When All Else Fails - Pool Story!

How about a pool story?  I usually get a good pool story every couple of months.  I'll probably tell my sponsor about it later on, probably more than once - he's a little forgetful at this point.  He'll get to say "Principles before personalities" which is one of the things he tells me all the time, a strong indicator that I suck at it.   

There's this little old man that shows up at the pool from time to time.  He does some walking and he also does a hilarious imitation of a back stroke - he looks like a baby bird trying to peck its way out of an egg - where he takes up both sides of whatever lane he's hogging.  I almost ran headlong into him a few weeks back when he jumped into the lane I was using without giving me a heads up.  I could be more aware of my surroundings, I guess, but I have on befogged goggles and mostly I'm trying not to drown or strangle for lack of oxygen.  I don't mind sharing a lane in the least but please alert me so that we don't conk heads.  I was a little pissed.  Two men swimming in opposite directions running into each other is not in my exercise routine, and I've done it a couple of times.  It's no fun.

Yesterday, as I was enjoying a post-swim soak in the hot tub, I watched a friend have a confusing conversation with the bird back-stroke guy about who owned which towel.  The towels were close shades of pewter or beige or something.  Eventually, they got it sorted out. Always the funny man I suggested to my friend that he needed an interior decorator if he wanted to be sure that he got the right towel.  He leaned over the hot tub and said that bird guy likes to use the end hook so he just moves anything that may already be there - towels, gym bags, goggles - and hangs up his own stuff.  My buddy didn't exactly remember what color towel he brought.  He seemed a little pissed - there are like 45 hooks in the pool, most of them empty.

Here's where I come in. . . 

There are 8 showers in the locker room and 8 hooks, leading one to believe that each shower user gets one hook and one hook only.  Nobody gets 2 hooks and 3 hooks is right out.  However, if one should find no hooks available one would be within one's rights to bitch up a blue streak unless maybe someone left something by mistake on one of the hooks, and that stuff could just be dumped on the floor or pitched into a garbage pail - if you can't remember to take your shit with you then maybe you should stay out of my shower room.  When I got into the showers the room was completely empty so I took two hooks, an extravagance that seemed reasonable given the lack of shower-ers.  A few minutes later, shampoo running into my eyes, I see bird man holding my gym bag through the translucent curtain, asking: "Is this yours?"  I just looked at him, debating whether or not to point out that there wasn't anyone else in the fucking room and could he please replace my fucking gym bag?

"Yes?" he pressed, busily rearranging my towel and my gym bag on one hook so he could use the shower right next door and claim the extra hook that I piggishly had taken, a hook which in fact belonged to the shower he was preparing to use.  I had to hold my tongue.  I was trampling on my own shower room rules and had no right to complain, even though the guy reminded me of someone coming into a completely empty movie theater and taking the seat right next to yours.  Yeah, the seat IS empty but really?

I have no idea what the message is here.  Send me a note if it makes sense to you, unless you happen to be the bird back-stroke guy.

More Cancer Stuff

I'm trying to talk to my dying sponsor every day, and I'm getting close.  He spends a fair amount of time on the phone with me.  He's always attended a lot of meetings and is a pretty social guy so I'm guessing it's pretty boring lying in a hospital bed, trying to fight off the disease that's going to kill you.  That was a topic of discussion today - exactly how the cancer kills a person.  Amazing some of the things that two guys can talk about.  It's wasn't about how the cancer kills just anyone, either - it was about how the cancer is going to kill him.

He mentioned recently that the doctors decided to prescribe the pill form of medical marijuana to try to stimulate an appetite that has been compromised by the cancer and the treatment for the cancer - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.  You don't eat you lose your ability to fight off the attackers, but when food tastes like metal and it makes you nauseous you don't want to eat, and ya gotta eat.  We had a giggle over the pot pill.

"Man, I think you lost your sobriety," I offered.  He giggled.  He's been giggling a lot lately.  He wonders if it's the pot pill - I suspect that the hydrocodone he's taking to combat the cancer pain is probably overwhelming whatever effect the THC is having and he needs both of them, by the way.

He tells me that story every time I call.  I don't care - it's a good story.  I tell him what chores I'm running and what I had for lunch.  I think he enjoys the stories.  I enjoy talking about myself, anyway.

Girly Guy Vs. Guy Guy

Tolerant:  Tending to permit, allow, understand, or accept something.

My sponsor continues his downward slide.  If you ask me I'll tell you that this is NOT what I signed up for.  I think more along the lines of good things - sunny mornings and fresh-baked cookies and kitty cats, that kind of stuff.  Death?  Not so much.  I still labor under the illusion that pain and suffering should be optional and No . . . I am NOT 5 years old.

I would not say that tolerance for others is one of my strong suits.  Honestly, I don't know what any of my strong suits are.  I may not have any strong suits.  It may all be weak suits.  In fact, I laughed out loud when I read the definition of the word "tolerant."  Guffaw comes to mind as a qualifier.  If I had been drinking a glass of milk some would have come out of my nose.

There's a Program guy back in The Old City who was never one of my favorite people.  I wouldn't say that I actively dislike him just that he has certain attitudes about life that rub me the wrong way.  He's not a bad guy - he has plenty of friends but I don't really consider myself one of them.  More of a fellow traveler, a comrade-in-arms, someone I'd help but not hang out with.

Anyway, the dude is stopping by every day to visit my sponsor.  I wouldn't have expected this but isn't there something about expectations in our literature?  To wit: as my expectations increase so does my tendency to act like an ass-wipe?  I'm seeing the dude differently - he's making a hell of an effort.

There's Program guy here in Vacation City that I know casually but don't consider a close friend.  He's kind of a Guy Guy and I'm more of a Girly Guy so we don't meet in the middle too often - he's the kind of Guy who was always beating me up.  I was talking to my Vacation City sponsor yesterday about the death watch and he mentioned that this Guy Guy had also recently lost a long term sponsor to cancer.  At my meeting last night I had a nice talk with Guy Guy about this stuff.  It was a good talk.  Turns out he's OK.  I have learned some patience in my life, letting things come to me and evolve and clear up - I feel better about Guy Guy and I think it was a relationship that didn't have a chance to establish itself without such a common experience.

Could I maybe look for the good in someone instead of the bad?

Dammit anyway.

I am talking to my Old City sponsor every day at this point.  His cancer has a lot of momentum and is romping forward gleefully.  He's a hospice patient which means that his care now revolves around pain management and end of life quality issues.  Our conversations have been on the topic of death and dying, being prepared for what's next, spiritual certainty, and other threads that are  grim on the surface but end up being strangely uplifting, and this despite his attempts to steer the conversation back to me and my circumstances.  Alcoholics make a big deal out of standing tall and facing our problems instead of running away in fear.  It isn't pleasant doing this.  I feel weirdly disconnected as I do it.  I can't believe it's me in the middle of these talks, and I'm not the guy who's sick.

I've been swimming against the tide of some low-level anxiety the last couple of weeks.  A lot of the time I can put my finger on what idiotic, unimportant problem of prosperity is bothering me, but this spell has been of the free-floating variety.  I'm not an overly emotional guy - I'm pretty steady-as-she goes in my approach to life, never too up and never too down.  Still, I think this is affecting me in a way that I can't really appreciate right now.  I don't feel Upset!! but I think I'm upset, and I think it's the impending death of this man.

Little Westside Jonny helped a posse of guys from one of my sponsor's regular groups take a meeting into his care facility last night.  He said it was a powerful meeting, listing the same reasons that I've just finished detailing when I asked him to clarify his remarks.  Men and women on a true spiritual path inspire in so many ways.

Retreat!

I went to a men's recovery retreat over the weekend.  I thought it was a little clique-ey. - clearly a lot of the attendees knew each other pretty well from a large men's meeting in the area.  I didn't like the food, either, and the room was beat to shit.  

Other than that, it was great!

Retreat:  A period of retirement, seclusion, or solitude.

I attended a lot of retreats at a very nice retreat center in The Old City, with a lot of guys that I've known for a long time.  Obviously, this new retreat was at a big disadvantage going in.  I wasn't knocking myself out talking to people I didn't know at the old retreats when I had the option of sitting down and catching up with someone I've known for many years but didn't get to see on a regular basis.  Still, I don't think most of the guys I saw this weekend could tell you shit about me.  That's not the best way to be grow your attendance.  I'm pretty outgoing, too, so it's kind of weird when I don't fit in somewhere quickly.   

Maybe they didn't care for me.  Maybe the couldn't stand me.  Maybe some of them hated my guts.  Maybe they're not thinking about me at all.

It was a new thing I tried.  That's the thing about new things - sometimes they suck a little bit.

Eh, what can you do?  I can not go back, I'll tell you that.

Mold Condos with a Toilet View

SuperK and I are taking a long drive today with a friend of hers from The Program - a very nice lady - to see a lawyer.  This poor woman has some serious problems with mold in her condominium, a result of water infiltration that the seller didn't disclose when she bought the place.  As you might expect, there is a hell of a lot of buck-passing and finger-pointing and side-stepping when it comes to assuming responsibility for the moisture, and this is some serious moisture.  There is no need to access a moisture expert to see whether or not the condo has a mold problem - the mold has begun building skyscrapers because all available real estate is currently occupied.  Mold spores are getting serious money for studios that have a partial toilet view.

Her friend is single, a somewhat tentative woman who has been battling to get the problem fixed for several months and has, as a last resort, decided to consult a lawyer.  As you can imagine, I don't want to do this, fearing the loss of all my valuable free time, what with all of the . . .  well, I'm not that busy.  The first thing I did was request all of her correspondence under the guise of being helpful when I suspect that what I was really doing was trying to find a reason to postpone or cancel the appointment, claiming lack of due diligence.  The friend has put a lot of work into this and I was stymied in my attempts to Not Be Of Service, which I think is one of our most important Steps.  Step 87, I think: "Sought to hide instead of helping others."

I have this image of me Being of Service in a very dramatic fashion.  You know, donating a million dollars anonymously to the Hospital for Blind, Orphaned Victims of a Terrorist Attack and Some Such.  But take a few hours for moral support?  Pfffffttttt.

Usually I do the right thing, after first exhausting all other possibilities.

One Potential Defect

Obsession:  A compulsive or irrational preoccupation; an unhealthy fixation; influence or control by evil spirits without possession.

We had some work done on our home a short time ago and it went very well, no doubt helped by the fact that I was banned from the immediate premises most of the time.  Men - real men - using tools - power tools - to do construction work on my stuff is nerve racking.  I would trust a brain surgeon to do microsurgery on my brain sooner than I'd trust a guy with an electric power tool to cut up some wood - I can visualize microsurgery easier than I can visualize someone fucking around with a dowel or a shim, especially if a soffit is involved.

The job went well.  There was one defect - one potential defect - that I have, of course, honed in on as if I'm some kind of powerful, military-grade homing device.  It is something that I have a great deal of skill doing - finding defects, shortcomings, and problems.  I tried to ignore the potential defect, knowing intellectually that it was a bad emotional reaction to a very good situation, like fretting over the dent in the fender on my cherry-red Ferrari, if by "cherry-red" you mean "tarnished silver" and if by "Ferrari" you mean "Subaru."  It really stuck with me, though.  I've been in a bit of a funk the last week or so.  I get into funks sometimes that it takes a while to get out of.  Sometimes I know the raison d'etre of my funks and they can be justified, but most of the time I'm wigged out about some little thing that doesn't add up to a hill of beans.

I did my best to make the stupid obsession go somewhere else.  I've learned some little tricks in The Program that they often work well so that the stupid obsession sticks out its thumb and hitches out to LA, leaving me in peace.  But sometimes the stupid obsession gets the best of me and I can't get it to go.  This was such a case.  There may be some other things going on that I'm not acknowledging but I may just be in a down biorhythm or a funky astrological phase.  How do I know?

Finally, I broached the subject with my wife.  She was aware of the minor defect, although it didn't bother her like it did me, befitting the normal member of our hobbled duo.  Still, she agreed that it was something that at least could be addressed.  I suggested calling the guys that did the work at some point, then I called right away, wondering what was going to be different a few hours or days later besides a few more hours of pointless fretting.  The guys agreed to come out and look at the defect, even suggesting a couple of potential fixes on the phone.

I'm telling you what - stuff in my head is stuff misplaced.  GET IT OUT of my head.  This should be my motto.  My head can fashion a diamond into a turd.