No One Is Paying Attention To Me

 I showed up late for the meeting this morning.  It wasn't an oversight or because of car or traffic problems.  My alarm worked fine.  I didn't sleep through my alarm.  I was simply enjoying sitting in my office in my lounge wear and I left late.  It was all quite deliberate.  I know it's important to hear How It Works and the Traditions being read before the meeting but after seven or eight thousand times I figure I can miss it not and then without losing my mind.  Friday is a 12 & 12 study and we're on the Traditions right now.  I personally  love reading the Traditions - the firm bedrock on which good meetings are built - but they can be a tough share for a lot of people, especially newcomers.  Consequently, there were a bunch of long silences so I violated one of my rules - You Don't Get To Share If You Can't Get Here On Time.  Frankly, I violate rules all the time.  Rules are not for me.  Rules are for suckers and losers.

I said this, more or less: "Normally I don't share if I'm late but what can I tell ya?  I'm gonna share anyway."  After the meeting this dude comes over - not a new dude but sort of new and a little off center in a general sense, if you know what I mean.  I like him well enough and we get along fine.  He says: "Look, I gotta call you out here.  I thought that was pretty harsh what you did to that dude today."

I said something snappy like: "Huh?" or maybe it was "Whuzzit?"  It's not often that I get tongue-tied but my tongue was tied.  

"I don't know what you mean," I finally replied, cleverly.

"What you said to that guy who showed up late.  I don't think it's cool to call someone out like that in the meeting."

Oh, it all became clear.

"I was talking about me.  I was the guy who showed up late."

He was very apologetic.  In fact, he said that he didn't even know that I was late which shows, once again, just how little other people are paying attention to me.  I was not offended.  I told him: "Look, if I'm acting like an asshole I want to hear about it.  Half the time when I'm being a jerk I don't realize it."  I did check with a couple of my friends who were quite clear what I was doing, just to make sure.

Tomorrow I think I'll get there early.  See if that dude notices.

Alcoholics = Children

More from the good doctor . . . . 

 "I often ask people if they really think that lack of understanding on the child's (please substitute 'alcoholic') part is the problem.  Do they believe that one more lecture will prove persuasive?  Or does the problem reside in the coercive, repetitive, and critical nature of the relationship?  It is, of course, always easier to keep doing what we're used to, even if it's evidently not working for us.  The primary goal of parenting (please substitute 'sponsoring') is to convey to our children (please substitute 'fellows') a sense that it is possible to be happy in an uncertain world, to give them hope.  We do this, of course, by example more than by anything we say to them." 

I love this kind of stuff, this basic psychology stuff.  We're unusual in A.A. because our problems are solved - or obscured, obliterated - when we drink and use but it is quite clear that these personality problems, these aberrations, are not unique to alcoholics.  The good doctor is referring to interactions he has had with adult parents who are having behavioral problems with their children, except he's trying to get them to see that the problem is with them, and not with the children.

Boy, does this sound like our experience with drunks trying to get sober?  Do any of them ever do anything we say?  Do they start to do it if we keep saying the same thing over and over?  More and more loudly?  Using a threatening or hectoring or judgmental tone?  Not our job.  I always say that tell other alcoholics what I've done and encourage them to listen to lots of other voices explaining what they've done and then to go on ahead and do what they think is best.  I'm not in the business of running anyone else's life.  I'm barely in the business of running my own life.  Mostly, I'm trying to avoid getting run over by the consequences of my actions.

Steal or Illicitly Remove

More from the good doctor.  Although he's talking about the general public, man, is this spot-on for alcoholics.

 "How are we inclined to react when told what to do?  For most of us, resentment progressing to obstinacy is the most common response.  We are not obedient people.  Most of us are descendants of those who undertook dangerous voyages in pursuit of freedom and self-determination, and we're willing to sacrifice a great deal in defense of these ideas.  We are genetically programmed to question authority.  As with most things in life, our expectations are generally realized."

Take: Reach for and hold; capture or gain possession of by force; dispossess someone of something;  steal or illicitly remove; cheat someone of something.

I believe that love is an opening of the heart.  I am at a place in my spiritual life where I am open to the possibility that I will love someone from the moment I meet them.  I generally understand that I won't like them, of course, but I figure I'm going to love them at some point so I might as well get on with it.  I embrace this love in all its forms and iterations, from romantic type love to bro-love, love between boys and girls of all ages and orientations and marital status, cherishing the oldest friends I have, present in my day to day life or not, basking in the knowledge that every person I meet is someone that at some point I'm going to be able to say: "Love you, dude" or "Love you, sweetie."  Powerful words.  Powerful words when you mean them and I don't say them unless I mean them, and I'm not afraid that this feeling might diminish or fade or evaporate over time.  Such is life.

There's a retired salon owner who lives in my community who made a promise to the park management many years ago that he would cut the hair of any resident for a flat $10 fee if the park would provide him with a room where he could set up shop.  He's a nice man, someone who radiates kindness and good energy.  When we were on our last trip to Spain he exchanged some emails with SuperK where he revealed that he was a member of a specific religious group and they came at a time that she found very helpful.  I got my hair cut yesterday - I give him a twenty because this is still far below standard barbering rates locally and also because I appreciate the service he's providing to the community, where some residents are on a fixed income and no doubt appreciate the bargain fare - and we lapsed into a long conversation about goodness and spirituality and the energy we throw off as we walk through life.  What a great conversation!  People who are trying to grow in their belief in a power greater than themselves and who are trying to be of service to others are of a similar ilk.  I didn't criticize his specific beliefs with the rules and regulations and he didn't dismiss my non-denominational approach to spirituality.

This dude doesn't need the money and he's in his mid-70s so standing on a hard floor cutting hair is likely not the easiest thing to do but he's giving back.  He's not taking.  He's through  with taking.

We should all  be through with the taking.

Can you believe those primary definitions of take?  Whew.  Brutal.

Some Stuff

 KK and I did some shopping at our local outlet mall yesterday.  Outlet malls are great - they sell the exact same stuff in stores at a "discount" that you can easily duplicate on line.  No matter - I needed some shoes and I find it impossible to get something that fits my big, dumb, misshapen feet without actually trying on the shoes.  At the first store I think we cheered the morose teenagers manning the register with our cheerful insouciance.  At the second store I remembered the clerk from a previous visit - I hijacked her music system by saying: "Alexa, play some Black Sabbath."  It actually worked to general hilarity.

I get away with abusing people in A.A. because I'm impervious to any and all incoming abuse.  If you think I'm an idiot go ahead and say so - I'll probably cheerfully agree.

One of the most contented regular members of our group lost a leg in a traffic accident several years ago - he was supervising a crew of landscapers working in a traffic median when an out of control truck hit him and several co-workers.  He told me he remembered looking down and thinking: "Where is my leg?"  I ask him how he's feeling often because he never complains - he'll tell me that some days he has phantom leg pain in the leg that's missing and some days there's a lot of rubbing and chafing where the prosthetic connects to the stump that remains.  That dude is spiritual.

Actions V Words

One of my good friends in Alcoholics Anonymous is a woman who has a job training young people how to be hair stylists.  She took this job not too long ago with a great deal of gratitude and enthusiasm.  Almost immediately her daughter - who lives in Norway - got quite ill so my friend took a leave of absence in order to spend three months with her daughter and her newborn grandson.  She asked for and her company graciously permitted her to leave even though this cost them the tuition money paid by the class she was slated to teach.  Now that she's back she has offered to fill in for any of her co-workers who teach on Saturday -  normally her day off - when they have a conflict.  She doesn't want to do this, to be honest about it.  She works all week and values her time off.  But she does it.

I am of the opinion that most people who enter The Rooms have the emotional I.Q. of a five year old, and I'm probably being generous here.  One characteristic of five year olds is that they don't often listen to what you say but they pay close, silent attention to what you do.  Talk is cheap.  Anybody can talk.  Talk, talk, talk.  Actions speak louder than words.  All of us know members who  sound great in meetings but exhibit some gaping holes in their spiritual lives.  I'm not judging here - sobriety is hard, a spiritual life is hard, living is hard - but if you're struggling with relationships maybe you shouldn't talk to the guy who has been married five times, no matter how good he sounds when he's talking about relationships.  There's a new guy in our meeting who I think is going to make it.  He doesn't talk much but listens with a fearsome intensity.  He occasionally compliments me on my presence and behavior but never on what I've said.

Reminds me of my early sobriety in Chicago when I almost always had a coffee commitment.  These were three month commitments and they were for large meetings that had both regular and decaf - huge tureens of coffee that took a long time to brew - and people got to the meeting a half hour early to shoot the shit, which meant I had to get there an hour early.  I was an important guy - working as a glorified typist - so I was often resentful about the fact that I was losing a lot of free time which I could have been doing some important shit.  I was never thanked for making coffee.  In fact, it wasn't unusual for someone to bitch about the quality of the coffee.  And these were usually the people who hung around and talked after the meeting which meant I had to hang around until everyone left and I could empty and scour the pots. 

My mouth was sarcastic, my thoughts were venomous, but my actions were good.

Crepuscular Reflections, In Reverse

 My morning meeting brought these fleeting thoughts to mind as I was actually listening to people when they shared instead of thinking about myself . . . 

We are wrecked when we enter The Rooms.  We are done.  Alcohol, which had ceased working a long time ago, was no longer a solution.  We finally knew this.

We recognize a kindred spirit pretty quickly if we're really alcoholic.  It's clear that we were among like-minded people.

Children of Chaos, we were finally in a situation where no one was telling us what to do.  How we HATE being told what to do.  When we're told what to do we don't do it, often gleefully, balefully, preferring to do the exact opposite thing purely out of spite.

We find out in a hell of a hurry that our time of pointing the finger (not that finger, the index finger, get your mind out of the gutter) at people, places, and things was over.  We are told to concentrate on the three fingers pointing right back at us and at the thumb, pointed up at heaven or God or whatever, just up for once in our miserable lives.

Seaweed Goes Down in a Double Digit Defeat

 Ah, Problems of Prosperity.  How I love to talk about Problems of Prosperity.  I don't talk about it to very many people, of course, and honestly I usually write about it because it's so fucking embarrassing to say: "My goddamn Ferrari's in the shop again" or "The service in First Class was just deplorable."  At the start of this wondrous journey having enough money to pay my rent wasn't always assured.

Anyway, on my most recent trip I prepaid for a rental car.  The plane was late so the rental company informed us that if the reservation isn't made directly with them then they cancel it, so they canceled it.  They did have cars, but not the one I had reserved, although they had many cars exactly like the one I had reserved.  So I decided, logically, to rent one of these identical but unreserved cars.  I wondered about an upgrade and was given a price somewhat higher than the standard car I had originally reserved.  Being a man who lives deeply in his own mind - said mind befogged by a long flight and jet lag - I had forgotten about the prepaid business.  What I was being shown, apparently, was the cost of the upgrade.  I did not realize this.  No where on the invoice was the prepaid amount listed, logged, revealed, or tallied or I would have politely declined the upgrade.  

Halfway through the trip we called to reserve the car for an additional month.  The invoice that was emailed to me was almost exactly twice the amount of the original invoice, which made sense to me as I believed it to be the cost for the entire two month period on a reconfigured invoice.  Stupidly, I did not look at the dates on the invoice which would have revealed the shocking truth of the matter; namely, that I should have driven the car immediately back to the airport and gotten something much, much cheaper because the amount I was staring at, stupidly, was only for the last month.

I called the rental company and they replied, more or less, by saying: "Fuck off."  So I called my credit card company to dispute the charge and they took somewhat longer in their reply which boiled down was a somewhat more elegant way of saying: "Fuck off."

So who's at fault here?  I feel like I was hustled by a cagey gate agent.  Maybe, maybe not.  The fact of the matter is that I was very casual about a money transaction and learned a lesson.  Frankly, because the two invoices pretty clearly showed I was shit out of luck I decided to dispute the charge just to fuck with the rental car company on the off chance I was hustled.  You know - make them do some work for their extra money.  They because I was pretty annoyed at all the fuck offs so I spitefully asked the credit card agent to transfer me to whoever could cancel my credit card but in my defense I did hang up before the transfer went through.  The card gives me 5% cash back for all travel-related expenses instead of the 3% from my second best card.  If it was 1% more I would have let my spite run wild but that 2% can add up to some not inconsequential money so I'ma let it ride.

Ferraris in the shop, indeed.  Read the goddamn invoice, son.  Learned a lesson.  Renewed my gratitude at being blessed with a  nice financial backstop.  Give it up.  

Europcar 17 - Seaweed 3.