The LivInn Sweets

One of the funny things that happened after I spent a few weeks in the same moderately nice, smallish hotel room was that I started to settle into the space.  There wasn't enough room when I was entertaining one of my numerous girlfriends and lady companions, of course, or hosting an all night rave, if what you mean by all night is lights out by 10PM, but that's a topic I should write about later, after I come to grips with what is reality and what is not reality.  I was moving from a largish house to a much smaller rental place that still has way too much room for two people, and fretting about whether or not we would have enough space.  SuperK and I do better if we can put a 100 yards between us from time to time.  Although we divested ourselves of fully 50% of the crap that we owned we still brought way too much stuff.

I had a bed and an easy chair and a TV and a bathroom.  I didn't find myself terribly upset that I didn't have this or that possession with me.  Now obviously a few weeks is not the same as a few years and I was getting tired of the blue jeans - tan Dockers two step, but it was surprising how quickly I got comfortable with a lack of possessions.  I do miss the electrical cord that recharges my razor and the Super Bowl XIX ring that Fred Biletnikoff gave me but not much else.

That stuff can really get its claws into you.

The Buzz Cut

So on one of the days right in the middle of the move trauma I decided I needed a haircut.  I was in a bad mood, what with all of the lousy weather and uprooting trauma, and the money flying out the window.  I think it would have been cheaper if I had simply driven down the highway throwing fistfuls of signed checks out the window.  Anyone who found one of the checks could have filled in whatever amount they liked and cashed the thing.  I think it would have saved me some money in the long run.

Anyway, I'm driving along in this bad mood and I pass a barber shop.  I didn't feel like calling up the guy who normally cuts my hair and is familiar with my mercurial mood swings, which was not a good move on my part.  I'm not even sure my regular guy does a good job.  It's not like he's working with George Clooney.  A bad haircut might be noticeable on George.  I have so many other shocking problems with my appearance that the eye is naturally drawn away from any errors on the top of my head.

I told the guy in the barber shop to "just cut it all off," holding my finger and thumb about a quarter of an inch apart.  My hair was close to pony tail length.  Dude shrugs and buzz cuts me.  Takes about 10 minutes.  Looks like shit.  My hair line, while holding its ground, is weirdly uneven.  SuperK thinks it looks like the interface between the ying and the yang symbol, which makes me laugh and pisses me off at the same time. 

"Oh, god," she said when I got off the plane.  "You never do anything in moderation, do you?"

What Is Bad

I am pondering my ability to focus on the negative and short-sheet the positive.  I know a lot of drunks who do this so I don't feel too weird, but it's still a powerful and perplexing impulse.  I see Earth People do this, too, so I know that it's not only drunks who see What Is Bad.  I understand that being optimistic or being pessimistic is mostly a state of mind, a kind of attitude, but I bet a lot of the counselors and shrinks and PhDs that I have talked to over the years about my hundreds of psychoses, quirks, and aberrations would confirm that nature plays a part.  I have worked hard as hell to develop a positive attitude over the years but still have a tendency to focus on What Is Bad.  Some of us appear to be more negative than others.

I'm good at negative.  It comes naturally to me.

I have lived in 4 different cities during the course of my sobriety and the meetings have all had a different flavor.  In City 1 the group stayed together in one room, and we went around the table so that everyone got to share, but not for long.  City 2 had a mini lead on a Step, then broke up into small groups.  Everybody got to share there, too, and for a lot longer time, which I liked because it gave me the opportunity to prattle on about myself for as long as I wanted, but the meetings took up a lot more time, which I didn't like because once I got done talking about myself I was ready to go home.  City 3 had the larger group format but you had to raise your hand if you wanted to talk.  It was kind of intimidating when I first moved there because nobody knew what a God of Sobriety I was, and I was a lot more timid than I am, which is not timid at all.  Now I'm in City 4 where the meetings are large and the chair calls on people.  It's harder for people to get to know you if you don't get a chance to talk, and they miss out on the whole God of Sobriety thing.

I'm sure I'll be able to get everyone to do it my way.

You're Doing It Wrong

I've been "home," or whatever this is, for a few days and I've been to a few meetings, and I'm saddened to report that they are doing it wrong.  I can't see how anyone can stay sober if this is the way they are going to do things.  They should send some representatives back to my "home" . . . er, "away" state to see how it should be done. 

I got sober in a very nice and polite town and moved to Chicago for a number of years.  People in Chicago were pretty nice but not exceptionally polite.  When I started frothing about something or the other that was happening to me but shouldn't be happening they often didn't listen politely, at least not for long.  I was interrupted many, many times when I drifted off into Justification Land.

After a while I moved to another very nice and polite town where they didn't do it right.  They didn't do it right in Chicago, either, until they did it very well.  After a few months I traveled back to Chicago for a funeral.  One of my mother figures, Maryann Z, asked me how the meetings were in my new place.  She quickly cut me off as I started to explain exactly how they were doing it wrong.

"How many meetings a week do they have?" she asked.
"I don't know, several hundred," I guessed.
"Yeah, they need you, with your 18 months of sobriety, to fix the whole system.  The Program is just fine there.  Go home and go to some meetings and keep quiet," she said flatly.

I'm guessing Maryann couldn't pick me out of a police line-up right now, but I never forgot that advice.

It's not them.  It's me.

The Unhappy Cat

Yesterday was a delightful day. It was the kind of pleasant day that I envisioned when I was getting sober. I hoped for days like yesterday but secretly believed they could never happen. It was a day full of the little delights and joys that were obscured by my drug and alcohol use.



My alarm went off at 3AM. We all remember 3AM, don't we? I got home at 3AM all of the time, vaguely aware that it would not be pleasant getting up in a few hours even without the hangover and shakes. I stuffed my elderly cat into a bag and went outside where it was 3 degrees, which is cold. I drove an hour to the airport and turned in my rental car, and walked a few hundred yards to the terminal with the cat and all of my luggage, in the cold. The cat was not happy with me. The next 8 hours were consumed by flights and layovers with an unhappy cat.

Actually, it was OK. I'm making a lot of this up. The cat was fine, behaving better that SuperK and certainly better that I do when traveling by air. I made it home, or someplace, anyway. I have spent the last 6 weeks in hotels. Eight different hotels so I'm a little uncertain where home is, exactly. The last hotel I stayed at was getting a little too familiar. It was nice to see my wife and sleep in my own bed.


The time I spent in my old city was unpleasant but informative. Work was a miserable grind, my family behaved as if they were taking cues from Quentin Tarantino, and the weather -- a big part of my desire to move -- was awful. When I left my new home to travel back a few weeks ago I was kind of excited. I was still uneasy about my decision to leave and I looked forward to seeing familiar faces and visiting familiar places.


Herr Luber, ever the irritating pragmatist dreamer, suggested that all of this confirmed our decision to move, irritating me briefly. I like the concept that I need to get up in the morning, chat with my Higher Powers, then try to navigate through the day to the best of my ability, taking care to avoid solid walls and walk through any doors that happen to open in front of me.

My old place was comfortable. It was like a piece of white bread with peanut butter: nutritious, not bad-tasting, inexpensive, easily obtained from any store. My new place is an organic hazelnut muffin with cardamon and carob sprinkles, bought from a small shop run by a recovering heroin addict. Not everybody is going to like the cardamon, the muffin is a little expensive, and I'm not sure the heroin guy is up to code with the health department.

I have a confession to make. I didn't throw away the off-brand jar of peanut butter when I was home. I bought a new jar of Jiff, which I ate first, but kept the old one in case the Jiff didn't last the duration of my trip. I trotted out the old stuff right at the end. It still tasted pretty bad. I decided to check the "Sell By" date.


10/7/10.

Ancient Runes

As I have been navigating this stressful series of events, which I should point out that I set in motion myself, willingly, of my own volition, a free man with a sane mind, sometimes, at least, I am aware of a much lessened ability to focus on what is good and instead concentrate on what is not  -- and there's nothing better than bitching mightily when one is the cause of one's own discomfort.  I'm comfortable with pain and failed dreams, not with admitting I'm living the dream. 

So I was at a meeting recently when an old friend talked about the dreaded Gratitude List.  You know the idea -- writing down in black ink on white paper all that you should be grateful for.  The hair on the back of my neck snapped to attention just writing the word gratitude.  Gratitude is an ancient rune chiseled into the rock of distant planet, many thousands of light years away.  I don't do gratitude.  I prefer seething with hidden resentments.

"Oh, the Gratitude List," I winced.  There's something about writing.  It takes all of those vague, delusional thoughts ricocheting around in my mind and organizes them.  I don't really understand how it happens but once I start to write, then look at what I've written, the world comes into better focus.

I made a few lists.  I don't have any problems, really.

Cell Phone Walkin'

I lost my cell phone.  I definitely lost my cell phone.  I experienced one of those awful moments when you reach for something important and it simply isn't there.  I quickly retraced my steps from Last Known Location up until the present time with no luck. 

It's funny how when I make a mistake I feel bad about myself.  I get depressed and agitated.  It's like no one has ever made a mistake before.  When I do something right, however, which is much of the time, the glow vanishes instantly.  When I make a mistake, the funk seizes me and holds on.  Fortunately, it no longer holds on like grim death; more like cheerful death or light-hearted death.  I'm glad death's humor is much improved but it's still death.  It's The Grim Reaper dressed in a hooded garment with a brightly ornamental cinching belt, chartreuse or some other pastel, if chartreuse is indeed in the pastel family.  He doesn't carry that large, sharpened scythe anymore, preferring a much more dignified concealed pistol of some sort.  He's bad but he isn't over the top about it.  You know you're going to die but there's not the overwhelming sense of dread that comes with seeing The Grim Reaper in full regalia.

My friend Willie took me to lunch that day, after a meeting in a clubhouse.  Willie paid for lunch.  I thought he was being nice but now I think he was feeling guilty because he STOLE my cellphone and sold it on the street to pay for his increasingly large Starbucks habit. 

Yeah, that's what happened.  It was Willie.