For reasons even I do not fully understand I booked myself on a 7:45 a.m. flight from Newark to Ft. Myers tomorrow morning. According to my boarding pass, I have to be at the gate by 7:15 a.m.
Since I've already "checked in", including my baggage which I must merely physically drop off at the TSA inspection point before heading through security, and have gotten an Emergency Exit row seat next to the window (lots o'leg room on Jet Blue) there's nothing left to do except to rise at 5:00 a.m. in order to drop the car off at the off-airport parking area by 6:00 and take the shuttle over to the Jet Blue terminal.
Once I clear security ("please remove your shoes, butt-plugs, cock-rings and nipple-piercings") I'll spring for a high-fat, high-cholesterol "McBreakfast" at the sign of the Golden Hardened Arteries while waiting for the boarding call.
I've pre-programmed, re-charged and updated the software in my iPod. I've found the noise-cancelling headsets and connectors. I've gotten a couple of novels and saved last Sunday's NYTimes magazine and crossword puzzle. In short, I'm loaded for totally ignoring everyone else on the plane.
With any luck we'll outrace the weather south and arrive in Sunny Ft. Myers around 11:30 a.m.
I'll worry about what happens after that when we get to that point.
Because mom hogs the one and only pc (with DIAL-UP access) it's unlikely I'll be doing anything other than checking my email now and then.
So, until next week (probably), stay cool/warm/dry or whatever it is you want and fer goshshakes DON'T BEHAVE!
oooxxx
JZB
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Wild (Black and) Blue Yonder!
Yup, that's me. Last Thursday morning, nearly a week after the accident. Notice the left eye (on the right) which is still swollen shut. This is just before the doctor removed the stitches. I still look like Baron Von Frankenstein's high-school science project. I look slightly better than that now.A friend is flying from Newark to Cleveland this afternoon. He travels about as well as Southwest champagne, which is to say not well at all.
Like many American travelers he's convinced that if you worry hard enough in advance the plane won't crash.
I'm not much help when I reassure him that all the worry in the world will NOT keep a plane aloft. I know. I flew in the Navy for 4 years. Believe me, it takes talent to crash a plane (or a dedicated religious fanatic).
He'll be fine, of course, because even religious fanatics have no desire to enter Allah's Kingdom via Cleveland.
I, on the other hand, might not fare as well on Thursday when I wing my way from Newark (EWR) to Ft. Myers (RSW) for 72 hours of non-stop thrills and spills with mom and dad.
It would be cruel of me to ask God to send along a religious fanatic on the same flight. After all, none of the other people are going to visit my mom and dad. I'm sure all their moms and dads are just swell.
Actually, mom and dad are okay. I didn't know them until I was well into my 30's (I mean really know them -- long story but my birth mom was an alkie bitch with issues and I wasn't supposed to have contact with my dad and his new family... ever).
But they are getting quite old and quite set in their ways. I have a pretty good idea of how it will go. They'll be excited to see me for about 10 minutes. Then we'll get the early bird special someplace and head back to the house in order to get that all important "afternoon nap." This will be followed by dad wandering down to the clubhouse to hang out with his cronies and play pool while mom disappears into the computer room.
I'll be the unspoken of thing in the living room.
Friday morning I'll steal the family van and sneak off to a 12-Step meeting. The rest of the day will be an eerie recreation of the previous day.
On Saturday it will be more of the same except I will sneak off at the God awful hour of 7:00 p.m. to go to a LGBT 12-Step meeting at the MCC in Ft. Myers. I'll be living large that night.
On Sunday, God willing, I'll be on a plane by noon heading back north.
I love them. I know they love me. Age is taking it's toll on everybody I love, including me.
It's time to make every moment count. At last.
Go hug somebody you love. You both deserve it. It'll take you places. And you won't even need a plane to get there.
p.s. I haven't had the nerve to tell the folks what happened to me. I guess they're gonna crap themselves when I come walking off that plane.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Boring Old JoyZeeBoy
Oh, I could lie and say to you that I haven't blogged in forever because I didn't have anything to talk about, but that would be inaccurate.
A week ago last Friday I fell in the tub (the non-slip tub mat went one way and I went the other, face down, into the side of the tub). I gashed open my forehead pretty badly. The blood started flowing (spurting) immediately. I felt numb. I felt pain. I was alone and in deep shit.
I thought "Okay, don't panic. Stop the blood" and so I grabbed a washcloth and jammed it to my forehead. The left eye-lid almost immediately swelled up and slammed shut, but I could still see (sort of) out of my right eye. I managed to get out of the tub and pat myself dry. I went to the bedroom and started calling people in the area. I couldn't get hold of anyone. I was getting more scared. I got dressed (with one hand, the other was still holding the washcloth to my forehead). Finally, I became rational enough to call 911. The ambulance came pretty quickly, along with a local cop.
The ride to the hospital went quickly and they whizzed me into the ER where I was quickly examined by the triage nurse. It was a slow morning, thank God. The blood had stopped by now but the doctor decided to re-open the wound in order to do a good job of cleaning it and stitching it up. She put in about 20 stitches. While doing that she ordered up a CAT scan of my head to make sure there was nothing in there (there isn't). By now a very dear friend of mine had shown up to be with me (and he was -- he's a very good friend) and, upon discharge from the ER, around 10:30, he took me to the opthalmologist the ER had arranged for me to see.
The eye doc was jammed and we had to wait awhile. The other patients all looked nervously my way until they realized I was staring back at them, upon which they buried their noses in magazines. I must've been a pretty scary sight, even though they'd cleaned me up at the hospital. They didn't cover any of the damaged areas, and by now my left eyelist had swollen to the size of a half an orange.
The doc finally saw me, lifted the lid and looked underneath, shone lights into both eyes, had me look up, down, sideways, etc., dilated the eye and then we did it all again. He pronounced my eye safe and said that the bones surrounding it "had done their jobs" and kept it protected during my fall.
On the way home we stopped to get a prescription for some antibiotics filled and, finally, I was home by 3:45 p.m.
Luckily the downstairs neighbhors offered to help and I took them up on it. The picked up some Chinese for me that night (I was starving by now, not having eaten all day) and the next day took me on a shopping expedition to drop off laundry and dry-cleaning with several quick trips to Target and the Super-Fresh.
I spend the entire week at home, bored out of my mind.
I did watch the entire season 3 DVD collection of "Lost" so I'm caught up on that.
On Thursday I got the stitches removed, my left eyelid had moved up to merely "half-mast" and the cardiac doctor pronounced my ticker good for "another half million miles." He also put my mind at ease about the swollen broken toe and the eyelid.
During all this time I just didn't have the oomph to post anything. I felt foolish for having fallen and, aside from that and the NH vote, there wasn't much to talk about.
The bottom, though, came last night, when I realized that there weren't going to be any Golden Globes awards show.
Now THAT was depressing.
Mom and dad are gonna crap themselves when I step off that plane in Ft. Myers this coming Thursday. I still haven't told them what happened to me -- and right now I look like I was in a barroom brawl!
This sort of thing never happened to me when I was drunk.
A week ago last Friday I fell in the tub (the non-slip tub mat went one way and I went the other, face down, into the side of the tub). I gashed open my forehead pretty badly. The blood started flowing (spurting) immediately. I felt numb. I felt pain. I was alone and in deep shit.
I thought "Okay, don't panic. Stop the blood" and so I grabbed a washcloth and jammed it to my forehead. The left eye-lid almost immediately swelled up and slammed shut, but I could still see (sort of) out of my right eye. I managed to get out of the tub and pat myself dry. I went to the bedroom and started calling people in the area. I couldn't get hold of anyone. I was getting more scared. I got dressed (with one hand, the other was still holding the washcloth to my forehead). Finally, I became rational enough to call 911. The ambulance came pretty quickly, along with a local cop.
The ride to the hospital went quickly and they whizzed me into the ER where I was quickly examined by the triage nurse. It was a slow morning, thank God. The blood had stopped by now but the doctor decided to re-open the wound in order to do a good job of cleaning it and stitching it up. She put in about 20 stitches. While doing that she ordered up a CAT scan of my head to make sure there was nothing in there (there isn't). By now a very dear friend of mine had shown up to be with me (and he was -- he's a very good friend) and, upon discharge from the ER, around 10:30, he took me to the opthalmologist the ER had arranged for me to see.
The eye doc was jammed and we had to wait awhile. The other patients all looked nervously my way until they realized I was staring back at them, upon which they buried their noses in magazines. I must've been a pretty scary sight, even though they'd cleaned me up at the hospital. They didn't cover any of the damaged areas, and by now my left eyelist had swollen to the size of a half an orange.
The doc finally saw me, lifted the lid and looked underneath, shone lights into both eyes, had me look up, down, sideways, etc., dilated the eye and then we did it all again. He pronounced my eye safe and said that the bones surrounding it "had done their jobs" and kept it protected during my fall.
On the way home we stopped to get a prescription for some antibiotics filled and, finally, I was home by 3:45 p.m.
Luckily the downstairs neighbhors offered to help and I took them up on it. The picked up some Chinese for me that night (I was starving by now, not having eaten all day) and the next day took me on a shopping expedition to drop off laundry and dry-cleaning with several quick trips to Target and the Super-Fresh.
I spend the entire week at home, bored out of my mind.
I did watch the entire season 3 DVD collection of "Lost" so I'm caught up on that.
On Thursday I got the stitches removed, my left eyelid had moved up to merely "half-mast" and the cardiac doctor pronounced my ticker good for "another half million miles." He also put my mind at ease about the swollen broken toe and the eyelid.
During all this time I just didn't have the oomph to post anything. I felt foolish for having fallen and, aside from that and the NH vote, there wasn't much to talk about.
The bottom, though, came last night, when I realized that there weren't going to be any Golden Globes awards show.
Now THAT was depressing.
Mom and dad are gonna crap themselves when I step off that plane in Ft. Myers this coming Thursday. I still haven't told them what happened to me -- and right now I look like I was in a barroom brawl!
This sort of thing never happened to me when I was drunk.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
CaCa-Cau-Cau
Some nice folks in Iowa are going to get together tonight, football permitting, and stand around a bunch of signs, trying to decide which candidates suck less.
I have zero interest in our political system anymore since it clearly consists, on both sides of the aisle, of a bunch of sellouts, ass-kissers, people-pleasers and outright pandering liars who will say anything (and do nothing) in order to get elected (and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected).
My rather meager set of minority creds has gotten me thrown under the bus more times than I'd care to mention over the last 4 decades.
I've been promised the sun, the moon and the stars. I've gotten shit, more shit and piled higher and deeper shit.
I wouldn't believe a politician if he (or she) was standing in a witness box with their hand on a stack of Guttenberg bibles 10 feet tall, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The "truth" is that most politicans wouldn't know the "truth" if it came up and bit them on the ass.
I am a tradeable commodity, like baseball cards. My party, the Democrats, happily trades my security and happiness, time and again, in order to get some other sweetheart deal from the mortal enemy, the Republicans. If the Republicans are willing to cut a deal on some pork barrel project that'll guarantee the Democrat re-election, watch how fast they sell out Trannies (this years fashionable focus of political disdain).
And they wonder why people like me don't give a rat's ass about America anymore.
I'm not saying that I haven't gotten a lot out of living here. But I will say that it's cost me plenty in terms of self-esteem and feelings of self-worth.
Just sayin'.
I have zero interest in our political system anymore since it clearly consists, on both sides of the aisle, of a bunch of sellouts, ass-kissers, people-pleasers and outright pandering liars who will say anything (and do nothing) in order to get elected (and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected).
My rather meager set of minority creds has gotten me thrown under the bus more times than I'd care to mention over the last 4 decades.
I've been promised the sun, the moon and the stars. I've gotten shit, more shit and piled higher and deeper shit.
I wouldn't believe a politician if he (or she) was standing in a witness box with their hand on a stack of Guttenberg bibles 10 feet tall, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The "truth" is that most politicans wouldn't know the "truth" if it came up and bit them on the ass.
I am a tradeable commodity, like baseball cards. My party, the Democrats, happily trades my security and happiness, time and again, in order to get some other sweetheart deal from the mortal enemy, the Republicans. If the Republicans are willing to cut a deal on some pork barrel project that'll guarantee the Democrat re-election, watch how fast they sell out Trannies (this years fashionable focus of political disdain).
And they wonder why people like me don't give a rat's ass about America anymore.
I'm not saying that I haven't gotten a lot out of living here. But I will say that it's cost me plenty in terms of self-esteem and feelings of self-worth.
Just sayin'.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Well, look what the cat dragged in!
Happy New Year!
I've been sick since last Friday (the same cold I thought I got rid of 2 weeks ago). I got so run down at the beginning of the Christmas/New Year's break that it caught up to me for the 2nd half.
I spent 3 days around Christmas in Delaware with my sister and her family. We had a great time. This is the non-toxic family that life (or God) held in reserve for me until I was an adult.
I also spent a fair amount of time driving vast distances in order to have lousy meals at Chinese Buffets with old friends who were worth the trouble.
I got lots of DVD's, the board game "Clue", and a seating guide to all the legit theaters in New York City called "Stubs" (as much a "must-have" for New Yorkers as the Thomas Guide is for Angelenos). It helps take a lot of the hassle out of buying theater tickets on-line, by seeing in advance exactly where you'll be sitting. My grown-up theater queen nieces were all very impressed with it and got one for themselves.
By last Friday, though, I was feeling my age. I was also feeling the growing scratchiness in my throat, throughout the afternoon.
So I've been coughing my fool head off ever since. The cough is "non-productive" in medical parlance. I'll be thrilled when I finally hack up the fur ball that's been living in my throat for nearly a week now. (Is there anything sadder or more pathetic than a sick old queen, home alone on New Year's Eve? -- well don't cry for me Argentina! I watched 9 episodes of Season 3 of "Lost" New Year's Eve and Day. And washed that down with intermittent doses of the Twilight Zone Marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel (Wasn't Billy Mumy delicious as the evil kid who controlled the whole town?)
Today is my first day back at work. I have to work tomorrow, too, but I'm off Friday in order to see my cardiologist who should have the results of the nuclear stress test I had the week before Christmas (he'd better fucking say I'm in the pink or I'll have to hurt him because I'm in no mood for bad news).
Perhaps the single most important thing I did this past week was to hang up my 2008 Calendar in the bedroom. It's full of quotes by the brilliant philosopher Joseph Campbell. January's is this, "Life is Perfect. It's chaos and it's always been chaos and it always will be chaos and there is nothing you can do to change that. It's your job to straighten out your own life. That is the meaning of life."
Amen, brother.
I hope everyone had a happy, joyous, sane, healthy ChrisHannuKwaanYear, and that you spent a lot of time with people you love.
Now go straighten up the mess you call "life."
-JZB
p.s. I spotted the following little item on Wonkette the other day. Be sure to drop by over there and read the whole thing. Wonkette may be snarky and too "inside-the-beltway" for a lot of folks, but I love it.
=============================================
Ok, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these Christian conservative types? Does anyone else, anywhere, spend this much time thinking about other people having sex that isn’t doing so in order to masturbate, plan their next porno, or write for Fleshbot? Let alone, does anyone spend this much time equating the guy-on-guy anal action with fucking dead people, little kids or animals? Like, how does that even occur to you? Candidates are being assassinated in Pakistan and people are dying in Kenya over rigged elections and thousands of Americans and Iraqis are dead in Iraq because of a war we started for (apparently) no good reason and their feeble little minds are totally filled with thoughts of how God doesn’t want people to to engage in ass fucking because you can’t have babies? Jeebus Motherfucking Christ, I’m ready to start drinking now. Bring on the New Motherfucking Year.
1:35 PM ON MON DEC 31 2007
BY MEGAN CARPENTIER
I've been sick since last Friday (the same cold I thought I got rid of 2 weeks ago). I got so run down at the beginning of the Christmas/New Year's break that it caught up to me for the 2nd half.
I spent 3 days around Christmas in Delaware with my sister and her family. We had a great time. This is the non-toxic family that life (or God) held in reserve for me until I was an adult.
I also spent a fair amount of time driving vast distances in order to have lousy meals at Chinese Buffets with old friends who were worth the trouble.
I got lots of DVD's, the board game "Clue", and a seating guide to all the legit theaters in New York City called "Stubs" (as much a "must-have" for New Yorkers as the Thomas Guide is for Angelenos). It helps take a lot of the hassle out of buying theater tickets on-line, by seeing in advance exactly where you'll be sitting. My grown-up theater queen nieces were all very impressed with it and got one for themselves.
By last Friday, though, I was feeling my age. I was also feeling the growing scratchiness in my throat, throughout the afternoon.
So I've been coughing my fool head off ever since. The cough is "non-productive" in medical parlance. I'll be thrilled when I finally hack up the fur ball that's been living in my throat for nearly a week now. (Is there anything sadder or more pathetic than a sick old queen, home alone on New Year's Eve? -- well don't cry for me Argentina! I watched 9 episodes of Season 3 of "Lost" New Year's Eve and Day. And washed that down with intermittent doses of the Twilight Zone Marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel (Wasn't Billy Mumy delicious as the evil kid who controlled the whole town?)
Today is my first day back at work. I have to work tomorrow, too, but I'm off Friday in order to see my cardiologist who should have the results of the nuclear stress test I had the week before Christmas (he'd better fucking say I'm in the pink or I'll have to hurt him because I'm in no mood for bad news).
Perhaps the single most important thing I did this past week was to hang up my 2008 Calendar in the bedroom. It's full of quotes by the brilliant philosopher Joseph Campbell. January's is this, "Life is Perfect. It's chaos and it's always been chaos and it always will be chaos and there is nothing you can do to change that. It's your job to straighten out your own life. That is the meaning of life."
Amen, brother.
I hope everyone had a happy, joyous, sane, healthy ChrisHannuKwaanYear, and that you spent a lot of time with people you love.
Now go straighten up the mess you call "life."
-JZB
p.s. I spotted the following little item on Wonkette the other day. Be sure to drop by over there and read the whole thing. Wonkette may be snarky and too "inside-the-beltway" for a lot of folks, but I love it.
=============================================
Ok, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these Christian conservative types? Does anyone else, anywhere, spend this much time thinking about other people having sex that isn’t doing so in order to masturbate, plan their next porno, or write for Fleshbot? Let alone, does anyone spend this much time equating the guy-on-guy anal action with fucking dead people, little kids or animals? Like, how does that even occur to you? Candidates are being assassinated in Pakistan and people are dying in Kenya over rigged elections and thousands of Americans and Iraqis are dead in Iraq because of a war we started for (apparently) no good reason and their feeble little minds are totally filled with thoughts of how God doesn’t want people to to engage in ass fucking because you can’t have babies? Jeebus Motherfucking Christ, I’m ready to start drinking now. Bring on the New Motherfucking Year.
1:35 PM ON MON DEC 31 2007
BY MEGAN CARPENTIER
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Rains of Ranchipur
Well, it's high monsoon season here in the east and while the rest of the nation is digging its sorry ass out of neckdeep snow, we here in lovely, tropical New Jersey are enjoying the 60 degree temperatures and 90 mile per hour winds. Not to mention the 4 inches of rain per hour. And thunder and lightning (which are "Donder und Blitzen" in German, in case you didn't know that.)
I had to travel on the Turnpike last night, to an from a gay 12-Step meeting I attend in Pennsylvania, and the traffic, even at those late hours, was horrific as every university student in the east who lives in Boston traveled home from DC and vice-versa. Don't they have universities for hometown kids in those cities?
I thought about going to the malls yesterday and today until I saw the traffic reports. Fuggeddaboudit.
Tomorrow afternoon I have to drive to my sister's in Delaware where I'll be in hiding until Wednesday. Ordinarily I'd take the turnpike but I have a sneaking feeling that this time I'll be taking the best kept secret in the Garden State, I-295, which runs parallel to the turnpike for about half it's length AND IT'S FREE!
It's not a perfect solution, it gets quirky at times, but it's better than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 60 miles on Christmas Eve.
I saw "Atonement" yesterday. I thought I was on the verge of becoming bored with it, but it turned out that I loved it, cheesy ending and all.
Other than that, nothing much to report except that I'm looking forward to being OFF for the next week and a half.
So while I think of it...
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! (whether or not you believe that some teenage virgin got inseminated by a dove 2000 years ago and had God's son, which I don't personally believe, but hey, it's a free country until the fucking THEOCRATS take over and slam all us queers into concentration camps, but hey, that won't happen this week, so what the fuck, enjoy yourselves, eat too much, be nice to each other, buy some presents for OTHER people for a change and DON'T DRINK (too much) and drive.)
Love,
JoyZeeBoy
I had to travel on the Turnpike last night, to an from a gay 12-Step meeting I attend in Pennsylvania, and the traffic, even at those late hours, was horrific as every university student in the east who lives in Boston traveled home from DC and vice-versa. Don't they have universities for hometown kids in those cities?
I thought about going to the malls yesterday and today until I saw the traffic reports. Fuggeddaboudit.
Tomorrow afternoon I have to drive to my sister's in Delaware where I'll be in hiding until Wednesday. Ordinarily I'd take the turnpike but I have a sneaking feeling that this time I'll be taking the best kept secret in the Garden State, I-295, which runs parallel to the turnpike for about half it's length AND IT'S FREE!
It's not a perfect solution, it gets quirky at times, but it's better than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 60 miles on Christmas Eve.
I saw "Atonement" yesterday. I thought I was on the verge of becoming bored with it, but it turned out that I loved it, cheesy ending and all.
Other than that, nothing much to report except that I'm looking forward to being OFF for the next week and a half.
So while I think of it...
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! (whether or not you believe that some teenage virgin got inseminated by a dove 2000 years ago and had God's son, which I don't personally believe, but hey, it's a free country until the fucking THEOCRATS take over and slam all us queers into concentration camps, but hey, that won't happen this week, so what the fuck, enjoy yourselves, eat too much, be nice to each other, buy some presents for OTHER people for a change and DON'T DRINK (too much) and drive.)
Love,
JoyZeeBoy
Friday, December 21, 2007
Inside Job
My sponsee was sprung from rehab on Wednesday. He spent that night with a friend of his in Philly. She was good enough to find out times for 12-Step meetings in her neighborhood. Naturally, he didn't go to one that night.
But, he did allege that he went to one yesterday.
He showed up, with the friend, at my doorstep last night, at a pre-arranged and agreed upon time in order to collect his house keys. I could tell that he's on shaky emotional ground right now. The reality and enormity of his loss has finally started to sink in.
It's a funny thing about "bottoms." Everybody in recovery has one. Some were gentle bounces and some were full-fledged thuds (mine was one of the later). The point is that soft or hard, a bounce or a thud, everyone in recovery was absolutely, positively, 100 percent
MISERABLE
when they came stumbling into their first 12-Step meeting with a giant neon sign attached to their foreheads that flashed "NEW" and "PLEASE HELP ME" and with a "deer caught in the headlights look" upon their frightened faces.
When they show up it's my job, and the job of others like me, to do what we can, within boundaries, to offer all the love and support we can until the newcomer finally learns how to smile again after which we set them on the road to more permanent contentment and serenity through the 12-Steps.
That transition happens, usually, around day 50. After 49 days of showing up looking like they'd stayed up all night sucking lemons, one morning they'll come in in and the misery will be gone from their faces. They'll look refreshed because they actually slept all night. They'll smile because they're actually glad to be in the room where they know they are safe, a room full of people who genuinely care about them (and aren't after something).
After nearly 10 years of recovery, I live for moments like that now. I look around the room at my Friday morning beginner's meeting and I see a half dozen people just like that.
A few months ago they were hopeless, miserable, soulless wretches. Now they're ready to become productive members of society again.
When I'm asked why I do what I do to help newcomers my response is the same response I got from MY sponsor, when I had 45 days of sobriety and asked him the same question.
"Because one day you'll do the same for somebody else."
The feelings of fulfillment and joy I get from helping fledgling recoverers fills me with indescribable happiness.
I hope and pray that my sponsee, fragile and delicate at the moment, will someday find what I have found.
That happiness is an INSIDE job.
But, he did allege that he went to one yesterday.
He showed up, with the friend, at my doorstep last night, at a pre-arranged and agreed upon time in order to collect his house keys. I could tell that he's on shaky emotional ground right now. The reality and enormity of his loss has finally started to sink in.
It's a funny thing about "bottoms." Everybody in recovery has one. Some were gentle bounces and some were full-fledged thuds (mine was one of the later). The point is that soft or hard, a bounce or a thud, everyone in recovery was absolutely, positively, 100 percent
MISERABLE
when they came stumbling into their first 12-Step meeting with a giant neon sign attached to their foreheads that flashed "NEW" and "PLEASE HELP ME" and with a "deer caught in the headlights look" upon their frightened faces.
When they show up it's my job, and the job of others like me, to do what we can, within boundaries, to offer all the love and support we can until the newcomer finally learns how to smile again after which we set them on the road to more permanent contentment and serenity through the 12-Steps.
That transition happens, usually, around day 50. After 49 days of showing up looking like they'd stayed up all night sucking lemons, one morning they'll come in in and the misery will be gone from their faces. They'll look refreshed because they actually slept all night. They'll smile because they're actually glad to be in the room where they know they are safe, a room full of people who genuinely care about them (and aren't after something).
After nearly 10 years of recovery, I live for moments like that now. I look around the room at my Friday morning beginner's meeting and I see a half dozen people just like that.
A few months ago they were hopeless, miserable, soulless wretches. Now they're ready to become productive members of society again.
When I'm asked why I do what I do to help newcomers my response is the same response I got from MY sponsor, when I had 45 days of sobriety and asked him the same question.
"Because one day you'll do the same for somebody else."
The feelings of fulfillment and joy I get from helping fledgling recoverers fills me with indescribable happiness.
I hope and pray that my sponsee, fragile and delicate at the moment, will someday find what I have found.
That happiness is an INSIDE job.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Poly-Ticks
For all you non-Paultards out there, that's Ron Paul over there on the right. He's a Texas Libertarian who's really caught on with a certain segment of the population.That segment would be the segment I call "I'm crazy as fucking hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." You know the type. Real Howard Beale's (for more information look up the movie "Network" -- then rent the damn thing and watch it, you illiterate couch-potatoes).
Some folks are getting real scared because Ron is raising so much money on the internets. Carloads of cash, so I hear. Mountains of moolah!
I have a theory about that. I think that the people sending him bushels full of money know perfectly well he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning. But he DOES have a snowball's chance in hell of scaring the shit out of the mainstream politicians --- enough so that they might actually start taking one or two "real" stands on the issues, as opposed to focus-group approved positions regarding the price of pablum in Paducah. Or whatever is politically safe to espouse these days.
Ron Paul believes we should arm six year olds. He also believes that gay people should be able to get married. He's a refreshing blast of left, right and everything in between.
More will be revealed regarding him, as we say in the recovery racket.
Over on the right-side of LaLaLand we have Mike Huckabee. Isn't he enough to make you move to Canada? Jeebus-freak, anti-abortion, anti-queer preacher man and physician (sort of). Every evangelical Christian Republicans dream candidate.
Unfortunately, he's not the dream candidate of all the saggy-assed, neo-con, right-winged, rich white guys who currently call the shots at the head of the Gay Old Party, like Dubya and Chainy. The one's who routinely pander to the same rabid, gun-totin', string up the niggras, Jews and queers (say "AMEN, JEEBUS!") base that Huckster might actually be a part of! God forbid! (If we actually did what we promised to do then who would bring us cocktails at the country club ... or arrange our loans, or decorate our homes or take our wives out to lunch and listen to their mouths for hours on end?)
And suddenly all those years of pandering to the crazies on the right is starting to look like it was a really bad idea, thank you Karl Rove.
So we are now nearing the time when we must start separating the wheat from the chaff, the extremists from the statespeople and the people who might actually get "something" done from the maniacs who'd just go to DC and piss everybody off.
I don't have any dream candidates yet. To be honest, I think they all suck.
But at least I know who I won't bother voting for.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Look, I had a good excuse....
I had a nuclear (or "nukalar" as George W. Shitforbrains, who has an Ivy League education, might pretend to say) stress test yesterday.
This was a half-day affair. I had to be at the cardiologists office by 7:30 a.m. The technicians finally got their acts together by 8:15 and they inserted an IV line into the top of my left hand. Then they started pumping in the first dose of radioactive thallium.
After that I wolfed down 4 cups of water (to get the crap moving through my system) and then sat around for an hour until the dye had permeated my blood stream.
Next, I was strapped into a chair that went up and down and rotated from side to side. They bound me in place so that I couldn't budge during the 15 minute x-ray scan of my midsection. The chair makes these lateral micro-movements, about 1" every 30 seconds, until they have an entire cross-section of your chest on film. I had a nice nap.
Then it was back into the hallway to wait some more.
Next I was called into thetorture chamber, er, treadmill room where they shaved my pitifully unhairy chest and attached about a dozen electrodes to the same. The technicians placed me on the rack treadmill, Dr. Mengele checked my bloodpressure (110 over 80), and I was off to the races. Literally. 10 minutes later, with my heart pumping away at 145 beats per minute, the technician unloaded another dose of radioactive dye into my coursing veins and the doctor announced that I'd done real good. A minute or so later they stopped the treadmill, unhooked me from most of the electrodes, sat me down and waited until they were sure I wasn't going to die on the spot.
Then it was BACK to the waiting room for another 40 minutes of sitting around reading MDWeb because that was all they had, then back to the x-ray movie machine for another go-round, this time with my heart really pumping away.
Everyone assured me that I was doing real good.
I was glad.
The last time I had one of these tests done was December of 2003. Two months later I was getting a cardio-angiogram at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and 2 weeks after that , in the same hospital, I was being cracked open like a Maine lobster in order to have quadruple-bypass surgery.
So, nearly four years later, I left the doctor's office under the impression that that won't happen this time.
And that's a very good thing, for which I am truly grateful.
It's a good time of the year to be grateful.
This was a half-day affair. I had to be at the cardiologists office by 7:30 a.m. The technicians finally got their acts together by 8:15 and they inserted an IV line into the top of my left hand. Then they started pumping in the first dose of radioactive thallium.
After that I wolfed down 4 cups of water (to get the crap moving through my system) and then sat around for an hour until the dye had permeated my blood stream.
Next, I was strapped into a chair that went up and down and rotated from side to side. They bound me in place so that I couldn't budge during the 15 minute x-ray scan of my midsection. The chair makes these lateral micro-movements, about 1" every 30 seconds, until they have an entire cross-section of your chest on film. I had a nice nap.
Then it was back into the hallway to wait some more.
Next I was called into the
Then it was BACK to the waiting room for another 40 minutes of sitting around reading MDWeb because that was all they had, then back to the x-ray movie machine for another go-round, this time with my heart really pumping away.
Everyone assured me that I was doing real good.
I was glad.
The last time I had one of these tests done was December of 2003. Two months later I was getting a cardio-angiogram at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and 2 weeks after that , in the same hospital, I was being cracked open like a Maine lobster in order to have quadruple-bypass surgery.
So, nearly four years later, I left the doctor's office under the impression that that won't happen this time.
And that's a very good thing, for which I am truly grateful.
It's a good time of the year to be grateful.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Where the F*ck Have I Been???!
Well, nowhere actually. Last week I was a cranky bear. I blamed it all on a sponsee who is in rehab. I had a telecon with him (and his counselor) Wednesday morning and all I could think of, for the rest of the week, were the things I wish I'd said, but didn't.
Then, of course, there were all the things I should've been getting done in time for Festivus, but wasn't. Oh, I'd bought cards and made labels, but they sat on the living room floor like so many paint samples for Jake & Justin's dining room.
I could feel the clock ticking all late last week, the self-imposed pressure mounting (gee, I love being an adreneline junkie!) until I thought I'd explode by Sunday afternoon.
Then I did it.
I pulled the bag up onto the Ottoman and got the labels out of the manila folders.
A measly two hours later I was done (I don't go ape-shit with the cards --- mostly my nearest and dearest family and friends). I had two which were going overseas. The rest were domestic and I actually had enough "Holiday" stamps for those.
The cards all got mailed this morning, including the two to Europe.
I have a real sense of accomplishment today. It won't last, but it feels nice right now.
Oh, and I still don't know what's happening with the sponsee. I haven't heard a word out of him or the rehab since last Wednesday morning.
I hope they're curing him.
Then, of course, there were all the things I should've been getting done in time for Festivus, but wasn't. Oh, I'd bought cards and made labels, but they sat on the living room floor like so many paint samples for Jake & Justin's dining room.
I could feel the clock ticking all late last week, the self-imposed pressure mounting (gee, I love being an adreneline junkie!) until I thought I'd explode by Sunday afternoon.
Then I did it.
I pulled the bag up onto the Ottoman and got the labels out of the manila folders.
A measly two hours later I was done (I don't go ape-shit with the cards --- mostly my nearest and dearest family and friends). I had two which were going overseas. The rest were domestic and I actually had enough "Holiday" stamps for those.
The cards all got mailed this morning, including the two to Europe.
I have a real sense of accomplishment today. It won't last, but it feels nice right now.
Oh, and I still don't know what's happening with the sponsee. I haven't heard a word out of him or the rehab since last Wednesday morning.
I hope they're curing him.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Crossdressing for Fun and Profit!
Somebody said that the photo I posted yesterday of Rudy Giuliani, in full drag, reminded them of Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries - red-blooded Australian heterosexual, just like Hugh Jackman).
Well, damned if he doesn't! It's the eyeglasses... and the makeup... and that gown ... AND THOSE SHOES!!! UGH.
Speaking of drag queens, Joe, over at JoeMyGod, went to the theater last night to see a live production of Charles Busch's silver-screen triumph, "Die, Mommy, Die!" As Joe himself finally admitted, he's well on his way to becoming a Show Queen (I think he's already there).
Joe mentioned seeing CB in "Lesbian Vampires of Sodom" when he first moved to NYC back in the 80's. My ex and I caught that one, too. I don't remember too much about it, but I do remember an over-the-top performance by Busch who seemed hell bent on bringing out his inner-Norma Desmond at every opportunity.
But for my cross-dressing money, nothing could ever beat the late, great Charles Ludlum in a succession of wildly insane farces at the Ridiculous Theatrical Company's world headquarters on Sheridan Square.
One of the first plays I saw when I landed in NY in 1978 was their production of "Camille... a Tear Jerker." I, and the rest of the audience, was in stitches from the time Charles first (literally) flounced onstage in an empire gown whose hem was coquettishly held aloft by a circle of helium filled balloons, revealing a lovely set of pantalettes beneath, until he drew (one of many) last breaths in a death scene that just wouldn't quit. ("Nonette... I'm cold. Throw another faggot on the fire." "I'm sorry madame, but there isn't another faggot in the house!!!" "Not another faggot in the house??? TELL ME ANOTHER ONE, NONETTE!!!") His plays were loaded with cultural references from life, art, opera, theater, books, street talk and ballet. The zingers, sarcasm and puns flew. To see Charles and his company of fellow lunatics perform was exhilirating and inspiring.
But their crowning glory, in 1984, was a 2-man production of "Irma Vep" a gothic horror story and cross-dressers delight. The two people in the cast were Charles and his lover Everett Quinton. It was a tour de force and my ex and I saw it several times, and dragged out-of-towners to see it whenever we could.
Charles passed away from AIDS 20 years ago this past spring, but I have never forgotten this brilliant man of the theater.
Well, damned if he doesn't! It's the eyeglasses... and the makeup... and that gown ... AND THOSE SHOES!!! UGH.
Speaking of drag queens, Joe, over at JoeMyGod, went to the theater last night to see a live production of Charles Busch's silver-screen triumph, "Die, Mommy, Die!" As Joe himself finally admitted, he's well on his way to becoming a Show Queen (I think he's already there).
Joe mentioned seeing CB in "Lesbian Vampires of Sodom" when he first moved to NYC back in the 80's. My ex and I caught that one, too. I don't remember too much about it, but I do remember an over-the-top performance by Busch who seemed hell bent on bringing out his inner-Norma Desmond at every opportunity.
But for my cross-dressing money, nothing could ever beat the late, great Charles Ludlum in a succession of wildly insane farces at the Ridiculous Theatrical Company's world headquarters on Sheridan Square.
One of the first plays I saw when I landed in NY in 1978 was their production of "Camille... a Tear Jerker." I, and the rest of the audience, was in stitches from the time Charles first (literally) flounced onstage in an empire gown whose hem was coquettishly held aloft by a circle of helium filled balloons, revealing a lovely set of pantalettes beneath, until he drew (one of many) last breaths in a death scene that just wouldn't quit. ("Nonette... I'm cold. Throw another faggot on the fire." "I'm sorry madame, but there isn't another faggot in the house!!!" "Not another faggot in the house??? TELL ME ANOTHER ONE, NONETTE!!!") His plays were loaded with cultural references from life, art, opera, theater, books, street talk and ballet. The zingers, sarcasm and puns flew. To see Charles and his company of fellow lunatics perform was exhilirating and inspiring.
But their crowning glory, in 1984, was a 2-man production of "Irma Vep" a gothic horror story and cross-dressers delight. The two people in the cast were Charles and his lover Everett Quinton. It was a tour de force and my ex and I saw it several times, and dragged out-of-towners to see it whenever we could.
Charles passed away from AIDS 20 years ago this past spring, but I have never forgotten this brilliant man of the theater.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
If They Held a Gun to My Head....
as I was standing in the voting booth and they said "vote for a Republican" I have to admit that I'd probably pull the trigger, er, lever in favor of Rudy Guiliani.
I'm no fan of Rudy's. As far as I'm concerned he ripped out the heart of New York City when he cleaned up 42nd Street, got rid of the video arcades, street whores and crack dealers (and their plainclothes counterparts) and turned the whole thing into friggin' DisneyWorld-North.
I'm also no fan of how he cleaned up the rest of the city under the campaign slogan of "Cracking Down on Quality-of-Life Crimes" (i.e. spitting, drinking, playing your guitar on a streetcorner, urinating on police cars, etc.)
And I'm REALLY no fan of how he single-handedly saved New York City on 9/11. Most New Yorkers I know feel exactly the same way. He makes it sound like everybody else was out of town that day.
This past Sunday, on some talking-head yakfest on tv, somebody asked him about the Queer Issue (like I'm an "issue" to somebody... which also pisses the fuck out of me) and he got all flustered (keep in mind that a gay couple sheltered him when his wife threw him out one time) and he started hemming and hawing about the difference between "being" something and actually "doing" something. He skated dangerously close to the old "love the sinner, not the sin" bullshit.
So, naturally, I had to go in search of some photo evidence of Rudy "doing" something.
Like drag.
More than once.
In fact he seemed to really dig the shit out of dressing up in women's clothes and makeup.
A lot.
Just sayin'.
He's a New York Style Politician. And when push comes to shove, if it simply MUST be a Republican, then I'd rather have a New York Style Politician in the White House than an Arkansas or Arizona kind.
Because they all look like shit in drag (can you imagine Huckabee or Cain in full regalia?)
But Rudy looks pretty good. For a Republican.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Deck Them Halls!
I resigned from the Codependency Society on Saturday and took myself to the movies instead of driving hours in order to spend hours having the rehab staff give me the thrice-over to make sure I wouldn't be smuggling Crystal Meth into the place when I spent hours on Sunday driving back to spend an hour visiting with my sponsee.
Earlier in the morning I'd spent a fruitful hour having coffee with the sponsee's former boyfriend. Boy, did I get an earful. I got the keys to my sponsee's apartment (which was the original purpose of my visit with his ex), drove over there, picked up the mail, tried to tidy up a little and took out the trash.
I spent a lot of time this past week on the phone with MY sponsor, trying to sort out my feelings, needs, character defects and knee-jerk reactions to needy people which I learned growing up with a bunch of needy people called "relatives" who, incidentally, were alkies like me.
So instead of angrily traipsing off to the wilds of Southern Pennsylvania, I drove to the AMC 24 in beautiful Hamilton, New Jersey and saw "The Golden Compass" which, for my money, was a golden snore. It's so derivative it's not even funny. There's hardly an original idea in the whole thing. It has one or two good effects, and that's it.
Time was I thought Nic Kidman was one of a handful of the most beautiful women in the world. Now I just think she's one of the most heavily-botoxed women in the world. That woman's forehead qualifies for it's own exhibit at Madame Tussaud's Museum of Wax.
The child is utterly charmless and, on occasion, brassy, brazen and more than slightly annoying.
Everyone else was pretty much wasted in their roles.
My opinions were vindicated by less than sterling box-office results for the weekend.
Let's hope that something comes along... and soon... to salvage our entertainment needs.
I spent Sunday reading the NYTimes, shopping, putting away laundry and doing some chores. I clean 1/4 of the kitchen at a time. I found the Faux Christmas Tree and the Genuine MOMA ornament bag and dragged them into the living room. With any luck I'll get the tree up sometime this week since there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on television for the next couple of weeks.
In fact, the only bright spot on my television viewing horizon is the fact that Season 3 of "Lost" is now shipping. This is good news since it's highly unlikely that there'll be anything worth watching after the first 8 (new) episodes this year (that's where they stopped shooting when the writers went on strike).
It looks like slim pickens from here on out.
Earlier in the morning I'd spent a fruitful hour having coffee with the sponsee's former boyfriend. Boy, did I get an earful. I got the keys to my sponsee's apartment (which was the original purpose of my visit with his ex), drove over there, picked up the mail, tried to tidy up a little and took out the trash.
I spent a lot of time this past week on the phone with MY sponsor, trying to sort out my feelings, needs, character defects and knee-jerk reactions to needy people which I learned growing up with a bunch of needy people called "relatives" who, incidentally, were alkies like me.
So instead of angrily traipsing off to the wilds of Southern Pennsylvania, I drove to the AMC 24 in beautiful Hamilton, New Jersey and saw "The Golden Compass" which, for my money, was a golden snore. It's so derivative it's not even funny. There's hardly an original idea in the whole thing. It has one or two good effects, and that's it.
Time was I thought Nic Kidman was one of a handful of the most beautiful women in the world. Now I just think she's one of the most heavily-botoxed women in the world. That woman's forehead qualifies for it's own exhibit at Madame Tussaud's Museum of Wax.
The child is utterly charmless and, on occasion, brassy, brazen and more than slightly annoying.
Everyone else was pretty much wasted in their roles.
My opinions were vindicated by less than sterling box-office results for the weekend.
Let's hope that something comes along... and soon... to salvage our entertainment needs.
I spent Sunday reading the NYTimes, shopping, putting away laundry and doing some chores. I clean 1/4 of the kitchen at a time. I found the Faux Christmas Tree and the Genuine MOMA ornament bag and dragged them into the living room. With any luck I'll get the tree up sometime this week since there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on television for the next couple of weeks.
In fact, the only bright spot on my television viewing horizon is the fact that Season 3 of "Lost" is now shipping. This is good news since it's highly unlikely that there'll be anything worth watching after the first 8 (new) episodes this year (that's where they stopped shooting when the writers went on strike).
It looks like slim pickens from here on out.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Codependent, thy name is Alcoholic!
One of my sponsees collapsed a week or so ago and wound up back in rehab. The counselors there determined that he really needed to go to a slightly longer-term facility (28 day). I'm all for that. They packed him off to the new place yesterday. He's in a temporary blackout from the world, but can have visitors starting Sunday IF they've spent Saturday in some sort of training session, first.
One of the gifts of getting my brains back is that I recognize when someone needs more help than any mere 12-Step Program can offer. Sometimes people need to be locked up for their own good.
Which is not to say that they totally give up their old ways.
Such is the case with "Mr. X." Mr. X was in a long-term relationship with someone prior to getting sober. Prior to that he'd been in another long-term relationship. The problem with both of these relationships was that Mr. X didn't have a "real life" of his own. His life was lived with and through his relationship to his two partners. Their's were the real lives. His was merely an adjunct to theirs. They provided the housing. They provided the career. They provided the friendships (pretty much).
It wasn't Mr. X's fault. He'd been raised by Mittel-European Jewish couple who kept him away from the world, mistrustful of everyone and then, when he was in his 30's, they both died within 6 months of each other.
He was very much like Chance the Gardner in "Being There." An innocent abroad in the world. He didn't know, really, how to make a living or to have friends or to stand on his own two feet.
Well, eventually both lovers grew tired and bored and eventually Mr. X. sensed that something was awry and he started drinking. A lot. Lover #1 left him. Lover #2 got tired of co-sponsoring his bullshit and, after repeated attempts to get him sober by sending him off to detox centers and rehabs, finally just threw him out a couple of months back.
That's when I came into the picture. Mr. X, who'd dabbled in AA for a couple of years, asked me (out of desperation) to be his sponsor. I agreed. I didn't know how extensive his codependency issues were.
And now I'm finding out.
The ex boyfriend has put his foot down and told Mr. X that he will no longer continue to be a source of support and comfort to him. Mr. X has turned around and nominated ME to be his next victim ("Would you please call xxxxxx and arrange to get the house keys from him? I'm going to need some stuff from the house if I'm going to be here for awile.") As though these were my problems. Which they are not.
This goes right to the heart of my childhood ACOA, CODA issues. I have to set boundaries with him.
He's incredibly needy. I cannot allow that neediness to force me into doing things I do not want to do. Mr. Codependent needs to learn to ask others for help and to do it humbly and gratefully and not with a sense of entitlement.
And both of us needs to grow up. I'm not his daddy and he's not my needy child.
===================================================
Male Sex-Toy Update!
You've got to see this. It's hysterical (and more than just a little intriguing).
One of the gifts of getting my brains back is that I recognize when someone needs more help than any mere 12-Step Program can offer. Sometimes people need to be locked up for their own good.
Which is not to say that they totally give up their old ways.
Such is the case with "Mr. X." Mr. X was in a long-term relationship with someone prior to getting sober. Prior to that he'd been in another long-term relationship. The problem with both of these relationships was that Mr. X didn't have a "real life" of his own. His life was lived with and through his relationship to his two partners. Their's were the real lives. His was merely an adjunct to theirs. They provided the housing. They provided the career. They provided the friendships (pretty much).
It wasn't Mr. X's fault. He'd been raised by Mittel-European Jewish couple who kept him away from the world, mistrustful of everyone and then, when he was in his 30's, they both died within 6 months of each other.
He was very much like Chance the Gardner in "Being There." An innocent abroad in the world. He didn't know, really, how to make a living or to have friends or to stand on his own two feet.
Well, eventually both lovers grew tired and bored and eventually Mr. X. sensed that something was awry and he started drinking. A lot. Lover #1 left him. Lover #2 got tired of co-sponsoring his bullshit and, after repeated attempts to get him sober by sending him off to detox centers and rehabs, finally just threw him out a couple of months back.
That's when I came into the picture. Mr. X, who'd dabbled in AA for a couple of years, asked me (out of desperation) to be his sponsor. I agreed. I didn't know how extensive his codependency issues were.
And now I'm finding out.
The ex boyfriend has put his foot down and told Mr. X that he will no longer continue to be a source of support and comfort to him. Mr. X has turned around and nominated ME to be his next victim ("Would you please call xxxxxx and arrange to get the house keys from him? I'm going to need some stuff from the house if I'm going to be here for awile.") As though these were my problems. Which they are not.
This goes right to the heart of my childhood ACOA, CODA issues. I have to set boundaries with him.
He's incredibly needy. I cannot allow that neediness to force me into doing things I do not want to do. Mr. Codependent needs to learn to ask others for help and to do it humbly and gratefully and not with a sense of entitlement.
And both of us needs to grow up. I'm not his daddy and he's not my needy child.
===================================================
Male Sex-Toy Update!
You've got to see this. It's hysterical (and more than just a little intriguing).
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Nana
I spoke at length about my maternal grandmother yesterday and about how she sacrificed to give me what she could in my childhood.
I should elaborate a little on some of the circumstances surrounding that. Long story short, my mother couldn't be bothered raising me as a single, 19 year old, parent. Hence I wound up being cared for by her sister (my aunt) her mother (my grandmother), her grandmother (my great-grandmother) and a succession of her girlfriends, many of whom would've made her a fine husband, if you catch my meaning and get my drift.
But my grandmother drank. A little at first, then more after her mother-in-law, my mom's grandmother, died. I was six when that happened. Then her other daughter, my aunt, married and moved out. After that I eventually became my Nana's confidante, son and best friend. I also became her bartender ("Ronnie, get me a beer while you're up, please and take this empty with you.")
Sometimes I became her ambassador to the neighbors. I remember once being told by the drunken man next door that there was "going to be trouble" if I didn't do something about a tree that was about to fall on his car. I was 11. Another time a beer bottle went horribly awry in the middle of the night and visciously attacked my Nana. I had to go wake the neighbors and ask them if they could drive us to the Emergency Room so Nana could get stitched up.
I hated Christmas Day. I hated Easter, too. And Thanksgiving. These were big drinking days in my family and I knew that no matter how much resolve they all showed before the big day arrived, when it did it was almost guaranteed to end in screaming, arguing and acrimonious verbal exchanges.
One of their biggest sources of contention with each other was, surprise, me. They would often drink and fight over me. Matters of custody, mostly. Like I wasn't in the room, or couldn't hear them from upstairs where I was shaking under my covers in fear that they might hurt each other for real... or me.
I lived a life torn between two women I wanted to love, my mother and my grandmother, but both of whom seemed to do everything within their power to make sure that I would grow up hating their combined guts, instead.
They had their good moments, as I wrote about yesterday regarding my grandmother, but those times were almost always outweighed by the self-centered evil of their uncontrollable anger and self-pity which emerged when they were drinking.
I know now that they were not bad people, but merely sick people.
I got something they never got, though.
And that was "better."
I should elaborate a little on some of the circumstances surrounding that. Long story short, my mother couldn't be bothered raising me as a single, 19 year old, parent. Hence I wound up being cared for by her sister (my aunt) her mother (my grandmother), her grandmother (my great-grandmother) and a succession of her girlfriends, many of whom would've made her a fine husband, if you catch my meaning and get my drift.
But my grandmother drank. A little at first, then more after her mother-in-law, my mom's grandmother, died. I was six when that happened. Then her other daughter, my aunt, married and moved out. After that I eventually became my Nana's confidante, son and best friend. I also became her bartender ("Ronnie, get me a beer while you're up, please and take this empty with you.")
Sometimes I became her ambassador to the neighbors. I remember once being told by the drunken man next door that there was "going to be trouble" if I didn't do something about a tree that was about to fall on his car. I was 11. Another time a beer bottle went horribly awry in the middle of the night and visciously attacked my Nana. I had to go wake the neighbors and ask them if they could drive us to the Emergency Room so Nana could get stitched up.
I hated Christmas Day. I hated Easter, too. And Thanksgiving. These were big drinking days in my family and I knew that no matter how much resolve they all showed before the big day arrived, when it did it was almost guaranteed to end in screaming, arguing and acrimonious verbal exchanges.
One of their biggest sources of contention with each other was, surprise, me. They would often drink and fight over me. Matters of custody, mostly. Like I wasn't in the room, or couldn't hear them from upstairs where I was shaking under my covers in fear that they might hurt each other for real... or me.
I lived a life torn between two women I wanted to love, my mother and my grandmother, but both of whom seemed to do everything within their power to make sure that I would grow up hating their combined guts, instead.
They had their good moments, as I wrote about yesterday regarding my grandmother, but those times were almost always outweighed by the self-centered evil of their uncontrollable anger and self-pity which emerged when they were drinking.
I know now that they were not bad people, but merely sick people.
I got something they never got, though.
And that was "better."
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
a la recherche du temps perdu
The photo is of the intersection of 8th & Market Streets in the sleepy little burg of Wilmington, Delaware, sometime prior to 1959, which is when they took down the last of the overhead electric trolley lines. I missed the electric trollies because they didn't belch out diesel fumes and they were quiet, unlike their replacements.The picture was taken near the holidays because the Christmas lights are up, hanging from the lamposts all along Market.
My mom worked in that Kresge's on the corner, before I was born. She worked behind the lunch counter. When I was little my aunt would sometimes take me there for a soda treat. This was back when they actually drew the Coca-Cola syrup from a fountain pump and mixed it with the requisite amount of fizzy soda to make a real fountain Coke. They were far better than bottled Cokes.
Way off in the distance, on the upper right-hand side of the picture, you can see the top of the Hotel DuPont, at 11th & Market.
Market Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in the 70's which killed off what little remained of downtown. To this day they keep trying new ideas to revive downtown, but nothing seems to work because they can't restore the one thing that is irreplaceable.... the era. I grew up in Wilmington in post-war America. Things were good. Jobs were pretty plentiful. There was always meat and vegetables and potatoes on the table. Nobody (it seemed) went hungry. Everybody had a job and was buying a car or a house or a "hi-fi" or a tv in those days. Appliances flew off dealer floors. You could buy things "on installment" in those pre-credit card days. TV sets were as much pieces of furniture as they were something you watched. They had to "match the decor" of your living room.
Bargains were still to be had at places like Wanamaker's or Strawbridge's or (for the real bargain hunters) Wilmington Dry Goods.
And around Christmas time Market Street got transformed.
I have never forgotten the year I wanted a toy so badly I could taste it. I kept asking and asking if "Santa was going to bring it" and I got shot down every time. It was some sort of "Astro-Lander" thing that had lots of flashing lights and a side door that opened so a lunar rover could be lowered to the ground and then it would run around. Look, don't knock it. It was the cat's ass when I was a kid.
Anyway, on a snowy December night, I left my grandmother shopping at the Wilmington Dry and started walking up Market Street, through the crowds (I was all of 9 or so). Suddenly I stopped. There, in the window of a novelty store or drug store or something was the toy of my dreams. I RAN back down the street, slipping on the snow-covered sidewalks, to tell my Nana that I'd just saved Santa a lot of hard work and that I'd found it myself.
That good woman just sighed. I knew right then, in that brief moment, the truth about Christmas and Santa. Selfishly, I clung to the illusion, resolved to hang onto it long enough to get my wish.
Nana was not a rich woman, you see. And this toy was not cheap, probably more than $10 (1959) dollars.
But that present was under the tree come Christmas morning.
Of all the toys I got in my childhood, from American Flyer trains to Erector Sets, I have never forgotten that one because for the first time in my life I knew just how much someone who loved me was willing to sacrifice in order to give me a few, brief moments of happiness.
My Nana passed away in 1968, a few months before I entered the Navy. I was 19.
She may have been a drunk. Her alcoholism probably consummed a lot of my childhood and made me the co-dependent ACOA I am today. But when push came to shove, my Nana loved me.
And I loved her.
Monday, December 03, 2007
The Queen of MGM
No, not me. Norma Shearer. And she was, too! (Although there was a point, years later, when the Arthur Freed musical unit was alleged to have entered the commissary one day, en masse, only to have Ethel Barrymore announce at the top of her lungs, "WELL, HERE COMES THE ROYAL FAMILY." -- one assumes she was referring to Vincente Minnelli, of course, or one of the many other queens in the musical unit).
Norma came by the title in good old-fashioned Hollywood Style. By marrying the 2nd in command at the studio, Irving Thalberg (yes, THAT Irving Thalberg, whom the award is named after).
She was no great beauty, but she did light and photograph beautifully. Her acting was stilted and forced and more reminiscent of the highly-stylized acting style of lower East Side Yiddish melodramas than of the more naturalistic style that the talkies had ushered in. She tended to "indicate" with her hands.... a lot.
Nevertheless, I've always like Norma. She was fun to watch and, being Irving's wife, the studio lavished her with huge productions and spectacular sets and costumes. They spared no expense in making her one of their top 10 stars.
Until Irving unexpectedly died, of course. And that was pretty much the end of that. No more lavish productions (her really big movies never turned profits, even though they were very popular), and no more painstaking photography and lighting to cover up for her "lazy eye" condition.
One of her most stupendous roles was as "Marie Antoinette" produced by MGM in 1938. I only ever saw a bowdlerized print of it, when I was a kid, on the Early Show in Philly, circa 65-66. But I wanted to see the whole thing. A year or so ago I read that Criterion (I think) had come up with a beautifully restored print, complete with the original overture, entr'acte and exit music, plus a lot of deleted scenes. I wanted it, so I added it to my wish list on Amazon.com.
And there it languished, like Norma, for a whole year. Until this past weekend. A friend of mine (a very good friend of mine) had raided my Wish List and not only ordered it but also a director's cut version of Altman's "Nashville" which I've not seen (because it's so long) since it's original release back in the 70's.
Wouldn't you know it, the cable went out for the weekend. So I had NO choice but the watch it (Marie). It's long by 1938 standards. Over 2 and a half hours. For a black and white film it's humongous (the additional material on the DVD quotes statistics like "10,000 costumes, 5,000 extras, 98 huge sets). I was mesmerized. Tyrone Power plays the Swedish Count who is the real love interest of the frivolous little Queen. Robert Morley (in his 1st Hollywood role) is the Dauphin/Louis XVI to whom she is married off, John Barrymore plays his grandfather, old Louis, and Joseph Schildkraut plays the smarmy Duc D'Orleans who is secretly in cahoots with the revolutionaries.
I love movies like this. I could watch 'em all day long (although I must confess that during some of the revolutionary crowd scenes I half expected Cloris Leachman to burst in and to plead with the people of Fraance, er, Fraahhhnce to storm the Bastille).
What was utterly amazing to me, though, was that Norma, near the end of the movie when she's a prisoner in the Bastille awaiting execution, allowed herself to be shown on camera looking run down, dowdy, careworn and, frankly, just plain "bad." Her hair is a mess. Her face all wrinkled. It looks like she's not wearing any makeup and her skin shows it.
This movie was filmed at a time when even the most beat up harridan/heroines were always shown looking like a million bucks just before they got strapped into the electric chair up at Sing-Sing. It took a lot of courage, I thought, for Norma to allow herself to be seen in the last minutes of the film looking so bad. That's how people would remember her after they'd left the theater.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm extremely grateful to my friend for her thoughtfulness. It was a timely gift and exactly what I needed to pick me up given some of the events this past week.
So thank you, Bev!
And more on the rest of my weekend anon.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Divine Retribution
I see that the religious dingbats are now proclaiming I-35, which runs from north to south somewhere "out there" where I never go have declared it to be some kind of cleansing highway, sent by the Lord, to rid the country of homosex.
Or some bullshit like that. SAY "HALLELUJAH!"
I don't know much about God, but I do know one thing, and it's the same thing that the Greeks knew about their Gods. They will not be mocked.
The Greeks even had a special word for the sort of pride which garners the attention of the residents of Olympus -- and pisses them off to the point where they inflict very Godlike retribution on the poor earthly schlub who was dumbassed enough to mouth off.
That word was "hubris." It sort of loosely translates as "overweening pride" but it actually goes a lot further than that.
Greek mythology (and ancient Greek plays) are full of dumbassed jerks who piss off some God or Goddess and wind up gouging their own eyes out, or killing and eating their own children, or neat stuff like that as punishment for being such assholes to begin with.
Rule Number One in Greek Mythos: "There are Gods. You ain't them. Don't piss them off."
Now I must tell you that today, I am duly chastised by the Gods. Yesterday I posted a piece about a feeling I had regarding the aging population and my opinion that many of us would eventually be faced with the dreadful decision to do ourselves in rather than face financial ruin and become wards of the state.
Apparently I shouldn't speak of such things, not even philosophically.
This morning I received a disturbing voicemail from a sponsee of mine. He apparently attempted to kill himself last night, wound up in an emergency room overnight, and this morning they packed him off to a psychiatric rehab for a week or so.
I know I'm not personally responsible for this. I've done my best to be a good sponsor to him, not yelling at him when he has "slipped" before, but rather trying to be gentle and understanding at all times. Still, I've always suspected that he hadn't really faced up to the magnitude of his bottom. He was always too eager to "yes" me, rather than taking a moment to delve into his thoughts and feelings to tell me the truth of his pain.
It is the single most difficult thing anyone in recovery has to do, to reach down inside, through the brick wall that we ourselves have constructed within ourselves, to pull out shreds of truth which we can share with others and, finally, acknowledge to ourselves.
Apparently he found that brick wall, all alone, last night. In his call this morning, from the ambulance carrying him away, I could hear his voice shake as he cried that he had, indeed, finally "hit bottom."
I finally tracked down the place where they took him. It relieved me greatly just to know that he was someplace where he'd be taken care of (and couldn't hurt himself). He's not allowed to have any contact with the outside world while he's there -- or at least, not yet.
Every night, before I hit the hay, I hit my knees. I've done this pretty much every night since I got sober. At a minimum I thank God for my sobriety today and beg Him to keep me sober tomorrow.
I also pray that God look out for, and over, all the sick and suffering alcoholics and addicts in the world.
Humans, drunk or not, are so frail you see -- each of us needs all the help we can get.
Including me.
Or some bullshit like that. SAY "HALLELUJAH!"
I don't know much about God, but I do know one thing, and it's the same thing that the Greeks knew about their Gods. They will not be mocked.
The Greeks even had a special word for the sort of pride which garners the attention of the residents of Olympus -- and pisses them off to the point where they inflict very Godlike retribution on the poor earthly schlub who was dumbassed enough to mouth off.
That word was "hubris." It sort of loosely translates as "overweening pride" but it actually goes a lot further than that.
Greek mythology (and ancient Greek plays) are full of dumbassed jerks who piss off some God or Goddess and wind up gouging their own eyes out, or killing and eating their own children, or neat stuff like that as punishment for being such assholes to begin with.
Rule Number One in Greek Mythos: "There are Gods. You ain't them. Don't piss them off."
Now I must tell you that today, I am duly chastised by the Gods. Yesterday I posted a piece about a feeling I had regarding the aging population and my opinion that many of us would eventually be faced with the dreadful decision to do ourselves in rather than face financial ruin and become wards of the state.
Apparently I shouldn't speak of such things, not even philosophically.
This morning I received a disturbing voicemail from a sponsee of mine. He apparently attempted to kill himself last night, wound up in an emergency room overnight, and this morning they packed him off to a psychiatric rehab for a week or so.
I know I'm not personally responsible for this. I've done my best to be a good sponsor to him, not yelling at him when he has "slipped" before, but rather trying to be gentle and understanding at all times. Still, I've always suspected that he hadn't really faced up to the magnitude of his bottom. He was always too eager to "yes" me, rather than taking a moment to delve into his thoughts and feelings to tell me the truth of his pain.
It is the single most difficult thing anyone in recovery has to do, to reach down inside, through the brick wall that we ourselves have constructed within ourselves, to pull out shreds of truth which we can share with others and, finally, acknowledge to ourselves.
Apparently he found that brick wall, all alone, last night. In his call this morning, from the ambulance carrying him away, I could hear his voice shake as he cried that he had, indeed, finally "hit bottom."
I finally tracked down the place where they took him. It relieved me greatly just to know that he was someplace where he'd be taken care of (and couldn't hurt himself). He's not allowed to have any contact with the outside world while he's there -- or at least, not yet.
Every night, before I hit the hay, I hit my knees. I've done this pretty much every night since I got sober. At a minimum I thank God for my sobriety today and beg Him to keep me sober tomorrow.
I also pray that God look out for, and over, all the sick and suffering alcoholics and addicts in the world.
Humans, drunk or not, are so frail you see -- each of us needs all the help we can get.
Including me.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Swiss Family Soylent Green
When I was a kid I wanted to be Swiss, the youngest son of John Mills and Dorothy McGuire (not to mention being the kid brother of yummy James MacArthur) who, with my make-believe family, was stranded on a desert island in the South Pacific.
Oh yeah, and I wanted to live in a treehouse. Not just any treehouse, but the most fabulous treehouse (water powered) in the world. Built by the Imagineers (before they were called that) at Disney. I loved "Swiss Family Robinson." They were nice people and life on the island was idyllic.
Unlike real life.
In real life I lived with a bunch of crazy alcoholics until it was time to move out and try to figure out what normal was (I failed and became a crazy drunk just like the ones who had raised me).
But throughout the crazy childhood and the even crazier drinking adulthood, there was always this sort of Pollyanna (yes, another Disney reference) deep down inside of me, who thought that somehow or other, magically, life would "turn out okay" or that somehow I'd crash-land on an idyllic desert island with a picture-perfect family.
Then I got sober. I've succumbed to the reality that life doesn't often turn out okay unless you put a lot of grunt-work into it.
I don't think that we Americans have been putting in enough grunt work for the last 50 years or so since World War II ended. Oh, we worked like sons-of-bitches during the war. But then we got cocky. And entitled. And downright lazy.
I have a theory that we're all going to be in for a very rude awakening and not in the too distant future, either.
I think that within 20 years we're going to see a horrifying spike in the suicide rate in this country as more and more boomers (like me) hit the old-age/lack of financing wall.
Longevity, dramatically diminished means of support and an increasing reliance upon an already overworked and overpriced medical system are going to be the straws that broke the camel's back. People will simply run out of options, until they're faced with the only practical solution -- self-extermination.
Government won't have to "fix" Social Security. It'll simply need to wait it out -- until enough old farts do themselves in to automatically make SSA solvent again (which will also fix Medicare).
I think that we've raised a generation or two of hedonists who, frankly, will be relieved to see millions of us head off to early graves. That way there'll be more for them!
I realize it's dark thinking. Even "stinking thinking" in recovery parlance. But it's also an idea that keeps popping up in my head.
Things are going to get real ugly. And soon.
I just hope that when the time comes the survivors willl remember to NOT eat the Soylent Green.
Oh yeah, and I wanted to live in a treehouse. Not just any treehouse, but the most fabulous treehouse (water powered) in the world. Built by the Imagineers (before they were called that) at Disney. I loved "Swiss Family Robinson." They were nice people and life on the island was idyllic.
Unlike real life.
In real life I lived with a bunch of crazy alcoholics until it was time to move out and try to figure out what normal was (I failed and became a crazy drunk just like the ones who had raised me).
But throughout the crazy childhood and the even crazier drinking adulthood, there was always this sort of Pollyanna (yes, another Disney reference) deep down inside of me, who thought that somehow or other, magically, life would "turn out okay" or that somehow I'd crash-land on an idyllic desert island with a picture-perfect family.
Then I got sober. I've succumbed to the reality that life doesn't often turn out okay unless you put a lot of grunt-work into it.
I don't think that we Americans have been putting in enough grunt work for the last 50 years or so since World War II ended. Oh, we worked like sons-of-bitches during the war. But then we got cocky. And entitled. And downright lazy.
I have a theory that we're all going to be in for a very rude awakening and not in the too distant future, either.
I think that within 20 years we're going to see a horrifying spike in the suicide rate in this country as more and more boomers (like me) hit the old-age/lack of financing wall.
Longevity, dramatically diminished means of support and an increasing reliance upon an already overworked and overpriced medical system are going to be the straws that broke the camel's back. People will simply run out of options, until they're faced with the only practical solution -- self-extermination.
Government won't have to "fix" Social Security. It'll simply need to wait it out -- until enough old farts do themselves in to automatically make SSA solvent again (which will also fix Medicare).
I think that we've raised a generation or two of hedonists who, frankly, will be relieved to see millions of us head off to early graves. That way there'll be more for them!
I realize it's dark thinking. Even "stinking thinking" in recovery parlance. But it's also an idea that keeps popping up in my head.
Things are going to get real ugly. And soon.
I just hope that when the time comes the survivors willl remember to NOT eat the Soylent Green.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
It's Beginning to Look...
like it's about 4 weeks until Christmas.
Not that you'd know if from my house. I gotta get me a digital camera so I can show you all how I really live. If I posted a bunch of photos of that here I could die in peace. Well, maybe not in peace, but certainly of embarassment.
My fellow blogger, Jake from Chicago and his boyfriend Justin, have just returned from spending Thanksgiving week in Orlando at DisneyInc. and the first thing they did when they got home was to put up TWO trees (the bitches). Check 'em out here. And while you're at it, don't forget to take a look at that chandelier they have in their dining room. It gives new meaning to the word "FABULOUS."
I have a little fake tree I bought at Home Depot a couple of years back. I put it up that year and it's been in the box ever since. I blame it on the real foliage in the living room, which has now taken over the big picture window I have there and, occasionally cries out "FEED ME" after which I have to toss a dentist or several small children into its gaping maw in order to placate it for a while. It's making a guest appearance on Larry King next week. With any luck it'll eat him. Now if I could only get it booked with Bill O'Lielly or Mann Coulter.
Christmas has gotten to be an expensive proposition now that I have grand-nieces and nephews. Before they came along, and back when I was newly sober and didn't have two dimes to rub together, life was simpler. And cheaper. Now people expect gifts. Worse, I expect ME to be able to give gifts.
Luckily, most gifts fall into one of two categories. 1. Cash. 2. Cash equivalents (such as store gift cards). Any idiot can manage these, except they do involve not only getting the cash or cash equivalents but then finding some sort of suitable "container" to put them in, which can then be gift-wrapped to look as though it actually contains something other than money or a gift card.
For those of you who absolutely insist on something substantive in the way of presents, I heartily recommend creating a wish-list for yourselves on Amazon.com which you can then happily disperse amongst family and friends for them to visit prior to shelling out real money for some crap you have zero interest in owning.
That way you'll have no one to blame but yourself for that shitty multi-DVD set of Norma Shearer's Greatest Motion Pictures that you just couldn't live without.
But for those relatives or friends who don't create a wish-list, you can always fall back on that old, reliable, standby.... Entertainment. Get them a gift certificate to the local AMC, Regal or whichever theater chain runs the local goo-goo-plex in your town.
That way they have no one to blame but themselves when they waste your gift on a lousy afternoon spent yawning while watching "No Country for Old Men."
But enough about that. There'll be plenty of time to shop, come Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, go put up a tree.
========================================
BONUS Christmas Present
The rumor mill is churning. It's been alleged that Larry Flynt is investigating rumors regarding Trent Lott which prompted the latter's hasty announcement of an early retirement by year's end.
The rumor involves a male prostitute.
Thank you, Jeebus.
Not that you'd know if from my house. I gotta get me a digital camera so I can show you all how I really live. If I posted a bunch of photos of that here I could die in peace. Well, maybe not in peace, but certainly of embarassment.
My fellow blogger, Jake from Chicago and his boyfriend Justin, have just returned from spending Thanksgiving week in Orlando at DisneyInc. and the first thing they did when they got home was to put up TWO trees (the bitches). Check 'em out here. And while you're at it, don't forget to take a look at that chandelier they have in their dining room. It gives new meaning to the word "FABULOUS."
I have a little fake tree I bought at Home Depot a couple of years back. I put it up that year and it's been in the box ever since. I blame it on the real foliage in the living room, which has now taken over the big picture window I have there and, occasionally cries out "FEED ME" after which I have to toss a dentist or several small children into its gaping maw in order to placate it for a while. It's making a guest appearance on Larry King next week. With any luck it'll eat him. Now if I could only get it booked with Bill O'Lielly or Mann Coulter.
Christmas has gotten to be an expensive proposition now that I have grand-nieces and nephews. Before they came along, and back when I was newly sober and didn't have two dimes to rub together, life was simpler. And cheaper. Now people expect gifts. Worse, I expect ME to be able to give gifts.
Luckily, most gifts fall into one of two categories. 1. Cash. 2. Cash equivalents (such as store gift cards). Any idiot can manage these, except they do involve not only getting the cash or cash equivalents but then finding some sort of suitable "container" to put them in, which can then be gift-wrapped to look as though it actually contains something other than money or a gift card.
For those of you who absolutely insist on something substantive in the way of presents, I heartily recommend creating a wish-list for yourselves on Amazon.com which you can then happily disperse amongst family and friends for them to visit prior to shelling out real money for some crap you have zero interest in owning.
That way you'll have no one to blame but yourself for that shitty multi-DVD set of Norma Shearer's Greatest Motion Pictures that you just couldn't live without.
But for those relatives or friends who don't create a wish-list, you can always fall back on that old, reliable, standby.... Entertainment. Get them a gift certificate to the local AMC, Regal or whichever theater chain runs the local goo-goo-plex in your town.
That way they have no one to blame but themselves when they waste your gift on a lousy afternoon spent yawning while watching "No Country for Old Men."
But enough about that. There'll be plenty of time to shop, come Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, go put up a tree.
========================================
BONUS Christmas Present
The rumor mill is churning. It's been alleged that Larry Flynt is investigating rumors regarding Trent Lott which prompted the latter's hasty announcement of an early retirement by year's end.
The rumor involves a male prostitute.
Thank you, Jeebus.
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