Pox

Difference:  Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.  

Many years ago a wise man commented about a certain group of people: "You can count on them to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other possibilities."  I've always thought that this is a great description of an alcoholic in recovery.

I've been suffering for many years with some of the negative side effects of consuming too much of the caffeine found in coffee: racing heart, nervous jitters, increased anxiety.  The thing is I require no caffeine in my body to get me going.  I am a Type A hyperactive.  I am by nature switched on.  I am fully energized and do not need a jump start.  I know that some people handle the mild stimulant effect of coffee just fine and I hate them for it.  But I'm not able to handle it myself.

I so enjoy the kick I get from the caffeine, though.  It's like a cattle prod delivered directly to my heart.  It make me feel different.  Not better, necessarily, but different, music to the ears of a dude who loathes the status quo.  Alcoholics want to be somewhere else.  Anywhere else.  It can be terrible as long as it's different.

Now the coffee is starting to chew up my stomach.  Do I stop?  I do not.  Do I moderate?  At times and always temporarily and very begrudgingly.  I'm not anti-coffee just like I'm not anti-alcohol - it simply produces a dolorous effect when it's mixed into my bloodstream.

I ask around.   Willie gave it up for a while.  Farmer Bill shelved it two years ago and Spandex says:  "Coffee and me?  I don't think so.  Bad combination."  My Old City sponsor drinks decaf and my Vacation Town sponsor no longer indulges.

Idiots.  Bastards.  A pox on their homes.

Pox: A disease characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pockmarks.

Ed. Note:  OK, I take back the "pox on their homes" part as it seems excessive and unnecessarily cruel.

Conundri

Conundrum:  A difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer. 

I knew it was time to come home when . . . 

Normally when I visit The Old City I stay with friends.  I do this for a reason that should be obvious by now but I'll repeat it anyway because I'm not quite done bitching about my family who DRIVES ME CRAZY.  See?  I couldn't even get through the set-up before mentioning that my family drives me crazy which is the reason I stay with friends.

I have managed to keep some semblance of control when visiting my family by not spending any time with them.  This never occurred to me when I was drinking, a fact you might find surprising until I remind you that it never occurred to me that I had to quit drinking if I wanted to sober up.  Quite the conundrum.  Another conundri was connecting the troubles in my life to my drinking.  There was a big, thick, black line running from my drinking to my troubles which I couldn't pick up on despite the fact that it could be seen from space with the naked eye.

I didn't get into trouble every time I drank but every time I got into trouble I had been drinking.

Anyway, on my last day in the small apartment - the day my clearly unhappy and spectacularly dry father finally arrived - I was considering taking a running leap through a plate glass patio door and off the adjoining 4th story balcony.  I was out of patience with the complaining about things that weren't being done when the best person to do them was doing the complaining.

My father - who for two months has been more or less confined to half of a small hospital room - was upset that no one had called to change the address of his newspaper subscription.   He found the knowledge that the paper was being delivered to the old house unhelpful.  He got quite upset with my mother for not calling the paper.  He harangued for a while.  It was clear to me that he might have taken two minutes to make the %$!! call himself at some slow point in the last sixty days.

What I wanted to do: "Give me the %$!! phone and I'll call the %$!! newspaper right now because you could have made the %$!! call six times instead of bitching that no one called the %$!! newspaper."

What I did: Went to my room.

Girding of the Loins

Gird Up One's Loins:  To prepare oneself for something demanding. 

So.  My parents.  It wasn't easy on me and it is, I must remind you, all about me.  If not me, who?  You?  Please, that’s ridiculous.

It wasn’t been easy because my parents have gotten a lot older.  I don’t mean old I mean old.  I think people like me – somewhat old but mostly just getting bitchy because we’re not 20 anymore  – have gotten their minds around what it means to get older but not to get old. 

These visits make me come face to face with some of my shortcomings in one hell of a hurry.  I was pretty sure that I had completely eliminated all of my shortcomings - reaching a state of perfection on earth - so you can imagine what a shock to my system this was.  More defects of character!  Intolerance!  Impatience!!  That lovely, lovely finger-on-the-trigger temper, unleashed, roaming free, looking for targets!!  Everybody I know enjoys these aspects of my persona.

I'm not very patient with anyone.  My mother has been talking about the same things for 20 years.  They were nuts then and they’re nuts now.  I used to argue with her, reason with her, show her the errors of her ways, to absolutely no avail.  It used to make me mad.  Now I simply listen or pretend to, at least.  I haven't been able to change her mind lo these many years so why would I think I can change it now?  I still find the bile leaping to the top of my gorge as I gird up my loins to do battle again, before stopping up short, some of the time. 

Arguing about something with someone has held that something to be true for 85 years is not helpful to anyone.  That was not the purpose of the trip.  That was not the service.  I was there to listen to my mother tell me these patently false things once again.  It reminded me of what we do in The Fellowship - we listen to some crap from some newcomers.  It's crap and we know it and we're dying to tell them it's crap but that doesn't help anyone.  

Badda Bing! Badda Boom!!

My mother has been old for as long as I can remember.  She saves money for "the nursing home."  Only one of my grandparents ended up in a nursing home - a grandmother who was almost 100 years old when she died, and she bitched about being old not at all.  Still my mother has her sights set on being taken care of.  I almost think she wants to be a burden.  Most parents want to avoid being a burden.  It's pretty weird.  My mother took care of her mother and she goddam wants to be taken care of.  She's earned it.

Of course she married a man who didn't lift a finger to do anything domestically for his entire life and he goddam well isn't going to start now.  The problem is that he really is in sorry shape physically and really needs the help, but it's the way he goes about it - angrily demanding and belittling when he doesn't get what he wants.  He's in pain but that doesn't mean he should whale on my mom who's drifting mentally and not in a position to do all that much work.  I know that it's frustrating but who sat around for 30 years watching The Television?  What did he think was going to happen?

And then there's my sister who wouldn't come to pick me up from the airport in the middle of the night, in a rainstorm, because she "doesn't see well at night."   She didn't take me to the airport early in the morning because "it's too fricking cold."  She probably thinks that she's done more than enough - more than me, certainly, a casualty of distance and a disconnectedness.  

I did move away after all.  I made that decision.  If I was a caretaker I wouldn't have left. There's a certain selfishness in making me fend for myself with A-One Taxi at 5AM but there's a great deal of selfishness in moving away to pursue my own interests. 

Working For A Living

Work:  (thermodynamics) A nonthermal First Law energy in transit between one form or repository and another. Also, a means of accomplishing such transit.

OK, OK, just kidding.

Work:  Effort expended on a particular task.

In The Fellowship you have to do some work.  We'll give you all the help that you want but you have to do some work.  We'll listen to you bitch for a while then we'll quit listening if you aren't doing the work.  You don't get to throw in the towel.  We know that it's difficult at the start and then periodically from time to time thereafter, right up to the point when you die, which is no picnic, either.  We're sorry to have to say that but facts is facts, son.

I saw this with my family.  They aren't moving much past the "This is hard" part of the transition.  I did my best to be of service, to be patient, but I tired of it after 10 days or so. The last full day there I thought if I heard one more bitch about something I was going to throw a television out the window.

Here's the thing: my sister and I just bought that television for my parents.  We split it except my sister hasn't sent me her half of the money.  She has mentioned the fact that she hasn't sent the money - even suggesting that since you owes me the money that I could use it to pay for a cab to the airport so she wouldn't have to - you know - take me to the airport - but she still hasn't sent the money.  This suggestion was proffered on my last day so I was tempted to say something along the lines of: "Hey, why don't you give me my %$!! money and THEN drive me to the %$!! airport?"  

It was closer than it should have been.

This Is The End

Glad that my trip has come to an end.  Glad to be going home and really glad that I consider my destination to be home.  I see in retrospect that The New City was a way point on my journey to where I am now.  Home.

As I struggled through my tasks I turned to people - both in The Fellowship and out - for some confirmation that the way I was feeling - resentful, disconnected - didn't make me a bad person. Here's the advice I got from most of them: "Family is hard."  I also noted that folks like me who have moved away from their hometowns were more likely to feel a connection.  We have, after all, moved away.  This implies that what we left was not as big an attraction as it is for some people.

I can step away from a lot of unpleasant tasks but family matters imply some obligation.  These folks raised me and they didn't make a mess of it.  It can't be easy raising children - it certainly can't be easy raising an insane, self-destructive alcoholic.

I got a lot done.  I think my behavior was decent.  It wasn't fun.  I didn't enjoy it.  I wasn't on vacation.

I got to see what old looks like.  I don't mean getting older, either, bitchy about little aches and pains.  I mean seriously old.  I got to see what old looks like for people who didn't exercise, who didn't challenge themselves mentally - preferring the easy out of The Television, and who stayed isolated from other people, for years and years and years.  There's a harsh collapsing-in effect. 

I'm the most intolerant man in The Fellowship and I look like the Dali Lama on an extended meditation binge compared to them.  I can see that some people want to be old - seemingly to indulge all of their aches and pains.  It seems weirdly enjoyable.  But the retirement home had a ton of similarly old folks who seemed to be making the best of it.

If you keep doing what you've done you're going to keep getting what you've gotten.

The Company and Their Minions

Minion:  A sycophantic follower; a loyal servant of another, usually a more powerful being.

During my visit I had dinner one evening with Little Westside Jonny.  Part of our discussion revolved around his job which has deteriorated from what he considered a very pleasant situation to one that's less to his liking.  He had a system and he performed at a very high level.  The company minions - in their infinite wisdom - have decided to institute a system of their own.  This is their right.  It's their company.  It's not LWSJ's company so they didn't ask him if they could make these changes.  It's kind of a company-wide policy to get everyone on the same page.  These policies generally do a good job of policing laggards but they also tend to punish the efficient over-achiever.

So LWSJ begins to work at half-steam.  If he's going to be forced to participate in an inefficient system he's going to work inefficiently.  It's very passive-aggressive.  His productivity has gone from way above average to somewhat below average - not low enough to be punished but low enough to be an irritant to the minions. It's brilliant. I loved it.

"Jesus," I said.  "That's exactly what I did when my company began to screw with me."

"I know!  I know!" he said.

"They don't know who they're messing with, do they?" I said.

We laughed about that for a while.  What could I say?  Don't do that?  Dude knows me too well.

The conversation turned to me and my extremely pleasant circumstances in Vacation City.  I got it good and I know it even though I'm loath to admit it.

"You don't have too much to complain about, do you?" he asked. 

Then he said: "Give it five minutes.  You'll find something to complain about."

We laughed about that for a while, too.

Things I Don't Like Doing

There's a lot of truth to the idea that relationships formed over long periods of time are like battleships.  It's awfully hard to turn them around on a dime.

Part of my angst with this trip is that I can't shake the idea that it's a chore.  It's not joyless, exactly, but it's a long way from joyful.  This isn't unusual for a trip like this and it doesn't make me a bad guy but it causes guilt to seep to the surface like some poisonous fracking byproduct.  

As a general rule I don't miss my folks all that much and I sure don't enjoy having the short time I spend with them be of an onerous nature.  Almost everything we do is like slogging through thick mud.  There is a lack of speed and ease.

I'm not very patient.  I don't like doing things I don't like doing.

Fun in the Air

The second leg of my flight to The Old City was delayed by weather, if by "weather" you mean "we're saying weather because then we don't have to pay for a hotel or comp you for any inconvenience this may cause you."  The 3 hour delay was irritating in and of itself.  The 3 hour delay put me at my final destination 2 hours after my rental car counter agency closed for the night which turbocharged the irritation.  

SuperK suggested that I go to the service counter of the offending airline if by "service" you mean "get the %$!! away from me."  Reluctantly and with little hope I did so.  I'm not so good when I'm in the mood to be pissed.

"That's rough," the lady said, making a sympathetic looking face.  My options were to try to find a hotel with a shuttle at 3 in the morning for less than the cost of 8 ounces of gold bullion or take a taxi to my sister's house, incurring a cost nearly as large as renting a car for an entire week or asking my sister to come pick me up.  She offered to do anything to help - Anything! -short of coming to pick me up, which was the help that I needed.

It's only help if you're doing something that someone wants done.

I called a buddy in The Program.  He drove through the pouring rain to pick me up at 3AM then drove me out to my sister's house.  He packed a bag of food for me.

This Program.  Where else you gonna find friends like that?

Little Stevie Seaweed - On the Road Again

Whenever I have some type of problem in my life - real or imagined - the source of my problem invariably comes down to powerlessness.  I have begun to labor - once again - under the illusion that I'm in control of something.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.   I'm not in control of much.  

Whenever I struggle with my powerlessness I find that the solution can be found in the concept of acceptance.  I need to accept people for who they are, not who I want them to be.  A world populated by millions and millions of Little Stevie Seaweeds would be a grim and dysfunctional place indeed.  I believe that Dante's 10th Circle of Hell is full of Little Stevie Seaweeds, banging their little drums of outrage and frustration.  There's quite a din.

Whenever I need to work on my acceptance I find that trying to place myself into a position of maximum service fits the bill.  It really works.  It's beyond counter intuitive.  The more I think about myself - my favorite thing to think about  - the unhappier I become.   I don't really know how I could fit more thinking-about-myself time into a 24 hour day.  It's really a full time job.

I'm not going home because I want to.  I'm going home because I think I can be of service.  And I'm not going home to be of service in the way that I think I should be of service.  I'm going home to help people in a manner that they want to be helped.  It doesn't matter what I think of their plans - it's what I can do to help make their lives easier.

This Program can be SO FRUSTRATING!

Richard

Dick:  A highly contemptible person.  (Ed. Note: Hats Off! to Wikipedia on this one - I was totally prepared to make up my own definition, and credit it to American Heritage but the Wiki folks hit a solid double off the center field fence).

I've noticed that when you're going through something difficult that I handle it fine.  My advice is solid.  My perspective unquestioned.  By me, anyway.  You may be questioning it for all I know but that's grist for a different mill, whatever that means.

The dickish part comes when I compare how I think you should deal with your difficulty as compared to how I should deal with a nearly identical difficulty.  Your difficulty is no big deal while my nearly identical difficulty is a Huge Deal!  You should quit complaining and get over it already while I complain and complain and complain.

And complain.

So it's like this: SuperK and I are members in good standing of a large, faceless corporation.  We pay good money to belong to this organization and receive virtually nothing of value in return, outside of some peace of mind.  I know: it's not a very good deal for us, although peace of mind can be a very valuable commodity.  One of the benefits of a member in good standing is a membership number.  Let's say we've been given the number 47.

The large, faceless corporation has replaced our bad product with a marginally better product that they've decided is going to cost 3X more in our national currency.  Again, not a great deal for us.  So we decided to cancel the old, not very good but now a lot more expensive product and replace it with something completely different.  Because the product provides us with peace of mind it's very important that we don't cancel the old membership until we've received a new membership number.  The number is very important.  Without it, you can't call the corporation to find out why, in this particular instance, you're not going to receive any benefits for your membership.

"What's your membership number?" they ask, right away, in a vaguely aggressive manner.  If you can't give them a number you're shit out of luck.  I know this for a fact.  That number is the key to any unsatisfactory answers that you're going to get.

So we get a letter asking us to pay for the new product, which we do.  The letter gives us an application number but no new membership number.  Are we new members or mere applicants?  We don't know, so we call the big corporation.  We're shunted into their Voice Recognition System which listens to what you say and then asks if you've said something completely different.

"We'd like to check on our membership," we say.
"You'd like to chuck your friendship?" the machine says.

SuperK and begin to argue about whether we should be in the membership section or in the applicant section.  We're kind of both.  As we go at it we can hear the Voice Recognition Lady in the background asking us to repeat things or making helpful-sounding comments: "I'm sorry, I don't understand - did you want to chuck your friendship?"

As we continue to debate the VRL suddenly says: "I'm going to transfer you to a representative."

We collapse into laughter.  That's one smart VRL.

"I'm sorry but I'm tired of listening to you bitch at one another."

We were, of course, disconnected.

Camera. Lights! Action!!

Action:  Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.
Purpose:  An object to be reached; a target; an aim; a goal; a result that is desired.

Sometimes I get stuck with my writing.  It's such a good thing for me to do for myself.  Writing  or talking with someone else about what I have going on in my life are actions that help me gain perspective.  I'm a big fan of prayer and meditation but that stuff seems so mental, so internal, and mental and internal are not always in my best interest. Thoughts organize themselves when I'm putting pen to paper and the similarities of my friends' experiences astounds me.  

I have really, really, really been trying to control the circumstances of my rapidly approaching trip home.  I'm really trying to get people to line up in a straight line and do my bidding.  This is fraught with difficulties when the people I'm trying to control are right in front of me - it's quite the party trick when they're 2500 miles away.

That being said it's a long trip, in the middle of the winter, and I want to make sure that my family understands this.  I need to give up the controlling-the-world part while maintaining the I'm-not-doing-this-for-the-hell-of-it part.  I'm coming back to do something.  I'm not coming back because I want to come back.  I'm coming back to help out or something or something else.

Right?  Isn't that right?

Five Year Old Seaweed

When I contemplate a problem my goal is to make the problem go away.  It isn't to learn from the problem.  I have no interest in gaining any perspective in my life by dealing with my problems in a healthy, adult fashion.  I simply want them to . . . go . . . away.

This is all well and good, befitting my position in the world as a five year old in a decidedly not five year old body.  I think it's OK to try to overcome difficulties.  The thing with me is (Ed. note: this is what SuperK says to me all the time and it never ends well for me: "The thing about you is . . . ") I have no patience with difficulties and I'd prefer they go somewhere else.  Problems are part of life and problems are always going to be with me.  I'm not going to cope very well with the world if I have to get rid of them in their entirety.  It's not gonna happen,.

Bah humbug.  A pox on the soul of problems.  Fie thee hence, problems, and get thee behind me.