The Last Leg Is No Piece of Cake, Either

Hallucinate:  To seem to perceive things which are not really present; to have visions.

The last leg of our flight was uneventful although both of us were tired enough that we had begun to hallucinate.  Hundreds of screaming newborns began to populate my peripheral vision.  We were weighed down with the heavy yoke of a nine hour time change, about 20 hours of continuous travel up to that point - and we weren't done yet - thumping on our none too young bodies, all accompanied by a barrage of toilet flushing and bathroom door slamming that would have drowned out the Allied bombardment of Normandy beach.

Our country of temporary residence is not known for its extraordinary efficiency so we landed a little further from where we took off if the bus trip from the plane to the terminal was any indication.  This wouldn't have annoyed me half as much if I had known that it would take an hour for the plane's luggage to show up at baggage claim.  There is nothing as invigorating as a dimly lit baggage area at 1AM, marinating in my now skanked up clothes, surrounded by people who probably did something to annoy me on the plane. 

Voila! our luggage arrived.  I'm sure I spent a chunk of time on the plane worrying about that.  I worry about almost everything over which I have no control.  We were vomited into the airport terminal itself and Voila! there was Issa, our cab driver.  I had definitely worried a lot about our driver not being there unless I was worrying that if he was there, he was going to cheat us or kill us or something.  Plenty for me to worry about.

"Mr. Seaweed, Mr. Seaweed," he said, scrambling over the ropes to help us with our luggage.

I motioned him over and gave him a big hug.  His reaction indicated that not too many people lunge at him to deliver big bear hugs.  He was a multi-lingual immigrant working at 2AM.  When we arrived at our apartment - on a dark, gloomy looking street - I tipped him outrageously and I hugged him again.  I think he giggled at this point.  He was probably eager to get away from a disheveled man trying to hug him in the middle of the night.  I'm not even going to tell my sponsor about this big tip.  Right away, anyhow.

My last big, big worry was that the owner of the apartment we had rented wouldn't be there to let us in.  The area in which we're staying is very vibrant during the day but very buttoned-down and security-doored at night, ominous to a very tired worrier.

There he was, prowling the street, looking for us.  In we went without a hitch.

I probably should make a big, old gratitude list.

The Longest Leg is Always the Longest

Our trip to the airport began at 3:30 in the afternoon, courtesy of our driver from Albania, Ben, a devastatingly good-looking guy in shades who spoke in a low monotone.  I couldn't understand what he was saying about half of the time.  Always agreeable, I nodded and smiled encouragingly.  He could have been telling me how he killed and dismembered his mother for all I knew, although he always had a pleasant look on his face. Maybe my acquiescence drove him to more murders.  .Maybe he stopped on the way home and bought a large freezer in which to store all of the frozen body parts.  I wouldn't put it past a guy from Albania who looked like he could break me in two with one hand.  

He knows where I live.  

Ben arrived early.  People here are really wound up about traffic even though there never seems to be much.  I felt a bit rushed and only noticed upon our arrival at the airport that the coat and vest I had so lovingly laid out was still resting on my couch, a place far, far from where it could do me any good.  We were grateful that we avoided all of that non-existent traffic so that we could arrive early at the airport to for our flight that was delayed two hours.

For some reason having to wait for something over which I have no control distresses me unduly.  I'd rather drive myself 4 hours in a downpour than sit in a comfortable chair at an airport, reading.  I get the feeling that it isn't going to work out.  It almost always works out and when it doesn't all of my worrying buys me squat.  Control.  Powerlessness.  I'd rather pilot the plane myself than wait a few indeterminate hours.  If they tossed me the keys I'd take the thing up in the air for a spin.

Our flight lasted eleven hours.  That's a long time to sit for someone who suffers from restless ass syndrome.  We did have exit row seats which meant my legs weren't jammed up into my pelvis - a good thing - but they (the seats, not my legs) were near the bathrooms (although, come to think about it, my legs were near the bathrooms, too) - a bad thing.  All night long with the slamming doors.  I wondered if everyone was so pissed at having to use the bathroom that they slammed the door shut with all of their might.  It distracted me from the odor.  I did manage to sleep a little if by "sleep" you mean "partially digested distraction."

We got a cup of coffee at our first airport stop.  I flirted shamelessly with a couple of fluent baristas young enough to be my granddaughters who were very impressed by my residence in Vacation Town.  I don't think I had any other qualities they found attractive.  But I thanked them for being so nice - it was a lovely way stop on a stressful trip.  It made me feel I was on the right path.  I like to let people know when they've made a difference in my day because so often it's the little things that make a big difference.  I'm under the illusion that I have to make a big gesture all of the time. 

It was a good thing I worried about getting in two hours late because our connecting flights were also delayed two hours.  I'm pretty sure they delayed both flights for two hours just to fuck with me.  I'm that powerful.  But the potential problem was that we had reserved a taxi at our final destination.  Would he be there?  Would he wait?  And if he did would he cheat me out of my pre-paid credit.

I'm sure he will!

Mathematics

I'm sitting at the airport ready to get on a plane with a very, very small seat to take a very, very long flight.  I think the seat is shrinking as I type.  I think it's now vanishingly small.  It may actually be vapor at this point, but I still have to sit in it for ten hours.  Ten long, long hours.

Anyway, did I mention that my flight has been delayed two hours?

When I met with my sponsor a few days ago I shared some mini Fourth Step stuff with him.  One of the things we talked about was the fact that I am very careful with my money.  I am loath to allow it to leave my hands, especially when the exchange is with someone who is trying to cheat me; everyone, in other words.

We laughed about the $646 check that the federal government mailed me recently.  I said that I should spend it all on tips during my vacation since it was money I wasn't expecting to have.  If the government had never sent the money to me I would have never known the difference.  My sponsor jumped all over this suggestion.  He appeared more than willing to spend my money which irked me slightly.

We got a cab ride to the airport today.  The price for the ride was determined beforehand but didn't include the tip for the driver.  As we got near the airport I pulled $15 out of my wallet.  I looked at it for a minute and then put $5 back.  Then I got out the $5 and then put it back again.  I took out five $1 bills.  Over the course of the next few minutes I added a single $1 bill to the pile until the total reached $14.

I held onto the $14 for a while.

I added the $1 for a grand total of $15, in case your math skills are lacking.

Ben has it all, the whole $15.

Whoo Hoo!

Free, Free, Set Me Free

Free:  Not imprisoned or enslaved.

I have had a couple of things bugging me.  It's not the bugging part that's so irritating or the things that are causing the bugs but the fact that I've been bugged for far too long and with far too much intensity given the nature of the bugs - it's that I have done what all good rationalizing drunks do - I've endured the bugs.  I hope that they'll vanish in the dead of night, all of their own accord.  Then I do what all drunks working diligent programs do - I started to do the work to take down the bugs on their own turf.

 I do believe in the bromide that I won't change anything until the pain of the bug becomes greater than the pain of changing something about myself to transcend the bugginess.  I have an extraordinary capacity to take pain, apparently, given my unwillingness to change things.

Anyway, I scheduled a coffee with my sponsor and prepared for the meeting by doing some writing on the things bugging me.  These are two pretty easy things.  I write every day and I like my sponsor and I LOVE coffee.  And the writing helped a lot and so did the coffee with my sponsor.  It's not that I learned anything new - there weren't any lightning bolts out of the blue.  I don't know why I think that I have to have an epiphany.  I almost never do.  What happens, though, is that the work sets me free and the talking about what's bugging me with someone else sets me freer.

Free, free, set me free.

Money Matters

I am now paying for my newspapers.  No, I do not feel better about myself.

The government of the United States of America sent me a check for $667.  It came in an envelope with no supporting documentation.  I am cashing that bad boy in a hell of a hurry.  I'm very used to the "We have recalculated your tax bill and you now owe us . . ."  This is a new one.  Maybe my Higher Power is saying: "Enough with the bitching about money."  I have never in my memory calculated my tax bill correctly.  Why don't they just tell me what I owe them?  They're obviously redoing whatever I've done.

I think they're fucking with me.

Traveling

"He was taking a kind of strength from the journey.  There was exhilaration just in the going; motion was a principal of his life . . . and in it there were properties of healing.  IT was not that he was going toward something, to a destination, to an appointment, though indeed he was and that was all right, but what counted now was the sheer act of going, the blind conviction of purpose and meaning in the simple act of going on."  

I'm getting ready to take a big trip, a two month trip, to a place several thousand miles away, into a different culture or two.  I'm exhilarated and I'm afraid.  I wish I could sit quietly in one place for the rest of my life and I wish I could be in motion all of the time, always in motion.  I wish I could be so self-aware that everything was clear and I wish I could be bombarded with a million billion new things.

I wish I could have it all.

Good Stuff

Stuff:  Miscellaneous items; things; personal effects.

So how easy is this?

To be grateful today for all of the good things that I have in my life, and there are a whole lot of them.  Because I don't like to be grateful, apparently, and because I forget what I should be grateful for, obviously,  I have had to make an actual list, an actual written list, that I have to look at every morning or I tend to drift right into disastrous thoughts of a Biblical nature, like plagues of frogs and locusts and rivers of blood.

I'm like a little kid whose mom has to pin notes to his coat so that he can remember to do things he's supposed to do.

It helps - it helps to look at that list.

"Oh, right," I say.  "That's some good shit."

Then I ask for some patience and perspective with the things that I don't like for these are things that I should also be grateful for.  Just because it hurts or stings or is temporarily unpleasant doesn't mean it isn't a good thing because it often leads to good things later.  Perhaps I can tap into the river of blood to open a transfusion clinic, that kind of stuff.  Just because I can't see into the future - and thank god for that - doesn't mean the bad stuff isn't going to end up being good stuff.