F.F.A.

Free Floating Anxiety:  Prone to anxiety over nothing at all.

I told SuperK today what I had been in free float about the last few days.

"You need to find some other things to worry about," she said.

I told Willie what was going on.

"You're going home?" he said incredulously.  "I visited home last weekend and my mom was on vacation and I still got about half-freaked out."

I told California Tom what was going on.

"Yeah," he said.  "I'm not the guy my family wanted me to be, either."

I mentioned it in passing to Jimi Hendrix.

"Rainy Day, Float Away.
Lay back and groove on a rainy day."

Into The Void

Vacuum:  A region of space that contains no matter.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I've been learning a lot of good stuff about prayer in Vacation City.  I've not been a big fan of prayer historically for a variety of reasons, mostly because I suck at it.  I spend way too much time praying for help in getting the things that I want or in avoiding the things that I find objectionable.  I'm also big on praying that other people, places, and things help me get the things that I want or avoid objectionable things.

This is crappy praying.  I've found that god has a technique for people like me.  God provides the things that I ask for; however, god is quite literal and pretty creative in answering my self-serving prayers.  If I pray for a better relationship with my boss I get fired, that kind of stuff.  It's funny as long as it's happening to someone else.

People here are not as overtly religious as some of the other places I've lived.  This, in a general sense, is not good or bad but it does fit well into my world view.  I was told exactly how to pray when I was growing up - the exact words that I should use - and I don't do anything anybody tells me, often to my detriment.  Here the praying is more along the lines of the loose garment theory.  One old-timer tells me that the nature of prayer is not to change the world but the person doing the praying.

Meditation is a little trickier.  When I try to sit quietly I find that my mind fills up with a lot of noise post-haste.  It sucks in more voices and general cacophony than one person has the ability to endure.  It has gotten better over the years but it's still a low-grade riot in there most sessions.

I feel better when I do it.  I don't understand why, exactly, but I end up calmer.  I feel better even when I have a session where the voices have stormed the ramparts and sacked the castle.  It seems that the effort is the thing.  I'd love to hear god talk directly to me in a lovely baritone with a hint of an Irish lilt but I'm good when the Mongol horde is in control, too.

Void:  An empty space; a vacuum.

My favorite Black Sabbath song is "Into The Void."

Rocket engines burning fuel so fast,
Up into the night sky they blast,
Through the universe the engines whine,
Could it be the end of man and time?

This is probably symptomatic of my trouble with meditation.  I'm just sayin'.

Supine

Prone:  Predisposed, liable, inclined.

I'm amused that the primary definition of "prone" is "lying face down," as opposed to "supine," which is "lying face up."  Maybe I'm both prone and supine to anxiety.  Maybe I'm lying face down to anxiety.  

One of my most powerful warriors I use as I combat anxiety is the morning Quiet Time.  I'm amused that the adjective "quiet" is connected to the noun "time," and god, I hope that I got those definitions right or I'll look like more of a pompous ass than I really am, and I'm pompous as hell.  The point I'm trying to make is that there's rarely any quietude in the Quiet Time.  It's like watching a video of a space rocket on the launching pad with the sound turned off.  There's smoke and shaking and stuff flying off but it's quiet.  You know it's not really quiet.  You'd never say: "Wow, that's a quiet launch."  You wouldn't want people to think that you're crazy.  You wouldn't want people who know you and suspect that you're crazy to have any reason to call The Authorities.  We're trying to minimize our contact with The Authorities, who generally don't think much of crazy alcoholics.  As a rule.

I pray for three things in my Quiet Time:
1.  That I may be the best son, brother, husband, and cousin that I can be, in no particular order.  This seems harmless and well-intentioned.  I fail to see how this prayer can get me into any trouble so I'm sure it's going to blow up in my face.
2. That I may be of service to my fellow man today.  A very noble prayer, in my opinion, although I'm lying when I say that part of the prayer.  And I even thought of adding the word maximum to that prayer, as in "maximum service" to my fellow man but I'm trying to keep my lying in check today.  Service, OK; maximum service?  Yeah.
3.  That I have help dealing with whatever anxiety is currently furrowing my brow.  I don't specify the help that I want - I leave it open, so that god can deliver the appropriate help even though I'm pretty sure god is an idiot and god is going to mess it the %$!! up.

Then I have a list of affirmations.  I remind myself not to drink alcohol or use illegal drugs or legal drugs illegally obtained, smoke 2 packs of cigarettes, drink 17 gallons of coffee, eat 48,000 calories of unrefined white sugar, get a little exercise, and spend some time on my recovery.  It's a shame that I have to tell myself to do or not to do these things when they're so clearly in my best interests or bad for me, as the case may be, but there it is.  And I try not to be judgmental - I don't care if you do them or not do them, depending on your inclinations, but I know where I need to be.

Finally, I run through a Gratitude List.  Simple stuff really: grateful for my health; for my wife's health; that my parents are doing reasonably well; that I have so many wonderful friends, a gift that is hard for me to get my arms around sometimes; for my nice trailer home and my nice Very Expensive Car and for a few dollars in the bank.  It's an imposing list.  I have a lot to be grateful for.

It's revealing that I have to remind myself that I have it good each day or I forget that I have it good and even start believing that I'm getting screwed by my god who doesn't know what the %$!@! is going on.  

Ned! Ned Ryerson!!

Anxiety:  (pathology)  A state of restlessness and agitation, often accompanied by a distressing sense of oppression or tightness in the stomach.

"Prone to anxiety" may be one of the greatest phrases ever uttered in the English language.

I had a friend many years ago who suffered a series of panic attacks.  

"They were profoundly uncomfortable," he said dryly.

Anxiety is such a nancy word.  We do a mambo with fear, dressing it up in all kinds of fancy outfits and period costumes.  We use anger when we want to be a bad-ass.  We use depression when we want some attention.  We use stress when we want to seem busy.  It's all fear.  It's all fear.  We are afraid that we won't get something that we want or we're afraid that we're going to lose something that we already have, and that covers everything, my friends.

Isn't it worrisome that one of the definitions of anxiety includes the ominous qualifier: "pathology"?

Pathology:  Any deviation from a healthy or normal condition; abnormality. 

I had another friend, a heroin addict, who talked about his worry scanner.  He flicked it on and watched the little red light blink sequentially through a series of channels until it found something to worry about.  It was tireless, this device, always working, always searching for something that was wrong or was going to go wrong.

There's a famous circuit speaker who tells about a high-powered job he had before he lapsed into homelessness.  He showed up every day at work, dressed to kill, in a construct of extreme self-confidence meant to convince everyone that he wasn't, you know, insane.   Every day his boss asked him how he was doing and every day he said that he was doing great.

"Once, just once," he recalled.  "I wanted to say: 'I'm terrified.' "

"What's the matter," he imagined his boss saying.

"Beats the hell out of me," he would have been forced to reply.

While I'm prone to anxiety I have a hell of a toolkit today.  I have taken that worry scanner apart many times.  That worry scanner is right out of Groundhog Day.  I can't kill it.  It's alive! 

Actually I'm doing well this morning and I do well often.  But I'm aware of that proneness, hovering in the sky above my head, like a big carrion-feeding vulture.

The Rapacious Creditor

Rapacious:  Given to taking by force or plundering; voracious; avaricious.

"Alcohol, now become the rapacious creditor . . . "

That is a great line.  That is a world-class line.   The meeting today was on Step One, the "dude, you're not in control of jackshit" Step.  How appropriate was that for me as I try to maneuver the world into the off-ramp of my choice.  I get the "powerless over alcohol" part - it's the powerless over everything else part that really sticks in my craw sometimes.

That's a great word: craw.

". . . bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands."

OK, then.  Got it.

The Return of The Contractor!

Easygoing:  Calm, relaxed, casual and informal. 

I wonder what the opposite of "easygoing" is?  Hard going?  Easy coming?  Really not easygoing at all?  That would work well for me.

"Wow, that Seaweed is really calm and relaxed."  This is not a statement that will be heard in the near future.  This is a statement prohibited by law.  It's a Class III felony.  Up until the 17th century a person could be stoned to death or thrown into debtor's prison or boiled in oil for uttering such a sentiment.

Too quick I was on The Contractor reprieve.  I get up this morning and draw a glass of drinking water.  It fizzed and foamed like an Alka Seltzer.  I was not happy.  I wanted a glass of drinking water not a fizzy drink that tasted like the salt water mouth wash my mama made for me when I was sick with a sore throat.  I called The Contractor and left a message.

On my way home from the pool I took an incoming call from Willie.  He talked about something or the other - I really can't remember.

"Can I tell you something?"  I asked.  "Do you have a minute?"

"Oh, god, yes," he said.

(Translation, for guys like Willie and me and almost everyone else I've met in The Fellowship: "I am SO tired of living in my head, thinking about myself, blowing little problems up into big problems, would you PLEASE distract me for a minute.)

I started telling him about the fizzy water.  He started laughing.  Check that: he started roaring, a choking, snorting, stop-so-I-can-catch-my-breath laughing.  While I was happy to amuse him - as I knew I would - I was somewhat offended at the level of his mirth.  I was pissed about The Contractor.

He tells me a story involving a computer that took him two hours to solve.  His son - his 8 year old son - walks in and diagnoses the problem immediately, and then starts to abuse him for being so oblivious.

I'm tellin' ya, I got real problems here, people.

The Contractors! Are Coming Around the Left Flank!

Little Westside Jonny mildly observed that my terrible, terrible, awful, end-of-the-world contractor problems are not fresh news for those of you who are old FOS (Friends of Seaweed). Here's a thing about having friends in recovery - they actually listen to what you say when you're talking.  It's weird.  And they often pay close enough attention that they can remember what you've said after you've said it.  This is one of the main reasons that I don't lie with the frequency and intensity that I used to - these people remember the details of my lies down to the smallest little manufactured fact.   It was a far different situation in my drinking days, when I'd be talking, vaguely aware that I was being offensive or inappropriate,  and I'd look at my bar-mate or floormate, depending on my level of inebriation, his eyes glazed or mostly glommed onto the football game trying to escape the static on the shitty TV in the corner of the bar, and know that I could say just about anything I wanted because it was destined to be stored in a mostly inaccessible place.

And then take it up a notch and actually write down your thoughts.  There's no hiding from that.

LWSJ is right, of course - I don't have any extra patience with some things if by "some things" you mean "anyone who is trying to liberate some of my money from me."  I have worked hard on my perspective every time I'm subjected to an Attack of the Contractors, pretty sure that everything will work out well in the end, but I'm still unable to shake the angst.  SuperK and I laugh at the stuff that upsets the other.  It seems absurd until it's inside.

A man needs to know his limitations.

The project ended well, of course.  The fact that I knew it would didn't stop me from ruining several hours in morbid projection.  While we were chatting for a bit before The Contractor left we mentioned that the flue on our fireplace was jammed open.  It has a lever on a frame with the markings "Open" and "Closed."  I'm not very technical but I thought I could figure this one   out.  It was clearly marked but inoperable.  I tried to fix it myself if by "fixed" you mean "using exponentially increasing force to try to force it to open the $#!! up."  I managed only to cover most of my head and face with large amounts of chimney soot.  I looked like a character from a Dickens story, except for the Timberlands.  The Contractor managed to fix it in under 2 minutes saving me a $100 service call from a different Contractor of some type.

Here's the funny part: the obstruction was some kind of valve or fitting deliberately installed when the fireplace was - apparently - converted from its original wood burning purpose to a gas-only appliance.

Something about the house filling with poisonous, odorless, deadly gas or some shit like that.