Remember when I was saying how Kyan Douglas (god) appeared to me in the form of a squirrel eating a lollypop? (The squirrel was cute, what with his little santa claus beard and white robe and all.) Since then, the dude hasn't appeared to me once. What-the-F-gives?
I totes lack words how to describe what's been happening inside my noggin in the past few days. This thing has creeped up on me and...hmmm...let me give a few anecdotes about stuff that's happened:
1. I got a "sober haircut." There is no such thing in AA as a sober haircut, but for the past week or so I've been itching to totally change my hairstyle for the sake of sobriety. Before yesterday, my hair was something like a cross between Harvier Bardem's in "No Country for Old People," and an expensive mop. I imagined it perfectly showed the world what my taste in music was (garage, punk, grage punk, and glam). Yeah, read that last sentence again. Like it was real important to me for the world to know I wasn't a square? Jeez! Who-the-F-cares?! I'm not totes thrilled with my hair now (AA peeps have told me it looks "young professional," a lot less geico caveman and a lot more like "Tom Cruise." (Really? A guy told me that and I groaned, "Agh! That guy is the WORST!" before I quickly realized it was a compliment and mumbled, "Thank you, that's a very nice thing to say to someone.").
2. Mood swings. I've had mood swings here and there, but not like this. They go from (don't know why this quote sticks in my head lately, but) that line in MacBeth, "Yet do I fear thy Nature, It is too full of the milk of human kindness." At these times I may as well be a cartoon archtype of a happy guy, what with birds chirping on my shoulder and cats playing fiddle at my feet and all. One perceived slight later, and "Ye done pissed in my milk of human kindness, and I do throw up on my wig and throw it at your face and say 'bitche, make me a sandwiche.' " (From the adult movie "MacBeth II: Deez Nutz."). These rapid declinations feel wreched. I'm sleepy but can't sleep, hungry but can't eat, hyperaware of everything but unable to remember it. At times like these I get spiritual all up in there, so
3. Feeling my Higher Power, how you say, taking over. The biggest thing on my mind is this newfangled and newfound religious feeling that's taken root. This is a big deal, yo, but I hesitate to talk about it. Why? For one thing, whenever someone talks about spirituality, more often than not it's complete mush. Total nosense. An absolute fucking waste of words. Why? Because (I invite debate here) real religious feeling defies logic. Since it defies logic, it defies grammar and syntax. Therefore it cannot be communicated. Hence this blog post is full of pointless asides and parentheses. Since you can't communicate religious feeling, you cannot talk about it without either lying or being coercive. I could be way off base here, and look forward to my views on this evolving, but for now, I feel like talking about religious experience is basically an act of violence.
Hence, you can only talk about religious experience by talking about what it is not. In theology this tradition is called "negative theology," and in western philosphy it's known as the ineffable. AA is a perfect example of this theory in praxis: before we entered the rooms, we lacked a spiritual what-have you. After we got into the program, we have one. Since we can only talk about what spirituality is not, most of what AA's talk about is all the horrors in their previous modes of living.
Make sense? No? Oh well.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Silly Sally Fourth
On July 4 I saw two Polish men chase down another Polish man and throw him to the ground. Once on the ground this poor guy got, yes, repeatedly slapped in the face. Is this a sort of Polish martial arts? I watched in disbelief and wondered if I was really seeing what I was seeing. Then an old lady yelled out, "Hey, no fair! One is okay, two is too many!" referring to the two men slap-attacking the floored Pole. I quickly pulled myself away from this obscene display with cartoon question marks floating above my head.
Likewise, the rest of my fourth of July followed this pattern. I didn't do much that day: reading, puttering, wandering here and there, cooking, cleaning, unpacking from the recent move. AA meeting at 7 where I saw my sponsor's sponsor speak. Afterward I called up a pal I used to troll around with and we went to a party.
No big deal, I was well-armed with enough repulsion/fear/distaste toward drinking. I was confident with my giant bottle of Orangina. I get to this place and it's a new-fangled building in the middle of abandoned industrial-land, around 9pm. I notice the building is insanely huge and brand new, with about as much charm as a stack of shipping containers made into a multi-level wal mart. My pal buzzes me in and I go to the roof. Within about ten seconds I wanted to leave. Not only was there a jam band, but the jam band was playing ON TOP of Bob Marley. That marjiwanny-smell was everywhere. All these dudes wearing flip-flops and button down shirts were flirting with or making out with girls so hyper-feminized that they may as well have been transexuals.
I start gnam-gnaming on pretzels and chugging my sody, when my friend introduces me to some guy who is disgustingly inebriated. I do what I planned on doing when finding myself in this situation: I messed with him. "So, you're a rich kid, eh?" I said as I got in his face. My rationale behind this was that the guy would...well, I had no rationale; I was just being cocky and egotistical, flaunting my sobriety the same way douchebags flaunt their shiny automobiles. In the space of three seconds I went from feeling bored to angry, and I went downstairs to pee.
I spent the next TWO HOURS hanging out with my friend who said we're leaving in a minute, we're leaving in a minute, we're leaving soon. As sucky as I felt, it never occurred to me to just leave. Nobody would have cared, and I could have gone somewhere else less insane. Instead of stepping back and trying to do something, I just endured this horrific tableau; a cross between a dentist's waiting room with no magazines and the L train on Saturday night.
If you asked me five years ago, or even one year ago, what my idea of a great party would be, I would respond thusly: shitty garage punk bands playing in a disgusting warehouse in the ghetto, pounding 40 oz's and making out with girls who looked like the hipster grifter. It wouldn't have been awesome, but there was a time I would run the falicy of what historian E.P. Thompson calls "the enormous condescention of posterity." I would idealize such parties, neglecting the funlessness, puking, waste of cash, and general ass-making of myself. In other words, there probably was a time when that was the pinacle of fun, but that stopped being true years and years ago. Without AA I would be not unlike those unfortunate 40 year-old women who dress like it's 1987 because that's when they peaked.
Getting back to this time, I finally left the party and met up with my lady friend and drank some water at a bar (no big deal) and tried to forget the party; nothing terrible happened there, it was just boring. So I thought. I woke up the next day with what I can only describe as a "hate-hangover." I was in such a crappy mood so I called up a fellow alcoholic and said, "hey, what's this?" He said it's probably that I had resentment at the party animals and I didn't know how to properly diffuse it. How right that dude was! I owe him a fist bump when I see him.
AA suggests we avoid people, places, and things that are associated with our drinking. When I first heard this I thought, fair enough, don't go to any place or hang out with any people you used to drink with because you may wanna pick up a tipple. But musing on that, the reasoning behind this suggestion is more subtle: being around those places and people you may have a surge of emotion that you won't properly know how to handle. That was definately my case. Being tempted to drink wasn't an issue for me, since my belly was full of coffee (and the only beer left at that place was high life, which I always thought was revolting). The bigger issue was resentments, hate, etc., and not knowing how to properly express emotions like a grown up.
The moral of the story is, my friend as awful taste in people. Just kidding. The moral of the story is, getting cocky makes you think too much.
Likewise, the rest of my fourth of July followed this pattern. I didn't do much that day: reading, puttering, wandering here and there, cooking, cleaning, unpacking from the recent move. AA meeting at 7 where I saw my sponsor's sponsor speak. Afterward I called up a pal I used to troll around with and we went to a party.
No big deal, I was well-armed with enough repulsion/fear/distaste toward drinking. I was confident with my giant bottle of Orangina. I get to this place and it's a new-fangled building in the middle of abandoned industrial-land, around 9pm. I notice the building is insanely huge and brand new, with about as much charm as a stack of shipping containers made into a multi-level wal mart. My pal buzzes me in and I go to the roof. Within about ten seconds I wanted to leave. Not only was there a jam band, but the jam band was playing ON TOP of Bob Marley. That marjiwanny-smell was everywhere. All these dudes wearing flip-flops and button down shirts were flirting with or making out with girls so hyper-feminized that they may as well have been transexuals.
I start gnam-gnaming on pretzels and chugging my sody, when my friend introduces me to some guy who is disgustingly inebriated. I do what I planned on doing when finding myself in this situation: I messed with him. "So, you're a rich kid, eh?" I said as I got in his face. My rationale behind this was that the guy would...well, I had no rationale; I was just being cocky and egotistical, flaunting my sobriety the same way douchebags flaunt their shiny automobiles. In the space of three seconds I went from feeling bored to angry, and I went downstairs to pee.
I spent the next TWO HOURS hanging out with my friend who said we're leaving in a minute, we're leaving in a minute, we're leaving soon. As sucky as I felt, it never occurred to me to just leave. Nobody would have cared, and I could have gone somewhere else less insane. Instead of stepping back and trying to do something, I just endured this horrific tableau; a cross between a dentist's waiting room with no magazines and the L train on Saturday night.
If you asked me five years ago, or even one year ago, what my idea of a great party would be, I would respond thusly: shitty garage punk bands playing in a disgusting warehouse in the ghetto, pounding 40 oz's and making out with girls who looked like the hipster grifter. It wouldn't have been awesome, but there was a time I would run the falicy of what historian E.P. Thompson calls "the enormous condescention of posterity." I would idealize such parties, neglecting the funlessness, puking, waste of cash, and general ass-making of myself. In other words, there probably was a time when that was the pinacle of fun, but that stopped being true years and years ago. Without AA I would be not unlike those unfortunate 40 year-old women who dress like it's 1987 because that's when they peaked.
Getting back to this time, I finally left the party and met up with my lady friend and drank some water at a bar (no big deal) and tried to forget the party; nothing terrible happened there, it was just boring. So I thought. I woke up the next day with what I can only describe as a "hate-hangover." I was in such a crappy mood so I called up a fellow alcoholic and said, "hey, what's this?" He said it's probably that I had resentment at the party animals and I didn't know how to properly diffuse it. How right that dude was! I owe him a fist bump when I see him.
AA suggests we avoid people, places, and things that are associated with our drinking. When I first heard this I thought, fair enough, don't go to any place or hang out with any people you used to drink with because you may wanna pick up a tipple. But musing on that, the reasoning behind this suggestion is more subtle: being around those places and people you may have a surge of emotion that you won't properly know how to handle. That was definately my case. Being tempted to drink wasn't an issue for me, since my belly was full of coffee (and the only beer left at that place was high life, which I always thought was revolting). The bigger issue was resentments, hate, etc., and not knowing how to properly express emotions like a grown up.
The moral of the story is, my friend as awful taste in people. Just kidding. The moral of the story is, getting cocky makes you think too much.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
this really happened
Picture this: Maxie goes outside of his office to have a cigarette and what does he see in the park accross the street? a squirrel. The squirrels in this park are insanely smart. I once saw a squirrel eating a muffin wrapper whilst perched on a trashcan. Nothing wacky about that, but this squirrel was perched in such a way that the crumbs deliberately fell to the ground to be gobbled up by birds.
Today, a squirrel climbed up a tree and sat on a branch three feet from my face. He looked at me and
he
unwrapped
the
LOLLYPOP IN HIS MOUTH
...
THEN HE BIT OFF THE STICK
...
AND ATE THE LOLLY AS IF IT WAS AN ACORN.
Now, I didn't relate this to anyone, except Twitter followers and fellow alky's. Twitter because nobody reads those things anyway, and alky's because it was today's manifestation of my higher power's will for me.
Let me back up. As you know, my personal god is a fancy gay man. He doesn't respond well to prayers filled with thy and thou and however King James Bible translators talked in 1604. My god responds to cattiness, passive-aggressiveness, and bluntness. Therefore, I start each day with the slightly passive-aggressive prayer, "god, please show me your will for me today, and make it obvious." Today was mostly slow, not much happening, both mentally and existentially. Tired from moving and not sleeping and eating well. I saw this amazing sight and literally blurted out, "Really, god? This is your will for me today? Hm."
The point is, and I only found this out later when I shared this pointless story with other recovering boozhounds, that I am on day ten (I slipped, ok?) and in the beginning sobriety feels like treading water. Not much going on...moods mostly shifting between irritation and boredom....impatience...a general blandness. I grumped about my boredom to alcoholics and they all said that it was exactly how I'm supposed to feel, that I'm doing fine. Eventually, to carry the water metaphor again, I may feel like I'm floating aimlessly but soon I'll be properly moored somewhere.
So if you're too impatient to read the above, dig this: if you hurt or feel nothing and it's annoying when you first stop drinking, stick with it, and it'll catch when you least expect it.
P.S. This has nothing to do with anything, but I propose a new mascot for AA:
Alcoholics Anony-mouse:
Today, a squirrel climbed up a tree and sat on a branch three feet from my face. He looked at me and
he
unwrapped
the
LOLLYPOP IN HIS MOUTH
...
THEN HE BIT OFF THE STICK
...
AND ATE THE LOLLY AS IF IT WAS AN ACORN.
Now, I didn't relate this to anyone, except Twitter followers and fellow alky's. Twitter because nobody reads those things anyway, and alky's because it was today's manifestation of my higher power's will for me.
Let me back up. As you know, my personal god is a fancy gay man. He doesn't respond well to prayers filled with thy and thou and however King James Bible translators talked in 1604. My god responds to cattiness, passive-aggressiveness, and bluntness. Therefore, I start each day with the slightly passive-aggressive prayer, "god, please show me your will for me today, and make it obvious." Today was mostly slow, not much happening, both mentally and existentially. Tired from moving and not sleeping and eating well. I saw this amazing sight and literally blurted out, "Really, god? This is your will for me today? Hm."
The point is, and I only found this out later when I shared this pointless story with other recovering boozhounds, that I am on day ten (I slipped, ok?) and in the beginning sobriety feels like treading water. Not much going on...moods mostly shifting between irritation and boredom....impatience...a general blandness. I grumped about my boredom to alcoholics and they all said that it was exactly how I'm supposed to feel, that I'm doing fine. Eventually, to carry the water metaphor again, I may feel like I'm floating aimlessly but soon I'll be properly moored somewhere.
So if you're too impatient to read the above, dig this: if you hurt or feel nothing and it's annoying when you first stop drinking, stick with it, and it'll catch when you least expect it.
P.S. This has nothing to do with anything, but I propose a new mascot for AA:
Alcoholics Anony-mouse:
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