Expect: To look forward to, as to something that is believed to be about to happen or come.
Thoughts, here and there.
I continue in my low-grade suffering malaise. I wonder at the human spirit and it's relation to the spiritual world. I know I got to be in the room with my father as he died of alcoholism. I know that he's dead. I know that a deep, deep connection to a city was lost, sparked out. I know that there is a lengthening of relationships after several years of absence. I know all of this and I expected a different reaction.
I'd suggest not putting yourself in a box when it comes to your reaction to what life throws at you. It may not come out how you expected.
God, as jokester.
The big financial organization that has put together a brilliant playbook to drive me completely insane cycled back up to the top of my shit list today. Over the last two weeks I waited patiently . . . patiently . . . not so patiently . . . gritting my teeth . . . and then I picked up the phone because today was my day to be trapped inside a Kafkaesque wormhole. Against all odds I was hopeful but resigned. I had an idea what was coming.
You might recall that GWPMO helped me fill out a dizzying array of financial forms which he was supposed to forward to the Home Office. These were the people I called, the Home Office people, the shadowy, shadowy Home Office people, accountable to no one, man or beast. So . . . out of 6 forms the first guy I talked to had 3 of them and all was well. Form number 4 required an additional form that had to be notarized. He emailed me this form which, when opened, informed me that I needed to "Please wait for the form to populate." It never populated. No population appeared. The form had no people. I took my 3 out of 4 and moved on.
Forms 5 and 6 were being handled by scriveners at a different division or arm or leg of this malevolent organization and these scriveners were at a different address. They had received zero of the two forms. They offered to help me fill out the forms which I had already filled out. They couldn't explain why four of the forms mailed by the same office arrived and two did not.
"Here's the thing," I remarked. "Let's say I fill out this set of forms and then you find the original set of forms. What happens then?"
"By the way," I said. "These are complicated forms. That's why I went somewhere so someone could help me fill them out. I don't really want to fill them out again."
"Exactly," he said. "That's what we recommend people do."
He was good, this one, as a tormentor. I spoke to Tony, Sandy, and Travis today but I have lost track as to which one this guy was. I lost my temper a couple of times and there may have been some voice raising but no yelling and absolutely no profanity.
I was disconnected from Tony. Poor Sandy answered when I called back and she took the brunt of my pique.
I called the GWPMO and told them that the Home Office didn't have the forms.
"Well, they're wrong," he said. "They just called me a few minutes ago asking for clarification on one of the forms we sent in."
I was two hours in at this point and I waved my white flag of capitulation. I don't mean to suggest that the war is over, only that today the battle was bloody and fought to a draw.
I went out and got the mail today and found two checks from The Organization. If I had waited two hours all of this could have been avoided. God is amused, Seaweed is not.
Patience, Seaweed, patience.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
Lots Of Bad Words In This One
Timeline:
4/28: My father dies. I contact local insurance/investment agent to inform him of this fact. My folks liked this guy and he liked them - he said some nice things, blessed me, shit like that. I didn't have to call him so quickly but I'm a guy and I'm happier when I'm doing something, preferring any action to sitting with my grief.
5/19: Follow-up with local agent. Leave a VM. This guy will henceforth and forevermore be referred to as Guy Who's Pissing Me Off, or GWPMO (pronounced GWOMP-mo).
5/20: GWPMO replies that he has been in touch my sister. This is despite the fact that I'm the executor of the estate and we explained to him that I should be the first point of contact - part of the reasoning here is that my sister did so much work when dad was alive that I wanted to offload some of the paperwork stuff, which is a specialty of mine. Also, I think that a lot of men zero in on a woman assuming that she's going to be the weak link - that's where they start if they want to delay, dissemble, obfuscate. I don't have proof that this is so but I've never let facts get in the way of my paranoid, suspicious ramblings. Says that he has an appointment scheduled with her to discuss matters. My sister comments that she doesn't have no stinking appointment.
5/21: I contact GWPMO by EM thanking him for calling back (choking on some bile) while reminding him that he needs to start with me. I was nice. Really.
5/25: GWPMO calls my sister to set up the appointment and remind her that he needs the Death Certificate. At this point I'm beginning to work up some begrudging respect or burgeoning pity for GWPMO. He's either plowing forward doggedly or he's brain-damaged and doesn't understand simple, basic instructions spoken in unadorned English. Either way he's not veering off the path that he has chosen.
5/25: I return call to GWPMO in short order to find out that he's out of town and that he's going to be out of town for several days - he had actually called my sister from the road. I don't dig on this fact. I don't care where he's going to be or what he's going to be doing - he is the representative of a huge corporation and they can fucking well get someone else to help me in his absence. I ponder remarking - but do not - that I bet they'd have someone jonny-on-the-spot if I wanted to invest the same amount of money that I wanted to withdraw.
"Oh, sure," I wanted to say. "You're good at taking the money. Big deal. Anybody can take the money. (Here I would flutter my hands around in the air, grabbing at unseen bills, to mimic a taking action). But it's the paying out the money that's important for the client, now isn't it?"
I rejected this as too snarky.
5/27: GWPMO returns to office. GWPMO does not call me.
5/31: My sister alleges that GWPMO has the Death Certificate. I'll tell you this - nothing happens without the DC, which actually makes sense. It must prevent lots of people calling insurance agents and saying someone is dead and they'd like their money now, please.
Another part of the delay was that the doctor or medical examiner or whoever is responsible for filling out DCs sent my father's DC to Hospice of The Old City. Since he was never . . . you know . . . in Hospice this caused more delays.
6/2: I call GWMPO, who has maintained a flawless record of never, ever calling me back. He's like 8-0 at this point. He's got the upper hand. He's throwing heat and he's backing me off the plate. I've hit the dirt a couple of time, sent sprawling to get out of the way of a high and tight fastball. I dig back in, though. I'm a battler. I'm a singles hitter. I wear people out with my dogged, unimaginative persistence. You knock me down a couple of times and then I zing one right back through the middle, hustle down to first base, clapping my hands.
GWPMO gives me two options: he'll help me fill out The Forms (TF, pronounced Th' Fuck) or I can find an agent in Vacation City, set up an appointment with him or her, and get help with the forms that way. He does not offer any recommendations on any agents.
I ask him to send me the TF. I'm bruised and battered, pissed off, brushing dirt off my uniform, licking blood off my lips, but I'm down the road with this cat, right? I figure . . . some forms, right? Oh, GWPMO sent me TF - pages and pages of indecipherable legalese that a powerful, connected scrivener would have been unable to decipher. To my dogged credit, I make a start but get nowhere. I'm sinking into quicksand, into a tar pit. There are dinosaurs going down right next to me. Thunder lizards are more resigned than I am.
6/3: I leave a VM with GWPMO asking for some assistance in finding someone local who can help me fill out all of these fucking forms. I imagine him chuckling in a dark office, warming his hands over a fire made of furniture he has repossessed from destitute widows (for some reason he's gone from being an insurance agent to a collection agent). He indicates he has contacted the Home Office, or THO (pronounced Th' Ho) to request that a local agent contact me.
Silence on all fronts.
6/7: EM to GWPMO, following up.
6/8: Reply from GWPMO. He has put in an "urgent request" to the THO for someone to contact me.
"What urgent request?" I grouse to SuperK. "It's been five fucking weeks since my dad died. This is an INSURANCE COMPANY. They PAY OUT INSURANCE TO PEOPLE WHO HAD PURCHASED INSURANCE POLICIES THAT PAY OUT WHEN THEY DIE. I can't get anyone to do anything for me and all of a sudden my requests are 'urgent?' "
I mentioned that my father had died.
Nothing. Crickets
6/9: Fuck this. I call the THO. I talk to Scott. Scott is very nice. I ask Scott if he can help me with TF.
"Sure," Scott says. "What forms do you need help with?"
I read some form numbers off TF that GWPMO has sent me.
"I don't have any record of those forms," Scott says. "Maybe GWPMO sent you some old forms? I can help you fill out the correct forms. I'll put them in the mail today and you should have them in 5 to 7 business days."
I don't know what's more satisfying to my sense of absurdity here: that GWPMO has old forms - so old the THO doesn't have a fucking record of them or the numbers on them - or that the THO can't research the forms for me. How old were these forms? I mean what would have happened if I had filled all of these forms out and sent them in? I imagine Scott throwing his hands up in the air: "What the hell are these?" he'd yell. I can only assume they had a total rewrite of TF, and I mean a scrap-the-old-system, start-from-scratch, it's-a-new-day-at-this-organization kind of rewrite.
Or maybe they just changed the numbers and the forms were identical.
As a guy who is suspicious of the motives of large corporations on a good day I confess that at this point I was getting morbidly suspicious.
(My notes get a little fragmented here - I don't remember how I left it with Scott, that useless pustule. I feel like I've been trapped in a small, confined, metal space and insurance agents have been tossing in concussion grenades. My ears are ringing and I'm increasingly out of it).
6/10: I get up and research a list of local agents off of the interweb. I pick one at random and call him. I don't think that GWPMO or Scott are going to come through for me in the local rep research. Surprisingly enough or maybe predictably this guy immediately agrees to see me and we set up an appointment for the next day.
(I am often refereeing an existential battle between manly action and patient waiting. Usually patient waiting is the way to go but in this case - as you can clearly see - it has been a waste of time. Plunging rashly ahead has been the most productive).
6/11: I meet with this guy who I'll call Jeff. Jeff has some of the forms from my father's estate but not all of them. Frankly, I'm impressed that THO sent him anything. Still, Jeff and I come up with a game plan which includes parting ways for a couple of days so that he can get all of TF pre-filled out as much as possible, thereby saving me time for the actual final filling-out of TF. I'm vaguely uneasy about leaving Jeff's office without filling out TF. It seems like I'm so close.
6/13: EM to Jeff where I lay out a generous schedule for the week.
Silence.
6/15: EM to Jeff.
Silence.
Phone call to Jeff who says: "I got your emails." I hate it when people say that pursuant to the fact that they haven't responded to the emails. Jeff says: "I haven't filled TF out yet. Let's set up an appointment." He actually adds: "That'll force me to get them filled out." I was impressed by his honesty - honesty where the subtext was: "Your shit isn't very important to me. I haven't filled TF because I've had more important, interesting things to do."
6/17: Appointment with Jeff. When I walk into his office I see a 6 inch stack of paper on his desk. He laughs and then says: "It's a lot of work for which I'm getting paid absolutely nothing." I may be making up the exact words that he spoke but not the sentiment.
Again, I'm impressed/floored/flabbergasted/infuriated that THO has no procedure for getting accounts transferred to new agents or for compensating them for the work this entails. I'd suggest this as a company motto: "You better hope the guy who sells you this shit is around when you die. And don't move, either."
Jeff actually looks surprised at the stack of papers. I'm once again confounded that a task which would seem to be common and unsurprising to an employee is so surprisingly uncommon.
I'm smart enough to get a time frame from Jeff on the completion of the forms. He provides the date of 6/19.
6/21: some factotum at his office calls me to get additional information on the filling-out of TF. Jeff was way off with the 6/19 date.
6/23: seven weeks since my father died.
4/28: My father dies. I contact local insurance/investment agent to inform him of this fact. My folks liked this guy and he liked them - he said some nice things, blessed me, shit like that. I didn't have to call him so quickly but I'm a guy and I'm happier when I'm doing something, preferring any action to sitting with my grief.
5/19: Follow-up with local agent. Leave a VM. This guy will henceforth and forevermore be referred to as Guy Who's Pissing Me Off, or GWPMO (pronounced GWOMP-mo).
5/20: GWPMO replies that he has been in touch my sister. This is despite the fact that I'm the executor of the estate and we explained to him that I should be the first point of contact - part of the reasoning here is that my sister did so much work when dad was alive that I wanted to offload some of the paperwork stuff, which is a specialty of mine. Also, I think that a lot of men zero in on a woman assuming that she's going to be the weak link - that's where they start if they want to delay, dissemble, obfuscate. I don't have proof that this is so but I've never let facts get in the way of my paranoid, suspicious ramblings. Says that he has an appointment scheduled with her to discuss matters. My sister comments that she doesn't have no stinking appointment.
5/21: I contact GWPMO by EM thanking him for calling back (choking on some bile) while reminding him that he needs to start with me. I was nice. Really.
5/25: GWPMO calls my sister to set up the appointment and remind her that he needs the Death Certificate. At this point I'm beginning to work up some begrudging respect or burgeoning pity for GWPMO. He's either plowing forward doggedly or he's brain-damaged and doesn't understand simple, basic instructions spoken in unadorned English. Either way he's not veering off the path that he has chosen.
5/25: I return call to GWPMO in short order to find out that he's out of town and that he's going to be out of town for several days - he had actually called my sister from the road. I don't dig on this fact. I don't care where he's going to be or what he's going to be doing - he is the representative of a huge corporation and they can fucking well get someone else to help me in his absence. I ponder remarking - but do not - that I bet they'd have someone jonny-on-the-spot if I wanted to invest the same amount of money that I wanted to withdraw.
"Oh, sure," I wanted to say. "You're good at taking the money. Big deal. Anybody can take the money. (Here I would flutter my hands around in the air, grabbing at unseen bills, to mimic a taking action). But it's the paying out the money that's important for the client, now isn't it?"
I rejected this as too snarky.
5/27: GWPMO returns to office. GWPMO does not call me.
5/31: My sister alleges that GWPMO has the Death Certificate. I'll tell you this - nothing happens without the DC, which actually makes sense. It must prevent lots of people calling insurance agents and saying someone is dead and they'd like their money now, please.
Another part of the delay was that the doctor or medical examiner or whoever is responsible for filling out DCs sent my father's DC to Hospice of The Old City. Since he was never . . . you know . . . in Hospice this caused more delays.
6/2: I call GWMPO, who has maintained a flawless record of never, ever calling me back. He's like 8-0 at this point. He's got the upper hand. He's throwing heat and he's backing me off the plate. I've hit the dirt a couple of time, sent sprawling to get out of the way of a high and tight fastball. I dig back in, though. I'm a battler. I'm a singles hitter. I wear people out with my dogged, unimaginative persistence. You knock me down a couple of times and then I zing one right back through the middle, hustle down to first base, clapping my hands.
GWPMO gives me two options: he'll help me fill out The Forms (TF, pronounced Th' Fuck) or I can find an agent in Vacation City, set up an appointment with him or her, and get help with the forms that way. He does not offer any recommendations on any agents.
I ask him to send me the TF. I'm bruised and battered, pissed off, brushing dirt off my uniform, licking blood off my lips, but I'm down the road with this cat, right? I figure . . . some forms, right? Oh, GWPMO sent me TF - pages and pages of indecipherable legalese that a powerful, connected scrivener would have been unable to decipher. To my dogged credit, I make a start but get nowhere. I'm sinking into quicksand, into a tar pit. There are dinosaurs going down right next to me. Thunder lizards are more resigned than I am.
6/3: I leave a VM with GWPMO asking for some assistance in finding someone local who can help me fill out all of these fucking forms. I imagine him chuckling in a dark office, warming his hands over a fire made of furniture he has repossessed from destitute widows (for some reason he's gone from being an insurance agent to a collection agent). He indicates he has contacted the Home Office, or THO (pronounced Th' Ho) to request that a local agent contact me.
Silence on all fronts.
6/7: EM to GWPMO, following up.
6/8: Reply from GWPMO. He has put in an "urgent request" to the THO for someone to contact me.
"What urgent request?" I grouse to SuperK. "It's been five fucking weeks since my dad died. This is an INSURANCE COMPANY. They PAY OUT INSURANCE TO PEOPLE WHO HAD PURCHASED INSURANCE POLICIES THAT PAY OUT WHEN THEY DIE. I can't get anyone to do anything for me and all of a sudden my requests are 'urgent?' "
I mentioned that my father had died.
Nothing. Crickets
6/9: Fuck this. I call the THO. I talk to Scott. Scott is very nice. I ask Scott if he can help me with TF.
"Sure," Scott says. "What forms do you need help with?"
I read some form numbers off TF that GWPMO has sent me.
"I don't have any record of those forms," Scott says. "Maybe GWPMO sent you some old forms? I can help you fill out the correct forms. I'll put them in the mail today and you should have them in 5 to 7 business days."
I don't know what's more satisfying to my sense of absurdity here: that GWPMO has old forms - so old the THO doesn't have a fucking record of them or the numbers on them - or that the THO can't research the forms for me. How old were these forms? I mean what would have happened if I had filled all of these forms out and sent them in? I imagine Scott throwing his hands up in the air: "What the hell are these?" he'd yell. I can only assume they had a total rewrite of TF, and I mean a scrap-the-old-system, start-from-scratch, it's-a-new-day-at-this-organization kind of rewrite.
Or maybe they just changed the numbers and the forms were identical.
As a guy who is suspicious of the motives of large corporations on a good day I confess that at this point I was getting morbidly suspicious.
(My notes get a little fragmented here - I don't remember how I left it with Scott, that useless pustule. I feel like I've been trapped in a small, confined, metal space and insurance agents have been tossing in concussion grenades. My ears are ringing and I'm increasingly out of it).
6/10: I get up and research a list of local agents off of the interweb. I pick one at random and call him. I don't think that GWPMO or Scott are going to come through for me in the local rep research. Surprisingly enough or maybe predictably this guy immediately agrees to see me and we set up an appointment for the next day.
(I am often refereeing an existential battle between manly action and patient waiting. Usually patient waiting is the way to go but in this case - as you can clearly see - it has been a waste of time. Plunging rashly ahead has been the most productive).
6/11: I meet with this guy who I'll call Jeff. Jeff has some of the forms from my father's estate but not all of them. Frankly, I'm impressed that THO sent him anything. Still, Jeff and I come up with a game plan which includes parting ways for a couple of days so that he can get all of TF pre-filled out as much as possible, thereby saving me time for the actual final filling-out of TF. I'm vaguely uneasy about leaving Jeff's office without filling out TF. It seems like I'm so close.
6/13: EM to Jeff where I lay out a generous schedule for the week.
Silence.
6/15: EM to Jeff.
Silence.
Phone call to Jeff who says: "I got your emails." I hate it when people say that pursuant to the fact that they haven't responded to the emails. Jeff says: "I haven't filled TF out yet. Let's set up an appointment." He actually adds: "That'll force me to get them filled out." I was impressed by his honesty - honesty where the subtext was: "Your shit isn't very important to me. I haven't filled TF because I've had more important, interesting things to do."
6/17: Appointment with Jeff. When I walk into his office I see a 6 inch stack of paper on his desk. He laughs and then says: "It's a lot of work for which I'm getting paid absolutely nothing." I may be making up the exact words that he spoke but not the sentiment.
Again, I'm impressed/floored/flabbergasted/infuriated that THO has no procedure for getting accounts transferred to new agents or for compensating them for the work this entails. I'd suggest this as a company motto: "You better hope the guy who sells you this shit is around when you die. And don't move, either."
Jeff actually looks surprised at the stack of papers. I'm once again confounded that a task which would seem to be common and unsurprising to an employee is so surprisingly uncommon.
I'm smart enough to get a time frame from Jeff on the completion of the forms. He provides the date of 6/19.
6/21: some factotum at his office calls me to get additional information on the filling-out of TF. Jeff was way off with the 6/19 date.
6/23: seven weeks since my father died.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Grieving Grief
Grief: Pain of mind arising from misconduct from oneself.
All right, today I'm going to waste everyone's time so that I can rant privately, thus saving myself the embarrassment of apologizing to some people, places, things, and large corporations for indiscretions committed during a more public ranting; perhaps a whole series of public rantings. I'll admit that it is going to be difficult to tell the difference from whatever it is I normally do here. Sort of a semi-private releasing of demons. My whole life is kind of a series of screen-shots (Ed. Note: Vacation City is near Los Angeles so I'm very hip to the whole film industry lingo) from old Twilight Zone episodes where no one but the main protagonist can see a wavering, indistinct, smoky wraith flowing from the body of whatever character is currently damned to hell.
When I worked I used to call people with whom I had an objection and make an ass of myself. I learned - in lieu of the phone call - to write an email and then banish it for a few days to my Saved Drafts folder. That way I could go back and look at it when cooler heads prevailed; inevitably, I'd think: "Wow, am I glad I didn't send that one." Often I'd yell down the hall for SuperK - she'd pad into my office, read the note, gently suggest some edits, then some more edits, then mumble something about a "total rewrite." After a bit she started looking up and saying simply: "You're not sending that." I started to get suspicious that she wasn't actually reading the note. Eventually, she stopped coming to my office, just yelling: "You're not sending that!" down the hallway.
Can I tell you how much grief I saved myself by pausing a couple of beats before running my mouth? All the grief in the world, that's how much.
All right, today I'm going to waste everyone's time so that I can rant privately, thus saving myself the embarrassment of apologizing to some people, places, things, and large corporations for indiscretions committed during a more public ranting; perhaps a whole series of public rantings. I'll admit that it is going to be difficult to tell the difference from whatever it is I normally do here. Sort of a semi-private releasing of demons. My whole life is kind of a series of screen-shots (Ed. Note: Vacation City is near Los Angeles so I'm very hip to the whole film industry lingo) from old Twilight Zone episodes where no one but the main protagonist can see a wavering, indistinct, smoky wraith flowing from the body of whatever character is currently damned to hell.
When I worked I used to call people with whom I had an objection and make an ass of myself. I learned - in lieu of the phone call - to write an email and then banish it for a few days to my Saved Drafts folder. That way I could go back and look at it when cooler heads prevailed; inevitably, I'd think: "Wow, am I glad I didn't send that one." Often I'd yell down the hall for SuperK - she'd pad into my office, read the note, gently suggest some edits, then some more edits, then mumble something about a "total rewrite." After a bit she started looking up and saying simply: "You're not sending that." I started to get suspicious that she wasn't actually reading the note. Eventually, she stopped coming to my office, just yelling: "You're not sending that!" down the hallway.
Can I tell you how much grief I saved myself by pausing a couple of beats before running my mouth? All the grief in the world, that's how much.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
It Is What It Is
I wanted to post a comment that my friend David W left on my blog commenting on the post: "That Jeebus was a Doodle."
AA literature baffled me before I got into recovery. I took things out of context and truly just didn't get the concepts. It took me years to actually interpret the lessons to be learned from AA literature.
Good stuff. Makes me see that I'm not alone in my ability to misinterpret basic truths.
Now back to me . . .
Control: To exercise influence over; to suggest or dictate the behavior of.
I'm feeling a little out of control right now. This statement - implying that I'm in control at any point, ever, shows the depth of my general cluelessness about the general principles of life. Clearly, I have no clear idea what's going on.
I was aware that my father's death was likely to sneak up on me at some point and that it might sneak up on me stealthily or assuming a shape-shifting form that would take me by surprise. The void of his absence is part of the equation - the trauma of being there for his last hours is part of it, too. There's kind of an emotional PTSD going on, traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobe, home to our emotional reaction to stuff.
I know I'm feeling out of control when I start to get antsy about odd, unimportant things or worse yet, about odd, free-floating generalized anxiety things. You know how sometimes we all blow up or burst into tears about something and only later think: "What was that all about. The self-knowledge of this weirdness is scant relief.
Time takes time.
It is what it is.
AA literature baffled me before I got into recovery. I took things out of context and truly just didn't get the concepts. It took me years to actually interpret the lessons to be learned from AA literature.
Good stuff. Makes me see that I'm not alone in my ability to misinterpret basic truths.
Now back to me . . .
Control: To exercise influence over; to suggest or dictate the behavior of.
I'm feeling a little out of control right now. This statement - implying that I'm in control at any point, ever, shows the depth of my general cluelessness about the general principles of life. Clearly, I have no clear idea what's going on.
I was aware that my father's death was likely to sneak up on me at some point and that it might sneak up on me stealthily or assuming a shape-shifting form that would take me by surprise. The void of his absence is part of the equation - the trauma of being there for his last hours is part of it, too. There's kind of an emotional PTSD going on, traumatic brain injury of the frontal lobe, home to our emotional reaction to stuff.
I know I'm feeling out of control when I start to get antsy about odd, unimportant things or worse yet, about odd, free-floating generalized anxiety things. You know how sometimes we all blow up or burst into tears about something and only later think: "What was that all about. The self-knowledge of this weirdness is scant relief.
Time takes time.
It is what it is.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
That Jeebus Was A Doodle
Parable: A short narrative illustrating a lesson (usually religious/moral) by comparison or analogy.
I picked up the Bible again and started re-reading the New Testament. I was a religious kid who grew up in a religious family so the Bible was a big deal and a constant presence, especially on Sundays. I read the New Testament a bunch of times and I read it all lit up on many a night, post-carouse. I was also a compulsive kid so if something was on my list to do I usually did it. It apparently never occurred to me that Jeebus himself might have suggested that it would be more salutary (see? that's a religious word - I'm into old habits already) to lay off the Colt 45 and meth and maybe miss a couple of nights of Bible reading. He might have pointed out that the Bible and its parables would make more sense.
I like parables. I like that they're short. Jeebus was pretty crafty with the parables. He laid the heavy wood onto some powerful people by wrapping up snark in a parable. You know the kind of comment where you realize: "Hey. I think I just got slammed." He was good at those.
Some of my impulse has been to see what's in there after a 30 year absence. Man, I'll tell you -those stories come back like it was yesterday. It's a pretty good book, objectively speaking - well-written, moral, amusing. Lot of history in there and lots of parables and good lessons and common sense shit. I think Jeebus was a curser, to be honest with you - I just don't think that stuff cleared the censors. I don't know how half the stuff he did got by the censors - he was one liberal, radical dude. I don't know why the conservatives like him so much. I can't see how they're reading the same Bible as I am.
Being an irreverent guy I find that my hackles are forced into the standing position when I hear some of our more loud-mouthed religious experts provide back-up for the crap they're spewing with verses and examples out of the Bible. I'm not saying they're wrong - I'm wondering if maybe they're cherry-picking a little bit. I come across verses that seem to directly contradict what they're saying almost every day. I'd like to hear them toss some analysis of those verses into the mix - the phrase "fumbling for the right words" comes to mind.
I feel the same way about our main text in The Fellowship, too. I think we've oversimplified some really good concepts, to our detriment. I mean "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us?" That's ridiculous if it's taken out of context. I'd like to see someone make it through without ending up in the loony bin by always suppressing their anger. Or "Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today." If you fall down the steps and crack your skull be my guest and go right ahead and work on your acceptance - I'm heading to the ER.
I picked up the Bible again and started re-reading the New Testament. I was a religious kid who grew up in a religious family so the Bible was a big deal and a constant presence, especially on Sundays. I read the New Testament a bunch of times and I read it all lit up on many a night, post-carouse. I was also a compulsive kid so if something was on my list to do I usually did it. It apparently never occurred to me that Jeebus himself might have suggested that it would be more salutary (see? that's a religious word - I'm into old habits already) to lay off the Colt 45 and meth and maybe miss a couple of nights of Bible reading. He might have pointed out that the Bible and its parables would make more sense.
I like parables. I like that they're short. Jeebus was pretty crafty with the parables. He laid the heavy wood onto some powerful people by wrapping up snark in a parable. You know the kind of comment where you realize: "Hey. I think I just got slammed." He was good at those.
Some of my impulse has been to see what's in there after a 30 year absence. Man, I'll tell you -those stories come back like it was yesterday. It's a pretty good book, objectively speaking - well-written, moral, amusing. Lot of history in there and lots of parables and good lessons and common sense shit. I think Jeebus was a curser, to be honest with you - I just don't think that stuff cleared the censors. I don't know how half the stuff he did got by the censors - he was one liberal, radical dude. I don't know why the conservatives like him so much. I can't see how they're reading the same Bible as I am.
Being an irreverent guy I find that my hackles are forced into the standing position when I hear some of our more loud-mouthed religious experts provide back-up for the crap they're spewing with verses and examples out of the Bible. I'm not saying they're wrong - I'm wondering if maybe they're cherry-picking a little bit. I come across verses that seem to directly contradict what they're saying almost every day. I'd like to hear them toss some analysis of those verses into the mix - the phrase "fumbling for the right words" comes to mind.
I feel the same way about our main text in The Fellowship, too. I think we've oversimplified some really good concepts, to our detriment. I mean "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us?" That's ridiculous if it's taken out of context. I'd like to see someone make it through without ending up in the loony bin by always suppressing their anger. Or "Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today." If you fall down the steps and crack your skull be my guest and go right ahead and work on your acceptance - I'm heading to the ER.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Is A Resentment The Return Of A Sentment, Or Is It Simply Umbrage?
Resentment: A feeling of anger or displeasure stemming from belief that one has been wronged by others or betrayed; indignation.
Speaking of resentments . . .
I wrote a while back about the uproar that ensued when a certain clique in a large morning meeting that I frequent got honked off enough to take their ball and go home. Fair enough. I was glad they started a new meeting - the more meetings we have the better it is for everyone, and frankly these honked-off people were causing more tension being honked off than any problems that were arising from the stuff that they were honked off about. I was glad that they left - they were pretty vocal about their disapproval of the way the meeting was being run, pretty bleeding deacon-ish about it, so I enjoyed the calmness that bloomed in their absence.
Afterwards the remaining members were a little shell-shocked - a lot of sobriety walked out the door - but they pulled together and did a nice job of keeping the meeting running, and in fine fettle, too. Some men and women with some sobriety who were sitting in the shadows of the malcontents stepped up and really blossomed as members. It was a blast to see. We all like the wisdom of the long-timers but they can be a little preachy sometimes, with all of the "when I got sober" stories and the mildly condescending attitudes directed at anyone who wasn't doing it the way they were doing it. The Right Way.
Here's the funny thing - the malcontents believed, I think, that their new, great meeting was going to roar off into the stratosphere, drain the membership of the old meeting which would then wither and die. A year later they shut down the new meeting and came back. They didn't seem too abashed about it, either. I got the sense that they were taking some credit for the resurgence of the old meeting.
I caught up with a friend of mine after the Friday morning meeting, one of the guys who hung around and was instrumental in helping the meeting stay on course.
"David," I said. "I have to ask - do you feel any sense of resentment now that all of the discontented people are back, pretending like nothing ever happened?"
Holy shit, did I get an earful. I did not speak again in that 15 minute conversation. I wouldn't say that he was enraged - annoyed is more like it. I know that I look at the malcontents differently now. I didn't like the way they behaved and they don't seem to have changed in their outlook or feel any remorse for their actions so there has been a subtle shift in my attitude. I don't believe it's a resentment - it's not like I stay awake at night plotting my revenge but I have definitely taken a step back in those relationships.
It's helpful for me to admit to these human emotions. I used to seesaw between unleashed rage and simmering resentment. Neither was good for me - I need to acknowledge that I'm angry and deal with the anger, not by exploding and not by pretending that nothing is wrong.
Speaking of resentments . . .
I wrote a while back about the uproar that ensued when a certain clique in a large morning meeting that I frequent got honked off enough to take their ball and go home. Fair enough. I was glad they started a new meeting - the more meetings we have the better it is for everyone, and frankly these honked-off people were causing more tension being honked off than any problems that were arising from the stuff that they were honked off about. I was glad that they left - they were pretty vocal about their disapproval of the way the meeting was being run, pretty bleeding deacon-ish about it, so I enjoyed the calmness that bloomed in their absence.
Afterwards the remaining members were a little shell-shocked - a lot of sobriety walked out the door - but they pulled together and did a nice job of keeping the meeting running, and in fine fettle, too. Some men and women with some sobriety who were sitting in the shadows of the malcontents stepped up and really blossomed as members. It was a blast to see. We all like the wisdom of the long-timers but they can be a little preachy sometimes, with all of the "when I got sober" stories and the mildly condescending attitudes directed at anyone who wasn't doing it the way they were doing it. The Right Way.
Here's the funny thing - the malcontents believed, I think, that their new, great meeting was going to roar off into the stratosphere, drain the membership of the old meeting which would then wither and die. A year later they shut down the new meeting and came back. They didn't seem too abashed about it, either. I got the sense that they were taking some credit for the resurgence of the old meeting.
I caught up with a friend of mine after the Friday morning meeting, one of the guys who hung around and was instrumental in helping the meeting stay on course.
"David," I said. "I have to ask - do you feel any sense of resentment now that all of the discontented people are back, pretending like nothing ever happened?"
Holy shit, did I get an earful. I did not speak again in that 15 minute conversation. I wouldn't say that he was enraged - annoyed is more like it. I know that I look at the malcontents differently now. I didn't like the way they behaved and they don't seem to have changed in their outlook or feel any remorse for their actions so there has been a subtle shift in my attitude. I don't believe it's a resentment - it's not like I stay awake at night plotting my revenge but I have definitely taken a step back in those relationships.
It's helpful for me to admit to these human emotions. I used to seesaw between unleashed rage and simmering resentment. Neither was good for me - I need to acknowledge that I'm angry and deal with the anger, not by exploding and not by pretending that nothing is wrong.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Stewed Seaweed
I fucking stewed about this financial guy all day (btw, my blogs on the financial guys are inordinately popular with my small readership, a solid indication that I'm not the only dude who hates it when someone else has their hands on said dude's money). Took my nap; had a nice half hour meditation; picked up the phone and called the guy, who said: "Oh, yeah, I got your email this morning (he didn't mention the email I sent on Monday - maybe he didn't get it or maybe he deleted it or maybe, maybe something else). I just haven't filled out the papers yet. Let's set up an appointment - that'll force me to get them all ready."
Yeah, well, screw me? Screw you. It seems to me that the undercurrent of thought here was that I was expected to bother him so that he does his job.
Yeah, well, screw me? Screw you. It seems to me that the undercurrent of thought here was that I was expected to bother him so that he does his job.
It's so hard to figure out whether I'm upset because I need to take an action and I'm afraid to do so or because I need to wait patiently, and I HATE to wait patiently. Here, I needed to take an action. BUT I needed to wait for a couple of days before I acted because rash action would have been brewed in anger, marinated in resentment, and then I would have behaved poorly, because I was angry.
I'll say this: my comment - after the paperwork is submitted - will be to ask the guy why in the world would I invest any of my dad's money with him when he was so casual about getting money released to me? I can't figure people out all of the time. Most of the time. Any of the time. He knows how much money is involved and he wouldn't take the time to fill out the papers. I mean - am I missing something here? What is the matter with people?
Maybe this guy isn't thinking about me.
Post Script: I had my meeting. I didn't say any of the stuff that I had practiced and practiced. I didn't say any of it. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to say any of it before I went in to see him and I didn't come close. All of the anger had leaked out of my Furious Balloon. Much of the delay wasn't his fault and I wasn't mad at the part that was his fault and who really cares anyway? It's not like my life changed one way or another.
This damn Program, anyway.
Post Script: I had my meeting. I didn't say any of the stuff that I had practiced and practiced. I didn't say any of it. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to say any of it before I went in to see him and I didn't come close. All of the anger had leaked out of my Furious Balloon. Much of the delay wasn't his fault and I wasn't mad at the part that was his fault and who really cares anyway? It's not like my life changed one way or another.
This damn Program, anyway.
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