Let's see . . . three days ago I had an argument with a woman that I had never seen before about how my car was legally parked on a public street. Two days ago I went to war with the condo association president on the mechanics of getting my stuff out of my own private residence into my own private car. And yesterday SuperK and The Stager ganged up on me over the placement of one of the few pieces of furniture left in my home; I wanted it left alone, they wanted it gone.
I lost my temper. I said some very bad words as I yanked the chair through the front door and into the back of my truck. I wrenched my back; I banged the chair against the door frame which didn't do either the chair or the frame any good; and now I have a chair taking up most of the available room in my vehicle.
Smooth move, McCool.
I composed myself, came back inside, and apologized immediately.
"I was trying not to laugh," quoth SuperK. She knows not to laugh in my face when I've got a good rage going on but doesn't feel any compulsion about not laughing behind my back. That's fine with me - if I don't know it's going on I don't care about it. It does not exist.
Needless to say, I was firmly thrown out of the house this morning. Actually, SuperK and I get along so well that the ejection is usually along the following lines:
"Should I walk down the block and get a cup of coffee?"
"Yes."
"I'll be gone about an hour, maybe an hour and a half?"
"Good."
"You're sure that's OK?"
"Yes."
I called my Old City sponsor before I left.
"Wow," he said. It's never a good thing when your sponsor says "Wow."
"Three times in three days. You hit the trifecta. Maybe you should head over to the horse track and see if there's a horse running called Angry Dude or Furious Dude or something like that."
Always has something bright to say, that guy.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Crikey! Tripe!!
Tripe: The lining of the large stomach of ruminating animals, when prepared as food.
I received a note today from an old friend, Spandex Junior. He's one of the many eggers-on that I have in my life; if I'm going to do something new or something new and BIG, the eggers- on are right there, egging me on. I don't mean this in a bad way, either, but in a Don't Play It Safe way. Playing It Safe is no fun at all.
Spandex Junior passed along a quote from an interview given by a famous theatrical composer that he admires. He never forgot this line: "The worst thing that you can do is fall off a low rung - if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one." This is great advice, generally, I think, except for the times that I have fallen off very high rungs right on my head. Then, not so much.
This is why the eggers-on are so much fun to hang around with. They're the ones saying: "Sure you can hit the pool from the 4th floor balcony."
I spent so much of my pre-sober life sitting in front of The TV, watching shows that I couldn't remember the next day. I'm done with that - I'm glad I try new things. It reminded me of the time I was in a little village in France where the specialty was stuffed tripe. It sounded disgusting to me but I figured I was never going to get back to a place that served hog intestine full of mystery meat, and called it the best thing on the menu. Well, as god is my witness it was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. I eat everything but this very well could have been cat food - I could have dug through the dumpster out back and come up with something that was tastier.
The waiter whisked away my uneaten tripe, informing me that there were two selections for dessert: brie and fromage blanc. I had eaten brie which left me with fromage blanc. Fromage blanc appeared to be something in between chunky, unflavored yogurt and rotten brie cheese. It made me long for the stuffed tripe.
I received a note today from an old friend, Spandex Junior. He's one of the many eggers-on that I have in my life; if I'm going to do something new or something new and BIG, the eggers- on are right there, egging me on. I don't mean this in a bad way, either, but in a Don't Play It Safe way. Playing It Safe is no fun at all.
Spandex Junior passed along a quote from an interview given by a famous theatrical composer that he admires. He never forgot this line: "The worst thing that you can do is fall off a low rung - if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one." This is great advice, generally, I think, except for the times that I have fallen off very high rungs right on my head. Then, not so much.
This is why the eggers-on are so much fun to hang around with. They're the ones saying: "Sure you can hit the pool from the 4th floor balcony."
I spent so much of my pre-sober life sitting in front of The TV, watching shows that I couldn't remember the next day. I'm done with that - I'm glad I try new things. It reminded me of the time I was in a little village in France where the specialty was stuffed tripe. It sounded disgusting to me but I figured I was never going to get back to a place that served hog intestine full of mystery meat, and called it the best thing on the menu. Well, as god is my witness it was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. I eat everything but this very well could have been cat food - I could have dug through the dumpster out back and come up with something that was tastier.
The waiter whisked away my uneaten tripe, informing me that there were two selections for dessert: brie and fromage blanc. I had eaten brie which left me with fromage blanc. Fromage blanc appeared to be something in between chunky, unflavored yogurt and rotten brie cheese. It made me long for the stuffed tripe.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Traffic and Such
I was banished from our apartment today. The real estate agent has been by the last couple of days; she is "staging" our furnishings to make the place more attractive to potential buyers. "Staging" appears to embrace a whole variety of concepts, including but not limited to anything but the imagination of the "stagers:" moving things around and around and around in an endless combination, positioning them in way that all appear to look pretty much alike to me; selecting possessions that we had set aside for the trash heap to highlight our place; putting everything useful away so that we couldn't continue to live here without adopting the ascetic of John The Baptist.
"Toilet paper? Toothpaste? Foodstuffs?" the head stager said. "Oh, no, no, I don't think so."
I'm kind of a big picture guy; I envision trips and new places to live and things to do and then I get contrary with the details. SuperK knows this, and she throws me out of the house.
"Go away," she says. "Don't come back for several hours," she says.
I went to the pool this morning to swim away my frustrations. The New Town is very progressive and involved - there are often races and walks and runs and parades through downtown. I have to go through the downtown to get to my pool so I'm not a big fan of these events. Today the flashing red lights and police barricades alerted me to some fucking fun run or the other. The races block every bridge across the river, and across the river is where I must go to get to my pool.
Can you see where this is going?
There are two techniques to deal with traffic: to sit patiently in the traffic jam until the fun run runs its course or to find an alternate route. My experience is that it's better to sit patiently because everyone else tries to find an alternate route, further jamming up the downtown street maze. Today I made the mistake of asking a vest wearing volunteer standing in front of a "Local Traffic Only" sign if the road was closed.
"Oh, no, no," he said. "The police are just letting some runners through."
The police let a lot of runners through without opening the road. Hundreds and hundreds of runners. I considered going back to throttle that lying SOB volunteer but someone as pretty as me wouldn't do well in jail. I stuck with my Stay Put and Wait Patiently plan until I thought my brain was going to jump through my skull and go back to throttle the volunteer all by itself. I made a right turn and then a left turn, going a total of about 50 yards before running into the inevitable orange barricades. This time a truck following me pinned me against the barricades. The driver got out and walked around for a while.
"It's going to be about an hour," he said, when he came back.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah, about an hour later, after a stunning run of driving the wrong way down one way streets, I made it to the pool.
No homicides, no assaults, no expletives unleashed, no curses invoked, and no impassioned pleas to god to strike that bastard down.
At coffee afterwards I called Little Westside Johnny. I had a great talk - we had lost touch for a while and it was really cool catching up. As I was getting ready to leave one of the other residents of my building - one of the suspected tattlers - stopped by my table and asked if she could join me. We had a lovely talk. It was a warm and sunny spring day.
"Our troubles, we think, are of our own making."
"Toilet paper? Toothpaste? Foodstuffs?" the head stager said. "Oh, no, no, I don't think so."
I'm kind of a big picture guy; I envision trips and new places to live and things to do and then I get contrary with the details. SuperK knows this, and she throws me out of the house.
"Go away," she says. "Don't come back for several hours," she says.
I went to the pool this morning to swim away my frustrations. The New Town is very progressive and involved - there are often races and walks and runs and parades through downtown. I have to go through the downtown to get to my pool so I'm not a big fan of these events. Today the flashing red lights and police barricades alerted me to some fucking fun run or the other. The races block every bridge across the river, and across the river is where I must go to get to my pool.
Can you see where this is going?
There are two techniques to deal with traffic: to sit patiently in the traffic jam until the fun run runs its course or to find an alternate route. My experience is that it's better to sit patiently because everyone else tries to find an alternate route, further jamming up the downtown street maze. Today I made the mistake of asking a vest wearing volunteer standing in front of a "Local Traffic Only" sign if the road was closed.
"Oh, no, no," he said. "The police are just letting some runners through."
The police let a lot of runners through without opening the road. Hundreds and hundreds of runners. I considered going back to throttle that lying SOB volunteer but someone as pretty as me wouldn't do well in jail. I stuck with my Stay Put and Wait Patiently plan until I thought my brain was going to jump through my skull and go back to throttle the volunteer all by itself. I made a right turn and then a left turn, going a total of about 50 yards before running into the inevitable orange barricades. This time a truck following me pinned me against the barricades. The driver got out and walked around for a while.
"It's going to be about an hour," he said, when he came back.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah, about an hour later, after a stunning run of driving the wrong way down one way streets, I made it to the pool.
No homicides, no assaults, no expletives unleashed, no curses invoked, and no impassioned pleas to god to strike that bastard down.
At coffee afterwards I called Little Westside Johnny. I had a great talk - we had lost touch for a while and it was really cool catching up. As I was getting ready to leave one of the other residents of my building - one of the suspected tattlers - stopped by my table and asked if she could join me. We had a lovely talk. It was a warm and sunny spring day.
"Our troubles, we think, are of our own making."
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Down Goes Seaweed
Today I'm tired of philosophizing and I'm not going to talk about other people behind their backs - it's not that I'm tired of it or don't enjoy it or have lost my talent or enthusiasm for gossip, simply that I'm going to do something else.
What to do, what to do? Hmm.
Sometime during the night on my final day in Vacation City I got up to have a sip of Diet Cherry 7UP - it's better than it sounds - and void my bladder. As I staggered into the bathroom in the dark, still half-asleep, I stepped right on the edge of this kind of wooden latticework thing that served in lieu of a bathroom mat. It seemed to be an odd choice to me during my stay but bathroom decor is not my specialty - maybe it allows the floor underneath to stay dry or as a convenient home for cockroaches. Anyway, the edge of this structure was significant enough that it hurt my heel, causing me to list slightly to the right, toward the tub. My hand slid on the wall, right onto the shower curtain, which provided absolutely no support for my 180 listing, careening pounds.
"Uh-oh," I must have thought. "I'm going down." It's a weird feeling. It was unwelcome.
With my typical flair for the dramatic, I grabbed onto the curtain - affixed to the curtain rod, affixed to the wall - and pitched forward past the point of No Return. I pirouetted nicely, figuring ass-first was better than face-first, into an endless sea of ceramic tile. There was a lot of crashing sounds as I fell, pulling the curtain, the curtain rod, and all of my dignity down with me.
It was pretty loud. SuperK did not wake up.
So there I was: sitting in the tub, my legs up over the edge, my back against the wall. I checked for broken bones or wrenched muscles, looked for blood. I sat there for a second, contemplating my existence.
"Boy," I thought. "This brings me back."
I'm a drunk - I have a lot of experience falling down.
What to do, what to do? Hmm.
Sometime during the night on my final day in Vacation City I got up to have a sip of Diet Cherry 7UP - it's better than it sounds - and void my bladder. As I staggered into the bathroom in the dark, still half-asleep, I stepped right on the edge of this kind of wooden latticework thing that served in lieu of a bathroom mat. It seemed to be an odd choice to me during my stay but bathroom decor is not my specialty - maybe it allows the floor underneath to stay dry or as a convenient home for cockroaches. Anyway, the edge of this structure was significant enough that it hurt my heel, causing me to list slightly to the right, toward the tub. My hand slid on the wall, right onto the shower curtain, which provided absolutely no support for my 180 listing, careening pounds.
"Uh-oh," I must have thought. "I'm going down." It's a weird feeling. It was unwelcome.
With my typical flair for the dramatic, I grabbed onto the curtain - affixed to the curtain rod, affixed to the wall - and pitched forward past the point of No Return. I pirouetted nicely, figuring ass-first was better than face-first, into an endless sea of ceramic tile. There was a lot of crashing sounds as I fell, pulling the curtain, the curtain rod, and all of my dignity down with me.
It was pretty loud. SuperK did not wake up.
So there I was: sitting in the tub, my legs up over the edge, my back against the wall. I checked for broken bones or wrenched muscles, looked for blood. I sat there for a second, contemplating my existence.
"Boy," I thought. "This brings me back."
I'm a drunk - I have a lot of experience falling down.
Friday, May 3, 2013
My Willpower
My: Belonging to me.
I've been off on another willpower jag; as in: what exactly is willpower? I'm afraid I'm going to repeat myself here by saying the same thing over and over but willpower is a fascinating and confounding and illuminating concept. The Fonz really helped me the other day with his comment to his higher power: "this is what I've got planned today - let me know if you would rather I do something else." It really makes things simple to think that all I have to do is do what's in front of me to do god's will. I spend far too much time trying to figure out what it is and then deciding whether or not it's worthy of me, which it usually isn't. My will is SO much better than god's will. The ego of god to think that he could do it better than me. Who's better than me? God? Please. I could run the world much more effectively than god. God spends way too much time on things that don't directly involve me and when he's engaged with my stuff, god is goofing it up most of the time, the twit.
When I was getting sober it helped me to substitute "wants" for "will." I could get my hands around the idea that I was better off turning my wants over to god's care. Turning events over makes some little sense - if I get a flat tire today I'm not astounded. It happened - I deal with it. I confess, however, to really, really not wanting a flat tire. I don't see why my incompetent higher power would visit such a plague on me - there are tons and tons of Lesser People out there that could be given flat tires and it wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact, there are a lot of people who deserve flat tires and there are a select group - like the nosy woman who criticized my on-street parking technique - who I would curse with flat tires, dozens of them, day after day. Defective rims, nails and screws and glass and road debris, drunken teenagers maliciously deflating all four tires in the dead of night, which I never did when I was drinking.
I have been mightily impressed with all of the helpful hints in The Book about willpower. I am comforted that I have one and I can use it to the best of my ability; indeed, I'm expected to use it to the best of my ability. I just have to quit using it like some Medieval battering ram, crushing unsuspecting people as I move through my day. My will is not the will of other people, and it is not the will of god.
I need to keep it in a box, taped shut, and only release it when it's absolutely necessary.
I've been off on another willpower jag; as in: what exactly is willpower? I'm afraid I'm going to repeat myself here by saying the same thing over and over but willpower is a fascinating and confounding and illuminating concept. The Fonz really helped me the other day with his comment to his higher power: "this is what I've got planned today - let me know if you would rather I do something else." It really makes things simple to think that all I have to do is do what's in front of me to do god's will. I spend far too much time trying to figure out what it is and then deciding whether or not it's worthy of me, which it usually isn't. My will is SO much better than god's will. The ego of god to think that he could do it better than me. Who's better than me? God? Please. I could run the world much more effectively than god. God spends way too much time on things that don't directly involve me and when he's engaged with my stuff, god is goofing it up most of the time, the twit.
When I was getting sober it helped me to substitute "wants" for "will." I could get my hands around the idea that I was better off turning my wants over to god's care. Turning events over makes some little sense - if I get a flat tire today I'm not astounded. It happened - I deal with it. I confess, however, to really, really not wanting a flat tire. I don't see why my incompetent higher power would visit such a plague on me - there are tons and tons of Lesser People out there that could be given flat tires and it wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact, there are a lot of people who deserve flat tires and there are a select group - like the nosy woman who criticized my on-street parking technique - who I would curse with flat tires, dozens of them, day after day. Defective rims, nails and screws and glass and road debris, drunken teenagers maliciously deflating all four tires in the dead of night, which I never did when I was drinking.
I have been mightily impressed with all of the helpful hints in The Book about willpower. I am comforted that I have one and I can use it to the best of my ability; indeed, I'm expected to use it to the best of my ability. I just have to quit using it like some Medieval battering ram, crushing unsuspecting people as I move through my day. My will is not the will of other people, and it is not the will of god.
I need to keep it in a box, taped shut, and only release it when it's absolutely necessary.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Big Trucks and Parking Spaces
"This is what I'm going to do today. If you have something else in mind let me know." The guy who shared this looked like The Fonz - big pompadour, sleeveless black T-shirt, every exposed inch of skin tattooed. I like it when things are simple, although you wouldn't know this watching me try to complicate the hell out of everything. I like the idea that it's very human to try to find a comfortable place in the world and that it's very spiritual to listen to any and all ideas that god might have, all while trying not to trod on the toes of my fellows. It allows me to move forward while suggesting that I don't knock down any old ladies or neonatal physicians.
Yesterday the movers came - guys from The Program who are the best. They had a big truck which they parked in the condo parking lot, blocking a few spaces. We were in and out of the building every few minutes and our apartment is right next to the entrance door. It would be hard to miss exactly who was moving. Anyway, a couple of people called the building management company to complain. This pissed me off. It reminded me of someone tattling behind my back to the teacher.
"Why not come in and ask me to move the truck? " I thought. I would have cheerfully done that. I do realize that not all truck movers would be cheerful and that a lot of people are terrified of confrontation, especially with a guy who looks somewhat like Ozzy Osbourne. Still, it was chickenshit behavior. I fumed a bit but not for long - I'm sick but I'm getting better.
As I sat idly contemplating my navel I remembered an incident from the day before. I had parked my car on our busy street - SuperK and I were unloading groceries and backpacks with our exercise gear. A little old lady across the street, unbidden, said: "If you move your car up then someone else can park there, too."
I looked at my car: "I don't think so," I said. I'm an outstanding parking guy.
"Yes," she insisted. She waved vaguely: "I live around here."
"I live around here, too," I replied, heating up over the advances of this nosy busybody. "I'll tell you what: I'll come back out and move my car after I get my groceries inside."
"You're a mean person," she said.
"Why don't you mind your own business?" I countered, concluding our exchange.
Yes. Yes. Why wouldn't someone want to come out and ask me to move a large truck? Why wouldn't they want to do that? I don't know. I have no idea.
"Again with the cars," SuperK said.
Yesterday the movers came - guys from The Program who are the best. They had a big truck which they parked in the condo parking lot, blocking a few spaces. We were in and out of the building every few minutes and our apartment is right next to the entrance door. It would be hard to miss exactly who was moving. Anyway, a couple of people called the building management company to complain. This pissed me off. It reminded me of someone tattling behind my back to the teacher.
"Why not come in and ask me to move the truck? " I thought. I would have cheerfully done that. I do realize that not all truck movers would be cheerful and that a lot of people are terrified of confrontation, especially with a guy who looks somewhat like Ozzy Osbourne. Still, it was chickenshit behavior. I fumed a bit but not for long - I'm sick but I'm getting better.
As I sat idly contemplating my navel I remembered an incident from the day before. I had parked my car on our busy street - SuperK and I were unloading groceries and backpacks with our exercise gear. A little old lady across the street, unbidden, said: "If you move your car up then someone else can park there, too."
I looked at my car: "I don't think so," I said. I'm an outstanding parking guy.
"Yes," she insisted. She waved vaguely: "I live around here."
"I live around here, too," I replied, heating up over the advances of this nosy busybody. "I'll tell you what: I'll come back out and move my car after I get my groceries inside."
"You're a mean person," she said.
"Why don't you mind your own business?" I countered, concluding our exchange.
Yes. Yes. Why wouldn't someone want to come out and ask me to move a large truck? Why wouldn't they want to do that? I don't know. I have no idea.
"Again with the cars," SuperK said.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
The Move
So we're in the midst of The Move. This is stressful, moving. This is a fact. This is not an opinion on my part. Moving is rated as one of the top 5 most stressful things that one can do.
So the question is: why am I doing this thing? It's becoming clear to me that I have only a shadowy grasp of why I do anything. Most of the stress that I have in my life can be directly traced to my own actions. This is one of the reasons that people find it so irritating when I bitch about the problems that I think I have in my life.
"Didn't you make the decision to do this?" they ask, perplexed. "Why are you taking up my valuable time complaining about something that's your own fault?"
Yesterday SuperK and I had a little spat about some packing dynamic. The fact that we can only generate enough energy to fight about glassware that we don't care about and should be thrown away is telling. Anyway, I don't get angry that often but when I do people notice. It's not that you can't tell when I'm angry. You can tell. It's obvious. And I fight to win - I'm not a defensive fighter. I'm real big on the offense.
Try not to talk, Seaweed. Try not to talk.
So the question is: why am I doing this thing? It's becoming clear to me that I have only a shadowy grasp of why I do anything. Most of the stress that I have in my life can be directly traced to my own actions. This is one of the reasons that people find it so irritating when I bitch about the problems that I think I have in my life.
"Didn't you make the decision to do this?" they ask, perplexed. "Why are you taking up my valuable time complaining about something that's your own fault?"
Yesterday SuperK and I had a little spat about some packing dynamic. The fact that we can only generate enough energy to fight about glassware that we don't care about and should be thrown away is telling. Anyway, I don't get angry that often but when I do people notice. It's not that you can't tell when I'm angry. You can tell. It's obvious. And I fight to win - I'm not a defensive fighter. I'm real big on the offense.
Try not to talk, Seaweed. Try not to talk.
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