boiling point

its wednesday morning, and i'm in a slow burn.

i've been here since yesterday, and i've been building up to this all week, for the most part.
i did sleep okay, and i got my prayers in this morning.  i was still feeling the residuals from yesterday when my child, despite me telling her i needed her help at a specific moment, decided to play rescue ranger in someone else's life.  i don't know the validity of this young man being in a bad situation or not.  i'm not really angry about her helping anyone.  i am, however, livid about the disregard and the constant having to do things myself.  and as i write this, which is the most beneficial part about journaling, i see that this is the old attitude creeping in on me again.  i do nothing by myself; i take on things that many won't take on and i get frustrated with people due to my expectations and my temperament.  but the truth is, i do what i do because it's what i've been taught to do.  and apples fall from apple trees.  so, here we go, i feel deflated now, and i think i can do this day without growling too much.  and i owe that to my child, and my God, and my friends and family.  the steps are amazing when they are applied.

it's kind of funny.  the cooking didn't keep me up all night.  the anger did.  i slept anyway.  listened to the ocean on youtube and drifted off peaceful like.  and when i got up, it was like i just threw my boat right back on the rocks.  i did my part.  i did more than has been done for me.  i called the boy's mother and left a message that he was here because no one answered the phone.  when Syd split at the beginning of the school year no one paid me that courtesy.  and maybe this is what is best.  it certainly is what is going on right now, so there's something for me to learn in it.

i'm heating up things to put them in a thermal carry case A gave me.  i've got to go to the store to get the anniversary cake.  i've got to get ice and gas along the way.  and i've got to get salad dressing for the salad.  i don't even think i'm going to eat, and if i didn't need my serving spoons and containers i wouldn't even stay, as i have a lot of cooking to do today.  but the majority of my prep is done, and the meats are marinated and will be at room temperature this afternoon.  nothing to do but put things together, bake and cook and wait for tomorrow to pretend that Natives and Pilgrims were best of friends (sarcasm).

i am not angry now.  i owe no apologies, as i've done nothing wrong.  but i owe myself an amend, and i think i can see where the self-sabotage has been coming in this month.  i don't have to do everything, i don't have to try to show people who won't see anything, and i don't have to try to describe beauty to blind people.  all i have to do is be grateful i am not blind and appreciate the beauty that i see everyday.  and isn't that enough?

i got to see R briefly yesterday.  sweet center in a very filling dish.  that's it for now, i've got to roll.

...its wednesday night, and my burn is extinguished.
reality is what it is.  you can't alter it, through denial or bargaining.  you can't reshape it with words, you can only make some people buy into your nonsense.  truth is, ultimately, subjective, because it requires a plethora of minds to translate it, but it is not one dimensional.
i am not angry now because i realize i was being set up.  my disease, which i know to be a sentient force, used my anger to take me where i'd closed the door to outright depression.  and even at almost 27 years, i almost fell for it.
the anniversary meeting was exactly what it always is.  people who don't come to the meeting came because there was food to be found.  not many this time, but enough.  and people who chose to share were of a 'i need to control perception about myself', not from the honesty that could change one's life for the better or allow one to be seen more clearly.  it is over though, and my son is here, and Syd only pissed me off once, and my food is coming along well.  that's the deal.  you do things to the best of your ability.  if you pray for sight, you need to prepare to see things.  and you learn to respond, because blind reactions lead to blind reactions.  and when things come together, they are wonderful despite all the pain you go through to get there.  i've got to do my ham and mashed potatoes tomorrow morning, and make my cake frosting, so it's curtains for the waking world.  grateful, thankful and blessed to be sober today, thank you Father.  hasta manana.

...above and beyond...

...there's no other way to put this than the title up there.  i'm exhausted already, and its far too early for such weariness.  i am so grateful, however, because i have not been submerged in depression this year, so far, and that is a wonderful thing to not be.  but the anger is a simmering pot, and there's nothing in it, which makes the question of why is it still on the fire pretty relevant.
i started the day early, didn't sleep too deeply to be honest.  i got up and got started with prayer and coffee.  the dishes weren't put away as i asked Syd to do when she got in last night so i woke her up early to put them away.  this particular dog and pony show, though i know it's part and parcel for parenting a teenager, is really boringly mind-numbingly stupid.  but it is what has to be done.  i got her off to school to catch her bus and i went to the gym.  i set the machine for 50 minutes and varied time and elevation until i was at ten minutes short of an hour walking 2.15 miles.  but i'm paying for it.  feet hurt, legs are weary, its a good challenge but it is not something to take lightly.  i did the gym before taking Syd to school.  after taking her i went to walmart to start picking up supplies for tomorrow's anniversary meeting.  i went to four stores getting things that are needed.
okay, so i am making more coffee.  it's about 230, or 1430 in naval time.  i have got the greens almost cleaned, which means i have to get the turkey and water coming into a broth to start them cooking, and i have to get some containers together to package up things to take to the meeting tomorrow.  the hardest thing for the anniversary lunch will be the cheddar hash brown casserole.  the hardest thing for thursday will be my father.  i don't mind necessarily cooking for him.  i just mind him not really getting that i'm trying to show him i'm different than the child that he remembers.  but sometimes, you do enough damage to a person that a lifetime isn't enough for them to forget the pain you've caused them.  and, i guess, by proxy my mother' pain upon him belongs to my siblings and myself as well.  but he has a choice.  he will come by and enjoy himself.  he will maybe rest and sit back and eat some pie and some cake and watch whatever game is on the tube and chill.  or he may just eat and then go to his next destination.  either way, i am ready to start burning in the kitchen.  not, like, making bad food, more like doing amazing things in exciting ways.
R has my bowls.  i love her, but i want my bowls back.

flight path restoration

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.

rest day

you know, its hard to fly this damn thing when my foot feels like someone is trying to saw through it, from the sole up, with a very dull but persistent hack saw.  it is a terrible chore, trying to focus and write.  i pushed things so hard yesterday that i was really fucked up overnight.  i rested it quite a bit longer today, and it feels much better.  maybe i can still hit the gym tomorrow.  it's on the agenda.

so, combo.  last one too, because i take this as a sign the discipline has slipped further than i want to admit.  i didn't really do a damn thing yesterday.  i did finish cleaning in the living room.  i got no other shopping done.  i got no other cleaning done.  i mostly limped about.  Tina came over and got me lunch and visited for awhile.  that was cool.  i am learning to keep my eyes open more than my sarcasm satchel.  having someone contact me often during my historically bad month and trying to see it as a bad thing or an inconvenience is the sign of being an idiot and an asshole.  i am trying to do better than that.  i drank water, took ibuprofen, ate and rested, and i talked to R a couple of times before i shut it down.
today i got up earlier than i should have and talked to Tina before i got my day started.  i prayed, wrote and ate.  i decided early i wasn't going to the Hall or my meeting.  i was going to rest, put my foot up, and just let some better feeling come through.  good decision in retrospect.  i got some writing done, i got my shopping lists made, i got my mind made up on what's going on the menu for the anniversary meeting and what's going on my table on Thursday.  i feel better.  i have my plans laid for tomorrow but you know things turn out as they turn out, so we'll see how it goes.  i have no great wisdom to share today.  i realize that cutting corners can eventually lead to you going around in circles.  i know that the story tells itself but it does need someone to write it down.
i want to thank my counselor for the nine or so years she's been looking out for me.  it has been a rough ride, but only because my brain does not filter as much as would be good for me, and there's no way to install that filter at this stage of my life.  but she has been an anchor and i'm still here, so that tells you just how important she is to me.  i'm writing this because she should know these things, even if i can't tell her directly.  and she gave me some whole bean coffee, which is a gift of great care that anyone who knows me knows.  i'm about to shut it down so i can try to be more functional tomorrow.  i will get back on track then, that is my word to my God and myself.  good night.

a further journey

i used to actually tag these entries, so that if anyone was reading them and they were looking for something specific, they would be able to find those things quickly.  but now i just write, because if anyone is reading this stuff at all, i am happy just to have someone sharing a random thought of mine, a moment of their time, and helping me to stay honest.
i didn't write yesterday.  i am sorry about that, and i say that to toti, and to anyone who does read here, and to my god.  i am sorry because i've allowed the bullshit with the donation can linger farther than it had a right to.  i'm sorry because this orbit is about all circumstances, and being able to trace lines to where i am from where i've been and therefore to be able to plot courses with accurate information.  if i skip, if i miss, if i allow myself to break the process, then it's just one more journey of hubris, of pride, of arrogance and ego, as if to say 'i am so important that this is the only way you can possibly understand me'.  and that's not the deal at all.
so i'm going to cover yesterday, though it was pretty boring.  i just did a minimum because i'm hurting physically.  gout is flaring in my left foot, my ankle, and it makes it hard to get around.  i went to the store at one point and got stuff for stuffed peppers and cabbages, and i got lunch stuff that raised my blood sugar considerably, which i knew better than to eat that stuff anyway.  I didn't go to the gym yesterday, see aforementioned gout, and i didn't get much cleaning done, though there's still time for that.  i just thought about the missing money.  i thought about how i hate feeling as if someone can play me for stupid and get away with it.  i hate that my integrity is questionable, though i truly did not misappropriate these funds.  and for me that's an important distinction, because i have done so in the past.  not from live and active meetings.  not from situations where people were depending on those funds.  i've taken money left from a meeting closing, when people stopped coming and there was no opening the doors anymore.  and even that's not right, and even that required making amends for wrongs done to the fellowship.  which is why i've strived for bettering myself when it comes to being responsible.  because sometimes, the only amend that is available to you is to change for the better, to not be the person that you were when you had the reputation you had.  i'd owed this District of the fellowship i favor an amend for a lot of reasons, and I believe i've settled those accounts spiritually.  but that doesn't mean i'm willing to let someone undermine the efforts that we've made to instill a sense of fellowship and family back into our meetings.  i don't know.  it's kind of an issue with me, obviously.

other news, found out an acquaintance from some years ago is likely dead.  her name is Norene, and I'm naming her because if she's passed there is only the anonymity of a first name since we were in a bad place.  and if she's not, then I hope she gets her shit together.  she was my age, and she was around the meetings for a long time, maybe as long as i was in the meetings.  she was a chronic relapser, and she did heroin.  when i met her she was just getting out of jail and just getting back into life.  she started out putting down a good foundation but quickly started to deteriorate.  she was about cons and fast money, and working for a living just wasn't doing it for her.  before long, she stopped coming to meetings and not long after that came the word that she was back out getting high again.  i heard from her after that, when she was reaching in and i tried to take her hand.  evidently she thought i was going to be a landing pad for her, but that wasn't on my itinerary.  she didn't like the fact that she wasn't going to become the center of my life, but i wasn't in a position to really give much credence to that.  not long after that, she stole my bag and my meds from my car.
now, she was educational for me.  i'd never seen some of the worst effects that shooting up dope could do to a person.  she had open sores that i would coat with medicated creams.  she would come by to shower and just cry on the floor.  i can honestly say, a woman who is naked on my bedroom floor and i hold her while she cries and don't think about fucking her is a rare thing.  but that's the kind of deal it was.  and i genuinely cared about her, about her children.  so when she decided, during a gout flare up like i'm having now (maybe the universe taking me around and back through it?  crossing a previous orbit?) she comes in and pretends like she's worried while her ride robs my car...i hated her.  and i am not in the habit of personalized hate.  i hate this world, i hate what Satan has done to it.  i hate the institutions of racism and terror.  i hate hypocrisy and bullshit, Mendacity as Big Daddy would put it.  but i have not hated many people, regardless of what they may have done to me, or what i thought they'd done.  but i hated Norene for a while.  because she brought, knowingly brought, bad spirit into my home.  i had no use for her after that.  and it took me a long time to find any kind of softness in my heart toward even her name.  now she's likely dead.  and i am not feeling bad for her, but i do feel bad for her mother, who i know loved her and wanted her to get clean.  and i feel bad for her children, who just wanted a mother to be there for them.  what's done is done, though.
this gout is still killing me, but i can't worry about that.  got some cleaning to do.  got some writing to do and got some planning to do.  i'm going to write some more in this later, i'm sure, but for now, i think i need to get back to Mechanical Jesus.

character

A song someone sang once said 'what a difference a day makes. I'm vouching for that one hundred percent. But...I'm still moving.
All centered on Syd (surprise...) and her character, which is lacking.  Finding an instruction fold from a home pregnancy test when I was cutting the grass ( in one of the hedges, no less) I decided to just drag shit out to the light and, sure enough, she's been having sex, though she SAYS she's not pregnant. So that was a long talk. Then, getting ready for my meeting today, i find about 60 dollars is missing from the meeting's anniversary can. Now I'm livid all over again. Of course she denies it. But since my last official count was on the 5th and there's no one else had access, I'm not waiting for a confession.  There is a thing, i've seen it with too many people not to know or understand it, that if you don't say anything, if you don't tell, then you're not guilty.  it's a thing that defies what i know to be true, that the things a person does almost always ends up determining what they say, even if its the absence of words.  but, the thing is, she's not the only suspect.
i left the can with the guy who was supposed to be collecting since summer, two weeks ago, because i left the meeting early.  this guy came the following week saying he left the can with his wife, and wouldn't have it, but it came anyway.  so the off count could be from several people.  and its that kind of shit that makes me loathe human beings. i mean, this is money that people put in to help the group have a commemoration for everyone, for one more year of keeping the doors open for new addicts as well as for those who just need somewhere safe to be.  most meetings don't acknowledge anniversaries anymore, most meetings of my primary fellowship anyway.  we used to.  we also used to have over 40 meetings in our district.  now we have barely ten.  because of this kind of nonsense.  but we'll get it done.  and as i dropped the district treasurer position i will also drop the arranging of the anniversary meeting.  i am not my fellowship, i am also not the foundation upon which it was built.  and i don't feel like hiding shit from people, in my car, in my home.  i am not going to compromise my life for those bent on doing damage to themselves.
so i came home after i had lunch with a friend from the meeting.  i've had dinner, i've had an interesting talk with R about subject matter that most people would cringe away from.  i find it refreshing, and it feels a lot like we're back on a better track.  i didn't get in a long workout but i got to the gym and got on the machines and likely tomorrow if i can get there for the opening of the doors i'll get back on the treadmill.  i am still angry, but anger won't get things done and there's too much to do for me to keep living in negative bullshit.  i don't have a summary for the day, but i am still grateful, because i know that this is my addiction, the spirit of my addiction, my demons if you will, trying to condition my mind away from being grateful to God for my life and sobriety.  and i don't think this is the day i'm going to challenge the universe that way.  so, good night, good days, and we'll see what's on the other side of the sunrise when that time comes.

System Check

well, this is a good day.  I've learned over the years that you have to see what is in front of you before you render an assessment on just about anything.  this day has been an on point kind of day so far.  it's only four o'clock, so who knows what happens next?  but as days go, i got no complaint thus far.
started with prayer and the gym.  i got there at five-thirty and did the weight machines for forty-five minutes.  then i came home, wrote for a bit and got Syd to her bus.  i came back, had breakfast, got my mind girded up and went to my parents.  drove my parents to the CAK airport so my mom could catch her flight to Alabama by way of Atlanta.  the tension between them was a physical feeling thing, but it had nothing to do with me and i chose not to take it on.  my dad tries to be a good man regardless of how he is feeling, and my mom tries to appear to be a good person and care about my dad once he's out of earshot and other people are around.  i would rather think that perhaps that is their dynamic and they're just happy that way, but i know i'm bullshitting myself.
anyway...i got back to my apartment before noon and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup for lunch.  i laid down and fucked around on the computer, trying to convince myself not to do anything else, but my self wouldn't go for it.  so i went to the store to get some of the things i need for next thursday.  i came back from the store, put the groceries away and got busy on the lawn.
now, here's where i look at the day that is behind me, see it for what it is in a broader scope, and make the assessment that it's a good day.  i've been very apprehensive about cutting the grass.  i can say that now.  cutting the grass over the summer kicked my fucking ass.  kicked it like it was an abusive parent and i was a needy child.  i had Syd cut it when she got back from columbus, couple times, but i knew that wasn't going to do it.  'man's gotta do what a man's gotta do', and other such white foolishness.  so, i girded my mind (i like that saying, gonna have to put it into circulation) and i got started.
now, i would love for light to beam from the dark sky overhead and black doves to swoop in and coo and shit all over the street as the glorious moment of this writing took place, but it won't.
 that picture is a black dove, should anyone read this and think 'there's no such thing as a black dove'.
anyway...i cut the grass EASY!  i cut most of the back before i DECIDED to take a break for water and to call Lonnie.  and then i cut the rest of the back and started on the front before i DECIDED to take a break for a sip of water and immediately resume cutting, and then i FINISHED STRONG, not winded, sweating in the coolness of November but not laboring, heart not thudding to beat the band.  i'm not sore, not exhausted, don't need to sleep for two days.  i am GETTING BETTER!  I AM IMPROVING!  and yes, goddammit, i'm happy about that.
i checked my sugar before i had an apple as a pre-dinner snack, and it was at 100.  all i'm going to do is take my Levamir, the long acting insulin, to get me through the night, with no fast acting at all, and i'll be good.  and tomorrow morning, after Syd goes to her bus, i'll be back on the treadmill getting it in.  and that's progress.  it's not perfection.  it's not supposed to be.
i look in the mirror and i still see all this fat.  i feel it in my clothes, the weight retention.  i don't log food as i should, and i know i snack more than i should.  i hope part of this is the sideways reacting to the depression and that it passes with November.  we'll see.  but this is me getting better, and i refuse to complain about that or anything else at the moment.  i'm about to put together my dinner and i'm going to write in Mechanical Jesus some more.  and i'm going to get back to the Phenomenon Culture theory as well.  but for now, a victory, and a very welcome one too.