This and That

When I'm not in a good mood it's usually because someone isn't doing what I want them to do.

People here are kind of making me feel bad about leaving, like I'm doing it to them.  I don't, as a general rule, consider anyone but myself when I'm doing anything, so I find this attitude perplexing.  I would rather have folks be happy for my adventure or at least patronize me about being happy for my adventure.  Lie to me, for god's sake.  The lesson for me is to work my ass off at showing interest - at taking an interest - in other people.  Most of the time what other people are doing doesn't affect me so I should keep my own self out of the equation even when I don't like what they're doing.  What business is it of mine to judge what you're doing?  As long as you aren't throwing Molotov cocktails into orphanages why can't I look on the bright side?

Homeless dude was off his meds today - he got frustrated at the pace of the meeting and stormed around the periphery of the room.   The guy talking was boring but still.  Another dude comes in way late and opens up a newspaper.  Controlled chaos.  I enjoy this meeting but I'm going to need some stability before long.  A mix is good.

People do what they want to do.  A lot of us don't pay any attention at all to anyone else.  We do what we want.  It's not just me although as god as my witness I can ignore people with the best of them.  And the people who are really good at being selfish have convinced themselves they're not selfish.  That's quite the party trick - being selfish while telling yourself that you're not.  I can get away with murder when I'm doing that.

There's a guy sitting next to me at the coffee shop whose nose is running.  Instead of getting a napkin and blowing his nose he has chosen to take great big, slurping intakes of air.  The noise is amazing.  I may toss a Molotov cocktail into his vente latte.

Speaking of self-centered . . . my friend Willie got frustrated at a meeting and told some dude off, a dude who sounded like he needed to be told off if Willie is telling the truth which is no sure deal.  He felt bad about it, of course, and approached the man after the meeting to make an amends.  Dude didn't know what he was talking about.  We are thinking about ourselves.  We are not thinking of you.

Unless you is me and I'm doing the thinking.  That's a different matter altogether.

Bureaucratic Limbo

Limbo:  The place where innocent souls exist temporarily until they can enter heaven; by extension, any in-between place, state or condition of neglect or oblivion which results in an unresolved status, delay or deadlock.

It's a weird time for me: the apartment is sold and I'm renting back from The Buyers but I'm still a few weeks away from the actual move.  It's an odd limbo space.  I'm getting bored enough that I'm considering smashing some stuff in the kitchen and then calling The Buyers up to complain about the shape of the shithole that they're overcharging me for.

I was at the transitional meeting yesterday.  I was in a good mood on the walk down, joined by a dude who is there from time to time.  The meeting, however, was on the edge of disruptive. There was some talking and giggling coming from a couple of ne'er-do-wells in the corner who responded to requests for quiet by raising the volume.  One of them stormed out about halfway through the meeting.  I don't think he got much out of it.  Most of the time I can ignore this stuff but sometimes it really draws my attention.

We passed around the minutes of the last business meeting.  I glanced at them then offered them to a guy sitting behind me and to my right, reaching across the aisle to do so.  He stared at me.  I fluttered the sheet a bit, as in "pass it along then."  He continued to stare at me.  OK, then.  I'm not sure if he was stoned or pissed or stupid but he did not take the sheet and pass it along, with a vengeance.  I'm under the impression that he wasn't interested in the notes from the business meeting.  I don't think he gets what we're trying to do.

The guy who led the meeting was kind of boring.  That didn't help me, either.  He talked too long and he didn't talk about anything and then the bastard had the nerve not to call on me.  I don't think I got what we were trying to do.

There's a man there that I know fairly well.  He has a similar background and life experiences to me.  I had mentioned in the meeting that I had a lot going on outside The Rooms without being specific and he asked about it after a meeting a few days ago.  When I told him I was leaving he said: "Seaweed, that's not good news."  I think sometimes - if by "sometimes" you mean "all of the time" - I expect too much out of people and organizations and situations.  I feel some bafflement at the fact that this guy has made no attempt to engage me on a deeper level - something I like doing - without giving him any credit for doing the best that he can with what he's been given. The New City is like The Old City in that both have a certain degree of reticence.  Both places hold their cards close to the vest.  I don't have a vest.  I have no poker face at all.  Everybody knows what cards I'm hiding.

There have a couple of people in the building who have been doing things prohibited by the condo by-laws.  Frankly, I could give a shit.  It isn't stuff that affects me and I'm a big fan of Live and Let Live - if by "big fan" you mean "I'm going to take a swing at the next guy who says that to me."  But I'm still annoyed at the fact that my wallet was lightened for what I consider a bullshit offense.  I toyed for a couple of day with the idea of complaining to the association just to be a pain of the ass.

I didn't do it.

Yet.

Anxiety

Anxiety:  An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event.

From time to time I read something about a thing that interests me and I steal this information and pass it along as my own.  It's OK for me to do this because I'm not as smart or clever as I'd like to be and I have a desperate, desperate need to be loved and who will love me if I'm not smart and clever?  Who?  Who will?

Some really smart guy named Daniel Smith wrote a memoir about anxiety.  Here's an excerpt where he is comparing our desire to lump anxiety in with a more quantifiable disease like diabetes: 

"With anxiety there are two glitches to this desire.  The first is that anxiety is not the kind of affliction that can be eradicated.  This is because anxiety is not merely or essentially psychiatric. Even when it swells to the level of a disorder, it remains first and foremost an emotion, universally felt and necessary for survival, not to mention for a full experience of human life. Toss aside the bath water of anxiety and you will also be tossing aside excitement, motivation, vigilance, ambition, exuberance and inspiration to name just several of the inevitable sacrifices. Get rid of anxiety?  Even if you could - and you can't - why would you want to?

The second glitch is more complex and has to do with the nature of anxiety itself, which for all its attendant discomforts and daily horrors has at its heart a vital truth, even a transcendent wisdom.  This truth - which, confusingly enough, doubles as the source of anxiety's pain - is of the essential uncertainty and perilousness of human life.  Its fragility and evanescence.  Anxiety emphasizes these aspects of existence with an an almost evangelical  It hisses them, hour by hour, minute by minute, into the sufferer's ear.  'Anything can happen at any time,' anxiety says.  'There is no sure thing.  Everything you hold dear is at risk, everything is vulnerable.  It can all slip through your fingers.' "

My initial thought is: "Have you ever seen more $5 words in two paragraphs than that?"  Maybe cleverness is overrated.  Maybe when I think I'm being clever I'm just being a pompous ass.  Maybe I'm just a pompous ass.

There's a great sentence in our literature which talks about the anxiety that living in a state of continual agitation engenders, afraid that we're going to lose something that we already have or that we're not going to get something that we want.  Which covers everything, every blessed minute of every blessed day.  Our Step work is meant to counterbalance this, to get us to a place where we're in the minute, grateful for what we have, not afraid that we're going to lose it but not desiring more.  Happy where we are.

I'm a big fan of getting information about the human condition from as many sources as I can.  Nothing scratches my itch like The Program literature but I'm also comforted by the wisdom of the many helpful people that are in my life, which the Program literature urges me to do.  It's nice to hear that anxiety if normal, that everyone has it, that it provides some benefit to my life even when it's making me uncomfortable. 

If I walked into a dark cave past a sign reading: "Do not enter.  Bears inside," I better feel anxiety.

My Day

I've enjoyed going to the transitional meeting.  It has been a good experience.  I'm not going to have access to this kind of gathering in Vacation City on a regular basis.  Oh, well - so be it.   I'll have access to other things, unknown things, wonderful things yet to be discovered.

Who knows what I need anyway?  Seriously, I'm asking.  

50 year sober Michael asked me what I had planned for the day.  I didn't have too much on my plate.  I was a little embarrassed not to be really, really productive.

"Well, I'm here at the meeting," I said, somewhat stupidly.  "Then I'm going to go out and have coffee so that my wife gets the apartment to herself for a little while.  Then we're going to run out to the grocery store."  I was just getting cranked up.  I didn't have anything else planned so I was getting ready to lie.  I was going to come up with a lot of very productive stuff.  I could barely get enough oxygen in to impress this guy with how fucking productive I was going to be, doing big, important, weighty important things.

"That sounds like a good day," he said matter-of-factly.

Those damn old-timers and their smug peace of mind.  They make me so mad.

There was a new guy - as in first day sober new - at the meeting.  He was sitting with a mentally ill kid who had been a little disruptive a week ago or so.  He had caused a bit of an uproar, to the point where some folks were shushing him forcefully.  He was quiet today.  He helped the new guy get a cup of coffee.  He helped the new guy find the bathroom.  The shushers weren't doing this.  I was glad the kid was there today but I wasn't glad he was there last week.

I know that everybody was thrilled to see me when I was getting sober.  I was not a pain in the ass at all.

Fancy Pants

SuperK has been going to the main clubhouse here in The New City to attend an early meeting 4 or 5 times a week.  The clubhouse is in a very nice area of town and this meeting is well attended by nicely dressed people who show up in their nice cars on the way to work, undoubtedly in nice offices.  Nothing the matter with that just as there's nothing the matter with hanging out at my regular meeting where most of the members have taken the alcoholism elevator down a few more floors.  There was a newly sober woman at the call-the-cops-meeting a few days back who was mightily offended that we asked a disruptive homeless guy who was washing his feet in the church sink to leave the premises.  She showed up at the fancy meeting today and bitched about it, making it sound like a bunch of intolerant bleeding deacons had conspired to deprive a new person of the chance to stay sober.  The fancy people clucked sympathetically.

First of all, there's nothing better than being criticized by people who are fairly drowning in blessings.  That's always appreciated.  And it's really special when you're being criticized for things that didn't happen by people who weren't there.  That's the bomb.  It was actually the church who called the cops, not members of The Fellowship.  This large church downtown has been gracious enough to allow a big group of mostly marginal men to use their meeting hall, kitchen, and bathroom 6 times a week; understandably, they don't want homeless, barefoot guys roaming unsupervised in the building, stopping off to wash their feet in the sink.  Some of the staff are women and they are at work early.  The group had to decide between a little control over the proceedings and finding a new place to meet.

I'd like to see some of the fancy-pants people downtown.  We could use them there.

Break On Through To The Other Side

The church had to call the cops at the morning meeting.  The guy was just too disruptive.  It's not always pretty but we usually get the job done.  

The thing about doing new or scary things is that I learn how to push through stuff that I'm afraid of, break on through to the other side, break on through to the other side, yeah.  The other side usually isn't as bad as I've imagined it to be and I feel like a real bad ass for walking through my fears.

I get what I want so much of the time.  Why don't I listen to The Little Man inside who's always telling me everything's going to be OK.

Ah, my Little Man's an idiot.

Stainless Steel Needles

I there any better topic than powerlessness?  I can't imagine what it would be unless someone wanted to talk about humility.  Most of my problems are the direct result of me trying to seize power over something which isn't me.  Which is everything.  I need to keep my hands off of everything.

I've been trying to get caught up on my medical appointments before I leave town.  My standard technique is to think about making the appointment for a while, worrying about the catastrophic results that will be delivered to me and my grieving family by grim-faced medical professionals.  This, unbelievably, is a big improvement over drinking Seaweed who worried but never made the appointment, worrying, worrying, worrying until he was a big knot of anxiety.

Phlebotomist:  A practitioner of phlebotomy, which is the opening of a vein, either to withdraw blood or for letting blood.  

Worrying about health is one of the most ancient of my ancient-ist riffs.  It's always in play.  I can always come up with some potential crisis that might strike me down in the prime of my life, even though that was about 25 years ago.

I did my eye appointment last week.  All was fine.  I'm not going blind and I don't have any cancers of the eye.   That they could detect.  I spent two years in optometry school before they kicked me out so there's only so much bullshit the optometrist can pull on me.

I did my annual check-up today.  All was fine, except when they tried to draw blood from my skeletal, ropey arms the needle kept "rolling" off my vein - whatever that means - so that they couldn't do anything but make me very, very nauseous.  They wanted the blood to do a cholesterol check-up.  Last year they wanted some of my blood to do a cholesterol check-up AND to quantify my PSA levels.  I didn't know what either of those things are so I opted out.  I would have had to have gone to an outside lab to get the blood drawn, which I did not do, mostly because I get nauseous when people stick very sharp needles into my body.  It's not my thing.  I don't know what my thing is but needles ain't it.  If you want to poke stainless steel under my skin you better provide me with a compelling narrative.

The very apologetic needle lady tried once, and failed.  She asked if she could try again.  I gave her a tepid thumbs up, stomach rolling a bit.  She tried again, and failed.

"OK," I said.  "That's going to be about it for today."  She was very apologetic.  She also stepped back to what I assume was beyond average projectile vomiting distance.  I got up and wobbled out of the clinic.  I was so pleased that they didn't find any horrible cancers or fatal degenerative conditions that I let them throw in the blood test as a good will gesture, but enough was enough.  I didn't do the test last year and lived to tell about it.  If cholesterol starts oozing out of my body I'll go get it checked.  They didn't mention PSAs.

The coup-de-grace was the dentist.  Dentists stick very sharp stainless steel needles into the mucous membranes inside your mouth.  This sounds like some kind of Medieval torture routine.  I don't trust dentists.  I'm sure they're fine people doing fine work but they really have you at a disadvantage.  They look inside my mouth and find stuff - they always find stuff - which is very expensive to fix.  They deliver the news solemnly.  They suggest that if you don't fix the stuff that even worse stuff could happen that would require more needles and high speed drills.

What are you supposed to say?  You're at a disadvantage.  Dentists have almost as much power as auto mechanics.  They always find stuff, too, and I have no frame of reference to challenge them, either .

"Mr. Seaweed," they say.  "Your Johnson Rod is shot.  You really need a new Johnson Rod.  I would feel guilty letting you drive out of here with your Johnson Rod in the condition that it's in."

What am I supposed to do?  I can't even open the hood of my car where the engine thingy is.  I don't know if my car has a Johnson Rod.  I think my mechanics sit around and come up with the most ridiculous things to see if I'll buy them.  If I don't know whether or not my car has a Johnson Rod I sure as shit don't know what a new one costs.

"Give him an estimate for $300," I imagine them whispering.  "I need a new sump pump."

My dentist did come up with about $3500 worth of things to fix.  He came up with them 6 months ago and I didn't fix them then.  I'm sure I'll need a Root Canal Operation.  That was his new technique: if you don't fix this now it'll get worse, not necessarily causing any pain, until you need a Root Canal.

He doesn't know who he's dealing with.  I'm a recovering alcoholic.  I have an almost infinite capacity for pain and a stubbornness that's legendary.

It make me a little queasy even reading the definition of phlebotomy.