night light

...sunday morning.  i feel good, a bit rough for a pretty strenuous weekend so far.  it's almost over though, new week begins soon.
R's cousin who is in the coma will likely not recover.  i'm sad about this, as i only got to meet her once and she seemed a very nice and kind lady.  very young to be going away, should that be God's will for her.  very young, as well, to live out years and years in a vegetative state, on respirators and incapable of any productivity, should that be her family's will for her, as she was a creative and imaginative person who had some bright things about to happen in her life.  it makes the subject of end life decisions and rights that VF and i spoke on friday more poignant.  it also makes me grateful, because none of us are promised tomorrow, and none of us are promised the day we wake to is the day that we actually want or can use or can even be capable of.  i have to remember always that what i have here is opportunity.  i have a chance to do better things, to do good things, do things period.  'lamented the fact i had no shoes, until i met the man who had no feet'.  amen.

blood sugar was okay.  had breakfast, coffee, water.  took insulin and medicine.  i had a decent day with R yesterday, but it was a learning day as well.  when she left to see about her cousin, i just sort of puttered around.  i was tired, as i'd only slept a fitful sleep the night before, but i was trying to wait for word.  when the word came about how the cousin would likely not revive well, i was sad, and i was worried about R.  she doesn't really emote much.  I know she acknowledges crying a lot in her own privacy when she was at the worst of the chaos this summer, crying because of feeling overwhelmed and that she was failing her daughters.  but i don't believe she would willingly allow someone else to see her vulnerable.  but you can see it, if you know how and where to look.  i do know how, but i don't remark on it.  a person is entitled to their dignity, and sharing should only be done if its voluntary.  so i worried about R, and then i had this stuff to cook because she'd bought stuff for our dinner and i wasn't going to have her buying stuff and it not be available to her whenever she wanted it.  i was working on something tricky (and failing) when she knocked on the door.

mind you, i don't really like cooking in front of R.  i'm not a chef, not trained in any way, so i know many of my kitchen habits are not 'health inspection' safe, though they're not atrocious or even blatantly disregarding of cleanliness and safety.  but R is borderline germaphobe, and so i know if i cook before she is there, she can eat easily.  i am therefore on pins and needles when i cook and she's there, but i manage.  usually.  when i'm not tired, and stressed, and worried about her, and hot (day was hotter than it was reported to be and i had the oven on and no ventilation) and so i attempted a parmesan cream sauce for pasta that failed utterly.  that was the 'murphy's law' moment when R returned, in emotional-stab-as-shield mode, though it was more my perception than her intention.  after a few very snarky comments (perceived) i felt my anger actually starting to rise.  it was, in truth, a feeling of 'i have been worrying about you, i have been worrying about your family, i have been cooking for you, i have been trying to be gracious knowing you're having a very hard time, and you're going to come into MY apartment and NEEDLE ME???  again, perceived.  so i actually did something that i don't usually do.  i stopped everything.  i told her i needed some quiet, and i breathed.  and she said something else, i think it was concern about my blood sugar (though i wasn't worried about my blood sugar) and about whether i was going to pass out, and i didn't respond.  i breathed.  i sat.  i turned on the fan and pointed it at me.  and once i got myself in chill mode, i started working on wrapping up my failed dish and making it edible.  and R went to sleep (thank God).  and when i got it sort of sorted out, i just went in and took a reset nap myself.
the rest of the evening went cool.  R enjoyed what i'd cooked, we talked as we always do, we watched a movie, she gave me a massage, and she went home and i closed up shop.  i apologized for snapping at her, which i really did not snap at her but that was my intention and i know she knew it was, so i wanted to not just defuse that bomb but take the charge out of any future bombs of that ilk.  and again, there is growth in all that.
i am becoming flexible again.  there is a Promise that can be found in the Big Book of \Alcoholics Anonymous, a book which, notoriously, doesn't make many promises.  and it doesn't for a reason; because if you were to promise drunks and dopefiends things would happen a certain way, because failure is an excuse to return to destroying ourselves, we would immediately set out to prove those promises were lies.  so this particular set of promises comes after you have worked eight steps and are working on your ninth step, 'made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others'.  and the particular promise itself is, "we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us".  this comes as a result of making amends, or amending damage done, or repairing personal damage inflicted upon loved ones, because when i do something harmful and i am chemically compromised, my immediate reaction is to make myself the victim and therefore it's your fault that i did what i did to hurt you.  when i am sober and working on clearing away the wreckage of my self-centered hurricane, i see where i was a big part of the wrongs and hurts between us, and that i have to at least work on fixing the things that i broke.  and when practiced long enough (step ten:  continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it) you start to get a feel for the emotional terrain you are navigating, and how to miss some pitfalls that before you would have fallen right into.  so i know, as i make amends, or amend the damage i've done, or repair the destroyed relationship between myself and toti, i can see the value of good people in my life, the value of friends and loved ones, the value of a woman who can be responsive to me and brings good feelings to me 90% of the time, and that 10% when she doesn't is because she's going through life on life's terms and i don't need to condemn anyone to my 'righteous wrath' because of life because i damn sure get fucked by life on life's terms often enough to know it's no damn fun.  learning.  changing.  and it's for the better and i can see it.
i watch 'guardians of the galaxy', i feel like crying everytime Rocket says "I DIDN'T ASK TO BE TORN APART AND PUT BACK TOGETHER AND MADE INTO A MONSTER!"  i know i'm quoting that wrong.  (actual quote: " I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over and turned into some little monster!" )  that's how my inner child feels.  that's how i feel most of the time.  that's why this is so hard, why it's so easy to just go back to sleep, put the console on cruise control and let whatever happens happen, waiting internally for the crash and burn that means the pain is finally, blessedly, over.  but that's not way to live, and its no way to die.  i am on the verge of a very good thing.  i am on the verge of a life that is worth living.  i am not going to just surrender that because there are hard moments.  and i think my inner child agrees with me on this one.
i made a Burrito Pie for our potluck at the meeting today.  pictured atop this lengthy blog page.  i had a moment of supreme creativity yesterday, followed by a moment of supreme culinary oversight and instant assessment on how to do it right next time.  that's the purpose of this page name.  because a night light is to allay childish fears in the dark.  and eventually, when you learn the only thing to fear in the dark is you, and you stop being afraid of yourself, the moon and the world (life) is the only night life you actually need.  i'm going to do this meeting, visit mom and dad, come home, make dinner, find something to watch and get ready for the gym.  the only writing i'm doing after this today is going to be on Mechanical Jesus and/or The Book of Old Lazarus.  i feel good, and that's good enough for this moment.  thank you, Jehovah, for your every kindness.

down time, up mind...

saturday again.  its chilly this morning.  i'm up way earlier than i believe i would have been, but R came by and that makes it worth it.  i don't have any serious plans for the day, but i do have some projects that i have to work on.  have a casserole to make for tomorrow, have dinner to cook for us this evening.

i feel pretty sedate this morning.  there is always an element of surrealism when there is someone (other than Syd) in my space at various odd times.  but it is nice to have someone here.  it's nice to have someone in contact physically. it's just nice to have someone chill in adult mode for a while.  i guess maybe that's the thing that i could never get anyone to understand.  i don't even know if R gets that.  i believe this may be more of a temporary thing, and that makes me sad.  not because i want it to be.  if i had my table set right now, in the metaphoric sense of being together and taking care of business as it needs to be, i would be trying my damndest to convince her that we need to put things in a more forever vein.  but not because i'm 'in love'.  because there is so much common ground with us, that its fun exploring aspects of myself in someone else.  but i know she doesn't feel that way.  i know that she has distance with affection.  i know that she tries very hard for me, but i don't believe it's very comfortable for her.  so i accept, and i enjoy, and i know that an abrupt end could be written into our story.  not an end to friendship, just an end to proximity.  but, i am putting no periods where God has continued writing, and only God knows how this story will end.  i will have faith.

i had breakfast, i'm waiting for the dryer to stop so i can go to the store.  the dirty rice went bad so i threw it away.  gonna do a sort of pasta/parmesan dish on the side to go with the cabbage and the shrimp and salmon.  it will be good.  meanwhile, on to writing, grooming and just doing a saturday.  hell, i may not even clean, how's that for irresponsible and hedonistic?  wild man shit.

the wall at the end of the universe...

...i always find it strange the way a day can turn from moment to moment.  this has been a good day, a productive day for the most part.  and yet, the day traveled and so did i, and i am pretty intrigued by the way things go.
i started with the gym, after taking Syd to school.  i did weights rather than the treadmill because i wanted to not blow out my legs.  i came home and ate because i took my insulin before going to the gym and i was feeling kind of shaky.  i ate, worked on a flyer for a moment and went to counseling.
counseling was interesting because i learned something that i suspected but wasn't really certain of.  the 'inner child' focus of the 90's has gone away because it's not really a 'bill-able' diagnosis.  it is understood, apparently, to POSSIBLY be a contributing factor to other illnesses of the mind but in and of itself it's not something that can be pinned down.  now, there used to be all kinds of focus on the inner child as something to be resolved in order to reconcile with one's past and to gain a better foothold on one's present.  i have personally seen some of the power that comes with looking back into those places, when i was at Parkside and the psycho-drama director lead a client through one.  i saw the fear, the apprehension and the running away from the power that was being brought to bear by the symbiotic efforts of both the director and the client, and though that individual's experience was not successful, i knew it would be something i would go into.  i had a very powerful session myself, that i hadn't run from, that reduced me to the most gut-wracking sobs that i'd experienced up to that point in my recovery, upon 'seeing' the family dynamic laid out for me and the way i had just buried my child behind that wall to protect him from the harsh treatment at the hands of peers and relatives alike.  it was a cathartic moment, and a watershed moment in my recovery.  it has, in fact, altered how i direct people through their 4th steps when i sponsor.  not that i take them through a psycho drama, but i do ask them to purge all their negative thoughts and feelings they may have towards the people, institutions and circumstances in their lives, and when they are done with the vomiting of their resentments, asking them to go through those resentments and find the ones that are also applicable to their own personalities.  it has been effective in allowing the recovering person to see the need for genuine restitution as a way of freeing onself from the dual bondage of holding a grudge against someone else, and it has given them a better sense that it is one small world, and that we are none of us exempt from the negative emotions that assail us.
so i am looking at a relationship with my inner child.  i am looking at what he has been through, what I have put HIM through, and how to reconcile that today.  i am looking at befriending that part of myself that has always resented and hated myself and the rest of the world.
so VF and i did talk about some inner child stuff, and i went to take my friend the food i'd promised weeks ago but had not had the opportunity to deliver on, and then i went to see R with plans for coffee.  R ended up with some things that she needed to do, so i took her to do her things, and had lunch and made ready for tomorrow.  it's fun hanging out with R, because we ride through the things that we both share in defense mechanisms, such as our sarcasm, and our fussing.  she helps me see things that i am not aware of and i am able to address them that way, and i hope i do the same for her, though she says i always put a positive spin on things she finds negative in herself.  we're going to watch a movie tomorrow and hang out, and eat some food, and talk, and rest, and just chill.  and that's a really nice thing for me.  it's really something when there's someone you care enough about that you would do about anything for them, and then you find that anything is just the things that make the most impact, which are never really hard things.  that means a lot to me.
i guess what i'm finding is that despite some really good changes that i've made, i've not been especially kind to myself over these years.  i've been sort of an asshole toward myself, and that has often rubbed off on people whom i actually cared about.  i don't know why i do this, but it's evident that i do.  defense, partly, and having come to some kind of very warped summation that sarcasm, smart-assedness and scorn are somehow acceptable forms of expressing love.  and i know that's bullshit, but you couldn't tell that by a lot of people whom i've called 'friends'.
so i know that out there, at the end of my universe, is a wall.  and behind that wall is a lonely, scared, fat and angry child, the Tim on the inside, and he's been alone a long time.  he's watched and he's waited for me to make others keep their promises, which is impossible to do.  he's thrown justifiable tantrums out of his being neglected, and those tantrums have manifested in my surface life.  but we are linked through spirit (something that wasn't included in the 'inner child' work of the 90's either) and i am capable of being his friend today.  i am.  because he and i both need the same thing.  so i'm trying to be kinder to him, and by proxy i'm trying to be kinder to other people in my life.  and maybe, just maybe, eventually he'll forgive me and come out and find peace.  and then we'll see what a life where pain and resentment has been sacrificed takes me, what levels i will be allowed to attain.  helluva thought.  i am grateful to God for this day, and i hope i remember to be grateful tomorrow as well.  ciao.

Strange Frequencies

I love this kind of edit on an image, because it's how i feel often.  i feel like i'm existing in two different realities at the same time, like two completely different frequencies occupying the same space.  it's pretty weird, usually, and it does have a way of leaving me unsettled and just a tad out of sorts, but i've been this way for a long, long time.  i am pretty sure i was this way in high school, and it has yet to abate, so i figured it may do me some good to speak on it a bit today.  

like, i got up and didn't go to the gym today.  it wasn't deliberate, for once.  i was prepared to go after i got Syd up and made sure she was fit and in motion for school.  but she was still running a temperature and feeling nauseous, so i kept her home.  then i had my breakfast, boiled eggs and toast and strawberries, and i started my plans for the day, which included the gym, but i knew in my heart that if i didn't hit it first thing in the morning it wasn't going to happen.  so i decided on my neighborhood walk.  

i got Syd settled, got ready to go to the store and saw the mail had come and there was a letter from school.  she's not doing well in three of her four classes, and of course they're all the academic classes.  so i told her she needed to get her head out of her ass and went on with my things.  but here's the new frequency shift.  as i was out, it came back into my head, what i said to VF on friday, 'kids can't raise themselves'.  no matter what, i had to look at me.  and i had to own my part.  so i went to the store, i got stuff for dinner and i got some other stuff.  i stopped in on my mom and aunt.  my dad called and said he had a ride and i didn't need to go pick him up.  and i came home and talked to Syd.  i talked to her about the part that i've played in her life, about being often depressed and not as much a presence as i should have been.  i didn't (and won't) beat myself up, because i have been present.  i have been there, and that is the most important thing.  but i could have done better, and i am truly trying to, and i'm owning my shortcomings and working on them.  the evidence of that is in me typing this and being four out of four weekdays with physical activity (have not done that since i started fumbling through being more physically fit, so landmarks all around).  i told her she had to get honest with herself, about her patterns, her habits up til now and how if she didn't learn to treat herself better than a person who can't commit to the things that may not be as pleasing as the things she wants to do, then jobs are going to be a pretty big problem, and college is going to be a pretty big problem.  and we talked, and we both shared, and i ate a sandwich and a bowl of soup and i went for my walk.  i walked a little over a mile today, and i felt good coming home.  i drank a large glass of lemon water and i am now washing clothes, getting ready to start dinner, and after the first cycle of my clothes, running a bath so i can be ready for tomorrow.  frequencies.  

i started editing a partial version of MECHANICAL JESUS that survived and is on a thumb drive, because the one i was almost done with was going waaaaaaaay left of its beginning, and its much easier to go over it now and course correct than it would have been to reconcile it when it was completely done.  God doing for me what i wasn't going to do for myself?  frequencies.

talking to toti, letting him know that i love him, that we did a good walk, that we pushed further than we had to and it was a good thing, it feels strange giving him a name, but it also feels right.  tim on the inside.  frequencies.

long as i don't start talking to him all the time in public places with crazy laughter, i guess.

i talked to R for a bit yesterday.  we're supposed to hang out this weekend.  hoping that happens, but i will be okay either way.  should i walk my mile during the weekend?  i'm going to pray on that later.  

i'm baking a chicken for dinner, with broccoli and cheese and mashed potatoes on the side.  should be yum.  already got some peach sugar-free jello jelling for my dessert.  

i feel good, and i realize it's okay if i do.  frequencies.  

dinner was good, and the jello was good.  i have the cabbage ready for my friend tomorrow, i made dirty rice, which if you don't know what dirty rice is, you really should.  i'm going to store some of it away for saturday, as it will go nice with the spicy cabbage and R's company.

i had a thought, but it slid away from me as i sat working on the book of Lazarus.  it was in the nature of frequencies, though.  sort of like, you see your own face from the time you first look into a mirror and realize you're looking at yourself.  you see your face everytime you look into the mirror after that.  and your face, because you see it so frequently, always looks like you.  but it changes.  every day, it changes some way or another.  some of the changes have been so minute you may not have even noticed them.  we get busy looking at zits, at eyebrows and lashes, busy putting on earrings or make up, busy getting hair together, busy with posing and taking pictures these days.  we may see that first gray, but we may miss that tiny spot that is just beneath our eye.  we see the crows feet eventually, but we may not see the recession of the hairline until it's actually beachfront property.  we see that we are old, but we forget the aging.  and there is such a significance in that.  we forget the aging, and life happens to us and all around us.  and we're older one day, and we're old the next, and life has happened but we only saw ourselves.  i don't remember looking in the mirror as a young boy.  i don't remember the teenage Tim (part of the toti).  I remember only my eyes, through all the years, always wondering if they would ever look happy too, like the smiles i would practice so i could present them to people when they asked for one.  that's kind of sad, but i'm ending on that note for the night.   

SYSTEM CHECK (resumed)

...well, it's likely not going to get much better than this, physically speaking.  the weather is as psychotic as ever, and though my cold/flu/death has been knocked back significantly, it's not gone and i'm sure it's just gathering its forces for another run at me.  nonetheless, i think i need to get back to cleaning house.  i've lived in this mess inside me for too long, and so has the part of me that i'm trying to nurture finally.  so i'm going to get back to digging in the dirt, and maybe we'll actually get done with this before the faux pagans have their night.

first, let me say thank you for the morning.  i got up a little before the alarm went off.  i managed to slide off my bed and onto my knees and say my prayer to get the day started.  it's getting kinda natural to just get into my gym clothes and be ready to hit the JCC, and that's a good sign.  i came out into the living room, having heard Syd milling about before i managed to slide out the bed, and found her on the couch, with a bucket next to her.  now, likely it's a fake sick.  however, in this new world, kids have a slight advantage, because schools don't actually back up parents anymore and school nurses are not allow to actually treat shit.  at least in public, taxpayer schools.  so if i sent her and she got there and said 'i have to puke', they'd have called me to come get her, and there goes the day.  instead, i told her go back to bed, i'll call you off, you're going tomorrow.  then i went to the gym.

I WAKED A MILE ON THE TREADMILL TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not a big deal for you, perhaps, but it was a very big deal for me, and i thank the little guy who helped me and allowed us to walk it together, as well as my God, because the treadmill has been hell for me.  i also did some of the butterfly presses on the machine and some machine bench presses, and then i split.  i saw my 'friend' from yesterday morning, went to Taco Bell and got him some food.  i went back and he was stirring...and eating!  but the thing is, i believe a person should do what they are moved to do.  and i had to say a small prayer, because my ego takes shit like this and runs...'look how wonderful you are, feeding the homeless and shit!'  well, i am able to go to the gym because VF and MLF happen to be kind enough to make scholarship funds available to me and Syd (and she is going to start going, trust me).  i am able to ride around because my God keeps my rusting car going.  that man is someone's son to be certain, and very possibly someone's father.  i would hope, should my circumstances warrant, that someone would see that i am okay for that moment.  and, as i was leaving, i turned around and saw a woman, a nurse or orderly judging by the scrubs, come out with coffee for the brother.  and then i knew that God said it was okay, and i felt better and went home.  i've got two eggs on to boil for breakfast, with a piece of toast and water to drink and i'm going to take my bath and get it together to roll out when its time to set up for the meeting.  that's about the size of the morning.  my blood sugar was 185, but as i said last night i didn't eat as i should have...not badly, but not great...and i know what i need to do to make that a better thing, and i'm going to do that.  so i'm going to start my bath, finish with my breakfast and i'll get back to this in about an hour or so.

it's almost four o'clock.  i've done my meeting.  i had a good lunch (spicy chicken wrap with salsa, spinach, cheddar and sour cream and a small bowl of chicken soup) and i've decided on dinner.  i saw my brother, i've spoken to my mom and i have the meeting's rent money straightened out.  i was rather irritable earlier, sitting in the FSH by myself waiting for people to come to the meeting.  i think, if you live long enough, much of the world becomes disappointing.  i know its true for me, and i trust i am not unique.

i was reflecting on the nature of steps four and five.  i'm not covering much old ground, because where amends have been made in my conventional recovery program, where relationships have been repaired and i've atoned for the harms i've done, i'm not going to go back to those people and make more amends.  unless my God says it's necessary.  i'm going to focus on what has happened to Tim on the inside (to be referred to from here on out as TOTI, but not in all caps) and what will it take to get him to work with me on becoming.  so we're going to go past the college thing, because i knew no one well enough at ysu to have a resentment against them.  i am going to bypass hitting my bottom on cocaine, because i have made amends to my family.  i am going to focus on my early recovery and move forward from there.
i got sober in november of 88.  on the 27th, though that may not be my actual sobriety day, but its the one i've used for 27 years, so it's what we're going with.  i say that because, i honestly don't remember.  wait, let me check real quick...
the 27th or 28th.  see, thanksgiving of 88 was on the 24th.  i was home thanksgiving night.  i was at my brother's house over the weekend, smoking weed and drinking.  i was convinced by that time that i only needed to return to youngstown and all would be well. by monday, the 28th, i was being checked into the care unit in salem, ohio.  so, yeah, one of the two, and not enough of a difference now for me not to take the 27th.  and my anniversary this year is on a friday, so there's that.  anyway...
i was scared again, and i was angry and grieving.  i was being taken away from my drug, and i was placed in a center with a bunch of older dudes who i didn't know.  i was pathologically frightened of people when sober at that time in my life.  i hid in my room the first day, like some scared, small animal.  but the second day the nurses made me come out to eat.  that was likely my first resentment, but it didn't last long.
i did twenty-eight days in the care unit.  it was educational.  i was a spoiled brat with great insecurities and a need to act to cover them up.  but what i found in those recovery rooms...it was like i'd been looking for this all my life.  people working on caring about other people.  people talking from the inside.  people who weren't being mean to me or laughing at me because i was fat or a monster.  though, i guess i couldn't really even properly be called fat at that point, as i was a coke fiend of the first order and was likely about two-fifty.  i did cut my mohawk back in while i was in treatment.  i did go to all fellowships starting out.  i loved the meetings.  first just because that's where the coffee and donuts were...real coffee.  we weren't allowed caffeine on the care unit.  i used to sneak tea bags from the cafeteria when we went down to the big AA meeting, and when i made coffee for the care unit i'd seed it with caffeinated tea so it was closer to real coffee.  people loved my coffee.  i learned to listen.  i began to learn to hear.  i had been to meetings before, with my dad during his early recovery days.  but none of that really registered with me at that time.  i saw light at the end of a very, very dark tunnel.  that was enough for me to want to try.
in that period, it was easy to hide.  it wasn't hard because people in recovery want to believe in things that they think have answers.  i was on a pedestal because i spoke well, but though i was intelligent, i didn't know shit.  i'm not saying i didn't have anything at all to offer.  in my current fellowship, back in those days, i had a part to play, a role i was in that i was good at.  my intuitiveness was amazing.  i could 'read' a person with barely any insight from them.  it came from living so long on the outside of people and watching, always watching, playing out scenarios that never happened of the time when i'd be invited 'in', wherever 'in' actually was.  so i was like the next to the last house on the block in those days.  my sponsor was the last house on the block.  if the usual means couldn't open up a person and get them to talk, they were sent to me.  if i couldn't, and that didn't happen often, they were sent to my sponsor.  it was unconventional, but we were at war against a drug and a drug culture that was killing people left and right and there weren't a whole lot of us at that time.  so we had to do some things by the meaning and not the letter of the Steps.  it was a good time, but i used that to become something sort of enigmatic in the eyes of members of our parent fellowship.  and i paid for that.  i was used as a sort of 'fetish' in the sense of the word as "an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or having magical potency", according to Dictionary dot com.  i was some thing, like a talking lizard or a bleeding stone, and i got off on it but it was so harmful to me because it kept me from looking at myself and working on the inside issues.  and none of the 12 step fellowships, as they are formatted require that you do that.  you have to work through the steps, which are about humility and ego deflation on a secondary level, and developing a relationship with a Higher Power and a spiritual life as a primary focus, but you don't really need to get to know what the damage is, the specifics of it, nor do you have to dig any deeper than far enough to be able to help other people.  and i hid in that fine print.  and toti suffered because of it.  it was a wonderful, horrible time.  that kind of sums up my early recovery.

more relativity...

...this has been a very educational day.  it's been emotional, and physical, and mental, and ethereal and instructive and metaphorical.  and i am weary in my brain and in my body, and it's been a while since i could say that about both at the same time.  i'm starting this very late, because i've barely been home today.
i started with a bit of a row with Syd.  the child wanted to have conversation this morning, but yesterday when i asked about her school day and how she was, it was the shoulder-shrug-head-tilt-onewordanswer bullshit.  she tried to tell me an event today that happened yesterday in school, as well as telling me that she spoke to the person she's on the outs with in her 'relationship'.  so i told her that i am not doing the up and down thing, that i try to engage her and she blows me off and i'm not going to just turn back on to it because now she wants something or wants to make sure i know all is cool with her in case she wants something later.  so i took her and a friend to their bus stop and i went to the gym.
i've started working on this gut again, because i know though my insulin intake is decreasing, its still enough to make weight loss a bit of a challenge in the stomach area.  so i got on an abdominal press machine and R called in the middle of my reps.  i left the gym (no phone use in the fitness center itself) and called R back and she asked if i could give her a ride to her doctor's appointment.  i said sure, as i had nothing else going on except taking my dad to his conference this evening.  so i finished my abbreviated workout, came home, ate breakfast, took a shower and got my ass out the door.  i took R to her doctor appointment, she took me for brunch and i dropped her off at the hospital.  por que, you ask?
because when we were talking on the phone last night, she had to go because she got a call in.  the call was, first, a friend of hers whose mother had died that night, and second was a relative who is very ill.  the ill relative being in the hospital i dropped her at.  so i chose to go to a meeting from there since i was on that side of town and it was just about meeting time.  i went to the meeting and i saw someone i haven't seen in some years, with their young child and the same issues they've had since i've met them.  the meeting was small, which always makes me sad, as i remember meetings with dozens and dozens of recovering addicts and now there's maybe an average of five to eight people who attend the fellowship's meetings that i go to.  i digress.  i came back home, put together a quick spaghetti for Syd and went to my parents to wait for my dad to take him to his conference.
now, when i was leaving the gym, i headed down Gypsy instead of up and across at Roosevelt, as i usually do.  i saw a bike sitting at the bus stop and i wondered why someone would abandon a good bike at a bus stop.  as i passed, i saw it was attached to someone's life.
there was a brother sitting on the ground in the bus stop, sleeping.  he had a bike, he had bags of his things, he had a piece of cardboard to shield him from the wind on the street side.  i don't know if he had cardboard behind him as well.  i thought he looked like the brother i've seen on campus, by the library and the taco bell down there, but i couldn't be sure.  i felt sad, and i felt kind of negligent, as if i should have stopped and checked on the brother.  but what i really felt, what was really going through me, was nostalgia.
when i was at the end of my addiction, i had lost my mind.  but i wasn't crazy.  that may not make sense, but its the way it was.  i left my uncle's house in Columbus, because i knew i wasn't doing right by him, and because i knew i wouldn't.  the cocaine was calling me all the time. people who have never really done it, never really smoked cocaine, don't know what this is like, and i don't know if its the same if you snort it.  i just know all i wanted was to know where i could get more to smoke.  so i left, and i stayed in the greenbriar housing apartments.  i was hanging with a guy who was dealing, was a friend of my uncle (before my uncle burned that bridge behind him, as i'm sure he did) and had treated me as decently as a coke dealer could treat a junkie.  but in the end, the coke hunger was stronger than friendship.  it had to be; it was stronger than family.  i slept on stairwells in this housing project.  i slept on floors in empty apartments that someone had broken into.  if i could find something worth eating, i'd scavenge it from garbage cans.  i had lost so much weight at that time, i used a rope to keep my pants up.  i was a picture perfect skid row alky, but i was a coke fiend.  hair unkempt and nappy, unwashed, undeodorized, unsane.  i wouldn't eat for days, and when i did, it was something like stale popcorn and a candy bar from the Stop N Go convenience store across the street from the project.  i actually worked there for a period, only because i needed money for drugs, before the drugs convinced me work was just getting in the way of me using drugs.  how's that for logic?
i also worked on campus in columbus about twenty years ago, when i first moved to columbus with Syd's mom as my hostage.  i saw lots of transients, and some i was kind to, and some i was aloof toward, but it was due to their game rather than their condition.  some would come with the most lame bullshit because they knew my boss was an easy touch.  but i remember once i took a young dopefiend lady to a store to buy groceries for her kids, and when i went to my car and watched her, she went right back into the store to return the groceries for the money so she could get high.  she would always ask for money to feed her kids.  before that night, i mean.  we're not dumb, we're just fucked up, because after that night she never asked me for anything again.
so i think, if and or when i go to the gym tomorrow, i'm going to look for that dude.  and if he's still there, i'm going to give him something to eat.  i don't have money to spare, and that's for real.  i have bills yet to pay, and just trying to pinch pennies to insure there's cash for an emergency means a lot of shit gets neglected.  but...
right, here's the relativity...the farther from me i get, the closer i am to my spiritual wellness.
i am grateful.  because though i don't have much to spare, i HAVE.
though my health is not the greatest, i am WELL ENOUGH.  i'm not in the hospital struggling for my life.
though the program often infuriates me, i am SOBER.  i'm not struggling to get clean, by Jehovah's grace I AM CLEAN TODAY.
that's perspective that i can use.  i ate okay, but not great today.  i will do better tomorrow.  should tomorrow come and the creek don't rise.  good night.

...a glitch in the sequencing program...

...there is something to be said about doing this every day since i got started.  i guess that is a form of discipline, so i can look at it as movement in the right direction.  however, i am doing incomplete logs, because life stuff has been getting to me.  like the flu last week, like the issues with my book getting eaten, having to run a system recovery on my desktop which erased windows 10 and defaulted me back to windows 7, like windows 7 not working properly, like microsoft security essentials not wanting to update and leaving my computer unprotected. and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo, which if i'm not mistaken means hanna-barbara got the name of the cartoon from Sly and the Family Stone, which is really kinda cool.  but, everything for a purpose.  i am still logging, and i'm still trudging, and tomorrow i'm going to be back in systems check, because we can't really explore until we make sure we got what we need and we get rid of the garbage, because who wants to travel with a ship full of shit?  so, here we go...

and here i am.  howdy!  its monday morning.  been a pretty eventful weekend.  told you about my child and her heartbreak.  told you about the computer stuff and the book getting swallowed like Jonah and the fish or...well, never mind any other analogies.  but i got up today, other than missing R, feeling pretty good.  i was sleepy, as my sleep was sort of fitful last night and i had a cramp in my thigh this morning that drove me to my knees, but i prayed while i was there, so i guess maybe God just grabbed a hunk of my fat and said 'get it going, mofo!'  it's possible.  my God is hip.  so, i prayed, and i got up and got coffee brewing and drank some and saw the computer wasn't updating and i turned off my MAN stew for the moment and had a couple cups of wonderful coffee...i'm of the opinion that all coffee tastes better on a monday morning, employed or not.  i got Syd to her bus stop and i came home and checked my sugar and had breakfast, two scrambled cheese eggs and a piece of toast.  got a loaf of brownberry bread over the weekend, much more preferable than the regular 'tan' bread that they call wheat.  as i said, i was still some sluggish so i nodded out for a bit, but the urge was on me to start grazing.  so i paid bills, and i followed up on something that needed to be followed up on, and i went for a walk.
now, that's important.  i don't know for sure if the JCC was open today or not.  but i was told it might not be, and so my inner child, as we've learned to do (is that the 'we' that i'm referencing when i start these entries?  i don't know, but it kinda makes sense) was trying a sort of 'dual-directional passivity' to avoid any kind of exercise today.  here's how it works;  i think of different exercises i can do at home.  like, starting sit-ups and push ups, or just some good stretches, which in the long run would help with these cramps.  then, as the day moves forward, i try to convince myself that i've waited too long, and then i can make plans for the next day, knowing there is a part of myself that relishes in the fact that i did myself a wrong that i could easily have righted.  this happens often, and though VF suggested that my inner child may not be capable of engineering the compromising of my almost completed manuscript, the fact that i am completely divided on the issue of my personal improvement in pretty significant in indicating the force that the child inside me has learned to wield over the years.  such as the struggle that i just engaged in.  i'm am fixated on a small, half-empty bag of chips on the table.  its been there for the better part of a week.  i feel irritated with myself for the desire, but the fascination is real.  i can't help but wonder...why?  i had soup and a sandwich for lunch.  i had grapes for a snack not long ago.  so there is no hunger.  it can only be frustration.  doing this computer, having this microsoft office disc not booting up or downloading.  amazing how easy it is to just say 'fuck everything' and stick something in my mouth.  i have to learn to talk the child down with kindness, the re-education has to take place with the disciplining or there will be no permanent or lasting change.  there's an awareness for you.