Summer Atire

I'm not much of a T-shirt guy in the summer.  I wear a T-shirt in the winter because a gentleman ALWAYS wears a T-shirt.  But in the summer guys with pecs and abs and six packs, whatever those things are, can wear tight fitting T-shirts.  Guys like me look a lot better in clothes that blouse and bag and billow.

That being said, I do have a few items that I trot out when the weather gets hot.  My favorite shirt is deep purple color and is emblazoned with the phrase: "Get Away From Me."  Some people think this is funny until I tell them that I don't mean it as a joke.

I wore this particular model to a meeting yesterday.  I stood next to a good friend for the closing prayer, draping my arm around his shoulder instead of holding his hand.  A new guy came over after the meeting and said: "That was great - I'm looking over at you in that shirt with your arm around someone."  A guy who knows me pretty well said: "That's Seaweed - always sending mixed messages."  It's not what I say - it's what I do.

Another favorite of mine says: "Ask Me About My Vow Of Silence."  A surprising number of earth people don't get the joke.  They ask me about my vow of silence and I have to explain that if I had indeed taken a vow of silence that I would have trouble explaining it to them.  Drunks, however, get it immediately, the cynical bastards.

Third on my greatest hits list is "It's All Fun and Games Until The Flying Monkeys Attack."  Go watch The Wizard of Oz if you don't get this reference, or try to replicate a particularly potent mix of Colt 45, LSD, and nitrous oxide that I used in college to simulate a disturbingly real seeming attack from flying monkeys and a whole hell of a lot of other disturbing images that I really don't want to go into right now.

 I have always regretted not buying the model that proclaimed: "I'm Big In Europe."

Honesty, Again, Again.

Honesty:  Honestly, I can't even bring myself to look up the definition of this word one more time.  The page that has the definition of honesty is dog-eared and cross-referenced and covered in notes and check marks.  I should have the definition committed to memory.  It won't help me to look up the definition one more time.

One of my friends gave me a call this week, upset about an incident at work.  He was supposed to deliver 10 items to a customer and realized that he was an item short.  Instead of informing his customer and changing the invoice to reflect the correct amount - the right but embarrassing thing to do - he decided that he would replace the omitted item on his next delivery.  I understand the thinking here: everything was going to be made right in the end, his customer none the wiser, and he wouldn't look foolish for messing up the order.  Technically, he was being honest; strictly speaking, he wasn't.

As he was leaving the store the inventory manager approached him and pointed out his mistake.  He tried to explain how he planned to correct the mistake the next day but he just looked like a dishonest delivery guy, a liar and a cheat who was trying to talk his way out of an unpleasant situation with more justification and more lies.  There really isn't any good way to extricate yourself from a lie that you've been caught in. You look like a liar who got caught and is trying to talk his way out of it.   There is nothing more distasteful than listening to a liar who got caught red-handed talk a mile a minute

I spent most of my waking hours enmeshed in those kind of situations in the past.  No matter how much explaining I did I got that distinct, shitty feeling that someone was looking at me and thinking: "This dude is a liar."  Once you get caught lying it's really, really hard to earn that trust back.  My friend's customer used to let him stock the shelves unsupervised, signing the invoice he presented without checking the inventory.  Not any more - someone from the store trails him as he makes his delivery, inconvenient for everyone involved.

This is why I try to tell the truth today.  Not because I enjoy telling the truth but because I really, really  hate getting caught in a lie.  I still do it sometimes, usually not deliberately, but I still do it.  Some bullshit will come flying out of my mouth before I can get it stopped.  I'm usually trying to appear smarter than I am, just like my friend.  I'm afraid of looking foolish or incompetent.  I'm afraid of making mistakes.

I'm still a pretty good liar.

Soapbox Seaweed

Service:  Helpful, beneficial, or friendly action or conduct; act giving assistance or advantage to another.

I continue to ask my HP for the wisdom and serenity to help me be of service to my fellow man to the best of my ability.  I continue to have almost no clue as to what this means.  I see that the very natural, very normal egocentricity that all men and women have, and that I have in glorious, spectacular, transcendent excess (as demonstrated by my use of way too many flowery adjectives), is going to fight a bloody war with my attempts to develop a spiritual life.  I care about me and you can go sit in the dirt for all I care.

It is NOT good service to try to convince people to do things that you think they should do.  This is grade school bullying.  This is delusional thinking from a guy who doesn't know where he left the glass of water that he got for himself 3 minutes a go.  This is not the guy you want directing your life.  This is the guy that needs a nanny to get him off the soapbox that he is standing on.  He should not be on the soapbox.  He might fall off.  He should be under the soapbox listening to someone who knows what they're talking about; a emotionally unbalanced doomsday preacher spouting apocalyptic bullshit would have a better plan for your life than I would.

That being said, let me make a few suggestions as to how your day would go better . . . 

More Irritating Things

Purpose:  The object for which something exists or is done; end in view.
Real:         Anything that actually exists or reality in general.

"Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to god and the people about us."

"Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time?  Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?"


Let's take a closer look at some of the thoughts expressed in these passages from our literature.  Being smarter than the average bear - or at least no longer being the stupidest bear in the forest - I'm pretty sure that I can improve on most of the sentiments that our founders came up with.  I'm pretty clever that way, the knowing better than everyone else way.

To wit:  my real purpose is to manipulate the world and the people so that they are of maximum service to me.  This is in their best interests even though they don't know this.  That's a better plan.  That benefits me in a tangible way that I can appreciate.

Were we thinking of others most of the time?  Most of the time?  I think I've improved greatly, seeing as I no longer think about myself all of the time.  It's a special day indeed when I'm only thinking of myself most of the time.  Because this is a stupid question that would only waste my time and energy I'm going to skip ahead to the next irritating phrase.

Actually, I believe that I'm going to stop here.  I have a full day planned trying to get those around me to do a really excellent job of packing good things into the stream of my life.

Honest? Really?

I am in the middle of the vetting process so that I can be a recovery volunteer in the jail system here in The New City.  It has been surprisingly rigorous although this should make sense.  The law probably looks askance at unprepared outsiders staggering around their system, especially ones like me who think they know everything about everything, always.


Anyway, the application asked for the names, phone numbers, and addresses of two personal references.  I put down the names of two buddies from The Program, one of them my New City sponsor.  I listed their names and phone numbers accurately - they're people I'm in touch with frequently - but I totally made up their addresses which I didn't feel like looking up.  I hate jumping through hoops to provide information that no one will ever look at, being an efficient German peasant, although the lying part is in direct conflict with my Teutonic inclination to honesty.  I'm not even going to talk about the importance of honesty in my Program based recovery.  Just because it's on my anniversary coin or mentioned about 1000 times in The Steps doesn't mean it's important.  


"Grumble, grumble," I grumbled, looking up the correct addresses.  The application was annoyingly long as it was.  They asked some weird questions, including my favorite color, and also what I would do if one of the inmates interrupted a meeting by banging their hand on the desk, standing up, and approaching me menacingly.


"If what happened now?" I asked.  

The program coordinator, of course, mails out two applications to my two references.  I was glad that I took the time to look up the correct addresses,  although one of the guys told me that he hadn't had to lie this extensively on a legal document in a long time, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself as he said it.

The coordinator told me that the two references were almost identical, a fact that surprised me.  Both of them mentioned a sense of humor and I'm glad to hear that.  It's a trait that I'm proud of although I'm not sure that taking a great deal of pleasure in making sarcastic comments until someone is on the verge of tears qualifies as much of a strength.


Both references also mentioned my honesty.  I almost laughed out loud.  This is a term that is often used to describe me and it always surprises me since I consider myself a world class liar.  I believe that the concept of honesty as applied to me means that I'm open abut my mistakes and my shortcomings, and I'm honest about how I'm feeling.  This helps me the most, of course, because I never want to be complacent about where I am in my recovery and in my spiritual growth.  


Proud, yes; confident, certainly; smug, NEVER!

A Family Affair

Disinterested:  Not influenced by personal interest or selfish motives; impartial; unbiased.


I'm struggling with my aging parents again today.  My increasingly feeble father loses his balance and takes the occasional spill, which is no small matter for an 85 year old.  They want very much to stay in their current home or they're very afraid to move somewhere else, one or the other.  I'm thinking it's the latter.  I'd like them to move someplace that provides help for older adults but they don't seem to be heeding my sage advice.  Everyone knows how dead on my advice is when it comes to how other people should live their lives.  All you have to do is look at the roaring success I've made of my life to speculate on how good my advice would be to you as to how you should live your life.


I've done my best to present options to them over the last several years, from retirement homes should they desire to move as well as service providers who will visit to provide virtually any kind of service they need if they want to live stay where they are.  And the results have been bupkis.  Nada.  Nothing.  Not a nibble, not a bite.  And they have a robust litany of reasons why these solutions wouldn't work for them.  So I'm having to walk the fine line between engagement and detachment.  It's a thin line some of the time.  It's a line when it's that's harder to walk when it's someone that you love.


It reminds me of my entrance into The Program.  Today I like how The Steps are in the first person plural.  We and Us are figured prominently, emphasizing that I'm in some trouble when I try to do this by myself.  But all of the We-s and Us-es that have helped me have talked and talked about personal responsibility.  The idea is that they are there to help but I'm expected to get to work.  It's a powerful mix of group and individual.  I make no progress without the help of others and I make no progress without taking a lot of action on my own.


If my folks want to stay where they are and not spend any money to get some outside help that's their choice, but they shouldn't expect people to drop everything when they need some help that otherwise would be provided.  It's uncomfortable for me to even say this.  I feel somewhat cruel.  So I get on the phone and talk to people who aren't as emotionally engaged as I am, including my sponsor, to get that disinterested third party perspective.  


I'll help a drunk out in any way I can but if he quits coming to meetings and gets a DUI at 3AM he knows not to call me.  I can do this because the drunk isn't my kin.  I certainly understand why someone would be upset if it was their child in the drunk tank at 3AM, but my disinterested advice is that our problems are of our own making.  Drive drunk - get arrested - sit in jail.


I called my sister who lives quite close to my folks.  She's carrying more of the burden than I am.  I wanted to offer my support.  People living without some Program don't have friends they can call to have uncomfortable behavior validated.  My sponsor - who is not emotionally involved with my parents - can offer sympathy and confirm that my behavior is good.  My sister doesn't have this network to lean on.   I thought it was important to give her a chance to share her frustration with someone who cares.


This is still playing out.

The Lead Singer for Metallica, Maybe.

Meditation:  Solemn reflection on sacred matters as a devotional act.


I have been attending an 11th Step meditation meeting on a regular basis.  Meditation is a funny thing.  It's an oddly difficult thing to do for a goal oriented, task driven German peasant like me.  I tend to think of things as having a start and a finish with concrete, verifiable processes and tasks and goals in between.  A leads to B and then right on through to Z.  There is the right way to do something and there is the wrong way to do something.  I've taken classes and read books on meditation.  I've tried to get my hands wrapped around the hows and whys of the practice.  What I've found, of course,  is that there isn't that much specific to learn about it.


It was either the venerable Dali Lama or the lead singer of Metallica who said something about people who meditate continuously for 10 or 15 years might begin to see some improvement in their technique, but it's no given.  The idea is that it's the process and not the finish that's important.  The means justify the ends.

Don't struggle.  Don't try.  Don't judge the results.  Don't force anything.  It's very difficult to prevent thoughts from coming into my consciousness so the advice is to let them come if they want to - I watch them come and I watch them go, without judgment.  Let them flow on by.  They aren't real.


Surprisingly difficult.