starting this early, because that's how you get shit done. the day has started well enough. had coffee brought to me by Syd. why do nice gestures from my child immediately put me on the defensive? because i'm not a fool, that's why. said my prayer, had my coffee, got up and did some writing, took Syd to her bus and went to the gym. still feeling a twinge of gout, so decided on weights rather than the treadmill, i can do that tomorrow. came home, had breakfast, sausage patty, two eggs and grits. ready to go to the store to get the stuff for thanksgiving. decided i'm going to get my stuff first, meeting stuff tomorrow, and cook the meeting stuff between tomorrow evening and finish up on wednesday morning. that way it'll be fresh to go. i am getting into my cooking groove, found a nice Funkadelic long play on youtube that's gonna run for the next four to five days. mood music.
i am still pondering that phenomenon culture that i spoke of last week. i watch as things are changing quicker now. wall street don't know exactly what is paying, what is bankable, so they're endorsing way too many opposing personas, and people are getting fairly schizophrenic trying to keep up. should keep the shrinks and the pharmaceuticals happy. but it's going to be hell to pay when it all comes to a head. if there's a solution to find and enact, it's going to have to be done sooner than a year. i'm going to go deeper into this in the afternoon, but i got to get dressed again and hit the stores. time to put this shit in motion.
just back in from the store, first run out of the way. got my stuff for thanksgiving. still got to get the stuff for the meeting on wednesday, but i'm following a more sensible script. i'm going to clean greens, get my turkey dry brined, my roast marinating and my fridge cleaned out to accommodate things. i'm going to get prep done, then go put the ethernet cable on my mom's computer to get the wifi running, and while i'm doing that i'll figure out lunch, cause i'm getting hungry. i think i'm going to put on some coffee, as i could use a quick jolt. i'm going to attempt a mocha icing for my chocolate cake. that's going to be fun.
i am glad to be moving about again. it's kind of interesting, perspective wise. I leave the house, purchase my stuff and i've got maybe enough cash left to squeeze through the month. got my phone bill to pay, and that's pretty much it. but then you start to see the blessings when you look again. a family gathering. the anniversary lunch is going to go well and then i'll be shut of the organizing shit for unwilling and ungrateful people. i've got things moving at a pace where it can be fun rather than a chore to cook. and i feel relatively good. a person i know died friday. her name was Norene, and i didn't like her very much at the end, though she was almost a friend once. she came into my life through meetings, and she helped the sunday meeting get the books we needed. then she relapsed again, and she was gone. she came back into my life, high and hustling, and i tried to help her, and for that effort she stole my bag and my medicine one day while i was, ironically, suffering a gout attack. now, i am not unrealistic when it comes to sentiment, though i am a sentimentalist in many ways. i try to help people, not just because i'm a recovering addict, but because i believe its the right thing to do. everyone you help is not going to appreciate it, and i can accept that. but someone who preys on someone being kind to them...that sort of grates against the grain for me. when so many people could give a shit less about someone, or ANYONE's suffering, it makes it a very wrong thing to take that particular kindness for weakness. i'm not glad she's dead. i'm just not sad about it. i'm sad for her children, whom i met and thought highly of and thought they deserved a better mother, but those kinds of judgments rob serenity. i'm sorry for her mother, who was a nice woman and deserved better, but same as before. but addicts die stupidly and badly every day. and in the end, those of us who are left just take them into the meetings and use them to help some stay sober, because that's what we mean when we say, 'thank God for those who've died so that some of us may have another day sober'. it's balance, but it's fucked up.
i'm still off-center today, but at least i'm moving, and that's an improvement and it feels good. i've been doing prep all afternoon for the most part. i've got a turkey that is just swimming in wonderfulness, wrapped and marinating in the fridge, and i'm about to have two beef roasts getting a similar treatment. i've got peppers cut up, i've got celery already diced, i've got breadcrumbs waiting to turn into dressing. i'm on task, on point and been listening to the funk most of the day. i daresay, this is what i enjoy, it's like a counterbalance to the November blues to me.
when i first got clean, it was in November. i remember being at my parents house, feeling as if the world had just gone down the toilet, which i guess it had. but the food was so restorative, even though it was sort of already in leftover status. i'd been subsisting on stale popcorn, candy bars (when i could scrounge up a quarter) old hot dogs from the convenience store across the street from the projects where i was holed up at, and what i could at times find in garbage cans. i don't think of that shamefully. i didn't go as far down as many do; i went far enough that i don't want to go there again. but being home, eating real food, sleeping on a couch in the basement, waking warm, it was just something very...clean, i guess, about it all. and now, when i do cook for the so-called holiday, i feel as if perhaps i'm extending someone else's life, the way mine began to extend past my expiration date that thanksgiving in 1988. i've actually gone back and checked, because time is so soft and malleable nowadays. sometimes it seems like its barely passed and sometimes it seems as if its been forever and ever. but the memory still aligns. came home on thanksgiving night in 1988, which was the 24th, and i hung with my brother over that weekend, the 25th and 26th, and on the 27th i was on my way to treatment. i've been doing this almost three fifths of my life. maybe that's what makes it so hard to just turn my mind over to the illusions and nonsense of this world; i've seen too much so far.
i'm going to shut this down, get my ass to sleep and start again. i am feeling good. that is by God's grace and the benefit of several good days at a time strung together. let's fly.
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