The Seawinds of Change

As a guy who is fascinated by change I wonder why it is that I hate change so much.  I crave it as much as I fear it.  And I wonder why it is that I assume that any change is going to be for the worse.  I almost never visualize things getting better when I'm in the midst of change - I see disaster, calamity, pestilence  bewilderment.  But if I'm looking at long-term change then I can hallucinate up all kinds of wonderful scenarios.  

I wonder why I expect bad things to happen and grow deeply suspicious when I'm in the midst of good things.  When something bad happens - and by "bad" I mean "I didn't get exactly what I wanted exactly when I wanted it" - I shake my head knowingly.  "See," I think.  "I knew this wasn't going to work out."  But when it's something pleasant to my mind or body, I feel guilty.  "Why is this happening?"  I think.  "I don't deserve this.  It's going to turn to shit."

This is why I talk to drunks every day.  I have very little concept of human reality.

Really Peevish Seaweed

I was stuck in close quarters recently with some people who irk me.  They have irked me consistently with very few periods of irk-free time.  When I'm going to be in these situations I try to prepare myself emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  I ask to be of service; I acknowledge all of the benefits this spiritual program gives me; I freely allow that few are as irksome as me; I remember that everyone has personality problems that irk others - and still I act like an ass eventually.  Some days I last longer than others but Peevish Seaweed comes out, inappropriately, and I feel bad about it.  

Yesterday, as my peevishness was near full boil I got a call from Willie.  I was trapped in a vehicle with the irksome folks so I couldn't answer the call and say things like: "Willie, you can't believe how irksome these people are.  I'm contemplating acts that will get me incarcerated from 3 to 5 years."  I looked at the name on my caller ID and laughed.  I felt better for a couple of minutes before resuming my rampage.

With some people I can't seem to ever do it right.  Whatever I do is going to cost me, whether I'm doing it wrong or not. Things seem to get twisted around until I'm the bad guy.  I lost my temper with someone who said my address made me a snob; this after warning me to stay out of the neighborhood because it wasn't safe.  ``````````````````````````````````` Family can be tough this way - most of us find it unpractical to just totally blow family members off even though they may be behaving in a way that we wouldn't tolerate with anyone else.  That's a fact of life - the relationships that are the most important to us can be the most problematic.

Peevish Seaweed

Some more time spent with people who push all of my buttons until they break, then install new, evil buttons so that they can continue their button-pushing ways.  It reminds me of the rats-on-cocaine experiment; the one where a rat is give a dose of coke when it pushes a button.  Once it learns this fact it pushes the button to get more blow so many times it breaks the button.  The rat, alas, cannot install a new button, lacking opposable thumbs.

Sometimes - especially with family and friends - we can't flush a relationship.  We can't just walk away, as attractive as that might be.  We need to learn lessons of . . . well, I'm not far enough along in my emotional growth to have learned any lessons at all in these cases.  I still react peevishly and then feel bad about myself later.

It's a thing that I do.

First: Meditate

The following is a true story.  

It is mostly a true story except for the parts I made up.  Some of these parts I made up on purpose and some of them are my attempts to re-create a true story that I read in the newspaper, but can no longer remember clearly, even though it was just yesterday.  And I have to assume it's a true story.  Maybe the person who told the story is a big, fat liar like me and the reporter who interviewed her was too lazy or corrupt to check up on the facts.

This lady had some bad, bad thing happen to her.  She was so angry at the person who did this thing that it affected all other parts of her life.  She was very unhappy.

Somehow she talked her way into a personal appointment with the Dali Lama.  This seems pretty unlikely but you never know.  She shared her tale with the DL.  

He said: "You should do two things.  First: meditate.  Then forgive the person who wronged you."

She said: "I can't forgive this man."

The DL leaned over and tapped her on the knee, smiled: "Well, meditate then."

I meditate on a daily basis.  I really do - I'm not lying here.  I'm not any good at it, I don't think, but I give it a whirl.  It really helps, this crappy meditating, but I still often begrudge the time, what with all of my busy activities, watching college basketball and drooling in the sun and everything.

That Dali Lama can't be totally wrong.

Meh

So my parents are coming out from The Old Town to Vacation City for a three week visit.  They are definitely coming if by "definitely" you mean "maybe a 50-50 chance."  I actually bought tickets for them while on the phone with my mother, as she asked me to do things like get each of them window seats that were right next to each other.  She must think she's coming out on a corporate jet - a corporate spaceship.  I was happy to do the work, and a little surprised; cash on the barrel-head is no small feat for my prudent folks.  "Maybe they really are coming out," I thought.  Then they also bought trip cancellation insurance; I thought this was wise but a little suspicious.  An "out" so to speak.

My parents are going to spend 2 weeks with SuperK and me, 1 week with my cousin.  They're actually a lot more comfortable with my cousin -- and just about every one else with whom they're even remotely related to--  than they are with me.  To be honest about it I think they're more comfortable with random strangers they meet wandering highway medians, wearing tin hats, muttering to themselves, than they are with me.  This is OK - I know I'm a pain in the ass.  I don't have to be told I'm a pain in the ass,  I don't think I'm always a pain in the ass anymore but I'm definitely a pain in the ass.  And I'm definitely the odd-ball in our extended family, the guy who drank warm beer and cheap whiskey and smoked dope with a 3 foot bong.

At some point the percentages changed: 2 weeks with my cousin and 1 week with me.  I spoke to mom today and she said that she planned to "come in to stay with you for a couple of days."  And my father is no longer coming.  He's worried that there won't be anything for him to do out here.  He doesn't have a lot of exotic activities.  I could easily duplicate all of the things he does here and he wouldn't have to leave the cottage.  I have access to The TV and to newspapers.  Those are the two most exotic things he does.  Mom is worried about an allergic reaction to our cat.  I personally have never seen her have an allergic reaction to anybody's cat unless she's someplace that she doesn't want to be at which point her allergies become unbearable.  Cat allergies on Demand, so to speak.

I don't see dad staying alone for 3 weeks in the middle of the winter in the Midwest.  I bet he puts the kibosh on mom's trip, too.  I see it happening.  If she does make the trip I predict a medical emergency that will cause her to cut her visit short and head home.

Really, all of this is not upsetting and almost expected.  I'm not a rocket scientist but I've learned to learn lessons in The Program.  People can treat me however they want -that's their  prerogative.   I can put up with it or I can distance myself from the behavior.  I've been treated like this for a long time; I realize that my behavior is partly to blame; I believe that I've made a lot of effort to compromise, to honor the wishes of others.  Not as much as I could have but it's enough, already.  Still, distancing oneself from one's family is one of the harder things that I do.

I'd love to see my folks.  If they come, great; if they don't, I'm fine with that, too.  I'm not excited about seeing them and I'm not horrified by the prospect, either.  I'm not hot and I'm not cold - I'm meh.

Meh.

The Mayflower Hotel

There's a story in The Book about an early slippery experience of one of our co-founders.  He was in the lobby of a hotel, struggling with the consequences of a bad day, standing between the crowded hotel bar and a glass covered directory of local churches.  He contemplated the bar, wondering if he could enter and drink glasses of ginger ale, a hopeful look on his face.  Yeah, as we say: "If you keep going to a barbershop you're eventually going to get a haircut."  Instead, he started calling churches, eventually finding a minister who directed him to his first meeting with our the man who would be his co-founder.

I was reminded of a similar experience early on in my sobriety.  I was visiting the Johnsonville Sausage factory in Johnsonville, WI, in some godawful winter month.  Making the experience especially trying was the fact that my appointment was with a second shift supervisor.  I navigated miles of pitch black country roads, snow piled car-high on each side of the road, trying to read road signs in the dark, before locating Johnsonville.

I descended a gentle grade into the downtown area.  On my left was the massive sausage plant, huge clouds of steam billowing out into the frigid air, giving the scene an apocalyptic look; on my right was a small bar.  There were a few pickup trucks out front.  The windows glowed with neon beer signs: Bud, Pabst, Schlitz.  Neon is a very compelling light source.  It made the bar look inviting, warm.  And this was not a nice bar - this was a crappy small town bar that undoubtedly catered to line workers making hot dogs.

I pulled into the sausage lot, never seriously considering going to the bar.  But it called to me.  It looked so familiar.  I had been in dozens of bars just like it; I had never been in a bratwurst plant, talking to a process engineer,  trying to sell a 3 foot tall stainless steel steam filter, the purpose of which I could only guess at.  Removing some of the hog snout and pig feet bits from the sausage flowing into the casings holding your liverwurst, probably.

That's the thing about victories in sobriety.  They lead to more victories.  That call stiffened by spine a bit.  I was tougher, more prepared.  I had did it once and I could do it again.

Simple Seaweed

Meeting etiquette:
If you want to flatter someone remember their name.

If you want to totally blow someone away, remember a couple of details of something that they said at a meeting.  When I was finally beginning to participate actively and regularly in my recovery I was stunned when people I could have sworn that I had never seen would come up and say: "Hi, Seaweed.  How did the job interview go?"  I'd peer stupidly into their faces, trying to remember where I had seen them before.

If you want to own someone, tell them that you liked what they shared.  A guy at the Vacation meetings came up to me a few days ago and said: "I'm always careful to listen closely when you talk."  I tried to give him the keys to my car: "Take it, just take it!" I was shouting hysterically, so grateful that someone, anyone, knew who I was.

This was a meeting I didn't like initially, and by "didn't like" I mean "the crowd wasn't parting like the Red Sea before the staff of Moses when I walked into the room."  They weren't doing it right: the meeting was too early or too late or something; it was kind of big but there weren't enough people there; the format sucked; people ignored me except when they wouldn't leave me alone; and on and on it goes.

I'm always reminded to keep my expectations low - I don't have to sear my image into the mind of everyone I meet - I just have to remember their name.

Three Hideous Horsemen, At Least

I was at a book study this morning.  A few passages caught my attention . . . 

"As we become subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down.  It thickened, ever becoming blacker.  Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding, companionship, and approval.  Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair."

I love the florid writing of our supremely egotistical founder - it reminds me of what I do.  

But first of all, I'm not sure that "bewilderment" is a hideous anything.  I bet the other 3 Horsemen are constantly laughing at Bewilderment:  "Hey, Bewilderment, I'm gonna spread some agony and pain.  What do you have going on: mild frustration?"  Why not have Pestilence or Horror or Agony as the fourth Horseman?  That would get my attention.  If I had to choose between Horror and Bewilderment I have to tell you that I'm going with Bewilderment every time.

Bewilderment?  Really?  I've been a little bewildered already this morning and I don't feel too hideous yet.

"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom, and worry.  It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good.  But not so with us in those last heavy days of drinking.  The old pleasures were gone.  They were but memories.  Never could we recapture the great moments of the past.  There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it."

If  I pay attention when we read from the books I hear really great stuff.  All of us are familiar with the despair that bubbles up when we reach that awful, awful, bewildering point when alcohol no longer works.  It's like flicking the light switch and getting no light.  I changed the bulb.  I stuck my finger in the socket and got the shit shocked out of me.  I thought about it for a minute and then tried sticking my finger in the socket again, with predictable results.  I thought for another moment then got a fork - a wet fork - which I stuck in the socket.  This went on for a long time with my only efforts at fixing the situation consisting of various and sundry ways of increasing the flow of electricity to the switch so the shocks got worse and worse, or finding ever more conductive materials to stick in the socket.  I just couldn't believe that alcohol was no longer working.

I was a chemist at the end, a pharmacist.  I was trying new cocktails of drugs and alcohol to see if I could locate a combination of substances that would produce that wonderful feeling of release that I used to get.  A heartbreaking obsession - a new miracle of control.

Never did find it.  Never did.

There He Is - There's Seaweed

I heard this at a meeting: "I never pass up a chance to be miserable."  Very wise counsel from an old-timer.

This morning the chair read the part in The Book that compares the alcoholic to the director of a play, the guy in charge of everything, the guy in control, the guy who is not powerless.  You know the sentiment:  "If only everyone would . . . "  If only I could manage things well then everyone would be happy and by "everyone" I mean "me."  If only I didn't have any problems with people, places, and things, then I'd be happy.  If only I wasn't so powerless.

Everyone loves unsolicited advice.  Please, please, tell me how to live my life, unbidden.  Some guy said to me when I was struggling to get sober: "Seaweed, you don't have a job or a car or any money.  Your family can't stand you, you're not in a relationship, and you don't have any friends.  Your furniture is constructed out of cinder blocks and lumber.  I don't know what that thing is that you're driving but I wouldn't get it going faster than  35 MPH.  So maybe, just maybe, you're not in the strongest position to be doling out advice."

I have been going to these 7AM meetings for about 6 weeks.  I didn't like them at first because no one was fawning over me, welcoming me effusively, putting me on a pedestal.  There wasn't any buzz when I walked in the room: "There's Seaweed.  There he is, that's Seaweed."  But now I'm starting to get a few waves and nods of recognition - I wouldn't call it buzz exactly but I don't feel like I'm being ignored, either.

Maybe the meetings really are OK.

Bonds of Sobriety

I spoke on the phone to my friend Willie yesterday.  He was in a good spot so after a minute he asked me how I was doing.  I had to breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes, prone on the floor, to stop hyperventilating.  When I had recovered my composure I shared what was going on in my life.  Frankly, to paraphrase, I said something along these lines: "I spent all morning counting my diamonds, took a nap, and then tallied up my sacks of gold in the afternoon."

He said: "Hey, the next time I'm in a meeting can I tell everyone about the troubles of my friend Stevie Seaweed?"

I said: "When the phone rings and you see it's me, feel free to answer with 'Bleep you,' and then hang up.

The bonds of sobriety.

Maybe today I should do something nice for someone.  And not tell them it was me.

Undateable!

A buddy from The Program recently started to date a woman from his home group.  He's a very nice man but still: there's room for some improvement in the dateability department.  He's tentative and lacking in self-confidence, and not entirely sure who he is yet.  I know the woman and like her, too, but she's kind of stuck in one place in her recovery.  She hasn't changed much since I've known her.  I don't think she's doing very much in the working-the-Steps department; a very important department as we all know.

When I told SuperK that they were going out she said: "He won't be good enough for her."  Not because he wasn't good enough but because she doesn't appear to be ready for a relationship of any depth or breadth.  She seems like a person who could find the flaw in perfection.

Sure enough, she ended it.  My buddy was upset.  Rejection hurts when you're young and when you're old and at all points in-between.  He spent a lot of time trying to figure out what flaws of his she found objectionable and just cause for dumping him.

He told me her reasoning - which I found to be suitable for a 16 year old - and that she passed her thoughts along via email - maybe OK for the 16 year old's slightly older sister.  When I'm talking about relationships to my friends, I try to be generic in my comments, diligently bland, suggesting that we all need to start the investigation on failed interpersonal relationships on the inside because that's where the solution can always be found.  At the same time, gimme a break.  Sometimes other people fuck up.  When that's the case, we can decide how magnanimous and forgiving we want to be.  We're generally happier when we're high on the magnanimity/forgiveness scale.

The solution is always with me even if the problem can be found elsewhere.

When I Was Getting Sober . . .

If I ever turn into one of those people who say: "When I was getting sober . . . " please shoot me. 

You know the kind: "When I was getting sober the old-timers wouldn't let me talk for the first 20   years.  They said: 'Shut your mouth and keep it shut - maybe some day we'll let you say something.  Or go to the bathroom.'  We didn't get coffee then - we drank battery acid and we liked  it.  If you were good they'd let you put in some crushed glass and cigarette butts for flavor, 'cos the coffee was shit.  And we liked it like that."

Gimme a break.

Topa Topa

I took another long hike up into the hills today.  I was on the trail for a good four hours and I saw two other people.  One of the encounters was with a dude pedaling a mountain bike up the long ascent; we passed as I was hobbling back down on my sore feet.  We each held up our right hand, palm outward, and left it at that.  Not a word was spoken.  All I could hear the entire time was the sound of the small creek I was following, the wind, and my boots crunching on the trail.

I spent some time thinking but mostly I tried to concentrate on my breath.  Walking meditation.  Wearing myself out physically so whatever bullshit the phantoms who inhabit my head are unspooling can be more easily ignored.   When I reached the crest of the mountain I sat and ate my lunch.  I could see the ocean in the distance and down to the valley floor.  It was really nice, really quiet.

No mountain lions.

Chronic Condition

A chronic condition is a human health condition that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects

 This from an excellent editorial about lying: "My own unscientific armchair diagnosis is that like other chronically unsatisfied people, the daily business of living caused my father despair."  The quote really doesn't have anything to do about lying.  I just thought it was funny that a quote that I really liked was buried in the text of an article about lying.  Being a liar and all.  

I thought: "Yes!  Yes, that's me!  Frustrated by the slog through the mud that is my miserable existence I'm chronically unsatisfied!"

Oh, brother.  No wonder I don't have any friends.  What a load of self-indulgent horsecrap.

I was at a men's 12 Step recovery retreat many years ago, talking to an old friend.  I was commenting on my general, consistent lack of gratitude.

He said this: "You believe that you're ungrateful but I see in the way you behave that you're not."

I have to remember that there is what's inside my head - self-indulgent horsecrap - and there's what is really going on in the world.

Hot Leads And Petty Crooks

I wish I could see into the future.  No, wait, I'm glad I can't see into the future.

I wish that people wanted me to be of service in a pre-approved manner.

"What can I do to help here?" I'd say, earnestly, willing to be very helpful.
"This and that," they'd reply.
I'd furrow my brow and wrinkle my nose as if I had detected an objectionable smell.  "What else you got?" I'd say.

I went to an early meeting today.  Afterwards, I said hello to a woman that I have spoken with casually a couple of times here in Vacation City.  She had a hot lead on a temporary vacation rental and she wanted to pass the owner's phone number along to me.  She motioned for me to follow her outside, somewhat furtively.  She began to speak in hushed tones.  She started to tell a long story about a neighbor, someone with whom she was having some serious problems.  She pulled out a little plastic folder - like you would keep grocery coupons in - and began showing me various legal documents describing law suits and counter suits between her and this woman.  Her neighbor had a rap sheet full of petty fraud and small claims court disputes.

I wasn't very interested in all of this minutiae but I listened politely, occasionally edging closer to my car.  She needed to talk and I do ask to be of  maximum service to my fellow man each morning in my Quiet Time.  Honestly, she has a pretty heavy accent and I was only picking up about half of what she was saying.

"So when you call don't tell her you got her number from me," my friend said.  "She HATES me."

It dawned on me that the whole conversation was about the neighbor who has the vacation rental property.  Her hot lead was with a petty crook with whom has a serious grudge.

These people.

I Wonder Where He Is Now

This popped up in a totally random and very possibly illegal memory bank access, prompted by nothing specific that I'm aware of.  This is how my thinking works.  It's sort of like a free-form hallucinogenic dream.  When I start a conversation based on something that has come up, wraith-like, from my mind people often look away.  They don't feel compelled to talk back.  They hope I'll go away.

SuperK and I were in Belize for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.  We stayed in a motel on the beach about half a mile from Belize City, the locus of the area's bars and nightclubs.  As is our habit on The Eve - a.k.a. Amateur's Night - we stayed in and probably were asleep before the ball dropped.

The next morning I was sitting on the balcony sipping on a coffee when I saw this guy heading my way from downtown.  He had either slept outside somewhere or not gone to bed at all, and he was drunk.  He was walking as if he had two large rubber bands hooked on his belt - one of them was pulling him forward and the other was yanking him back.  He would walk normally for a few steps; then his upper body would begin moving faster than his feet, until he was leaning so far forward his torso seemed to defy gravity - I was sure he was going to fall flat on his face.  Suddenly, he would almost stop his forward progress and jerk upright, pausing a second, waving gently in the wind,  before moving on.  But now the giant rear rubber band would spring into action and he would slowly, slowly begin leaning backward until he was at about a 45 degree angle.  He didn't fall.  He made his way down the beach, limboing forward and backward but never falling.  

It was hypnotic.

Lost Things

I would like to say that I have begun to lose things but that would be a lie.  I have always lost things - now I lose more things with a much greater frequency.  I've tried to analyze this trait, to understand it better,  but I really gets nowhere.  Maybe I'm distracted; I'm crazy; I'm ADHD; I'm getting old, and it's going to do nothing but get worse.

I lose so many things that I've had to create a category of Things Which Must Not Be Lost.  These things are important or irreplaceable or expensive or a combination of all three.  Things in this category have gained admission to a new category: Things Which May Only Be Put In Certain Places.  This all started with watches.  I have a couple of watches and I was always misplacing them.  One day I went out into the back yard to do some yoga.  The watch was hindering my fluid movements - as fluid as a svelte Swedish pre-teen - so I decided to put the watch in the toe of one of my shoes; inside the shoe because that was the stupidest place I could come up with.   When I was done I took my shoes and my yoga mat back inside.  Sometime later I noticed the watch was missing.  I had NO idea where it was.  Because this was the nicer of my watches finding it wasn't something that could be put off until later.  Any of the fleeting thought processes that might help me retrieve the watch were ebbing quickly.   Of course, I blamed SuperK for the lost watch so that I could guilt her into helping me search.  We looked for a long, long time before I remembered where the watch was.  She still tells people that story when she's mad at me.  Now I am permitted to put my watch in one of three places: my desk, my watch drawer, and I can't remember what the third place is.

The next things to earn their own category were my two mouth guards.  I grind my teeth when I sleep - apparently I'm not able to relax even when I'm unconscious.  These aren't the wussy plastic things that pro football or hockey players wear - this is a $650 custom piece of composite plastic that you could literally run a Mack truck over without harming it.  Now you'd probably think that something that was in my mouth all night would go right under the faucet but you'd be thinking wrong.  I put them everywhere.  They are on the List.

Lately I've been losing sunglasses.  I used to wear sunglasses all the time because my contact lenses made my eyes particularly sensitive to light.  Now that I'm old I can't see anything anyhow so I'm always hooking my sunglasses on my shirt or putting them on top of my head so I can walk around asking: "Has anyone seen my sunglasses?"  

A pair took a hike this week and they were actually AWOL for a couple of days.  I had written them off.   I went out to the car this morning to get something out of the trunk.  I opened the lid and stood there for a moment - I had forgotten what I wanted to get.  I looked down and saw the wayward sunglasses - I had put them in a narrow ridge that seats the trunk lid.  Somehow, some way, when the trunk was closed the mechanism pivoted so that the glasses, still in that narrow ridge, weren't crushed.  I had no recollection of putting them there.

The question I had to ask myself was this: why would I have put something breakable in a place where they were certain to be broken?  It would have made more sense to lay them down directly under the front wheels of the car.  

Nothing.  I had nothing to say.

Euphoric Excitement

"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."

“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.”

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 . . .”

“True ambition is not what we thought it was.  True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of god.”

“Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?”

I put together little cheat sheets on matters that are bothering me.  Then, when I get frustrated by something, I review this stuff.  There is a lot of really good stuff here - I should read my own notes to myself, they might help me get better.  It looks good written down and it sounds good when I speak it but, boy, it can be hard to put into action.

These quotes arose out of a period of particularly strong frustration with my need to be Important and Amused.  I think life should be a big roller coaster ride of fun and excitement and I get irritated when it isn't, which is most of the time.  

As you can see, it's not like the subject isn't addressed in our great literature - it's that I don't want to listen to the solution.

Mountain Lions!

So I took a long hike today in the mountains about 15 miles from where I'm staying.  My cousin didn't want me to go alone - pretty good advice, actually, which means I totally ignored it.  She's concerned about mountain lions.  I guess she thinks that if more than one person is around then the mountain lions won't attack.  I don't know why that would be the case.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that if she and I were attacked by mountain lions that I would slather her in barbecue sauce and serve her to the mountain lions on fine bone china,  all the while running like hell in the opposite direction.  Plus, I'm pretty sure that mountain lions are nocturnal and that there weren't ANY FUCKING MOUNTAIN LIONS AROUND!

Rattlesnakes, bears, and the ubiquitous mountain lions have all come up in recent conversations with my relatives vis-a-vis hiking.  Nobody says anything if I walk around the city streets where I'm much more likely to be mugged or hit by a car.  I have two standard responses.  The most popular one to comments about potential threats to my person is this: "If all of that LSD I did in college didn't kill me then I'm not worried about (fill in the blank with whatever threat is being proposed)."  This, I think, is pretty funny but it's not great news to share with relatives.  My fall back snappy response is to point out that "I'm much more likely to be killed and/or maimed driving to the location containing whatever threat that you're interested in trying to frighten me with."

Of course, I spent the first half of the hike searching hard for mountain lions - I'm prone to anxiety and incredibly suggestible to anything that sounds remotely scary.  I briefly carried a rock which I'm sure that any mountain lions that happened to be watching found incredibly funny.  They were probably laughing so hard that they lost their appetites and just forgot to attack and kill and/or maim me.  The good thing about a long, uphill hike is that the physical exertion takes all of the fun out of worrying about ridiculous things.  Eventually, I settled into a nice cadence and tired myself out.  It was a beautiful day: cool but sunny, with unbelievable views of the valley and out to the ocean.  I was by myself most of the time.  There weren't any sounds of civilization to be heard - nothing but wind and rustling vegetation and the sounds of the creek running next to the trail.  That and my ragged breathing.  

Guess what?  No mountain lions.

You?

No one is thinking about you.
Really, they're not.
They're thinking about themselves.  They are doing anything to you, at you, because of you, and toward you in a general fashion.  They are little engines of self-will and they're thinking about themselves.

No one is thinking about you.  Sorry, but it's true.

Social Media and Seaweed

An old friend of mine posted a short video on FB this morning.  It was of a political nature.  It was on the far end of one of the ends of the political spectrum and it provoked some heated remarks from people who inhabit the other far end of the spectrum - this is unfortunately what passes for political discourse in our country today.  Honestly, I think my buddy did it to stir up some shit more than anything else.

I thought the responses were so extreme that they bordered on clinical paranoia so I decided to post some shit of my own - it was tongue-in-cheek but I was going to do nothing but rile the feathers of the conspiracy theorists.  I know something about "restraint of tongue and pain," having learned many lessons the hard way so I summoned SuperK for an editorial review before I went all electric on this guy's ass.  She laughed at the ridiculousness of the comments, flashed me a thumbs up, so onto FB it went.

A moment later I deleted the post.  In my morning meditation I always ask that I be shown better ways of being of service to my fellow man.  Writing something that was only going to infuriate some one whose mind is totally made up does not fall in the "being of service" category.   It falls more in the "being an asshole" category,"  another category I have some serious experience with.

But, man, it was such a great post - snide, condescending, and inflammatory.  I dearly hated to waste it.

Kinetic

Happiness really IS overrated.  I think that I confuse happiness with excitement.  When I get all worked up about something then I think I'm happy, so I'm always hunting for the next adventure.

Restless, irritable, and discontented.  I know I'm restless.  That's part of the alcoholism equation - we're restless people.  We're people who are on the move - the average meeting that I go to feels like a big wad of repressed kinetic energy, boiling, percolating, waiting to be unleashed.  When I put my cat on my lap - and my cat HATES to be held - she sits there quietly, without struggling, but I know that every fiber of her being is waiting for me to release the slightest bit of pressure.  She explodes off of my lap.  That's me.  I deserve that cat.  I'm ready to go, too.

I'm not as irritable as I used to be but that's faint praise.  I'm not irritable until I get irritated which happens with alarming frequency.  It's the people thing.  People who aren't me strain every fiber of my tolerance to the breaking point.  Why can't they do what I want them to do?  Without asking?

The Airing of Grievances

Happy:    Experiencing the effect of favorable fortune; having the feeling arising from the consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, as peace, tranquility, comfort; contented; joyous.

Happiness really is overrated.  It's over-emphasized at the very least.  That being said I wonder why I spend so much time and effort pursuing it.  It's a phantom, always out of reach, just around the next corner.  Talk about a fool's errand.

I went to an early morning meeting today, a meeting I like.  I was hoping to attend a "good" meeting and by "good"  I mean "a meeting where I get to share to general acclaim and where everyone who talks says something that I think is good" - something that pleases me, conforms to what I think an appropriate recovery M.O. should look like.  Talk about a fool in action and right out of the chute, too.

The meeting really was kind of crappy but that's not the point - I have to remember eventually to take whatever happens in stride.  It's quite the fool who expects a bunch of barely sane alcoholics to get going in anything remotely approaching the same direction.  But today I could feel myself getting increasingly annoyed as events unfurled.  There was some Airing of Grievances quickly by a woman who totally ignored the excellent topic - she clearly had these remarks well prepared before she arrived - followed by some pointed, passive-aggressive cross talk.  If I'm the first person to talk and the next person mentions that sometimes the only thing they're going to take away from today's meeting is a realization that there are some really sick people at meetings, that's cross talk.  Finally, the old timers started in with all of the lies and misremembrances about the Good Old Days when groups of drunks Did It Right.  Shoot me if I ever do that.

I was just an ass in a seat this morning.

Making My Point

I bitch about many things.  Many, many, many things.  I readily acknowledge this.  I'm a bitcher and a fault-finder and pretty much of a pain in the ass in all phases of my game.  If there's something that I bitch about more than cold weather or chilly weather or cool weather or cool, chilly, wet weather at night I'd like to know what it is.  This is a not a new bitch, either - it's an ancient, well-established topic with me.  I would rather be locked in a sauna all day than be a little bit cold.  

I'm sure people get tired of me complaining about the weather, even though I firmly believe that it's a right ensconced in the Constitution somewhere, or maybe it's one of the major amendments.  I've complained about the winter in each of the seven cities where I've lived; I have no expectation whatever that I won't continue to complain about The Cold, by which I mean anything under like maybe 60 degrees - I might be persuaded to tolerate and occasional dip down to 55 but that's pushing it.  The New City has a fairly mild climate - damper than I'm used to but also a lot warmer.  It's the mildest place I've ever lived but it's still crappy in the winter.  One of my buddies in The New City reacts quickly, strongly when I complain about the weather.  I'm sure I do  it too much but I can't help wondering: "What does he care what I think about the weather here?"  He takes it very personally, quick to pounce on the vaguest of weather references.  I'm careful to avoid the subject when I'm around him but he still manages to get pissed at me.  It's as if he has his finger on the trigger, waiting for the topic to arise or forcing the issue when it doesn't.

Yesterday a somewhat stressful series of experiences with some People concluded with a brief discussion of the common practice of fluoride being added to public drinking supplies.  I know that some people don't like this - they believe it's some kind of vast conspiracy by Communists over the last 80 years to control our minds by poisoning our water with nuclear weapons by-products or something like that, despite the assurances of the World Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control, and the American Dental Association.  If I ever get hired as a Communist consultant I'm going to suggest that they try something that works a little more quickly and causes some slightly more serious side effects beyond healthy teeth.  Whatever.  I didn't bring the topic up and I had tolerated just about enough with these folks when the topic came up - I was 2 for 4 in the H.A.L.T. acronym - Hungry Angry Lonely Tired.  I argued with the topic introducer even though there wasn't a snow ball's chance in hell that I was going to change her mind, which I didn't care about anyway.  I started to bring up the conditions in plastics manufacturing plants - where my work took my hundreds of times - where molten plastic laced with proprietary chemicals is used to make the plastic bottles that she drinks distilled water out of.  THAT'S something to worry about

"Why did you argue?" SuperK said in the car.  "What do you care what you she thinks?"

D'oh!

Patience Right Now

When something good happens to me I feel guilty - I'm sure that it's going to be snatched away.  When something bad happens to me I nod my head knowingly - I deserved it, I expected it, I knew it was coming.  I'm like an abused dog - even if you come up to me to give me a pat on the head I flinch, expecting a kick.  And this from a guy who has been showered, absolutely inundated with blessings.  Clearly I'm not that smart.

OK, so I keep going to the large early morning meeting here in Vacation City - the one were no one is bowling me over to make sure I feel welcome.  I have met a couple of people with whom I engage the barest of pleasantries.  I feel like I have the barest of toeholds.  I forget just how impatient I am, how I want things RIGHT NOW.  It's no wonder it was hard to get sober; I had to compare the immediate effects of drugs and alcohol with day after day of consistent behavior, eyeing a nice future that I was dubious of.

God grant me patience immediately.

Fearsome

I picked up a sponsee at the transitional meeting I attend in The New City.  I mentioned that the guy totally astounded me by picking up the phone AND completing the reading/writing assignments that I gave him, stuff that I never did.  Frankly, I just wanted to see how much crap I could get someone else to do - don't get me wrong because it was good stuff, just not stuff I would do without some brutal arm twisting.  As the time approached for SuperK and I to leave for our long vacation I found that I was having trouble telling the guy I was skipping town.  I kept postponing and delaying and procrastinating  until I finally left without saying a word.  Then, when I spoke with him on the phone, I continued to waffle on my return date.  I couldn't bring myself to say how long I would be gone even though I knew exactly how long I would be gone.

It occurred to me that I was simply afraid of what the guy was going to say about me.  Unless I thought I was somehow indispensable to his working of The Program - god help us all if my ego is still that out-sized.  I finally came clean, saying that it was going to be along time before I was returning.  He fired me immediately: "I think that I need a sponsor who's here in town."  

That guy's going to be OK.

Doing Nothing

I read a nice piece of writing about an odd couple marriage recently.  The marriage didn't last. This is not the point.  The point is that the odd couple consisted of a hard-charging, task-oriented, over-achiever and a creative type.  The hard-charger was always accomplishing something concrete: cleaning out a garden, going somewhere and doing something, working, and the creative person read and wrote and thought.  This seemed like doing nothing to the over-achiever.

Frustrated, the creator finally said in exasperation: "When you see me sitting here doing nothing, I'm actually very busy."

There's a little bit of both of these people in most of us.  I like getting things done but I also like sitting quietly.  My morning meditation, after 25 years, is still a work in progress.  I have a few, short, discrete prayers and I have a whole lot of sitting quietly.  I used to really work hard at the meditation part - concentrating on my breath, watching thoughts flow in and out without judgment, coming back to the breath - and I got really frustrated a lot of the time because meditation is fucking hard.  Lately I've been enjoying the sitting quietly part - not actively praying but not forcing the meditation, either.  It's pleasant.  I pay more attention to the thoughts than when I'm actively meditating but it's still pleasant.  

When I was getting sober the most important part of my meetings was that I simply had to sit still for an hour.  This doesn't sound too impressive but for a guy whose skeleton was trying to climb out through his mouth and escape it was a big accomplishment.  It still applies today, frankly, and takes a lot of pressure off of me to hear something really profound in the meeting.  I don't have to accomplish a great meeting - I can sit down and relax for an hour.  I don't get so frustrated at what other people are doing because all I need to do is chill for an hour.  If I don't hear anything that rocks my socks in a meeting I still get a lot of benefit from attending.  I feel better the rest of the day even though I can't put my finger on the profound thing that I heard.

SuperK and I each have activities that don't look too impressive to each other.  We've both worked at letting the other person do the thing that they want to do even when it doesn't seem . . . well, productive, and we've both worked at seeing how the activity might be of great benefit to the other person.  Part of this is listening when the other person talks, something that I'm   terrible at doing.  She's better but you'll have to ask her whether or not progress could be made.  Part of it is letting the other person be.

We both thought the article was interesting.  It's nice to ponder the mix between overtly productive activities and internally productive activities.  I need both of them to maintain what little of my sanity is left.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

So here's something funny that happened to me . . . 

My parents have been talking smack about coming out to visit relatives close to where we're staying.  My mother is a big smack talker in these matters but she doesn't usually follow up her smack with action.  If you're going to be guarding the star receiver in The Big Game you don't want to talk to the newspapers about how he isn't going to do squat against you unless you're pretty good.  Smack talkers should back up their talk or they look foolish indeed.  I've learned not to call my mother on her smack - it isn't worth it and it isn't an example of Being of Service.  Saying "there's no WAY you're coming out here" doesn't make anyone feel good.  Instead I try to be pleasant and agreeable.  This isn't offensive to anyone and I feel better about myself, the only person that I really care about.

Currently I'm renting a small one bedroom cottage.  I'd like to have a two bedroom place - and a Ferrari in the garage - but I'm saving a lot of money by sticking to the one bedroom.  When mom was hinting that she would like to stay with us when she allegedly visits I was able to play pretty good defense with the one bedroom deflection.  That, and the cat that's she allergic to unless it's my sister's cat which she doesn't have any problems with, what with the grandchildren and all.  I hinted back that we'd be happy to go with the extra bedroom if she wanted to kick in the extra money but that went nowhere fast.  She seemed miffed that I hadn't rented a bigger place just in case she wanted to visit.  I'm that way, too, about spending other people's money.  It doesn't offend me at all or put a dent in my wallet.

SuperK and I found a two bedroom place in a less desirable area for the second half of our vacation so I called my mother to let her know she had a bed if she came out.  The woman booked plane tickets in twelve nanoseconds.  The woman was moving.  I like my parents fine but the thought of the four of us in a two bedroom cottage is . . . ahem . . . daunting.  I'm out in the future enduring all kinds of tragedies already.  A new guy I talked to suggested that maybe I shouldn't live in the future.  When the new guys are scoring off of you it's not a good sign.

But I haven't been to The Old City in a good little while and the weather here is a LOT nicer than it is back there.  My parents like to do things that are always done, whether they like to do them or not.  You know, turkey at Thanksgiving and a Christmas ham even if you don't like turkey or ham.  They think it's time to get together.  They want to come out - not my dad, of course, but my mom does - so I can buck up for a few days.  I've offloaded some of the helpful children things on my younger sister, who lives near my folks, so I can surely do this thing.

Be careful what you ask for.