also not in the mainstream in my attitudes about political, religious, moral, and social attitudes in The Old City.  Like most places these polarized days no one is interested in hearing anything but their own opinions aped back to them and when the aping doesn't go down the default position is yelling out those non-reciprocated opinions more loudly.

"I'm not deaf," I say.  "I just don't agree with you."

The final insult is to be repeatedly insulted for having the non-aped opinion.  I don't think The Old City is particularly unique in this regard but that distinction doesn't make the insulting any funner to endure.

Whenever SuperK made another very reasonable suggestion I would pretend to be crawling on the ground.

"Pew!  Pew!  Rat-a-tattattat," I'd say, making my best gun sounds.

There's a great scene in the Simpson's where Homer has to connect a wire to a live electrical circuit.  He has two choices: blue and red.  He tries red and gets the shit shocked out of him.  He tries blue then with the same result.  "Hmmm," he says.  "Maybe I'll try red."

That's me.  That's what I do.

F.F.A.

Free Floating Anxiety:  Prone to anxiety over nothing at all.

I told SuperK today what I had been in free float about the last few days.

"You need to find some other things to worry about," she said.

I told Willie what was going on.

"You're going home?" he said incredulously.  "I visited home last weekend and my mom was on vacation and I still got about half-freaked out."

I told California Tom what was going on.

"Yeah," he said.  "I'm not the guy my family wanted me to be, either."

I mentioned it in passing to Jimi Hendrix.

"Rainy Day, Float Away.
Lay back and groove on a rainy day."

Into The Void

Vacuum:  A region of space that contains no matter.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I've been learning a lot of good stuff about prayer in Vacation City.  I've not been a big fan of prayer historically for a variety of reasons, mostly because I suck at it.  I spend way too much time praying for help in getting the things that I want or in avoiding the things that I find objectionable.  I'm also big on praying that other people, places, and things help me get the things that I want or avoid objectionable things.

This is crappy praying.  I've found that god has a technique for people like me.  God provides the things that I ask for; however, god is quite literal and pretty creative in answering my self-serving prayers.  If I pray for a better relationship with my boss I get fired, that kind of stuff.  It's funny as long as it's happening to someone else.

People here are not as overtly religious as some of the other places I've lived.  This, in a general sense, is not good or bad but it does fit well into my world view.  I was told exactly how to pray when I was growing up - the exact words that I should use - and I don't do anything anybody tells me, often to my detriment.  Here the praying is more along the lines of the loose garment theory.  One old-timer tells me that the nature of prayer is not to change the world but the person doing the praying.

Meditation is a little trickier.  When I try to sit quietly I find that my mind fills up with a lot of noise post-haste.  It sucks in more voices and general cacophony than one person has the ability to endure.  It has gotten better over the years but it's still a low-grade riot in there most sessions.

I feel better when I do it.  I don't understand why, exactly, but I end up calmer.  I feel better even when I have a session where the voices have stormed the ramparts and sacked the castle.  It seems that the effort is the thing.  I'd love to hear god talk directly to me in a lovely baritone with a hint of an Irish lilt but I'm good when the Mongol horde is in control, too.

Void:  An empty space; a vacuum.

My favorite Black Sabbath song is "Into The Void."

Rocket engines burning fuel so fast,
Up into the night sky they blast,
Through the universe the engines whine,
Could it be the end of man and time?

This is probably symptomatic of my trouble with meditation.  I'm just sayin'.