Today is Thursday February Twenty Fifth Two Thousand Ten. Went to the doc today since the last time I saw him I had about a month of sobriety. He is from China and answers his own phone, calls you back quickly, and will make time if you need to see him asap. He is very old skool but I really like how he runs his practice and I wouldn't have it any other way. I won't tell others who he is because I don't want to ruin a good thing. Ok, maybe I will tell one person if they are worthy but thats about it. He was pleased with my progress and I have officially lost twenty five pounds as of today. Its a bunch of weight for the time but I have been super aggressive in my diet as well as the exercise. He said that for my height and age that one eighty is the recommended weight but thats just crazy talk. He sucked some blood out of me and hopefully nothing will lead him to want more tests or anything like that. I am very worried about all the damage I may have done to my liver and other internal organs but I just have to keep living the way I have been and hope for the best. The only thing I can do is to be healthy and do what they tell me. Sounds similar to another program but I just can't put my finger on it.
Last nite was a exercise in patience for me because due to the tardiness of some friends I didn't get to see the opener and that was the only reason I was going to the show in the first place. I know I am super anal about being early but being ninety minutes late to something just isn't right in my mind. I wonder when you stop being polite and start saying what the fuck ? If I ever meet these people again I am going to insert a forty five minute lag time whenever I need to meet them for something. If they don't like it, I will just point out that they have been late for every event they have met me at and I am getting a little fucking tired of it. Anyway, the crowd was filled up mostly high school girls but Mayer did have some pretty good guitar parts I will give him that. All in all, I think I would have been better off not going but what is done is done.
One major personal problem about last nite was these god damn nicotine mints gave me a major case of gas. Here I am hanging out with four lovely ladies and all I can do is concentrate on not farting. As I have reported previously its not like these farts dissipate quickly and without any scent like they usually do for me. Oh no, these are loud vibrating lingering horrific smelling farts and they would def know where they came from. One benefit I guess in going to a show filled with women is that there weren't any lines for the mens room. I had to go to a couple of fart missions so I would be ok later. It was funny however, to hear the yelps of horror when the next guy came into the bathroom. I realize this is super nasty but I just want to warn anyone that if you eat these lozenges and have any type of fiber in your diet look the fuck out ! Thankfully I was able to contain myself and dance with the chiquitas for most of the nite and now that I admit about it had a good time.
So I am over my crushes for the time being and I know I was being silly but if you can't be silly once in a while why live at all ? I have made peace with it and I have to realize a couple of things. First is to be patient and keep doing what I am doing. I am a good guy and people seem to enjoy my company most of the time and eventually I will find someone. The second is that most of the women I seem to find myself interested in are in the twenty nine to thirty four age group and if they have not been married or had children yet that may be on their mind. Due to that they are going to check you out and make sure that you are worth their time. I don't blame them and nor do I want to date someone who is willing to sleep with me after only knowing me a sort while. I just can't separate sex from love in my mind and in order to be intimate with a woman I have to have some sort of bond with her. My guy friends would say thats a total woman thing to say but its the truth. Even when I could I never slept with someone just to do it because thats not how I am constructed. I just find woman very interesting and fun and appreciate their outlook on things. Ya, they can be crazy but we all can every now and then.
It was good to talk with Courtney last nite and we purposely didn't talk about Randy when we were together. Her friend Carolyn is a hoot and its a pity she isn't a few years older or I would probably be in love with her. I am going to try and see if Courtney is available to hang out when I am in Topsfield the weekend after next and maybe spend some qt with her and the girls. If not maybe she can escape for a few hours and we can really talk about whats going on and what I can do to help out. If all she wants is an ear to listen then thats fine with me. She is probably my oldest and best female friend and I would do anything for her. Well anything except for dating because that would be like sleeping with my sister. She is attractive and I'm sure she is creative in certain areas but thats totally not on my radar. I have proven that I can have deep and meaningful friendships with xx chromos without thinking about how they would look nekkid. Sometimes that can be difficult but I believe its important to have female friends in your life.
My replacement travel mug came yesterday and I am going to plug the product. If you need a leak proof travel mug that will keep your beverage of choice hot for hours then the "Contigo" is for you. The design and color are swell but the thing just works and keeps my coffee not just warm but hot enough to burn the christ out of my mouth. I need to remember that when I am making my starfucks instant in the morning so I can actually drink it at some point. I also got my travel french press and with some measurement alterations of my usual routine it should work quite well. The final package that was waiting for me when I arrived home was my two additional pairs of sneakers and of course I am pleased. I picked up a new style of sneakers beyond the stan smiths, superstar 2's, and campus and they are awesome. They damn well should be considering the cost but I am not going to think about that right now.
20100224
Haning With The Dad, More Friend Stuff, & More Cambridge AA
Today is Wednesday February Twenty Fourth Two Thousand Ten. Its a rainy little bitch outside and a good test of my new goretex rainwear. I guess when its gortex its not a raincoat but rainwear. Anyway my previous goretex shell was about twelve years old and leaked quite a bit and the only other rain shielding garment I have is this gigantic parka I bought when I used to wear suits everyday. So in typical fashion I went to REI to buy some luggage accessories and walked out with a new NorthFace shell. It was on sale for a hundred bucks and was exactly what I wanted because it was only a shell and didn't have anything else. I have about a dozen fleeces, hoodies, and vests to wear underneath it and even tho the sales dude tried to upsell me I resisted. Its a little drab but then again rain, sleet, and snow are pretty fucking drab as well. Whatever, having too many jackets makes me happy just like having too many pairs of sneakers. Not that I could have too many pairs of kicks mind you.
Last nite was awesome. Having the ability to take my pop out to dinner and then to the game is a gift of sobriety. He walked right past me when I was waiting because I look so different than the last time he saw me which was a little over a month ago. I was looking in the mirror this morning and I detect a shrinkage of my love handles which is awesome. Those motherfuckers were giving quite a fight and I was wondering if I would have to get them sucked out or something. Not that I would ever do that, I think the only vanity type thing I would do other than dealing with grey hair would be to have the excess skin that remains as a result of my weight loss removed. I am not planning on doing anything like that but its the only thing I can think of at the moment. Everything else is shrinking and toning nicely and I am pretty happy with the progress and don't care about perfection. Ok, well maybe with my hair but there isn't much I need to do with that except get it chopped every few months. Like my finger and toe nails my hair grows super fast and I have the tendency to let it slide for too long. Probably too much information but I don't give a toot.
Going to see Spearhead open up for John Mayer tonight. Normally I wouldn't spend fifty bucks to see Franti and the boys but I am going with five other xx chromos so it should be a blast. It will also enable me to put into words verbally what I have not been able to write in emails to Courtney. This whole thing with Randy is bothering me and quickly starting to really piss me off. As I recollect and ponder what has transpired I am just aghast that I didn't say anything at the time. Granted I was on my own downward spiral and each incident can be forgiven if looked at separately but when you put them all together it really paints a horrible picture of the kid. I was talking to my sponsor about some of Randy's actions of late and he was speechless before I was thru. I really hope he gets it, I can talk all tough and tell other people that it doesn't bother me but deep down I miss his friendship and what was once his trust and dedication to me. Now I just don't know whats still there if anything and its not like magically he will decide that the sober way is the better way and want to start a recovery program. I just don't know how much lower he can go, esp if he is looking at more jailtime. I once told him that if he went to jail again for dealing drugs that I wasn't going to visit him or support him in any way. Now thats fucking harsh.
These are not great feelings but the important thing is that I am able to deal with them like a grown up. I babble all the time about how important it is to me to have integrity and honesty and I still feel that way. If I am not honest with myself then I will think I can drink and use heroin and still maintain my healthy lifestyle. If I don't have integrity which to me is only gained by complete honesty then I don't have a leg to stand on thinking about whats so wrong with the way Randy is living his life right now. I just don't want him to think that I am placing myself on a pedestal before him or am somehow better than him because I am sober. I do place myself in a pedestal in my own mind, I think everyone does that because if you are not your own biggest fan then who is going to be ? Yes, my lifestyle and overall health is better than his right now but I hope to lead my example and prove to him that someone like myself who didn't think could get thru the day without being fucked up on something, can actually look forward to full days of sobriety.
There were two things I was worried about before I got and felt comfortable in sobriety and since the last time I had any sort of continued sobriety was in eighty three I was worried. The first was what the people would be like in my recovery program and if I would be able to tolerate them. I am willing to tolerate just about anyone if it helps me feel better but I wondered if I would actually enjoy their company. The first people I met in sobriety were the fellow detoxers on the second floor of the Arbor Hospital dual diagnosis wing. I certainly got along with everyone else and except for the whiny bitches (this does not denote male or female just addicts in general) I was able to have interesting conversations. They were from very different backgrounds than I was but we had the common theme of addiction. I then went to the Parker house where I met even more addicts and once again I was the only rookie in the bunch and really didn't have anything in common with these folks except for addiction. It was a group of about twenty of us and I once had most of their numbers but I have not heard from any of them in months. I often wonder if anyone else followed up on their impassioned promises of sobriety and working their recovery. My psyche doc told me I was an exception not the rule.
Then I started going to AA and my first post detox meeting was in Malden where the average age was around sixty five. I went to a couple of NA meetings where I didn't feel at all comfortable and somehow I ended up at a Cambridge AA. The rest is history that is still being written but I feel very fortunate that I found the Cambridge "core" group of fellowship. If there is a higher power then he/she/it convinced me to walk for twenty minutes in the cold January nite to a meeting at the Harvard Divinity School. Its def not a location you just happen to walk by, you def need to seek it out and in the mtg book it is not at all clear that it is a beginner's meeting as well. What I have found in the fellowship of Cambridge AA is not easy to put into words. I have found many wonderful people who are dedicated to maintaining their sobriety and helping others get sober. There are people within that fellowship that I can honestly and proudly call me friends and I feel comfortable seeing them outside the halls. Yes, the girls are pretty and I think I have written too much about that but its more than that. Either they are good actors or people are generally happy to see me and are happy for the progress that I have made over this past year and I can honestly say the same for them. Do I like everyone ? Certainly not but their are enough progressive, liberal, happy, and trustworthy people for me to feel comfortable.
Last nite was awesome. Having the ability to take my pop out to dinner and then to the game is a gift of sobriety. He walked right past me when I was waiting because I look so different than the last time he saw me which was a little over a month ago. I was looking in the mirror this morning and I detect a shrinkage of my love handles which is awesome. Those motherfuckers were giving quite a fight and I was wondering if I would have to get them sucked out or something. Not that I would ever do that, I think the only vanity type thing I would do other than dealing with grey hair would be to have the excess skin that remains as a result of my weight loss removed. I am not planning on doing anything like that but its the only thing I can think of at the moment. Everything else is shrinking and toning nicely and I am pretty happy with the progress and don't care about perfection. Ok, well maybe with my hair but there isn't much I need to do with that except get it chopped every few months. Like my finger and toe nails my hair grows super fast and I have the tendency to let it slide for too long. Probably too much information but I don't give a toot.
Going to see Spearhead open up for John Mayer tonight. Normally I wouldn't spend fifty bucks to see Franti and the boys but I am going with five other xx chromos so it should be a blast. It will also enable me to put into words verbally what I have not been able to write in emails to Courtney. This whole thing with Randy is bothering me and quickly starting to really piss me off. As I recollect and ponder what has transpired I am just aghast that I didn't say anything at the time. Granted I was on my own downward spiral and each incident can be forgiven if looked at separately but when you put them all together it really paints a horrible picture of the kid. I was talking to my sponsor about some of Randy's actions of late and he was speechless before I was thru. I really hope he gets it, I can talk all tough and tell other people that it doesn't bother me but deep down I miss his friendship and what was once his trust and dedication to me. Now I just don't know whats still there if anything and its not like magically he will decide that the sober way is the better way and want to start a recovery program. I just don't know how much lower he can go, esp if he is looking at more jailtime. I once told him that if he went to jail again for dealing drugs that I wasn't going to visit him or support him in any way. Now thats fucking harsh.
These are not great feelings but the important thing is that I am able to deal with them like a grown up. I babble all the time about how important it is to me to have integrity and honesty and I still feel that way. If I am not honest with myself then I will think I can drink and use heroin and still maintain my healthy lifestyle. If I don't have integrity which to me is only gained by complete honesty then I don't have a leg to stand on thinking about whats so wrong with the way Randy is living his life right now. I just don't want him to think that I am placing myself on a pedestal before him or am somehow better than him because I am sober. I do place myself in a pedestal in my own mind, I think everyone does that because if you are not your own biggest fan then who is going to be ? Yes, my lifestyle and overall health is better than his right now but I hope to lead my example and prove to him that someone like myself who didn't think could get thru the day without being fucked up on something, can actually look forward to full days of sobriety.
There were two things I was worried about before I got and felt comfortable in sobriety and since the last time I had any sort of continued sobriety was in eighty three I was worried. The first was what the people would be like in my recovery program and if I would be able to tolerate them. I am willing to tolerate just about anyone if it helps me feel better but I wondered if I would actually enjoy their company. The first people I met in sobriety were the fellow detoxers on the second floor of the Arbor Hospital dual diagnosis wing. I certainly got along with everyone else and except for the whiny bitches (this does not denote male or female just addicts in general) I was able to have interesting conversations. They were from very different backgrounds than I was but we had the common theme of addiction. I then went to the Parker house where I met even more addicts and once again I was the only rookie in the bunch and really didn't have anything in common with these folks except for addiction. It was a group of about twenty of us and I once had most of their numbers but I have not heard from any of them in months. I often wonder if anyone else followed up on their impassioned promises of sobriety and working their recovery. My psyche doc told me I was an exception not the rule.
Then I started going to AA and my first post detox meeting was in Malden where the average age was around sixty five. I went to a couple of NA meetings where I didn't feel at all comfortable and somehow I ended up at a Cambridge AA. The rest is history that is still being written but I feel very fortunate that I found the Cambridge "core" group of fellowship. If there is a higher power then he/she/it convinced me to walk for twenty minutes in the cold January nite to a meeting at the Harvard Divinity School. Its def not a location you just happen to walk by, you def need to seek it out and in the mtg book it is not at all clear that it is a beginner's meeting as well. What I have found in the fellowship of Cambridge AA is not easy to put into words. I have found many wonderful people who are dedicated to maintaining their sobriety and helping others get sober. There are people within that fellowship that I can honestly and proudly call me friends and I feel comfortable seeing them outside the halls. Yes, the girls are pretty and I think I have written too much about that but its more than that. Either they are good actors or people are generally happy to see me and are happy for the progress that I have made over this past year and I can honestly say the same for them. Do I like everyone ? Certainly not but their are enough progressive, liberal, happy, and trustworthy people for me to feel comfortable.
20100223
Ten Weeks Of Traning & The Pumpkin
Today is Tuesday February Twenty Third Two Thousand Ten. A Tuesday. Normally I wouldn't be very excited for a Tuesday but I'm going to the Celtics game with my father tonight. It is a make up for last January when we had tickets to the game but I was going thru heroin withdrawal and couldn't make it to the game. How pleasant. I am sure that I will be in better shape for the game this year and I am glad that I am able to go with him. Then tomorrow nite is Spearhead opening up for John Mayer and my plan for that is to see Spearhead and then maybe thirty minutes of the other guy. I am only going because of the xx chromo quotient and I'm sure I will have a good time. I have not seen a show at the Fleece Center for years and I'm sure the people watching will be interesting.
I met with my trainer this morning and it was our tenth meeting so the contract is over. I am going to continue with five more sessions spread out over eight weeks or so but it is amazing how far I've come since the first week of December. To quote a phrase I hate, its time to kick it up a notch and I am glad for it. At this point I don't have a problem with the workout kicking my ass and while I am far from in shape I am feeling really good when I am in the gym and certainly afterwords. She is going to come up with this three week training program which I will use moving forward and that means working specific parts of my bod certain days rather than just working small parts of my over all bod. I am comfortable will most of the exercises that I've been doing and try my best to keep up the good form. One of the things thats been super helpful is her showing me what I do when I get tired and try to cheat on an exercise. That way I can watch for it and make sure to do it correctly moving forward. She mentioned that she has the intro period for ten weeks so she can see if her client is willing to put the time and work into it. I consider working out as part of my life now and plan to continue it till I physically can't do anything anymore.
I ran my first business meeting last nite and it seemed to go ok. Everything was going along swimmingly till a member brought up some new business and due to his way of phrasing things it took about twenty minutes for everyone to understand what he was talking about. I knew it was coming and dealt with it and I hope that people were ok with my performance. It is very interesting to watch people interact and see what things people are passionate about and how they go about pointing that out to others. Well, on the bright side there are only eleven more of them to go and all I can do is try my best. (BB!) Progress not perfection as they say. It continues to annoy me that many of AA-isms make sense to me and that I remember them. I think I will be able to handle them as long as I don't have a "Easy Does It" bumper sticker on my car. I kinda like "FUCK YOU PIGS I AM SOBER" or "SUCK IT PIGS, I DONT'T DRINK" but that might seem a little argumentative for some people. I'd probably get pulled over a bunch which is a nice segway (sp?) to my next paragraph.
I used to drive a Seventy Two VW Camper Bus, color orange. It had the pop top, kitchen, stove, closet, etc and was the perfect hippie mobile. I also had super long hair and seemed to only wear tie dyes, cargo shorts, and birkenstocks then so I was a mobile target for law enforcement. I can't even begin to count the number of times I was pulled over and asked if I had anything in the automobile. I would just look at the leo and laugh and tell him that while I may be stupid enough to drive a vehicle like this I am not stupid enough to have anything illegal inside it. That didn't mean there may or may not have been an area outside the auto where certain devices and or substances might have been found. It was a great right to go to parties in because I always had a place to crash and I also never could speed in it. Last I heard it was seen by a friend of mine on Nantucket and it had flowers painted on it. He knew it had been mine because there is a New London, NH dump sticker on a window that can't be reached in a normal fashion.
I used to be into firearms, not for hunting bambi or donald or another human but for shooting at either paper targets, milk jugs, clay pigeons, or household appliances. I belonged to a gun club the next town over and I used to drive the bus over there back then. In compliance to state firearm laws I would store my instruments of death in the lockable closet in the back of the bus. One day I was driving to the range and my finicky tail light decided to go out and sure enough a po-po pulled me over. When the officer asked me if I had anything in the auto that he should know about. I explained that I had the civilian model of the m-14 as well as a .45 in the back. Hand on gun, the officer tells me to get out of the car very carefully so that I can show him my firearm lisc and have him check that the guns were secured properly. As I get out of the bus I turn around and am face to face with a guy I was in boy scouts with. We recognized each other at about the same moment and his face broke into a wide smile. Next thing I know he is checking out my assault rifle on the side of the road jabbering about firearms. I always wondered what people thought as they were driving by, a long haired guy and a po-po with an evil looking assault rifle in his hands.
I stopped shooting over ten years ago because drinking was more important to me than anything else. I am very safe and careful around firearms and take them as seriously as I do my sobriety. At this point in my life I don't have the desire to shoot anything even if it is a paper target. I am in favor or gun control and believe there are too many unlicensed firearms in the streets. I believe that most gun owners are to be trusted but all it takes is one jackass to shoot someone by accident. I do believe in the second amendment but within reason. I know that sounds very wishy washy and it is but I was raised learning about gun safety and had many good sober days shooting non living things at the range. I have only shot one living thing in my life and it was with a bb gun in my folks back yard. It was the state bird of MA, the chickadee and I only winged the poor thing but I don't think it could fly. I still to this day feel guilty about it and don't plan on shooting anything else unless I was in a survival situation.
I met with my trainer this morning and it was our tenth meeting so the contract is over. I am going to continue with five more sessions spread out over eight weeks or so but it is amazing how far I've come since the first week of December. To quote a phrase I hate, its time to kick it up a notch and I am glad for it. At this point I don't have a problem with the workout kicking my ass and while I am far from in shape I am feeling really good when I am in the gym and certainly afterwords. She is going to come up with this three week training program which I will use moving forward and that means working specific parts of my bod certain days rather than just working small parts of my over all bod. I am comfortable will most of the exercises that I've been doing and try my best to keep up the good form. One of the things thats been super helpful is her showing me what I do when I get tired and try to cheat on an exercise. That way I can watch for it and make sure to do it correctly moving forward. She mentioned that she has the intro period for ten weeks so she can see if her client is willing to put the time and work into it. I consider working out as part of my life now and plan to continue it till I physically can't do anything anymore.
I ran my first business meeting last nite and it seemed to go ok. Everything was going along swimmingly till a member brought up some new business and due to his way of phrasing things it took about twenty minutes for everyone to understand what he was talking about. I knew it was coming and dealt with it and I hope that people were ok with my performance. It is very interesting to watch people interact and see what things people are passionate about and how they go about pointing that out to others. Well, on the bright side there are only eleven more of them to go and all I can do is try my best. (BB!) Progress not perfection as they say. It continues to annoy me that many of AA-isms make sense to me and that I remember them. I think I will be able to handle them as long as I don't have a "Easy Does It" bumper sticker on my car. I kinda like "FUCK YOU PIGS I AM SOBER" or "SUCK IT PIGS, I DONT'T DRINK" but that might seem a little argumentative for some people. I'd probably get pulled over a bunch which is a nice segway (sp?) to my next paragraph.
I used to drive a Seventy Two VW Camper Bus, color orange. It had the pop top, kitchen, stove, closet, etc and was the perfect hippie mobile. I also had super long hair and seemed to only wear tie dyes, cargo shorts, and birkenstocks then so I was a mobile target for law enforcement. I can't even begin to count the number of times I was pulled over and asked if I had anything in the automobile. I would just look at the leo and laugh and tell him that while I may be stupid enough to drive a vehicle like this I am not stupid enough to have anything illegal inside it. That didn't mean there may or may not have been an area outside the auto where certain devices and or substances might have been found. It was a great right to go to parties in because I always had a place to crash and I also never could speed in it. Last I heard it was seen by a friend of mine on Nantucket and it had flowers painted on it. He knew it had been mine because there is a New London, NH dump sticker on a window that can't be reached in a normal fashion.
I used to be into firearms, not for hunting bambi or donald or another human but for shooting at either paper targets, milk jugs, clay pigeons, or household appliances. I belonged to a gun club the next town over and I used to drive the bus over there back then. In compliance to state firearm laws I would store my instruments of death in the lockable closet in the back of the bus. One day I was driving to the range and my finicky tail light decided to go out and sure enough a po-po pulled me over. When the officer asked me if I had anything in the auto that he should know about. I explained that I had the civilian model of the m-14 as well as a .45 in the back. Hand on gun, the officer tells me to get out of the car very carefully so that I can show him my firearm lisc and have him check that the guns were secured properly. As I get out of the bus I turn around and am face to face with a guy I was in boy scouts with. We recognized each other at about the same moment and his face broke into a wide smile. Next thing I know he is checking out my assault rifle on the side of the road jabbering about firearms. I always wondered what people thought as they were driving by, a long haired guy and a po-po with an evil looking assault rifle in his hands.
I stopped shooting over ten years ago because drinking was more important to me than anything else. I am very safe and careful around firearms and take them as seriously as I do my sobriety. At this point in my life I don't have the desire to shoot anything even if it is a paper target. I am in favor or gun control and believe there are too many unlicensed firearms in the streets. I believe that most gun owners are to be trusted but all it takes is one jackass to shoot someone by accident. I do believe in the second amendment but within reason. I know that sounds very wishy washy and it is but I was raised learning about gun safety and had many good sober days shooting non living things at the range. I have only shot one living thing in my life and it was with a bb gun in my folks back yard. It was the state bird of MA, the chickadee and I only winged the poor thing but I don't think it could fly. I still to this day feel guilty about it and don't plan on shooting anything else unless I was in a survival situation.
20100222
Music Shivers, Olympics & Art
Today is Monday February Twenty Second Two Thousand Ten. I don't really have a case of the Mondays but I can think of quite a few other things I'd rather be doing than working the salt mines of CHB. I always get this way a few weeks before I go on vaca and I have a pant load of work to accomplish before I leave. Of course its all stuff that I could have done the previous couple of weeks but who in their right mind would want to do something BEFORE it is due. I am a little frightened of people who do shit like that, my girlie at CSC was like that. If a paper was due on Monday she would have it finished and ready for final edits on Saturday. Its probably good that she is home schooling her kids now as it gives her something to do with her time. She is the one who always wanted to be a nurse and then when she worked in the industry for a few years found out she didn't like it so she got married and started having children. She is up to the fourth now and I am damn glad that they aren't mine. I do want children but an acceptable number to me is two and they better damn well go to school with all the other kids in town.
I was listening to my iFraud at the gym this morning and I got the total body shivers when a tune by Fareed Haque came on. There are not many tunes that do that to me but Fareed's are one of them. He is the git player for Garaj Mahal and his solo effort is the nuts. The bees knees even. What does that really mean ? Do bees have knees or is it just some kitchy fifties expression that I heard somewhere. Anyway, I am sweating away and Fareed starts on the poddy and this giant shiver starts at the base of my head and goes straight down my spine to my knees and peters out around my ankles. I have never had a drug give me that with the exception of some really good MDMA we had in ninety eight and the shiver doesn't give you that post trip depression. Thats the power of music to me, the first band to so that was the Grateful Dead because previous to that band I was listening to thrash and thats not really shivery type music. More on this later.
So the USA Olympic team beat the pants of the Canadians yesterday. They were talking so much shit and one drunken fan said something about it being their national sport. I don't think thats right, I think Lacrosse is their national sport but its still awesome that we beat them. I don't know if this means we have to play them again but now that the Russians are nice we have to pick someone to be the villain in hockey to what not our neighbors to the north? The problem is that I know quite a few Canadians and they are all super cool. I will never forget the french Canadians I met up in VT at a reggae show. We had run out of rolling papers and cigarettes and these frenchies next to us had "rollies" which were hand rolled ciggys. This was quite a few years before hand rolled ciggys were hip so no of us had ever run into these type of things before. Oh, they also had more beer than I had ever seen before. There were only three guys but they must have had upwards of fifty cases of beer for the weekend. They were trying to sell them on the lot but since they didn't really speak english that well and were super hammered business was bad. My friend and I gladly stepped in and sold all but their special canadia beers in a few hours. I figured we were just doing our part for US/Quebec relations.
I have made the decision to commission an artist to produce a mosaic of something. I saw one of her creations hanging at the Yawkey Foundation area and thought it was pretty cool and wanted one of my own. Her website looks like it was made by a preshcooler ten years ago so I sent her an email asking if she had any of her work in a gallery or a show. She responded by explaining that she really doesn't go that route and the majority of her work are commissions. Thats all fine and dandy but what sort of subject am I looking for ? I'd love to have one of my dog Alex but would that be too hokey or should I come up with something better. I am after all going to be paying someone to create something but I want it to be interesting to others besides myself. I have a pretty cool art collection so far and a couple of the pieces are worth some dough. I like to collect stuff that isn't what the artist is known for. For instance I have a beach landscape by a marine artist and a beach/moon scene by a a photog known for her photojournalism. I threw it out there on fabo to see what people think about it and I will probably ask the parental units their thoughts on the matter.
I consider myself very lucky, not only because I am sober but for the culture in which I was raised. My mom can be snooty but she does have good taste and I hope that some of that has been learned by myself. My appreciation for art and music def came from my folks and is an important part of my life. I mentioned earlier how certain music can give me the shivers and art can be like that as well. I have gotten goosebumps in museums and galleries before and its an awesome experience. I remember being in the Picasso museum in Barcelona and feeling that way for most of the time I spent inside there. Picasso to me is an excellent example of an artist learning about his craft and changing things up as he matured. To look at his work from his lifetime it is very easy to see how his method changed as he had more life experience to reach from. Granted he is one of the best known artists of the modern age but I think he is an excellent example of how not to get stuck in a rut artistically. I have not tried to do anything while sober yet and I look forward to producing some more work in the next couple of years. My own art while important is not the end all of my being and not so important as to say cut my ear off over. It something that will always be within me and something I intend to do once my life settles down a bit. If I am ever in the market to purchase my own home I will def take into consideration a space for a sculpture studio and Raku firing pit.
I was listening to my iFraud at the gym this morning and I got the total body shivers when a tune by Fareed Haque came on. There are not many tunes that do that to me but Fareed's are one of them. He is the git player for Garaj Mahal and his solo effort is the nuts. The bees knees even. What does that really mean ? Do bees have knees or is it just some kitchy fifties expression that I heard somewhere. Anyway, I am sweating away and Fareed starts on the poddy and this giant shiver starts at the base of my head and goes straight down my spine to my knees and peters out around my ankles. I have never had a drug give me that with the exception of some really good MDMA we had in ninety eight and the shiver doesn't give you that post trip depression. Thats the power of music to me, the first band to so that was the Grateful Dead because previous to that band I was listening to thrash and thats not really shivery type music. More on this later.
So the USA Olympic team beat the pants of the Canadians yesterday. They were talking so much shit and one drunken fan said something about it being their national sport. I don't think thats right, I think Lacrosse is their national sport but its still awesome that we beat them. I don't know if this means we have to play them again but now that the Russians are nice we have to pick someone to be the villain in hockey to what not our neighbors to the north? The problem is that I know quite a few Canadians and they are all super cool. I will never forget the french Canadians I met up in VT at a reggae show. We had run out of rolling papers and cigarettes and these frenchies next to us had "rollies" which were hand rolled ciggys. This was quite a few years before hand rolled ciggys were hip so no of us had ever run into these type of things before. Oh, they also had more beer than I had ever seen before. There were only three guys but they must have had upwards of fifty cases of beer for the weekend. They were trying to sell them on the lot but since they didn't really speak english that well and were super hammered business was bad. My friend and I gladly stepped in and sold all but their special canadia beers in a few hours. I figured we were just doing our part for US/Quebec relations.
I have made the decision to commission an artist to produce a mosaic of something. I saw one of her creations hanging at the Yawkey Foundation area and thought it was pretty cool and wanted one of my own. Her website looks like it was made by a preshcooler ten years ago so I sent her an email asking if she had any of her work in a gallery or a show. She responded by explaining that she really doesn't go that route and the majority of her work are commissions. Thats all fine and dandy but what sort of subject am I looking for ? I'd love to have one of my dog Alex but would that be too hokey or should I come up with something better. I am after all going to be paying someone to create something but I want it to be interesting to others besides myself. I have a pretty cool art collection so far and a couple of the pieces are worth some dough. I like to collect stuff that isn't what the artist is known for. For instance I have a beach landscape by a marine artist and a beach/moon scene by a a photog known for her photojournalism. I threw it out there on fabo to see what people think about it and I will probably ask the parental units their thoughts on the matter.
I consider myself very lucky, not only because I am sober but for the culture in which I was raised. My mom can be snooty but she does have good taste and I hope that some of that has been learned by myself. My appreciation for art and music def came from my folks and is an important part of my life. I mentioned earlier how certain music can give me the shivers and art can be like that as well. I have gotten goosebumps in museums and galleries before and its an awesome experience. I remember being in the Picasso museum in Barcelona and feeling that way for most of the time I spent inside there. Picasso to me is an excellent example of an artist learning about his craft and changing things up as he matured. To look at his work from his lifetime it is very easy to see how his method changed as he had more life experience to reach from. Granted he is one of the best known artists of the modern age but I think he is an excellent example of how not to get stuck in a rut artistically. I have not tried to do anything while sober yet and I look forward to producing some more work in the next couple of years. My own art while important is not the end all of my being and not so important as to say cut my ear off over. It something that will always be within me and something I intend to do once my life settles down a bit. If I am ever in the market to purchase my own home I will def take into consideration a space for a sculpture studio and Raku firing pit.
20100221
Giving People Headaches
Today is Sunday February Twenty First Two Thousand Ten. Don't rightly know why I'm up so early today as I only went to bed six hours ago. I went over to a friend's house for dinner last nite and the first thing she said to me was "The cologne you are wearing is giving me a headache. I like it but it has to go." I didn't bother to respond because it was such a stupid thing to say and its one of the many reasons that I will never date her. She has been great in redeveloping my ego early in my sobriety but the world seems to revolve around her most days and thats something I'm not going to deal with. Problem is that most of the time I really enjoy my time with her but then she lets go with something so asinine that I want to shave my eyebrows and join the yoga cult. Too bad tho, she is pretty hot and enjoys seeing live music when she isn't ill or otherwise incapacitated.
I had a long talk with my sponsor yesterday and I hope I was able to convey my displeasure with the lack of call backs. I think I told him that it really bothers me when I call and leave a message and I don't hear back for a week and thats a pretty sucky way to sponsor someone no matter how strong his sobriety appears to be. I dunno, I will see if he gets it and if he doesn't then I will have to more on and I know its not the end of the world and many folks get different sponsors in their recovery. Obviously it is important enough for me to worry about it and if things don't get better then they will change. I am in the drivers seat for the most part and its my decisions that make the difference.
Watching the Stooges, good TV to blog to as I don't have to focus on the boob tube all that much. Sundays are really the only day that I watch TV anymore and really only the news programs in the am. The WWII Stooges with Moe dressed up as Hitler are pretty harsh but I am glad that the PC police have not demanded that they are taken off the air. It was a absolutely horrific time in human history and we should never forget what happened. How it happened. Why it happened. What counties let it happen. I am not going to get into a discussion of the holocaust because I am not a historian and not a good writer. It comes down to one human hating another and twisting that hate into something that defies comprehension. I spent my entire freshman year of high school studying the holocaust and as an American with German roots it was very difficult to comprehend. I think I understand why it happened but the practical logistics baffle me.
Yesterday's Quaker Friend's meeting was excellent as usual. Such a good use of my time and I always enjoy myself. There were some difficult moments, a friend of mine is going thru a really tough time and doesn't really see a way out or an end in sight and its crushing her. That is what AA is first and foremost, a forum to share your thoughts and feelings with others without fear of criticism. It seems like she has been going thru this for months now and is at a breaking point. She continues to attend AA meetings and thats what matters, is able to acknowledge a need for support and is aware of where to find it. Just breaks my heart to see someone in such continued pain and I am so lucky in my life at the moment.
I went out to dinner with a bunch of folks Friday nite and it was a big step for me because this is the first large group outing I have ever attended. I don't know why really, I consider many of the people in the program my friends and I enjoy their company. They are a safe, happy, considerate group of people who I have a connection with on a very basic level. I really enjoyed myself and am glad I went because I always enjoy other people's company. My enjoyment of other humans is one of the reasons why I knew I was so sick last fall and winter. All I wanted to do was to hang out by myself and that is so opposite of who I am. I am happiest when I am with others and I feed off other people's energy and hear their opinions on all sorts of things. I am a very social person and I've always found it easy to meet other people and I spend a fair amount of effort staying in touch with people. Its much easier these days with email and fabo but you still have to take the time to do it.
I had a long talk with my sponsor yesterday and I hope I was able to convey my displeasure with the lack of call backs. I think I told him that it really bothers me when I call and leave a message and I don't hear back for a week and thats a pretty sucky way to sponsor someone no matter how strong his sobriety appears to be. I dunno, I will see if he gets it and if he doesn't then I will have to more on and I know its not the end of the world and many folks get different sponsors in their recovery. Obviously it is important enough for me to worry about it and if things don't get better then they will change. I am in the drivers seat for the most part and its my decisions that make the difference.
Watching the Stooges, good TV to blog to as I don't have to focus on the boob tube all that much. Sundays are really the only day that I watch TV anymore and really only the news programs in the am. The WWII Stooges with Moe dressed up as Hitler are pretty harsh but I am glad that the PC police have not demanded that they are taken off the air. It was a absolutely horrific time in human history and we should never forget what happened. How it happened. Why it happened. What counties let it happen. I am not going to get into a discussion of the holocaust because I am not a historian and not a good writer. It comes down to one human hating another and twisting that hate into something that defies comprehension. I spent my entire freshman year of high school studying the holocaust and as an American with German roots it was very difficult to comprehend. I think I understand why it happened but the practical logistics baffle me.
Yesterday's Quaker Friend's meeting was excellent as usual. Such a good use of my time and I always enjoy myself. There were some difficult moments, a friend of mine is going thru a really tough time and doesn't really see a way out or an end in sight and its crushing her. That is what AA is first and foremost, a forum to share your thoughts and feelings with others without fear of criticism. It seems like she has been going thru this for months now and is at a breaking point. She continues to attend AA meetings and thats what matters, is able to acknowledge a need for support and is aware of where to find it. Just breaks my heart to see someone in such continued pain and I am so lucky in my life at the moment.
I went out to dinner with a bunch of folks Friday nite and it was a big step for me because this is the first large group outing I have ever attended. I don't know why really, I consider many of the people in the program my friends and I enjoy their company. They are a safe, happy, considerate group of people who I have a connection with on a very basic level. I really enjoyed myself and am glad I went because I always enjoy other people's company. My enjoyment of other humans is one of the reasons why I knew I was so sick last fall and winter. All I wanted to do was to hang out by myself and that is so opposite of who I am. I am happiest when I am with others and I feed off other people's energy and hear their opinions on all sorts of things. I am a very social person and I've always found it easy to meet other people and I spend a fair amount of effort staying in touch with people. Its much easier these days with email and fabo but you still have to take the time to do it.
20100219
Java, Sneaker, & Other Vices
Today is Friday February Nineteenth Two Thousand Ten. I have a few things to report today so bear with me. I lost my beloved starfucks travel mug last weekend and life just has not been the same without it. My other travel mugs leak or don't keep hot bevvys hot. I went to SF's and they no longer carry my mug so I was at a loss as to what to get. Behold the internet and google. I just ordered a fancy mug because like always I have to upgrade that is supposed to have an autoseal system to prevent leakage. It better be a good mug for the twenty bucks I just spent on it. The way that I look at stupid purchases like a twenty dollar coffee mug is that I will be using this mug every day and if it makes my life easier and happier then its worth every penny. Or I just remind myself I used to spend a c-note every day on heroin. That pretty much ends that conversation with myself.
In other coffee news I also bought a travel french press for ten bucks. I was able to withstand the lure of the fancier models available and purchased one that will do what I ask of it which is to french press my puerto rican coffee so that I can drink it. I am such a fan of the stuff I will no longer travel anywhere without it and the glass french presses just don't travel all that well. This one is made of lexan and it will probably use it every day from now on. I managed to hold off on the fancy coffee grinder that I convinced myself that I just had to have because at the moment the coffee I buy is already ground and I don't mind a little sludge at the bottom of the cuppa. I am also looking into buying a vacuum container thingy that pushes all the air out so that your java is freshie. It would have been a sweet container to store pot in and I think I am going to buy one from the local peets coffee. Its always good to support the local economy whenever you can. I see at home coffee as a worthy investment. Say you drink just two cups of coffee a day and its just straight up coffee not one of the fancy schmancy ones. Thats at least five bucks a day and multiple that my three hundred fifty and you are looking at one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars a year ! Now my pr coffee is ten dollars for ten ounces which gives me about twenty five cups of coffee. Simple math will tell me thats forty cents a cup, add say fifty cents for the starfuckers instant and thats less than a buck a day for java goodness.
I also buy two pairs of sneakers. I couldn't help it and I already had them in the shopping cart so all I had to do was clicky a few times and they are on their way to my happy feet. I actually needed the running shoes and I of course had to get another pair of daily fly kicks for work. The only problem with having a couple of pairs of gold colored kicks is that you can't really wear them to work with the exception of Fridays. It doesn't matter, having a dozen pairs of sneakers makes me happy and any chemical free way that I can make myself happy is good. I think my only other vice would be reading books on my kindle and I am planning to work my way thru various series. Thats one of the best things about the kindle is that after you read the first book in a series you can then read the next one right away. Speaking of that I am going to buy myself another fifty dollar gift certificate on amazon so that I can get the next few books in the "Honor" series by WEB Griffin. Its kind of hokey WWII hero type stuff but I enjoy reading it. Be right back.
Well, I now have the next three books in the series and I can't wait to read them. The last one was a little spendy, fourteen bucks but I think its worth it. I think what you pay for shit is all relative in the person who is purchasing. Thanks Captain Obvious ! Anyway I am proud of myself in how I handled something that used to baffle me. (BB ALERT!) I sent my crush a text on Monday to say hello, something that I wasn't sure I should have done. I mean I want her to know that I want to be friends and hang out but I don't want to be tremendously obvious of that fact. There will be plenty of time in the future to do that. Anyway she didn't respond to my text and in my alcoholic mind I immediately thought about what I might have done to piss her off. Sounds crazy but it is a hundred percent true even tho I have not known her long enough to piss her off but that wasn't the point. I told myself not to worry that perhaps my phone didn't get it or something like that. I am proud that I actually listened to my own advice and I didn't worry about it. Sure I thought about it but it wasn't stressing me out. She then sent me an email yesterday apologizing for not responding to my message. This is why I like this girl so much, she really takes into consideration other people's feelings besides her own which is a refreshing change from the xx chromo I hung out with this summer. I still don't know if she likes me any more than a friend but I get the feeling that she doesn't really want to date someone right now.
I consider my attitude towards her a major improvement. Previously I would have pined away and would have been certain that I had done something and that this was a dead end. I think that a big part of the attraction of dating for me is not knowing how someone feels about you. Discovering someone's feelings for you is exciting and the hunt/chase is always fun. Would I like it if she just jumped into my arms the next time I see her? Of course I would but its ok that it doesn't happen that way. Its always good to have your A game on around people and good practice to interact with members of the opposite sex. I try to look and act my very best no matter who I am going to come in contact with. Thats a big change from when I was using, hell I wouldn't even shower if I didn't think I was going to run into someone. Its pretty damn exciting to be in the midst of such change in my life both physical and emotional. Alcoholics Anonymous has had such a positive impact on my life and is probably more responsible for my sobriety than even I realize.
In other coffee news I also bought a travel french press for ten bucks. I was able to withstand the lure of the fancier models available and purchased one that will do what I ask of it which is to french press my puerto rican coffee so that I can drink it. I am such a fan of the stuff I will no longer travel anywhere without it and the glass french presses just don't travel all that well. This one is made of lexan and it will probably use it every day from now on. I managed to hold off on the fancy coffee grinder that I convinced myself that I just had to have because at the moment the coffee I buy is already ground and I don't mind a little sludge at the bottom of the cuppa. I am also looking into buying a vacuum container thingy that pushes all the air out so that your java is freshie. It would have been a sweet container to store pot in and I think I am going to buy one from the local peets coffee. Its always good to support the local economy whenever you can. I see at home coffee as a worthy investment. Say you drink just two cups of coffee a day and its just straight up coffee not one of the fancy schmancy ones. Thats at least five bucks a day and multiple that my three hundred fifty and you are looking at one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars a year ! Now my pr coffee is ten dollars for ten ounces which gives me about twenty five cups of coffee. Simple math will tell me thats forty cents a cup, add say fifty cents for the starfuckers instant and thats less than a buck a day for java goodness.
I also buy two pairs of sneakers. I couldn't help it and I already had them in the shopping cart so all I had to do was clicky a few times and they are on their way to my happy feet. I actually needed the running shoes and I of course had to get another pair of daily fly kicks for work. The only problem with having a couple of pairs of gold colored kicks is that you can't really wear them to work with the exception of Fridays. It doesn't matter, having a dozen pairs of sneakers makes me happy and any chemical free way that I can make myself happy is good. I think my only other vice would be reading books on my kindle and I am planning to work my way thru various series. Thats one of the best things about the kindle is that after you read the first book in a series you can then read the next one right away. Speaking of that I am going to buy myself another fifty dollar gift certificate on amazon so that I can get the next few books in the "Honor" series by WEB Griffin. Its kind of hokey WWII hero type stuff but I enjoy reading it. Be right back.
Well, I now have the next three books in the series and I can't wait to read them. The last one was a little spendy, fourteen bucks but I think its worth it. I think what you pay for shit is all relative in the person who is purchasing. Thanks Captain Obvious ! Anyway I am proud of myself in how I handled something that used to baffle me. (BB ALERT!) I sent my crush a text on Monday to say hello, something that I wasn't sure I should have done. I mean I want her to know that I want to be friends and hang out but I don't want to be tremendously obvious of that fact. There will be plenty of time in the future to do that. Anyway she didn't respond to my text and in my alcoholic mind I immediately thought about what I might have done to piss her off. Sounds crazy but it is a hundred percent true even tho I have not known her long enough to piss her off but that wasn't the point. I told myself not to worry that perhaps my phone didn't get it or something like that. I am proud that I actually listened to my own advice and I didn't worry about it. Sure I thought about it but it wasn't stressing me out. She then sent me an email yesterday apologizing for not responding to my message. This is why I like this girl so much, she really takes into consideration other people's feelings besides her own which is a refreshing change from the xx chromo I hung out with this summer. I still don't know if she likes me any more than a friend but I get the feeling that she doesn't really want to date someone right now.
I consider my attitude towards her a major improvement. Previously I would have pined away and would have been certain that I had done something and that this was a dead end. I think that a big part of the attraction of dating for me is not knowing how someone feels about you. Discovering someone's feelings for you is exciting and the hunt/chase is always fun. Would I like it if she just jumped into my arms the next time I see her? Of course I would but its ok that it doesn't happen that way. Its always good to have your A game on around people and good practice to interact with members of the opposite sex. I try to look and act my very best no matter who I am going to come in contact with. Thats a big change from when I was using, hell I wouldn't even shower if I didn't think I was going to run into someone. Its pretty damn exciting to be in the midst of such change in my life both physical and emotional. Alcoholics Anonymous has had such a positive impact on my life and is probably more responsible for my sobriety than even I realize.
20100218
Emails Can Change Your Day
Today is Thursday February Eighteenth Two Thousand Ten. I wasn't going to write a blog entry today but then I got a email from a friend and that changed everything. Its funny how life is like that, you can be just walking along mumbling to yourself and then WHAM ! something happens and it effects you. I talk to myself constantly and people don't look at me as if I'm nuts nearly as often as they used to thanks to those hands free devices for cell phones. I am just able to think much better if I am able to verbalize things and even better to write them down like I am doing here. Plus, I like to hear myself talk.
So my friend sent me an email this morning about my former best friend/God daughter's father. She has been talking to his mother and in fact his mother came to her. His family is aware of some of his problems and evidently he is in more trouble that we both realized. Now with him that could be a variety of things whether it be legal or substances. Of course I want the juicy details but its not necessary as I know what he is into as well as his past so its got to be really shitty. She asked me not to mention it to anyone and what is really sad is that I don't know anyone who would actually give a shit about his problems at this point. He has pushed everyone who cares for him away and the only people who still talk to him are his custies. I remember one day he was pissed because the only time that certain people would talk to him was when they needed drugs. I didn't say anything at the time but when you first talk or meet him it takes about a minute before he asks you if you need anything. Its sad but it is the truth. I hope that somehow they are able to convince him to seek help and that he will want to stop what he is doing now. I said that I would take a back seat till he is ready for recovery because I can help in that regard. Its obvious to me that my friendship isn't important to him when he is using or else he would have tried to contact me. I am not going to be some all knowing sage who is an expert in recovery. I may be an expert in my own recovery but not in anyone else's and even saying that is a stretch.
All I know is how to maintain my own sobriety and thats it. I know what I have to do every day to live a better life and if I can help others thats just gravy on the potatoes. Which is goo because I can't eat gravy with any regularity any more so if I can have non fattening metaphorical gravy then that works for me. Who knows, he may not be ready to get sober and will shut everyone out. But if he does want to get sober and is willing to try out AA its the least I can do to help. I will bring him around to some of the meetings I attend if he is willing and introduce him to some of the people who have made a difference in my life. The only thing is that I've spoken of him in quite a few meetings and in all of my shares but I'm not certain that people will put two and two together. Even if he doesn't go the AA route and tries another method of maintaining his sobriety I will at least be willing to listen and offer any help that is accepted.
There are a few formal duties that I've been asked to perform over the years that I am honored to perform. The first was writing a letter of recommendation for my sculpture professor when she applied for tenure at CSC. I was very honored that she asked me and I spent hours even days writing the thing. I think I came up with four or five pages outlining why I thought she should be a full professor before I asked just how long the document should be. I had to edit it down to a full page and it was a damn fine full page if I do say so myself. The second was when my brother asked me to be his best man and I was speechless when he asked me. The bachelor party & wedding was complicated and crazy busy but worth every bit of effort. My only regret was that I didn't memorize my speech for the reception but I was editing it on and off up until I delivered it. The third was acting as the justice of the peace for my friend's wedding. I researched the wedding vows and performed the ceremony in the hot August sun. Wearing a tux in the summer is no picnic but it was well worth it. Everyone seemed to like the ceremony and many people came up afterwords and asked me if I was a lawyer or a professional jop. It was awesome to be able to perform that ceremony and I hope to be asked again. I was just asked to perform the fifth which is to write a letter of recommendation so that my friend's wife can get her green card as she is a resident of the UK at this point. I don't think that getting a green card means that she is a US citizen but I will def have to look it up. I am very honored to be asked to do so and look forward to crafting something that is readable and convincing. I think having a green card means that you are a "resident alien" and is the first step in becoming a US citizen.
One thing I left out of the above list was when my friends asked me to be the god father of their first born. I left it out because I really have not done much for my god daughter as of yet other than to give her a few gifts when she was a infant. Due to friction between her mother and I, I have not had a chance to see her often and she doesn't know who I am. I hope that with the restoration of our friendship that I can get to know Isabella much more than I do now. Also, if I don't end up having any children and Spensley and Clayton are set for college I plan to give her a good chunk of cash for school. I have nine years to come up with the loot and I am hopeful that I am able to follow thru with my plans. If she doesn't end up going to college then I will find something else to help her out with whether its starting a business or buying a home. If I don't end up getting married and don't have kids I am planning on leaving what there is of my estate to my nephews, less the bills of course. I am not planning on dying anytime soon in fact I hope to live to at least ninety now that I am fitness boy these days.
So my friend sent me an email this morning about my former best friend/God daughter's father. She has been talking to his mother and in fact his mother came to her. His family is aware of some of his problems and evidently he is in more trouble that we both realized. Now with him that could be a variety of things whether it be legal or substances. Of course I want the juicy details but its not necessary as I know what he is into as well as his past so its got to be really shitty. She asked me not to mention it to anyone and what is really sad is that I don't know anyone who would actually give a shit about his problems at this point. He has pushed everyone who cares for him away and the only people who still talk to him are his custies. I remember one day he was pissed because the only time that certain people would talk to him was when they needed drugs. I didn't say anything at the time but when you first talk or meet him it takes about a minute before he asks you if you need anything. Its sad but it is the truth. I hope that somehow they are able to convince him to seek help and that he will want to stop what he is doing now. I said that I would take a back seat till he is ready for recovery because I can help in that regard. Its obvious to me that my friendship isn't important to him when he is using or else he would have tried to contact me. I am not going to be some all knowing sage who is an expert in recovery. I may be an expert in my own recovery but not in anyone else's and even saying that is a stretch.
All I know is how to maintain my own sobriety and thats it. I know what I have to do every day to live a better life and if I can help others thats just gravy on the potatoes. Which is goo because I can't eat gravy with any regularity any more so if I can have non fattening metaphorical gravy then that works for me. Who knows, he may not be ready to get sober and will shut everyone out. But if he does want to get sober and is willing to try out AA its the least I can do to help. I will bring him around to some of the meetings I attend if he is willing and introduce him to some of the people who have made a difference in my life. The only thing is that I've spoken of him in quite a few meetings and in all of my shares but I'm not certain that people will put two and two together. Even if he doesn't go the AA route and tries another method of maintaining his sobriety I will at least be willing to listen and offer any help that is accepted.
There are a few formal duties that I've been asked to perform over the years that I am honored to perform. The first was writing a letter of recommendation for my sculpture professor when she applied for tenure at CSC. I was very honored that she asked me and I spent hours even days writing the thing. I think I came up with four or five pages outlining why I thought she should be a full professor before I asked just how long the document should be. I had to edit it down to a full page and it was a damn fine full page if I do say so myself. The second was when my brother asked me to be his best man and I was speechless when he asked me. The bachelor party & wedding was complicated and crazy busy but worth every bit of effort. My only regret was that I didn't memorize my speech for the reception but I was editing it on and off up until I delivered it. The third was acting as the justice of the peace for my friend's wedding. I researched the wedding vows and performed the ceremony in the hot August sun. Wearing a tux in the summer is no picnic but it was well worth it. Everyone seemed to like the ceremony and many people came up afterwords and asked me if I was a lawyer or a professional jop. It was awesome to be able to perform that ceremony and I hope to be asked again. I was just asked to perform the fifth which is to write a letter of recommendation so that my friend's wife can get her green card as she is a resident of the UK at this point. I don't think that getting a green card means that she is a US citizen but I will def have to look it up. I am very honored to be asked to do so and look forward to crafting something that is readable and convincing. I think having a green card means that you are a "resident alien" and is the first step in becoming a US citizen.
One thing I left out of the above list was when my friends asked me to be the god father of their first born. I left it out because I really have not done much for my god daughter as of yet other than to give her a few gifts when she was a infant. Due to friction between her mother and I, I have not had a chance to see her often and she doesn't know who I am. I hope that with the restoration of our friendship that I can get to know Isabella much more than I do now. Also, if I don't end up having any children and Spensley and Clayton are set for college I plan to give her a good chunk of cash for school. I have nine years to come up with the loot and I am hopeful that I am able to follow thru with my plans. If she doesn't end up going to college then I will find something else to help her out with whether its starting a business or buying a home. If I don't end up getting married and don't have kids I am planning on leaving what there is of my estate to my nephews, less the bills of course. I am not planning on dying anytime soon in fact I hope to live to at least ninety now that I am fitness boy these days.
20100217
Club Knowlton
Today is Wednesday February Seventeenth Two Thousand Ten. Feeling pretty good this morning even tho I took it easy at the gym. I have been pushing things a bit these last few days so I think its a good idea to be mellow once in a while. I have to remember that your body needs some chill time as much as it needs fitness time. Every year on this day I spend the first hour at work wondering why people have dirt on their foreheads and then it hits me, Ash Wednesday the start of lent. The caths have all sorts of cool ceremonies while us protests don't have didily. Granted, thats the reason why we split from the church in the first place, all the pomp and circumstance but I find the caths interesting. I used to go to mass with my friend Aaron when I was a kid at this totally cool church called LaSallete in Ipswich. I ran into Aaron ten years ago working at the gas station in Danvers. He had this scar running from his forehead to his chin and he mentioned that he was born again. Evidently he smashed his car up, split his face down the middle, and was in a coma for a couple of months. If that happened to me I think I would be born again too.
So, war stories or as they call them in AA drunkalogs. I guess I will start in high school my junior year and the first time I ever dropped acid. It was a spring day and I was with a few friends in our dorm in a Saturday. Someone had scored some paper tabs and I was amazed that this little thing could fuck us up in any way. We hung out in a tent that we outfitted with pillows on the front lawn of our dorm just giggling when one of the dorm masters came out to check out what was going on. We just laughed at him and since we didn't smell like alcohol yet he didn't think anything was wrong. After a few hours in the tent we started to thing of ways to get alcohol which was no small task at a boarding school. Our usual driver wasn't around and we hadn't made peace with the day flick hockey players yet so we didn't have transpo. Once it go dark we all dropped more LSD and went to the boat yard next door to hang out in this fishing boat at the extreme corner of the yard. The acid really hit me then and I remember thinking that the boat was floating even tho it was on the ground. Def good acid that time.
So we are sitting in this boat and thinking how great it would be to start drinking and one of my friends asks out loud, I wonder if any of these boats have liquor bottles in them ? Every time I go out with my family my folks get ripped and they always have some wine and a few beers on board. Most marine locks are more for looks than security so we dispatched the one we were on very quickly. I forget if or what we found on that particular vessel but we went thru one by one almost every boat in the yard and helped ourselves to what was available. We didn't smash anything, we were very careful in removing the locks and I think someone poached some bolt cutters to make the task even easier. The boats in the boat yard next to Knowlton Dorm served liquor to the residents of the dorm for almost a month.
Ah, Knowlton Dorm junior year at Tabor Academy. Doesn't get much better than that, we were such a party dorm that we made up t-shirts with "Club Knowlton" on the front of them. Our dorm master was in the last year of employment with the school and the dorm was top heavy with juniors. For some really, really, stupid reason the school thought that we would cause much less trouble if we were at the end of campus and all in one dorm. That was a mistake and we partied pretty much every day and night that we could. Whenever our dorm master would go away for the weekend we would break into his apartment and use his refer to keep our beer cold. Beer was a tough thing to have at boarding school because you needed many of them to get loaded and then you had the empties to contend with. You could get just as busted with an empty beer as you could with a full one so thats why liquor was so popular in high school. Also in mass we only had package stores at that time, you couldn't buy beer and wine in gas stations. That meant if you were going to get beer you could just as easily get hard liquor.
It was interesting for me to finally get to college and start drinking beer. While I had drank plenty of beer my first choice was always liquor. It wasn't till I got to Jacksonville University that I started drinking hundreds of beers a week and actually enjoyed it. I won't get into JU too much at this point, that experience deserves its own entry because it was an amazing time in my life. What I love about life is that you don't really know when there is going to be an amazing time you are just living it. Then upon reflection you start to realize that parts of your life were more amazing than others. I think that one of my favorite parts of sobriety is the ability to live in the day and know that if you have the strength and willingness you will be able to make it to another day. Sober.
So, war stories or as they call them in AA drunkalogs. I guess I will start in high school my junior year and the first time I ever dropped acid. It was a spring day and I was with a few friends in our dorm in a Saturday. Someone had scored some paper tabs and I was amazed that this little thing could fuck us up in any way. We hung out in a tent that we outfitted with pillows on the front lawn of our dorm just giggling when one of the dorm masters came out to check out what was going on. We just laughed at him and since we didn't smell like alcohol yet he didn't think anything was wrong. After a few hours in the tent we started to thing of ways to get alcohol which was no small task at a boarding school. Our usual driver wasn't around and we hadn't made peace with the day flick hockey players yet so we didn't have transpo. Once it go dark we all dropped more LSD and went to the boat yard next door to hang out in this fishing boat at the extreme corner of the yard. The acid really hit me then and I remember thinking that the boat was floating even tho it was on the ground. Def good acid that time.
So we are sitting in this boat and thinking how great it would be to start drinking and one of my friends asks out loud, I wonder if any of these boats have liquor bottles in them ? Every time I go out with my family my folks get ripped and they always have some wine and a few beers on board. Most marine locks are more for looks than security so we dispatched the one we were on very quickly. I forget if or what we found on that particular vessel but we went thru one by one almost every boat in the yard and helped ourselves to what was available. We didn't smash anything, we were very careful in removing the locks and I think someone poached some bolt cutters to make the task even easier. The boats in the boat yard next to Knowlton Dorm served liquor to the residents of the dorm for almost a month.
Ah, Knowlton Dorm junior year at Tabor Academy. Doesn't get much better than that, we were such a party dorm that we made up t-shirts with "Club Knowlton" on the front of them. Our dorm master was in the last year of employment with the school and the dorm was top heavy with juniors. For some really, really, stupid reason the school thought that we would cause much less trouble if we were at the end of campus and all in one dorm. That was a mistake and we partied pretty much every day and night that we could. Whenever our dorm master would go away for the weekend we would break into his apartment and use his refer to keep our beer cold. Beer was a tough thing to have at boarding school because you needed many of them to get loaded and then you had the empties to contend with. You could get just as busted with an empty beer as you could with a full one so thats why liquor was so popular in high school. Also in mass we only had package stores at that time, you couldn't buy beer and wine in gas stations. That meant if you were going to get beer you could just as easily get hard liquor.
It was interesting for me to finally get to college and start drinking beer. While I had drank plenty of beer my first choice was always liquor. It wasn't till I got to Jacksonville University that I started drinking hundreds of beers a week and actually enjoyed it. I won't get into JU too much at this point, that experience deserves its own entry because it was an amazing time in my life. What I love about life is that you don't really know when there is going to be an amazing time you are just living it. Then upon reflection you start to realize that parts of your life were more amazing than others. I think that one of my favorite parts of sobriety is the ability to live in the day and know that if you have the strength and willingness you will be able to make it to another day. Sober.
20100216
New AA Mtg,, Sponsor, & Friends
Today is Tuesday February Sixteenth Two Thousand Ten but it feels like a Monday. Its going to be a busy week because I am working late a few nights and last week was so busy that I neglected a few things. It really sucks to feel like I am walking on eggshells here, I thought I had enough of that when I was drinking every day but its still happening. I feel like any little mistake or error will be magnified by pinhead and every time something does not go exactly as planned I need to have plenty of reasons for that. I realize that pinhead has good reason not to trust me and I don't think he believes I am sober. I have made this bed and now I have to sleep in it to take a crappy cliche but its the truth. I promised myself that I would start looking for another job this week and I hope I have time to do so.
I am going to check out a meeting in Brookline tonight for the first time. I've heard good things about this one and the Cambridge meetings are getting a little stale. Not all of them but two certainly are and its understandable since I've been attending those meetings for more than a year. I am just very lucky to live in a place where there are so many meetings and there is public transpo to get my ass there. Brookline is very close to work and I don't really have a Tuesday nite meeting that I like to attend in Cambridge so I am going to check it out. I am supposed to meet with my sponsor on Tuesdays but I think I am going to have to figure something else out. Its not that I don't like him I am just tired of dealing with the poor communication skills that he has. Even when I leave him a msg and say its important I never hear back from him. I don't know if I have decided to get another sponsor or not but at this point he has three sponsees that I know of and perhaps thats too many for him.
I'm torn, I don't want to hurt his feelings but I also am tired of not being able to reach him or when I do reach his voicemail leaving a msg that I know won't be returned. I am sure that I am worrying much to much about this and that he if anyone would understand. Of course that leaves me with the task of finding another sponsor which I'm not worried about. There is this guy named Van who I've gotten to know pretty well from the quaker friends meeting that I think would agree and if that doesn't work out there are a few other guys I'd feel comfortable with. I think Ed tries to help too many people and loses focus on what he is working on. I just don't want to ruin a good friendship because of this so I will have to play it smartly. I really like to have a forum to share this stuff even if it is just for myself. I feel better just typing about it and god forbid I should actually talk to some other person about what I am feeling. Ye Gods !
So I am trying to be a grownup these days. Whenever I tell someone what I am up to I can tell that they are thinking to themselves "About time, dude." Well, I may have been a late bloomer but late is better than never. I have been thinking about Randy a bunch these days. Because everything is about me I can't help thinking that doesn't he care if I am still sober or not or does he have faith that I am able to maintain my sobriety ? Does he even think about our friendship or is our twenty years at an end ? I can tell others that it doesn't really bother me and that I can live life without interacting with him and while thats the truth I do miss hanging out with him. Maybe its time to let go and forget. Maybe its time to decide that he is going to do what the hell he wants to do and my friendship really doesn't mean all that much to him after all. Maybe its time to write the motherfucker off and stop worrying about his actions. Courtney asked me for my advice last week and I am trying to figure out what to tell her. Does he rate another chance ? I don't really know. Think, think, think, talk, talk, talk. Decide.
I am going to check out a meeting in Brookline tonight for the first time. I've heard good things about this one and the Cambridge meetings are getting a little stale. Not all of them but two certainly are and its understandable since I've been attending those meetings for more than a year. I am just very lucky to live in a place where there are so many meetings and there is public transpo to get my ass there. Brookline is very close to work and I don't really have a Tuesday nite meeting that I like to attend in Cambridge so I am going to check it out. I am supposed to meet with my sponsor on Tuesdays but I think I am going to have to figure something else out. Its not that I don't like him I am just tired of dealing with the poor communication skills that he has. Even when I leave him a msg and say its important I never hear back from him. I don't know if I have decided to get another sponsor or not but at this point he has three sponsees that I know of and perhaps thats too many for him.
I'm torn, I don't want to hurt his feelings but I also am tired of not being able to reach him or when I do reach his voicemail leaving a msg that I know won't be returned. I am sure that I am worrying much to much about this and that he if anyone would understand. Of course that leaves me with the task of finding another sponsor which I'm not worried about. There is this guy named Van who I've gotten to know pretty well from the quaker friends meeting that I think would agree and if that doesn't work out there are a few other guys I'd feel comfortable with. I think Ed tries to help too many people and loses focus on what he is working on. I just don't want to ruin a good friendship because of this so I will have to play it smartly. I really like to have a forum to share this stuff even if it is just for myself. I feel better just typing about it and god forbid I should actually talk to some other person about what I am feeling. Ye Gods !
So I am trying to be a grownup these days. Whenever I tell someone what I am up to I can tell that they are thinking to themselves "About time, dude." Well, I may have been a late bloomer but late is better than never. I have been thinking about Randy a bunch these days. Because everything is about me I can't help thinking that doesn't he care if I am still sober or not or does he have faith that I am able to maintain my sobriety ? Does he even think about our friendship or is our twenty years at an end ? I can tell others that it doesn't really bother me and that I can live life without interacting with him and while thats the truth I do miss hanging out with him. Maybe its time to let go and forget. Maybe its time to decide that he is going to do what the hell he wants to do and my friendship really doesn't mean all that much to him after all. Maybe its time to write the motherfucker off and stop worrying about his actions. Courtney asked me for my advice last week and I am trying to figure out what to tell her. Does he rate another chance ? I don't really know. Think, think, think, talk, talk, talk. Decide.
20100215
President's Day, Comedies, & Kids These Days
Today is Monday February Fifteenth Two Thousand Ten, Its also President's Day ! Woo, woo ! What is really means is that I have today off and plan not to do a whole lot. Mellow time with coffee, cereal, and the Fox25 news then some quality time at the gym. Perhaps a nap in the afternoon and then the Welcome All meeting this evening. I've said this before but one of the biggest things that AA gives me is the fellowship. I always look forward to seeing folks and its really awesome to have something to do on an otherwise zero activity day. I know I just listed what I was going to do today and I said I wouldn't do that but hey, its my blog and I make up the rules.
I may have to delay my gym time because "History Of The World Part One" just came on. Since its on AMC it should be unedited and its one of my favorite silly comedies. Mel Brooks was a master and I like almost all of his stuff no matter how schlocky it is. I don't really like most new comedies because well, the aren't funny. Everyone said that the "Hangover" was supposed to me funny and maybe I just didn't get it but I didn't think it was all that. Maybe I am just more of the schlocky fan with "Caddyshack", "Fletch", "Vacation", "Airplane", & "Blazing Saddles" among my favorites. I think for many years I didn't like comedies because I just wasn't psyched to laugh. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention are all the Monty Python movies. I feel like a total dork liking them so much but they are funny as shit. In the end of "Life Of Brian" Eric Idle is crucified and singing "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life." is great. The TV series was great as well and probably the only thing I liked on PBS as a teenager. Well Flying Circus and Doctor Who.
I just had a "Kids These Days" moment. Broadcast television, LPs, and the World Book encyclopedia were my main sources of entertainment and information. My folks bought the World Book in Seventy Eight and I bet I used it at least a thousand times to look shit up. Whenever something came up in discussion one of us would race to the WB and look up whatever we were talking about. I would love purchasing an LP and would spend the first hour going over every detail even before I would listen to it. They were also great to de-seed pot and split up ounces. I guess there isn't too much to say about how good broadacst television was, snowy and crappy but I like to remember how special TV was then. I was only allowed to watch a couple of hours of television and only on weekends. My mom would come up and immediately feel the TV to see if it was warm and then yell at me for watching it.
So I decided to change my profile pic on this blog. I did it because who knows who is going to read it and I will be sharing things here that I don't want everyone to know the author. I don't have a problem sharing with people I know but I think its a good idea to be a bit more careful. I want to be comfortable with what I write here and not have to worry about what I write. Well, thats about it for today I don't have much to share. I plan to write some more war stories this week starting tomorrow as there are many more thoughts and feelings about my past actions that I want to get out there.
I may have to delay my gym time because "History Of The World Part One" just came on. Since its on AMC it should be unedited and its one of my favorite silly comedies. Mel Brooks was a master and I like almost all of his stuff no matter how schlocky it is. I don't really like most new comedies because well, the aren't funny. Everyone said that the "Hangover" was supposed to me funny and maybe I just didn't get it but I didn't think it was all that. Maybe I am just more of the schlocky fan with "Caddyshack", "Fletch", "Vacation", "Airplane", & "Blazing Saddles" among my favorites. I think for many years I didn't like comedies because I just wasn't psyched to laugh. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention are all the Monty Python movies. I feel like a total dork liking them so much but they are funny as shit. In the end of "Life Of Brian" Eric Idle is crucified and singing "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life." is great. The TV series was great as well and probably the only thing I liked on PBS as a teenager. Well Flying Circus and Doctor Who.
I just had a "Kids These Days" moment. Broadcast television, LPs, and the World Book encyclopedia were my main sources of entertainment and information. My folks bought the World Book in Seventy Eight and I bet I used it at least a thousand times to look shit up. Whenever something came up in discussion one of us would race to the WB and look up whatever we were talking about. I would love purchasing an LP and would spend the first hour going over every detail even before I would listen to it. They were also great to de-seed pot and split up ounces. I guess there isn't too much to say about how good broadacst television was, snowy and crappy but I like to remember how special TV was then. I was only allowed to watch a couple of hours of television and only on weekends. My mom would come up and immediately feel the TV to see if it was warm and then yell at me for watching it.
So I decided to change my profile pic on this blog. I did it because who knows who is going to read it and I will be sharing things here that I don't want everyone to know the author. I don't have a problem sharing with people I know but I think its a good idea to be a bit more careful. I want to be comfortable with what I write here and not have to worry about what I write. Well, thats about it for today I don't have much to share. I plan to write some more war stories this week starting tomorrow as there are many more thoughts and feelings about my past actions that I want to get out there.
20100214
Coffee & The Future
Today is Sunday January Fourteenth Two Thousand Ten. A nice lazy Sunday morning, its even Sunny out albeit frickin freezing out. I think I have finally discovered how to make perfect cup of coffee. The first and most important part of the equation is of course the coffee. I get this stuff called Casablanca supremo mailed to me from Puerto Rico that has a very bold taste. Since I drink my coffee black I think the flavor is pretty damn important. I use a french press with four tablespoons of the PR coffee and I get exactly a cup of coffee. There is this foamy stuff on stop and it tastes awesome. I don't drink a shitload of coffee every day, probably three or four cups on the average day. That probably sounds like a bunch but considering my day starts at five thirty and ends and nine thirty and I'm only home for two hours of that I think its ok.
I also drink that Starbucks instant stuff which it isn't as good as my PR coffee its damn tasty and better than drunken blownuts coffee. I will never understand who people like D&D's so much, I think they suck. Their donuts are awesome but since I don't really eat donuts anymore I don't have any reason to go in there. I like Starbucks clover brew coffee even though its expensive its awesome and I usually only drink it on Saturday mornings before the quaker friends meeting. I suppose as an alcoholic I should spend about a dozen entries on coffee but I've got much more important stuff to write about. Its a nice lazy Sunday to drink coffee, eat oatmeal and workout at the gym. I have a few movies to watch as well and will have some quality time with my kindle.
Friday nite was both fun and educational for me. It was fun because Trey band is a blast filled with the type of music I really enjoy. Jackass was there but I didn't run into him which was good, I don't want to talk to him about anything at a show with other people around. What we have to talk about is between us. I was with a bunch of people who I've known for at least ten years but whom I'd only see at shows. When you are at a show its ok to be totally wasted because its a special occasion and they don't know that you are like that every day. One friend of mine almost cried when she saw me because I look so different. It was quite and experience to have that effect on someone in a positive way and it doesn't hurt that she is good friends with one of the women I have a crush on. In fact, crush girl said something very interesting to me. The first time we ever met was at Deep Banana Blackout last winter when I had about seventy days of sobriety. She said that I was a total dick and I was with some girl. I think she got the wrong impression because she knows "that girl" and I don't think I was nasty. I am just not like that, I am sure I was anxious because I was at DBB so newly sober but who knows. Point is she likes who I am now and wants to have dinner with me at a later date.
So I also had a good talk with crush #2 as I am now calling her for purposes of anonymity. I firmly believe that a man needs to keep his options open as long as you don't commit to two women at once you should be ok. C2 is in the program and I just have this connection with her somehow. We make eye contact all the time in meetings but are both afraid to move forward with anything. I talked to her for fifteen minutes or so and she seemed really enthused about my progress. Its hard to tell tho, whether she is supportive because of the program or she finds me interesting. I still don't know if it is a good idea to date within the program, esp the groups that you attend. I am just going to keep talking to her and enjoy it when she stretches in meetings. You cannot tell me that women don't know exactly what they are doing when they put their arms up in stretch. Maybe I am wrong about this but I like it anyway.
OK, thats enough of my pining about xx chromos. In the past I would have a crush and not even talk to the women. I think thats progress or maybe I am just realistic now. I think I am at a really good point in my life right now. If I lost my job tomorrow I would be ok, I have enough money saved to live for a year and thats something that I thought I'd have. Or if I had some cash I would think about quitting my job or just spending it. Granted I wish things would come to me a little faster but it really hasn't been that long since I was active. Its also only been two months since I've been working out, thats not long at all. Patience is most def a virtue in sobriety/recovery and it takes some time getting used to that. I need to enjoy the whole not knowing aspect of the future. Not knowing if a woman wants to hang out with me, not knowing if I will actually lose the weight I want to, not knowing if I will get a job I like. Not knowing whats going to happen is part of life and I would do well to accept and to look forward to that. Whats funny is that I am watching a movie called "Next" which is about a dude who can see two minutes into his future. Interesting how the subconscious works. I may not be able to control the future but I can control the day.
I also drink that Starbucks instant stuff which it isn't as good as my PR coffee its damn tasty and better than drunken blownuts coffee. I will never understand who people like D&D's so much, I think they suck. Their donuts are awesome but since I don't really eat donuts anymore I don't have any reason to go in there. I like Starbucks clover brew coffee even though its expensive its awesome and I usually only drink it on Saturday mornings before the quaker friends meeting. I suppose as an alcoholic I should spend about a dozen entries on coffee but I've got much more important stuff to write about. Its a nice lazy Sunday to drink coffee, eat oatmeal and workout at the gym. I have a few movies to watch as well and will have some quality time with my kindle.
Friday nite was both fun and educational for me. It was fun because Trey band is a blast filled with the type of music I really enjoy. Jackass was there but I didn't run into him which was good, I don't want to talk to him about anything at a show with other people around. What we have to talk about is between us. I was with a bunch of people who I've known for at least ten years but whom I'd only see at shows. When you are at a show its ok to be totally wasted because its a special occasion and they don't know that you are like that every day. One friend of mine almost cried when she saw me because I look so different. It was quite and experience to have that effect on someone in a positive way and it doesn't hurt that she is good friends with one of the women I have a crush on. In fact, crush girl said something very interesting to me. The first time we ever met was at Deep Banana Blackout last winter when I had about seventy days of sobriety. She said that I was a total dick and I was with some girl. I think she got the wrong impression because she knows "that girl" and I don't think I was nasty. I am just not like that, I am sure I was anxious because I was at DBB so newly sober but who knows. Point is she likes who I am now and wants to have dinner with me at a later date.
So I also had a good talk with crush #2 as I am now calling her for purposes of anonymity. I firmly believe that a man needs to keep his options open as long as you don't commit to two women at once you should be ok. C2 is in the program and I just have this connection with her somehow. We make eye contact all the time in meetings but are both afraid to move forward with anything. I talked to her for fifteen minutes or so and she seemed really enthused about my progress. Its hard to tell tho, whether she is supportive because of the program or she finds me interesting. I still don't know if it is a good idea to date within the program, esp the groups that you attend. I am just going to keep talking to her and enjoy it when she stretches in meetings. You cannot tell me that women don't know exactly what they are doing when they put their arms up in stretch. Maybe I am wrong about this but I like it anyway.
OK, thats enough of my pining about xx chromos. In the past I would have a crush and not even talk to the women. I think thats progress or maybe I am just realistic now. I think I am at a really good point in my life right now. If I lost my job tomorrow I would be ok, I have enough money saved to live for a year and thats something that I thought I'd have. Or if I had some cash I would think about quitting my job or just spending it. Granted I wish things would come to me a little faster but it really hasn't been that long since I was active. Its also only been two months since I've been working out, thats not long at all. Patience is most def a virtue in sobriety/recovery and it takes some time getting used to that. I need to enjoy the whole not knowing aspect of the future. Not knowing if a woman wants to hang out with me, not knowing if I will actually lose the weight I want to, not knowing if I will get a job I like. Not knowing whats going to happen is part of life and I would do well to accept and to look forward to that. Whats funny is that I am watching a movie called "Next" which is about a dude who can see two minutes into his future. Interesting how the subconscious works. I may not be able to control the future but I can control the day.
20100212
Four Day Weeks, Sleep, & Ed's Share
Today is Friday February Twelfth Two Thousand Ten. Twelfth has a cooler spelling than eleventh but isn't nearly as satisfying to say out loud. Oh well, guess I have to wait another month for that. As I said yesterday, its the little things that please me these days. I always like the Friday before a long weekend, people are so much happier and glad to be alive. There are less people on the mbta and less cars on the roads. Some staff here at CHB work four day weeks and I would give my left nut to work mon, tues, thu, and fri. I would even work twelve hour days four days a week if I could have that schedule. Granted working a full week is much easier now that I am not drunk all the time but having Wednesdays off every week would be awesome.
My sleep patterns are kinda wacky. Before I got sober I would only sleep for an hour and then wake up and try to get back to sleep again. Early in my sobriety I was taking rx'd sleep meds so I was out like a light but I stopped taking them early this summer. Lately I have been sleeping for two or three hours and then waking up but this last week I have slept pretty much thru the whole night. I'd like to think that my exercise has something to do with it but I don't know. I didn't go to the gym this morning because Mondays and Fridays are my optional days and I was able to sleep till seven thirty. I am going to hit the gym like a good little monkey this weekend and am really looking forward to it. I came up with a revised workout schedule so I can fit another day of weight training in and I am hoping to get more of the results I am looking for. I am already getting stronger with better definition but of course I want more.
Once again the Thursday nite beginners meeting was awesome. We had about ten people and my friend Ed spoke. Not my sponsor Ed but another Ed. We have four Eds in Cambridge AA: Flaky Ed (my sponsor), Carpenter Ed (spoke last nite), Bald Ed, and Suit Ed. Anyway, Ed spoke last night and I took a few things away from it. First is that his whole family are alcoholics. Thats what his family is known for and everyone drinks to excess and he is the only one who has quit. That takes a tremendous amount of balls to go against what you have known your whole life. He has told me that his brothers will cal him when they are hammered and drink alcoholically when they are around him. The second thing that was amazing was what happened after his last drink. He had finished off a half pint from the day before and was searching his wife's house for more booze. He looked everywhere and while he was reaching up on a shelf he found an AA meeting book. Granted his wife probably placed it there but its an awesome story.
I didn't have any "Ah Ha !" moment like that. Having a loaded revolver in one hand and a beer in the other can take your attention from moments like that. Granted I have held plenty of loaded firearms but never when I was drinking and I never thought about capping myself with one. I am glad I was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger, I'd like to think I was too compassionate about my family and friends to do it but I don't think thats the reason. I like life. I like looking at shit, walking around checking shit out, talking shit to others. I mean no matter how remote there is a possibility that a woman might trust me enough to be intimate and I was going to give that up by shooting myself in the head ? What an asshole. Hell, I wouldn't have the awesome sneaker collection I have today if I was dead. I joke about the elephant in the room, Suicide, but for the first time in my life I actually thought about it and I think thats pretty sad. I let my addictions run my life for so long I just didn't know any other type of behavior. Ed said last night that he never thought he could live without drinking and I thought the same thing. Weddings are a popular topic for discussion, "What do I do about the toast ?" Drink water you fucking jackass, its not what you are drinking that makes the toast.
So I have given myself a time frame to take action about this crush I have. I have a couple more events to go to with her and then I will give myself a month after the last one. After that month if I still get all wiggy when I think about her I will come right out and tell her the truth. Which will suck. But I have to know where I stand with this xx chromo because there are others out there that I might be missing. Perhaps I was already friend zoned and she just feels super comfortable with me. I always yap that "action is the key" (pp.83bb) but when it comes to women I slack big time. It is just difficult when you spend the majority of your life hating yourself and being ashamed of your actions its hard to think that another human being might take you for what and who you are.
My sleep patterns are kinda wacky. Before I got sober I would only sleep for an hour and then wake up and try to get back to sleep again. Early in my sobriety I was taking rx'd sleep meds so I was out like a light but I stopped taking them early this summer. Lately I have been sleeping for two or three hours and then waking up but this last week I have slept pretty much thru the whole night. I'd like to think that my exercise has something to do with it but I don't know. I didn't go to the gym this morning because Mondays and Fridays are my optional days and I was able to sleep till seven thirty. I am going to hit the gym like a good little monkey this weekend and am really looking forward to it. I came up with a revised workout schedule so I can fit another day of weight training in and I am hoping to get more of the results I am looking for. I am already getting stronger with better definition but of course I want more.
Once again the Thursday nite beginners meeting was awesome. We had about ten people and my friend Ed spoke. Not my sponsor Ed but another Ed. We have four Eds in Cambridge AA: Flaky Ed (my sponsor), Carpenter Ed (spoke last nite), Bald Ed, and Suit Ed. Anyway, Ed spoke last night and I took a few things away from it. First is that his whole family are alcoholics. Thats what his family is known for and everyone drinks to excess and he is the only one who has quit. That takes a tremendous amount of balls to go against what you have known your whole life. He has told me that his brothers will cal him when they are hammered and drink alcoholically when they are around him. The second thing that was amazing was what happened after his last drink. He had finished off a half pint from the day before and was searching his wife's house for more booze. He looked everywhere and while he was reaching up on a shelf he found an AA meeting book. Granted his wife probably placed it there but its an awesome story.
I didn't have any "Ah Ha !" moment like that. Having a loaded revolver in one hand and a beer in the other can take your attention from moments like that. Granted I have held plenty of loaded firearms but never when I was drinking and I never thought about capping myself with one. I am glad I was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger, I'd like to think I was too compassionate about my family and friends to do it but I don't think thats the reason. I like life. I like looking at shit, walking around checking shit out, talking shit to others. I mean no matter how remote there is a possibility that a woman might trust me enough to be intimate and I was going to give that up by shooting myself in the head ? What an asshole. Hell, I wouldn't have the awesome sneaker collection I have today if I was dead. I joke about the elephant in the room, Suicide, but for the first time in my life I actually thought about it and I think thats pretty sad. I let my addictions run my life for so long I just didn't know any other type of behavior. Ed said last night that he never thought he could live without drinking and I thought the same thing. Weddings are a popular topic for discussion, "What do I do about the toast ?" Drink water you fucking jackass, its not what you are drinking that makes the toast.
So I have given myself a time frame to take action about this crush I have. I have a couple more events to go to with her and then I will give myself a month after the last one. After that month if I still get all wiggy when I think about her I will come right out and tell her the truth. Which will suck. But I have to know where I stand with this xx chromo because there are others out there that I might be missing. Perhaps I was already friend zoned and she just feels super comfortable with me. I always yap that "action is the key" (pp.83bb) but when it comes to women I slack big time. It is just difficult when you spend the majority of your life hating yourself and being ashamed of your actions its hard to think that another human being might take you for what and who you are.
20100211
Eleventh & Friends
Today is Thursday February Eleventh Two Thousand Ten. I like the word "eleventh", it sorta rolls out of your mouth. First you say the "E" and my mouth is open, then the tip of my tongue hits the back of my front teeth, then my front teeth hit my bottom lip, and finally my tongue ends up touching the bottom of my front teeth. Jebus, it sounds like oral sex directions. Maybe I should look into that I know there is some urban myth about saying the alphabet. I am sure my mother who is a speech pathologist would be interested in my description if I didn't mention the oral sex part. Eww, my mom and that act in the same sentence. Icky. Its the simple things that entertain me, Eleventh...Eleventh....Eleventh. Ok, I think I've had enough.
So I got and email at my fabo addy today from my friend Courtney. She and I have quite a history and are/will be connected our entire loves. She is the mother of my god daughter Isabella and she and I have had many crazy times together. She is probably the best xx chromo friend that I have and I like being her friend. We had some rough times over the past four years but we have started talking again and I am very glad for that. The father of Isabella is Randy whom I have not spoken to since August but before that he was my best and oldest friend. Courtney asked me for advice as to what to do about Randy and his downward spiral. His daughters are beginning to feel abandoned by him and are upset about it. I didn't really have a suggestion for her other than to do whats best for her and the kids. She had to take him to court for $$ and has really raised both girls by herself. Randy likes to project this vibe of love and compassion but thats not at all how he acts. Regardless of his problems with Courtney he needs to understand that he daughters are here for his life and he needs to either man up and be a part of their life or never see them again. I know that sounds harsh and I am totally talking out of my ass here as I don't have any experience in such matters but thats how I feel.
What is interesting about Courtney bringing it up is that his girlfriend has reached out for help with him. She is trying to take action and considering that they have only been dating since the summer I am impressed. There is of course some self preservation happening as she lives with him but just that she gives a shit is impressive to me. It would be easy for her to just forget about everything and fly the coop. I dunno, its a tricky situation with no easy answer and I can only hope that at some point he will understand that his actions have consequences beyond his own sphere of influence. He thinks that everyone is blowing everything out of proportion and perhaps specific incidents are not all that bad but when it becomes a behavior people are going to notice and be pissed. I am sure he doesn't forget that he was in prison for three years but perhaps he doesn't understand that it affected other people as well. Sure he had to do the time and that totally sucks but the people on the outside had stuff to deal with as well.
I have a moratorium on buying clothes for myself till I stop losing weight and I realize there are worse problems to have. I went to REI yesterday to buy a pedometer for this healthy lifestyle project my trainer is doing and before I knew it I had about a hundred bucks worth of clearance sale items in my hands. I had to steel my eyes away from the good deals and walk directly to the cash register without buying anything else. Except that I did buy a belt but that was a necessity because since I now am able to tuck in my shirts without looking like a fatty I certainly need different color belts to match. At least I keep telling myself those sort of things and it usually works for me. I do not have any reason not to buy some new kicks however so my sneaker addiction is live and well. I don't think I have purchased any this month yet and I will have remedy that right quick today.
Psyched to see Trey tomorrow night, I will be there with a great crew and I am looking forward to some good hang time. Oh, and the band rips as well. Its just so cool not to have to figure out how I am going to get all fucked up without everyone else knowing about it and how I am going to deal with the fall out. I was walking to the mbta last fall and it struck me how much easier my life is when I am sober. I suppose thats super obvious to most people but its very true for me. Sometimes things are glaringly obvious but it takes time to notice them. I think its good to just stop and think for awhile and things will come to you in time. I told someone today that recovery is so much more than sobriety. I know this is true because I have grown so much as a man this year, more than I ever thought possible or wanted to grow. I am still impulsive (see sneaker addiction) but now I think about it for awhile (see bank account balance) before I decide what to do.
So I got and email at my fabo addy today from my friend Courtney. She and I have quite a history and are/will be connected our entire loves. She is the mother of my god daughter Isabella and she and I have had many crazy times together. She is probably the best xx chromo friend that I have and I like being her friend. We had some rough times over the past four years but we have started talking again and I am very glad for that. The father of Isabella is Randy whom I have not spoken to since August but before that he was my best and oldest friend. Courtney asked me for advice as to what to do about Randy and his downward spiral. His daughters are beginning to feel abandoned by him and are upset about it. I didn't really have a suggestion for her other than to do whats best for her and the kids. She had to take him to court for $$ and has really raised both girls by herself. Randy likes to project this vibe of love and compassion but thats not at all how he acts. Regardless of his problems with Courtney he needs to understand that he daughters are here for his life and he needs to either man up and be a part of their life or never see them again. I know that sounds harsh and I am totally talking out of my ass here as I don't have any experience in such matters but thats how I feel.
What is interesting about Courtney bringing it up is that his girlfriend has reached out for help with him. She is trying to take action and considering that they have only been dating since the summer I am impressed. There is of course some self preservation happening as she lives with him but just that she gives a shit is impressive to me. It would be easy for her to just forget about everything and fly the coop. I dunno, its a tricky situation with no easy answer and I can only hope that at some point he will understand that his actions have consequences beyond his own sphere of influence. He thinks that everyone is blowing everything out of proportion and perhaps specific incidents are not all that bad but when it becomes a behavior people are going to notice and be pissed. I am sure he doesn't forget that he was in prison for three years but perhaps he doesn't understand that it affected other people as well. Sure he had to do the time and that totally sucks but the people on the outside had stuff to deal with as well.
I have a moratorium on buying clothes for myself till I stop losing weight and I realize there are worse problems to have. I went to REI yesterday to buy a pedometer for this healthy lifestyle project my trainer is doing and before I knew it I had about a hundred bucks worth of clearance sale items in my hands. I had to steel my eyes away from the good deals and walk directly to the cash register without buying anything else. Except that I did buy a belt but that was a necessity because since I now am able to tuck in my shirts without looking like a fatty I certainly need different color belts to match. At least I keep telling myself those sort of things and it usually works for me. I do not have any reason not to buy some new kicks however so my sneaker addiction is live and well. I don't think I have purchased any this month yet and I will have remedy that right quick today.
Psyched to see Trey tomorrow night, I will be there with a great crew and I am looking forward to some good hang time. Oh, and the band rips as well. Its just so cool not to have to figure out how I am going to get all fucked up without everyone else knowing about it and how I am going to deal with the fall out. I was walking to the mbta last fall and it struck me how much easier my life is when I am sober. I suppose thats super obvious to most people but its very true for me. Sometimes things are glaringly obvious but it takes time to notice them. I think its good to just stop and think for awhile and things will come to you in time. I told someone today that recovery is so much more than sobriety. I know this is true because I have grown so much as a man this year, more than I ever thought possible or wanted to grow. I am still impulsive (see sneaker addiction) but now I think about it for awhile (see bank account balance) before I decide what to do.
20100210
Action Is The Key
Today is Wednesday February Tenth Two Thousand Ten. The gr8fulnotdead blog has its first follower ! I guess I should pay better attn to content and proofreading now. This blog is fulfilling its purpose, it helps me to write my thoughts down and now perhaps my babblings can help someone else. The only other comment I received was about drinking mouthwash and I think the dude was a little horrified. He was looking for sailing blogs and he somehow found mine. Well, mouthwash is pretty fucking horrific to drink and thats where my life was then. Its quite a thing to be physically addicted to alcohol and going thru alcohol withdrawal on your own is dangerous and the pits. I did it at least eight or ten times and I remember screaming at the top of my lungs just to have something to do. I would go a few days without drinking and then I would start again. Pretty soon I was drinking in the morning again as well as waking up in the middle of the night for a few. I remember using heroin while going thru booze withdrawal and thinking it was the dope that was making me so sick.
Met with my sponsor last nite and I am flummoxed. I really like him, he is there for me but the motherfucker just doesn't check his messages. I called him three days ago and asked him to please call me. He didn't. He did however show up for our meeting and thats a bonus but its driving me nuts that he doesn't call me back. Of course I have not told him as much and I will have to mention it when we meet again. I think thats why he now lives with his girlfriend, she got so tired of not being able to get a hold of him she finally gave up and asked him to move in. He is drawing this sweet picture to remember my first anniversary and I really appreciate it. He will probably spend hours drawing the fucking thing but he doesn't think to check his messages. I know he is not doing it on purpose and I need to toe the line and tell him what is up. He is ten years older than I am and just isn't cell phone centric I guess.
Bought a pedometer today for this "Healthy Lifestyle" program that I am doing with my trainer and a few other people. I am supposed to document how much I walk as well as continue with the food log that I provide every week. I walk a bunch both in my commute and for work and I am interested in just how much walking I actually do. Me being the competitive bitch that I am I will probably walk extra just to see how much walking I can actually do in any given day. I was amazed at how many freaking pedometers there are available and that you can spend well over a hundred dollars on one. I think thats a bit extreme.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine expressed interest in talking with me about her brother whom she thinks may have a problem. I waited for a awhile and then sent an email on Friday asking if she still wanted to talk about it. I have not heard back and I am not going to pester her about it but it just illustrates to me that when it comes to recovery that action is the key. You can sit around thinking about how and why you want to get better but unless you actually do something about it thats all a waste of time. I am sure she wants her brother to get better and if she can help with that its great but the reality may be a bit much for her to handle. Nobody wants to admit that someone close to them has a problem, like its a bad reflection on them or something. I know that my mother had and has a real problem with my recovery. I remember how ashamed she was of me when I got bagged for DWI on xmas a few years back. Since I am the only one in my family with a problem I can't really compare with past experiences. All I know is that you need to take action right away and face your problems up front. As the big book says on page eighty-six or something like that, "Action is the key". Maybe I will create another t-shirt with that phrase.
Met with my sponsor last nite and I am flummoxed. I really like him, he is there for me but the motherfucker just doesn't check his messages. I called him three days ago and asked him to please call me. He didn't. He did however show up for our meeting and thats a bonus but its driving me nuts that he doesn't call me back. Of course I have not told him as much and I will have to mention it when we meet again. I think thats why he now lives with his girlfriend, she got so tired of not being able to get a hold of him she finally gave up and asked him to move in. He is drawing this sweet picture to remember my first anniversary and I really appreciate it. He will probably spend hours drawing the fucking thing but he doesn't think to check his messages. I know he is not doing it on purpose and I need to toe the line and tell him what is up. He is ten years older than I am and just isn't cell phone centric I guess.
Bought a pedometer today for this "Healthy Lifestyle" program that I am doing with my trainer and a few other people. I am supposed to document how much I walk as well as continue with the food log that I provide every week. I walk a bunch both in my commute and for work and I am interested in just how much walking I actually do. Me being the competitive bitch that I am I will probably walk extra just to see how much walking I can actually do in any given day. I was amazed at how many freaking pedometers there are available and that you can spend well over a hundred dollars on one. I think thats a bit extreme.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine expressed interest in talking with me about her brother whom she thinks may have a problem. I waited for a awhile and then sent an email on Friday asking if she still wanted to talk about it. I have not heard back and I am not going to pester her about it but it just illustrates to me that when it comes to recovery that action is the key. You can sit around thinking about how and why you want to get better but unless you actually do something about it thats all a waste of time. I am sure she wants her brother to get better and if she can help with that its great but the reality may be a bit much for her to handle. Nobody wants to admit that someone close to them has a problem, like its a bad reflection on them or something. I know that my mother had and has a real problem with my recovery. I remember how ashamed she was of me when I got bagged for DWI on xmas a few years back. Since I am the only one in my family with a problem I can't really compare with past experiences. All I know is that you need to take action right away and face your problems up front. As the big book says on page eighty-six or something like that, "Action is the key". Maybe I will create another t-shirt with that phrase.
20100209
Fahts, Dogs & Eight Weeks Of Training So Far
Today is Tuesday February Ninth Two Thousand Ten. Tomorrow will be six weeks without a ciggy and I am starting to slowly chew less nicotine candy. One of the side effects is that they make you fart. Alot. I was wondering what the hell was going on, I have added a fair amount of cereals and grains to my diet but it was getting extreme. I looked up the drug on the interwebs and sure enough fartness is a known side effect. They are loud and very smelly and I really have to be careful not to let one rip when I am near someone I know. The other day I was talking to my friend in the CHB lobby and I let one rip hoping it wouldn't smell. About a minute went by and he started sniffing around with a surprised expression on his face. I played dumb of course but it was pretty bad. Another time I was on the MBTA and sitting by myself in the corner. I let one rip and a couple was sitting about fifteen feet away from me. They started talking about how bad the MBTA smelled and I felt like explaining to them that no, in fact this time the smell came from my insides. I guess farting all the time is better than not smoking but god forbid I am ever in bed with a woman while chewing these things.
I miss my dog. His name was Alex and he was a sable and white long hair collie. I raised him from a pup and he lived to be sixteen. He was the family's dog but I was the one would trained him and combed his coat all the time. I was pretty nice to him except for one time when he was just a pup. He found a stuffed baby santa claus that I've had since I was a baby and chewed the face off of him. I was so angry that I saw red and I whacked him pretty good. I went to whack him again and he shied away from me and my heart just about broke in two. No animal deserves to be hit no matter what they have done and that was the last time I really whacked him with anger. Alex seemed mildly retarded but he was much smarter than he let on. My mom and I took him to doggie school and we always had to stay after because he was such a wild pup. After many hours of practice we had the final exam and wouldn't you know it, Alex did everything that was asked of him. He used to sleep in a open air pen and since he did such a good job I taped his doggie school diploma above his bed for everyone to see. It was gone the next morning, I assume that he ate it. That was Alex in a nutshell. He didn't exactly do what you wanted him to do but I know he loved me like I loved him. I went missing one day and I looked everywhere. I finally found him frozen lying down next to a neighbor's house. I carried him back with tears flowing and buried him in the back yard. That in its self was a challenge because the ground was frozen solid. I had to burn a few fires in and around the hole so he could be placed in a proper grave. Miss you buddy.
So its been two months since I have been training with Nancy. I have seen a bunch of improvement and will be continuing with the whole gym thing. I think I am going to cut the amount of time with her down to every other week but I still want her advice in the future. I don't want to get stuck in a rut and always want new exercises to do and there seems to be no end to what you can do in the weight room. I have lost a solid twenty pounds and want to lose another thirty. Right now I am eating better but am not on a super strict diet at this time. I don't cheat with candy bars and ice cream but rather fruit, frozen yogurt and kashi bars. Every energy drink I consume is a diet and I only use sugar in my oatmeal. I think that just being aware of what I stuff down my gullet is amazing in its self. I used to eat entire pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in one sitting and then go to bed. Lets see how many calories that is...with a serving size of one cup it has 290 calories with 140 calories from fat. There are two cups in a pint so that would be 1160 calories with 560 of those calories from fat in one sitting. Jebus, no wonder I gained twenty pounds in a couple of months. I actually think I have a pretty high metabolism because I should have been way fatter than I was considering what I was eating every day. Figure a steak and cheese calzone, three sugarfull energy drinks, three donuts, two candy bars, bag o' chips, pint of ice cream, and a sweetroll. Thats got to be upwards of five to six thousand calories. Yikes ! Now I eat fifteen hundred to two thousand calories a day all spread out throughout the day.
Getting pretty psyched for Trey on Friday, its at my second home the House Of Blues. The only other time I have seen Trey or PH!SH in a place like that was in Spain in '97 so it should be cool. Going with five other people that I know and it will be cool to connect with them again. Its also on a Friday which makes things much easier to deal with, I get tired of going to a show on a school nite and then having to wake up early for work. At least I'm not drinking and then trying to scrape my way thru the next day. The old bartender from Dodge Street, Russ Lawton will be playing drums for Trey so I am psyched to see him as well. Maybe I should send him an email to say howdy.
I miss my dog. His name was Alex and he was a sable and white long hair collie. I raised him from a pup and he lived to be sixteen. He was the family's dog but I was the one would trained him and combed his coat all the time. I was pretty nice to him except for one time when he was just a pup. He found a stuffed baby santa claus that I've had since I was a baby and chewed the face off of him. I was so angry that I saw red and I whacked him pretty good. I went to whack him again and he shied away from me and my heart just about broke in two. No animal deserves to be hit no matter what they have done and that was the last time I really whacked him with anger. Alex seemed mildly retarded but he was much smarter than he let on. My mom and I took him to doggie school and we always had to stay after because he was such a wild pup. After many hours of practice we had the final exam and wouldn't you know it, Alex did everything that was asked of him. He used to sleep in a open air pen and since he did such a good job I taped his doggie school diploma above his bed for everyone to see. It was gone the next morning, I assume that he ate it. That was Alex in a nutshell. He didn't exactly do what you wanted him to do but I know he loved me like I loved him. I went missing one day and I looked everywhere. I finally found him frozen lying down next to a neighbor's house. I carried him back with tears flowing and buried him in the back yard. That in its self was a challenge because the ground was frozen solid. I had to burn a few fires in and around the hole so he could be placed in a proper grave. Miss you buddy.
So its been two months since I have been training with Nancy. I have seen a bunch of improvement and will be continuing with the whole gym thing. I think I am going to cut the amount of time with her down to every other week but I still want her advice in the future. I don't want to get stuck in a rut and always want new exercises to do and there seems to be no end to what you can do in the weight room. I have lost a solid twenty pounds and want to lose another thirty. Right now I am eating better but am not on a super strict diet at this time. I don't cheat with candy bars and ice cream but rather fruit, frozen yogurt and kashi bars. Every energy drink I consume is a diet and I only use sugar in my oatmeal. I think that just being aware of what I stuff down my gullet is amazing in its self. I used to eat entire pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in one sitting and then go to bed. Lets see how many calories that is...with a serving size of one cup it has 290 calories with 140 calories from fat. There are two cups in a pint so that would be 1160 calories with 560 of those calories from fat in one sitting. Jebus, no wonder I gained twenty pounds in a couple of months. I actually think I have a pretty high metabolism because I should have been way fatter than I was considering what I was eating every day. Figure a steak and cheese calzone, three sugarfull energy drinks, three donuts, two candy bars, bag o' chips, pint of ice cream, and a sweetroll. Thats got to be upwards of five to six thousand calories. Yikes ! Now I eat fifteen hundred to two thousand calories a day all spread out throughout the day.
Getting pretty psyched for Trey on Friday, its at my second home the House Of Blues. The only other time I have seen Trey or PH!SH in a place like that was in Spain in '97 so it should be cool. Going with five other people that I know and it will be cool to connect with them again. Its also on a Friday which makes things much easier to deal with, I get tired of going to a show on a school nite and then having to wake up early for work. At least I'm not drinking and then trying to scrape my way thru the next day. The old bartender from Dodge Street, Russ Lawton will be playing drums for Trey so I am psyched to see him as well. Maybe I should send him an email to say howdy.
20100208
Lil' Wayne & THE SAINTS !
Today is Monday February Eighth Two Thousand Ten, the day Lil' Wayne goes to the pokey for a year. They say he will serve between eight and ten months in the clink and I bet he is out within six months. There are some interesting things going on with this story the biggest is that LW seems to be excited to be imprisoned. Like it is a right of passage or something for thugs and I think thats a pretty sad thing. Here is a guy who not only is worth millions but he is actually a good artist. He never stops working and puts everything he has into his music. He appears to have gotten over his addiction to cough syrup and is releasing more and more material with each passing month. His label doesn't want the well to dry up so they tried to tell him not to release so much at once but he did it anyway. The second interesting thing is that he is going to jail at all. Granted they bagged him with a loaded ten millimeter in NYC but I am surprised that will all his cash and connections that he couldn't get out of it somehow. Perhaps he has priors but he has been making "cash money" since he was twelve and after all he coined the term "bling-bling". That has to count for something to someone.
So the New Orleans Saints are not the aints no more. They had an impressive victory over the Colts and it was the most enjoyable non patriot game in recent history. They began the second half with an onside kick which they recovered and then intercepted Manning late in the fourth. That pretty much sealed the game and it was awesome to see the "mad-peyton" face that pats fans know and love so much. The Colts have such talent but they just don't seem to be able to make the big plays when they count. I am glad that people can stop talking about the Brady/Manning comparison because the Tomster has three championships to Peyton's one. Thats all there should be for discussion because in pro sports winning is everything when comparing careers. I hate to be an asshole but I am getting really tired hearing about how much New Orleans has struggled in the past five years since the hurricane. Seems to me that NOLA has struggled for most of modern history and Katrina was just an extra kick in the nuts. Not a popular opinion I am sure and it really sucks what happened but it is time to move forward and not dwell on the past.
Had a good time hanging out with Court. It amazes me that we only went to college together for one year and we will be life long friends. Its like there is a reality check when we talk and it was like we had just seen each other yesterday. We do keep in touch over email and talk once and awhile but it was great to actually hang out. He has made a cool life for himself and I am very happy for him. Sure taking pics of weddings and in the col can totally suck sometimes but then he gets to go all over the world and up in various forms of aircraft as well. It was good to tell him my deal and how my recovery was going because he was the only friend left I hadn't had that discussion with yet. He took it well because he is a friend and was supportive of my recovery.
In other news I found out the xx chromo I have a crush on is single and plans to be so for awhile. I am not expecting to be her man but its nice to know that its at least possible even if its in some small way. Now I just have to make sure not to act like a jackass around her and I will be ok. I am not chomping at the bit to have a relationship and I need to remember to take it slow. Who knows what will happen in the end and right now I am just babbling to babble.
Woo, woo SAINTS !
So the New Orleans Saints are not the aints no more. They had an impressive victory over the Colts and it was the most enjoyable non patriot game in recent history. They began the second half with an onside kick which they recovered and then intercepted Manning late in the fourth. That pretty much sealed the game and it was awesome to see the "mad-peyton" face that pats fans know and love so much. The Colts have such talent but they just don't seem to be able to make the big plays when they count. I am glad that people can stop talking about the Brady/Manning comparison because the Tomster has three championships to Peyton's one. Thats all there should be for discussion because in pro sports winning is everything when comparing careers. I hate to be an asshole but I am getting really tired hearing about how much New Orleans has struggled in the past five years since the hurricane. Seems to me that NOLA has struggled for most of modern history and Katrina was just an extra kick in the nuts. Not a popular opinion I am sure and it really sucks what happened but it is time to move forward and not dwell on the past.
Had a good time hanging out with Court. It amazes me that we only went to college together for one year and we will be life long friends. Its like there is a reality check when we talk and it was like we had just seen each other yesterday. We do keep in touch over email and talk once and awhile but it was great to actually hang out. He has made a cool life for himself and I am very happy for him. Sure taking pics of weddings and in the col can totally suck sometimes but then he gets to go all over the world and up in various forms of aircraft as well. It was good to tell him my deal and how my recovery was going because he was the only friend left I hadn't had that discussion with yet. He took it well because he is a friend and was supportive of my recovery.
In other news I found out the xx chromo I have a crush on is single and plans to be so for awhile. I am not expecting to be her man but its nice to know that its at least possible even if its in some small way. Now I just have to make sure not to act like a jackass around her and I will be ok. I am not chomping at the bit to have a relationship and I need to remember to take it slow. Who knows what will happen in the end and right now I am just babbling to babble.
Woo, woo SAINTS !
20100207
Spelling, Why I Write This Blog, & Stupor Bowl
Today is Sunday February Seventh Two Thousand Ten. It is not only SuperBowl Sunday but this is my fiftieth blog entry. Wow, fifty times I have written something and while my entries are not that well written and don't have the most exciting subject matter I am happy that I have continued to write. Fifty times is a good amount and I know some time I will be psyched to look back at what I have written. I don't do that now, I just write and then publish with spelling, tense, and grammatical errors within. The only thing I check is the spelling because its easy as shit with Firefox and I am pretty anal about spelling within the electronic medium. I used to be a really crappy speller and then all of a sudden I just got it. I will always remember going over words with my mom in our Topsfield kitchen and I just got it. I will never forget the look of absolute surprise on my mom's face when I got ninety five percent of my words correct. Something clicked and I have no idea why.
I write this blog for a few reasons. The first is self serving, who doesn't like to write about themselves ? The focus is on me and my experiences so why wouldn't I like it ? The second is that its good therapy to put down my thoughts somewhere so I can look at it later. The third is that if something horrible was to happen to me then people would have some type of record of what I was thinking at certain times in my life. I plan to keep writing at least once a week and hopefully more than that till I am unable to do so. The fourth is that I have toyed with writing a book about my experiences in recovery and this would be a good starting point for content. The fifth is if I ever happen to find a xx chromo that I fall in love with and trust completely I want her to read this blog and learn about what is going on inside my head. For better or worse this blog is public and has my first name and picture on the front page. If someone reads it and laughs or pokes fun at me I don't give two shits about it. Yeah, yeah, I drank mouthwash. It tasted like crap, made my pee smell funny, and got me drunk. I have moved on.
Today is the stupor bowl. The New Orleans Saints versus the Indianapolis Colts in Miami, Florida. Saw the Grateful Dead in the old stadium, Joe Robbie and it was awesome. Woke up under a palm tree in a zoo but thats a story for another time. I am rooting for the Saints because I hate the Colts. I don't really hate Manning, I can't see how any football fan can hate someone who is so good at his job. Plus the Saints have sucked ass for years and its cool to see them in the SB. I used to go to SB parties and get completely wasted, much like other folks. I would always take the next day off but once my drinking got really serious I started watching it on my own. I am going to watch it with my friend Court who I've wrote about before and I am looking forward to it. I will eat pizza, drink coffee, and generally chill the fuck out. Should be a good evening.
Didn't feel all that sore this morning but the Advil I ate last nite probably helped a bunch. I did the same sort of cardio workout with the addition of weight training to I am taking tomorrow off from the gym. I used this machine that totally kicked my ass the Summit thingamabob. It works your entire body not unlike Nordic skiing. It really feels great to give it my best and hardest and I think I will continue to try and mix up my cardio as much as possible. They have a cardio d-fib there in case I seize up after working too hard. I a really starting to notice the changes that exercise has on my life and I realize I have babbled about this before but it is just astounding. I am hoping to reverse many years of bad living and hopefully have the chance to live another fifty. I would like to make it to Two Thousand Sixty but like they say in AA, its going to be one day at a time.
I caught a xx chromo staring at me in the Quaker Friend's meeting yesterday morning. I think she is incredibly hot but I don't know how smart it would be to date someone in the program. Plenty of people couple up as a result of knowing each other thru meetings but I dunno. I mean she is smart, hot, and has amazing boobs but I still don't know. I think it would be different if I didn't have any friends outside the program and have some significant female friends but who knows. I am just going to keep working out, eating right, and living healthy and do what I can to be there for my friends both in and out of the program. Its just that there is something between us and I know that she feels it as well. Something to think about I guess, perhaps if I keep babbling about it enough I will figure something out. Or not.
GO SAINTS, YOU AREN'T THE 'AINTS NO MORE !
I write this blog for a few reasons. The first is self serving, who doesn't like to write about themselves ? The focus is on me and my experiences so why wouldn't I like it ? The second is that its good therapy to put down my thoughts somewhere so I can look at it later. The third is that if something horrible was to happen to me then people would have some type of record of what I was thinking at certain times in my life. I plan to keep writing at least once a week and hopefully more than that till I am unable to do so. The fourth is that I have toyed with writing a book about my experiences in recovery and this would be a good starting point for content. The fifth is if I ever happen to find a xx chromo that I fall in love with and trust completely I want her to read this blog and learn about what is going on inside my head. For better or worse this blog is public and has my first name and picture on the front page. If someone reads it and laughs or pokes fun at me I don't give two shits about it. Yeah, yeah, I drank mouthwash. It tasted like crap, made my pee smell funny, and got me drunk. I have moved on.
Today is the stupor bowl. The New Orleans Saints versus the Indianapolis Colts in Miami, Florida. Saw the Grateful Dead in the old stadium, Joe Robbie and it was awesome. Woke up under a palm tree in a zoo but thats a story for another time. I am rooting for the Saints because I hate the Colts. I don't really hate Manning, I can't see how any football fan can hate someone who is so good at his job. Plus the Saints have sucked ass for years and its cool to see them in the SB. I used to go to SB parties and get completely wasted, much like other folks. I would always take the next day off but once my drinking got really serious I started watching it on my own. I am going to watch it with my friend Court who I've wrote about before and I am looking forward to it. I will eat pizza, drink coffee, and generally chill the fuck out. Should be a good evening.
Didn't feel all that sore this morning but the Advil I ate last nite probably helped a bunch. I did the same sort of cardio workout with the addition of weight training to I am taking tomorrow off from the gym. I used this machine that totally kicked my ass the Summit thingamabob. It works your entire body not unlike Nordic skiing. It really feels great to give it my best and hardest and I think I will continue to try and mix up my cardio as much as possible. They have a cardio d-fib there in case I seize up after working too hard. I a really starting to notice the changes that exercise has on my life and I realize I have babbled about this before but it is just astounding. I am hoping to reverse many years of bad living and hopefully have the chance to live another fifty. I would like to make it to Two Thousand Sixty but like they say in AA, its going to be one day at a time.
I caught a xx chromo staring at me in the Quaker Friend's meeting yesterday morning. I think she is incredibly hot but I don't know how smart it would be to date someone in the program. Plenty of people couple up as a result of knowing each other thru meetings but I dunno. I mean she is smart, hot, and has amazing boobs but I still don't know. I think it would be different if I didn't have any friends outside the program and have some significant female friends but who knows. I am just going to keep working out, eating right, and living healthy and do what I can to be there for my friends both in and out of the program. Its just that there is something between us and I know that she feels it as well. Something to think about I guess, perhaps if I keep babbling about it enough I will figure something out. Or not.
GO SAINTS, YOU AREN'T THE 'AINTS NO MORE !
20100206
Good Workouts, Two Months, & SciFi
Today is Saturday February Sixth Two Thousand Ten. I am pretty psyched with my workout performance today after the bummer day on Friday. I did the elip machine for fifteen minutes as a warm up and then rode the cycle for forty minutes. I felt so fucking dandy that I did this other machine thingy for twenty minutes. Its like a stair climber with handles that you either have to push or pull depending on the setting so it works out both the up and top of your bod. It also has this sweet fan right at face level that is a good addition. So all in all I worked out for seventy five minnys and and maintained a heart rate well above one twenty bbm. Thing is, I totally could have worked out even more but I didn't want to push it further than I already have. I wonder how sore I will be tomorrow but there is always Advil for that. I didn't get out of breath either but was breathing a little heavy towards the end.
I have been working out with a trainer and watching what I eat for two months now and I have lost twenty pounds. That makes two point five pounds a week which is pretty much on par with my goal and the average for people. I will be psyched if in another two months I lose another twenty but something tells me that its going to get harder as time goes on. Losing fifty pounds is quite a bit and if I am able to do it five or six months I would be blown away. I am watching what I eat but by no means am I being totally good about my diet. So, if I start having problems losing the poundage I reckon I will really start eating rocks and twigs for most of my meals. I fit into the pair of jeans I bought a size too small and while they were a bit tight but I was able to fit into them. I can honestly say that I am proud of myself at this point and how much work I have put into my life. All those early mornings dragging myself to the gym are starting to pay dividends. The only time in my life I have to compare this to is when I was skiing for CSC and getting in shape thru dry land training. The thing is that I wasn't sixty pounds overweight at that point, I think I had about twenty extra at that time. Seems like for the past ten years I consistently weighed two twenty to two thirty pounds and its going to be great to wave goodbye to those and these days.
So I had dinner at the Arlington Diner tonight and once again had super crappy service. It seems like once breakfast is over they bring in the "C" team who don't know the first thing about pretending to give a shit about their customers even tho that isn't the case. Anyway, after a good meal with mediocre service I walked down to the Capitol Theater with the intention of seeing Avatar. I decided that I really didn't want to spend a few hours watching blue lizard people dance around on the screen. Other than the first "Star Wars" movies and the "Battlestar Galactica" TV series I am not really a sci-fi fan and have always avoided the genre. Yeah, I am sure all the three d shit is cool up after seeing the smooshed flying eyeball in Friday The 13th III-3D that stuff is pretty much ruined for me. That was awesome, the psycho living dead dude "Jason" was squeezing this guys head and then after a few moments his eyeball goes flying out towards the audience. It was so real I moved my head to the side so I wouldn't get eyeball goo on me. Awesome.
My solitary roommate told me this afternoon that she has joined a SciFi club. I am really happy for her because she doesn't do jack shit with other people and perhaps she will meet some more friends which I think she desperately needs. I would imagine a xx chromo scifi club member would be a hot commodity. Even if that doesn't happen I am sure she will make some new friends and maybe work on her obvious social awkwardness. I was just thinking about people who are dicks to others they don't know when I was walking back from the mbta today. Thats something I just don't understand, why be an asshole to someone just because you don't know them ? How the hell do people like that make friends if they think everyone is a dick ? My downstairs neighbors are like that. It seems to me that many people graduate from college and have their crew of friends from there and are very suspicious to anyone outside their social circle. Weird. I am even nice to people I think are dicks because its much easier to be nice to someone than to be a dick to them. Dunno, maybe I am just a sucker to be nice to everyone.
I have been working out with a trainer and watching what I eat for two months now and I have lost twenty pounds. That makes two point five pounds a week which is pretty much on par with my goal and the average for people. I will be psyched if in another two months I lose another twenty but something tells me that its going to get harder as time goes on. Losing fifty pounds is quite a bit and if I am able to do it five or six months I would be blown away. I am watching what I eat but by no means am I being totally good about my diet. So, if I start having problems losing the poundage I reckon I will really start eating rocks and twigs for most of my meals. I fit into the pair of jeans I bought a size too small and while they were a bit tight but I was able to fit into them. I can honestly say that I am proud of myself at this point and how much work I have put into my life. All those early mornings dragging myself to the gym are starting to pay dividends. The only time in my life I have to compare this to is when I was skiing for CSC and getting in shape thru dry land training. The thing is that I wasn't sixty pounds overweight at that point, I think I had about twenty extra at that time. Seems like for the past ten years I consistently weighed two twenty to two thirty pounds and its going to be great to wave goodbye to those and these days.
So I had dinner at the Arlington Diner tonight and once again had super crappy service. It seems like once breakfast is over they bring in the "C" team who don't know the first thing about pretending to give a shit about their customers even tho that isn't the case. Anyway, after a good meal with mediocre service I walked down to the Capitol Theater with the intention of seeing Avatar. I decided that I really didn't want to spend a few hours watching blue lizard people dance around on the screen. Other than the first "Star Wars" movies and the "Battlestar Galactica" TV series I am not really a sci-fi fan and have always avoided the genre. Yeah, I am sure all the three d shit is cool up after seeing the smooshed flying eyeball in Friday The 13th III-3D that stuff is pretty much ruined for me. That was awesome, the psycho living dead dude "Jason" was squeezing this guys head and then after a few moments his eyeball goes flying out towards the audience. It was so real I moved my head to the side so I wouldn't get eyeball goo on me. Awesome.
My solitary roommate told me this afternoon that she has joined a SciFi club. I am really happy for her because she doesn't do jack shit with other people and perhaps she will meet some more friends which I think she desperately needs. I would imagine a xx chromo scifi club member would be a hot commodity. Even if that doesn't happen I am sure she will make some new friends and maybe work on her obvious social awkwardness. I was just thinking about people who are dicks to others they don't know when I was walking back from the mbta today. Thats something I just don't understand, why be an asshole to someone just because you don't know them ? How the hell do people like that make friends if they think everyone is a dick ? My downstairs neighbors are like that. It seems to me that many people graduate from college and have their crew of friends from there and are very suspicious to anyone outside their social circle. Weird. I am even nice to people I think are dicks because its much easier to be nice to someone than to be a dick to them. Dunno, maybe I am just a sucker to be nice to everyone.
20100205
Mt. Snow - NOT & Gym
Today is Friday February Fifth Two Thousand Ten. I am supposed to have dinner with a friend of mine tonight but he has canceled a few times and I have not had confirmation yet so we will see. I realize people are busy and all that and I am not taking anything personally. Should be a good way to start the weekend off and then I am headed up to Mt. Snow for a snowboard competition on Saturday morning. My mother was under the impression that I had committed to hanging out with my folks this weekend so she is a little pissy. Because of that I am going to try to call my father and either speak to him briefly or leave a message. Sometimes technology is awesome to avoid communication and I have to try and remember that when I am banging out twenty god damn texts before meeting up with someone at a show.
Didn't have a very good session in the gym this morning, just wasn't feeling the love although I sense my love handles are decreasing finally. People can already see the weight loss in my face but my love handles were getting fairly big. I first noticed it when wearing my now defunct leather jacket and a sweatshirt that I bought without trying on. The hoodie is a XXL but it must be for a very tall and skinny person because its just as slender as the XL. I think its because it has hemp in it. Every hemp product I have tried on seems to be sized for skinny little hippies who don't eat enough. I am going to need a few more belts as well because my pants don't seem to fit and I don't want to buy any more pants till I get down to two hundred or so. It will be quite an accomplishment to weigh that much or little depending on how you look at it. The last time I weighed that was ninety three when my newer friends were thirteen. It strange sometimes being ten years older than some people you hang out with and as long as they are cool with it I am. I am totally going to dye my hair when the grey starts taking over. I realize thats totally vain but I don't really give a shit about it. If I feel better by not having grey hair then thats the way its going to be.
I have a chance to go to a show with three xx chromos, two of whom I am interested in but I have decided not to go. I have dinner plans with John and I could certainly eat early with him and then jet over to the house o' blues but I am going to take a time out. Don't want to appear needy to those women and they will have a good time regardless if I am there or not. I am sure it will be fun and the band is awesome but I think I am making the right decision. Its like my emotions are in eighth grade again the way I am feeling and its really strange. They say that you stop your emotional development when you start using drugs all the time and it pretty much started for me my freshman year. It just thought about that, giving myself a timeline and its interesting to see thats when it was and thats how I remember feeling. Score another one for the AA folks. I continue to be impressed by stuff that was written in the nineteen fifties is relevant today.
Looks like I am not going to VT after all this weekend. My friend called and he said that not only is the room tiny but the snowboarder may not qualify for the competition. I don't doubt the veracity of what he said but its just kind of weird that there wouldn't even been enough room for me on the floor of a motel room. I dunno, maybe its for the best as I really want to attend the quaker friends meeting and workout a bunch at the gym which I could't do if I was on the bus. I really want to see if I can do that new cardio machine for a long time. The first time I was only able to do it for eight minutes but today I did ten. I think I am going to do that machine, then weight train, and then the death cycle. I think its good to get warmed up before hitting the machines and free weights. Otherwise I am going to hit the elliptical and then the cycle. It is absolutely astounding that I enjoy working out as much as I do and that I didn't start earlier. I think my biggest regret is not getting sober sooner but who knows, maybe I would have relapsed and not worked as hard as I needed to in order to stay sober.
Didn't have a very good session in the gym this morning, just wasn't feeling the love although I sense my love handles are decreasing finally. People can already see the weight loss in my face but my love handles were getting fairly big. I first noticed it when wearing my now defunct leather jacket and a sweatshirt that I bought without trying on. The hoodie is a XXL but it must be for a very tall and skinny person because its just as slender as the XL. I think its because it has hemp in it. Every hemp product I have tried on seems to be sized for skinny little hippies who don't eat enough. I am going to need a few more belts as well because my pants don't seem to fit and I don't want to buy any more pants till I get down to two hundred or so. It will be quite an accomplishment to weigh that much or little depending on how you look at it. The last time I weighed that was ninety three when my newer friends were thirteen. It strange sometimes being ten years older than some people you hang out with and as long as they are cool with it I am. I am totally going to dye my hair when the grey starts taking over. I realize thats totally vain but I don't really give a shit about it. If I feel better by not having grey hair then thats the way its going to be.
I have a chance to go to a show with three xx chromos, two of whom I am interested in but I have decided not to go. I have dinner plans with John and I could certainly eat early with him and then jet over to the house o' blues but I am going to take a time out. Don't want to appear needy to those women and they will have a good time regardless if I am there or not. I am sure it will be fun and the band is awesome but I think I am making the right decision. Its like my emotions are in eighth grade again the way I am feeling and its really strange. They say that you stop your emotional development when you start using drugs all the time and it pretty much started for me my freshman year. It just thought about that, giving myself a timeline and its interesting to see thats when it was and thats how I remember feeling. Score another one for the AA folks. I continue to be impressed by stuff that was written in the nineteen fifties is relevant today.
Looks like I am not going to VT after all this weekend. My friend called and he said that not only is the room tiny but the snowboarder may not qualify for the competition. I don't doubt the veracity of what he said but its just kind of weird that there wouldn't even been enough room for me on the floor of a motel room. I dunno, maybe its for the best as I really want to attend the quaker friends meeting and workout a bunch at the gym which I could't do if I was on the bus. I really want to see if I can do that new cardio machine for a long time. The first time I was only able to do it for eight minutes but today I did ten. I think I am going to do that machine, then weight train, and then the death cycle. I think its good to get warmed up before hitting the machines and free weights. Otherwise I am going to hit the elliptical and then the cycle. It is absolutely astounding that I enjoy working out as much as I do and that I didn't start earlier. I think my biggest regret is not getting sober sooner but who knows, maybe I would have relapsed and not worked as hard as I needed to in order to stay sober.
20100204
Galactic, Crush, & Mt. Snow
Today is Thursday February Fourth Two Thousand Ten. Galactic was awesome last nite with Cyril Neville fronting, much better than the Houseman in my opinion. He adds a much needed freshness and hip hop sound plus he can blow a trombone really fucking well. They also had another guest on stage playing tenor sax and he was awesome as well. Both my friends hadn't seen them before and they loved it, whats not to love really. They are an incredibly danceable band who play their own tunes combined with NOLA Funk classics. It was an interesting crowd, hipsters, hippies, and straights all in the same room together without any fistacuffs. I think its funny that I groups myself with the straights these days but thats how it goes. It wasn't too packed and I didn't run into Randy which is bittersweet. I mean I'd like to talk to the kid but sometimes its easier not to deal with the emotions that go along with it. It was super packed and I didn't run into some other friends that I was looking for so its possible he walked right past me at some point.
Ok, I admit it. I have a total crush on one of the women I went to she show with last nite. She is really cute in her way of discovering this music for the first time and feels like she missed out for the past fifteen years. I didn't want to mention that she was fifteen when this sort of stuff started coming north. She is also very pretty and fun to be with and I am going to have to be very careful. She has asked for advice about a situation that I am very familiar with and I am not going to use that to advance whatever social agenda I might have. She seems to care for me whether it is a friend or more than that and I am going to be happy with that. I enjoy being around her and it doesn't hurt that she is very easy on the eyes. I will just see how things go but god damn is she pretty.
I can't believe its Thursday already. My friend Court is visiting me from CA because he is getting paid to take pics of some chick snowboarder. I am wrestling with the idea of going up to Mt. Snow early Saturday morning to check out the competition and then come back home on Sunday. He has to get up super early to catch a flight on Monday morning so I don't know how much hang time we will have during the Superbowl. He will probably be pretty busy on Saturday taking pics and shit so I would be on my own for most of the day. It will be good to see him, esp since the last time we hung out was at Burning Man and thats such a far out time that its hard to talk. The time before that he was in Boston and I am pretty sure that he had to stop the car on the way back into the city so that I could throw up. Not my proudest hour but he has seen me much worse. I have not explained to Court that I don't drink anymore so I need to talk to him about it at some point. I am not going to make a big deal out of it and he is a good enough friend to just chill about it.
Well, thats it for now. No more writing or I will be just babbling more about pretty girls that I'm not sure what to do about.
Ok, I admit it. I have a total crush on one of the women I went to she show with last nite. She is really cute in her way of discovering this music for the first time and feels like she missed out for the past fifteen years. I didn't want to mention that she was fifteen when this sort of stuff started coming north. She is also very pretty and fun to be with and I am going to have to be very careful. She has asked for advice about a situation that I am very familiar with and I am not going to use that to advance whatever social agenda I might have. She seems to care for me whether it is a friend or more than that and I am going to be happy with that. I enjoy being around her and it doesn't hurt that she is very easy on the eyes. I will just see how things go but god damn is she pretty.
I can't believe its Thursday already. My friend Court is visiting me from CA because he is getting paid to take pics of some chick snowboarder. I am wrestling with the idea of going up to Mt. Snow early Saturday morning to check out the competition and then come back home on Sunday. He has to get up super early to catch a flight on Monday morning so I don't know how much hang time we will have during the Superbowl. He will probably be pretty busy on Saturday taking pics and shit so I would be on my own for most of the day. It will be good to see him, esp since the last time we hung out was at Burning Man and thats such a far out time that its hard to talk. The time before that he was in Boston and I am pretty sure that he had to stop the car on the way back into the city so that I could throw up. Not my proudest hour but he has seen me much worse. I have not explained to Court that I don't drink anymore so I need to talk to him about it at some point. I am not going to make a big deal out of it and he is a good enough friend to just chill about it.
Well, thats it for now. No more writing or I will be just babbling more about pretty girls that I'm not sure what to do about.
20100203
Wednesdays, ComputerTown, & Gold Adidas
Today is Wednesday January Third Two Thousand Ten. I like wednesdays, dunno what all this hump day shit is about. By the end of the day the week is halfway over and its time for the real work start. All the work you didn't want to do or put off early in the week needs to get done. Wednesday is a substitute day for the rest of the week a good day to take stock and figure out what needs to be done so your asshole boss won't live up to his reputation. It would be awesome to work four ten or twelve hour days and have Wednesday off every week. I think I could deal with that because getting thru two days of work is easy. There is a department at CHB that does that but I wouldn't work for them unless they paid me a shit ton of cash.
The only thing I really liked about sales was that as long as I met or exceeded my sales goal nobody would fuck with me. When I was at ComputerTown I didn't really get along with the salespeople from other stores because we were different. They were really gung-ho about CT and Apple, totally loved the fact they were selling what they were into. They were also from Cow Hampster which is only forty or so miles from Boston but it is a different world. I worked at the 52 Congress Street CT and really loved it there. I had a bunch of computer sales experience at Computer's Etc and I was hired by the CT sales manager. When the store manager Chris met me he told me that since he didn't hire me directly he didn't know if I was going to work out. While that may be true, its not really something you want to tell a guy who has just signed up to work for you. Chris was a total prick and a bad manager. He also slept with the fattest customer service rep even tho he was married. ComputerTown worked out well for me, I still am friends with my manager and a bunch of other sales people from the Boston store. I ended up selling about a hundred thousand dollars worth of computer shit a month for that store and was promoted to be the sales manager. The manager, Carolyn was awesome. She was very patient and understanding and I am good friends with her to this day. There are lots more stories about CT to document and I am glad that I thought of the place.
So I wore my gold Adidas to work today because I am going to see Galactic tonight. I now have two pairs of gold sneakers, both Adidas, and I think they are awesome. They were both on sale and very comfy so I don't really care what color they are but the fact they are gold makes them cool to me. This English bastard in the program also likes to wear Adidas so I monitor his footwear very carefully to make sure I don't have the same pair as he does. He is a very good kid who also lives on my street so I run into him a bunch. I think we even talked about our mutual love of Adidas and he didn't pull the English card. He does have a sweet pair of black and gold Ghostface Killah SSII's which I would have purchased had they been available in my size. This brings me to a major question that has been bothering me. Why the fuck do sneaker salespeople always tell you that while they don't have your exact size they do have a size or two smaller or larger ? Do people actually buy shoes that don't fit ? Whenever they tell me that I always respond politely with, "No, I need size eleven and a half. Thanks for looking tho'." But I want to yell, "What the fuck motherfucker ? Do you actually think I am going to wear something either too big or too small when I can just go online and get a fucking pair of shoes in the correct size ? This is just an impulse buy because I was walking by your trendy and way over priced store !"
So I was visiting an end user to take care of something and this woman told me she loved my gold sneakers. I have to admit that I enjoy it when someone makes a remark whether its good or bad about my footwear. For someone to notice something I am wearing is a totally new experience for me. I used to not really give two shits about how I looked and its cool that my efforts are starting to pay off. Anway, I told the gold Adidas loving woman where to get her own pair and also mentioned that gold Stan Smiths were available as well. She was terribly excited and I hope that my gold sneakers made her day a good one in some small way. If they did that then they did their job, besides being very comfy.
Saw my trainer last nite. Man, she is in good shape and I guess she would have to be as she is a walking advert for her services. She whipped off about a dozen push ups to my three. I don't know how old she is but she probably is in better shape than most of the women in their twenties around here. We added a few exercises to my routines that won't stress out my knees and also added a new cardio machine. Nancy says its her favorite and I think I know why: It totally kicks your ass. You stand up straight and simulate walking up a hill but its a little different than that. Your legs have their weird elliptical motion and it took me a little while to get the hang of it. Its very important to wait for the motherfucker to stop moving or it will whack your shins in a major way. Its a large unmovable mass right at shin level and I know that I am going to whack myself, it is just a matter of time. Because of this I sorta jumped off it this morning and probably looked like a freak to the others in the room. Thats totally ok, I am used to that.
The only thing I really liked about sales was that as long as I met or exceeded my sales goal nobody would fuck with me. When I was at ComputerTown I didn't really get along with the salespeople from other stores because we were different. They were really gung-ho about CT and Apple, totally loved the fact they were selling what they were into. They were also from Cow Hampster which is only forty or so miles from Boston but it is a different world. I worked at the 52 Congress Street CT and really loved it there. I had a bunch of computer sales experience at Computer's Etc and I was hired by the CT sales manager. When the store manager Chris met me he told me that since he didn't hire me directly he didn't know if I was going to work out. While that may be true, its not really something you want to tell a guy who has just signed up to work for you. Chris was a total prick and a bad manager. He also slept with the fattest customer service rep even tho he was married. ComputerTown worked out well for me, I still am friends with my manager and a bunch of other sales people from the Boston store. I ended up selling about a hundred thousand dollars worth of computer shit a month for that store and was promoted to be the sales manager. The manager, Carolyn was awesome. She was very patient and understanding and I am good friends with her to this day. There are lots more stories about CT to document and I am glad that I thought of the place.
So I wore my gold Adidas to work today because I am going to see Galactic tonight. I now have two pairs of gold sneakers, both Adidas, and I think they are awesome. They were both on sale and very comfy so I don't really care what color they are but the fact they are gold makes them cool to me. This English bastard in the program also likes to wear Adidas so I monitor his footwear very carefully to make sure I don't have the same pair as he does. He is a very good kid who also lives on my street so I run into him a bunch. I think we even talked about our mutual love of Adidas and he didn't pull the English card. He does have a sweet pair of black and gold Ghostface Killah SSII's which I would have purchased had they been available in my size. This brings me to a major question that has been bothering me. Why the fuck do sneaker salespeople always tell you that while they don't have your exact size they do have a size or two smaller or larger ? Do people actually buy shoes that don't fit ? Whenever they tell me that I always respond politely with, "No, I need size eleven and a half. Thanks for looking tho'." But I want to yell, "What the fuck motherfucker ? Do you actually think I am going to wear something either too big or too small when I can just go online and get a fucking pair of shoes in the correct size ? This is just an impulse buy because I was walking by your trendy and way over priced store !"
So I was visiting an end user to take care of something and this woman told me she loved my gold sneakers. I have to admit that I enjoy it when someone makes a remark whether its good or bad about my footwear. For someone to notice something I am wearing is a totally new experience for me. I used to not really give two shits about how I looked and its cool that my efforts are starting to pay off. Anway, I told the gold Adidas loving woman where to get her own pair and also mentioned that gold Stan Smiths were available as well. She was terribly excited and I hope that my gold sneakers made her day a good one in some small way. If they did that then they did their job, besides being very comfy.
Saw my trainer last nite. Man, she is in good shape and I guess she would have to be as she is a walking advert for her services. She whipped off about a dozen push ups to my three. I don't know how old she is but she probably is in better shape than most of the women in their twenties around here. We added a few exercises to my routines that won't stress out my knees and also added a new cardio machine. Nancy says its her favorite and I think I know why: It totally kicks your ass. You stand up straight and simulate walking up a hill but its a little different than that. Your legs have their weird elliptical motion and it took me a little while to get the hang of it. Its very important to wait for the motherfucker to stop moving or it will whack your shins in a major way. Its a large unmovable mass right at shin level and I know that I am going to whack myself, it is just a matter of time. Because of this I sorta jumped off it this morning and probably looked like a freak to the others in the room. Thats totally ok, I am used to that.
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