Six Years After

Yesterday was my sixth anniversary of sobriety and I forgot to celebrate it. I did take the day off from work, but that was to go to DMV  in order to  get my driver's license renewed. It really wasn't that bad of an experience, I enjoy watching people too much to get bored easily and when I finally did get to the counter my vanity got a huge boost. After handing her my license,the matronly attendant did a quick double-take, she looked down at my old photo, then up at the new me, then back and forth again.

"You've lost weight since this was taken", she observed.

"Yep. About sixty pounds", I boasted.

"I...do you mind if I ask you how you did it?"

"Sure", I replied easily, "I quit drinking."

And for me, it is an easy reply. I'm not ashamed to be an alcoholic, I was born that way and there really isn't anything that I can do to change my genetics- but I can take responsibility for my behavior, hence the sobriety. Plus I'm afraid of dying.

Six years and two days ago, I left work early because I didn't feel very good. I'd been nauseous for weeks and it had been  impossible for me to keep my beer down long enough to get drunk the previous night. I was too sick to drink but I really, really wanted a drink.

So I drove myself home and found a couple of Natural Ice cans in the 'fridge. I gulped one down, felt a  sharp stabbing inside of me, then threw up into the kitchen sink. I looked down at the foamy, bloody mess in the sink and decided that I'd drink the second beer a little slower...at some point, I wandered upstairs and posted the following dreadful poem on this blog:

So much pain.
Barely holding it together.
Not alone.
Not MY pain.
Let's ignore it and hope it goes away.
That'll work.

*snip*

Forget that.
I know I can.
If it's not too late.
Return to maybe.
Return to blender.

Fuck it all.

I don't remember writing that. I do remember that a couple of my friends had recently died of their bad habits and that my Uncle had killed himself, so I have a feeling of where the morbidity was coming from. It has been a long time since I've been able to go back and re-read any of my writing from those days, it is the work of a dying man embracing his own ruinous suicide and being too fucked-up to care about it.

In retrospect, it was pretty clear that I knew I was in trouble but I was having a hard time figuring out what to do about it, so I waited until I was a few minutes from losing the ability to make a decision before I finally made one.

In the end, I  decided to pick myself up off the floor and drive myself to a hospital. I'm not up to the task of describing what happened there, suffice it to say that I woke up after a three-day coma and was told that the docs were somewhat surprised that I'd regained consciousness. They expected me to die within 24 hours. I was only 38 years old and I'd done myself in, which kinda sucked. I had expected more, somehow.

Except that I didn't die. After a day or two of not-dying, I was evaluated by some shrinks and pronounced 'sane' enough to be released, albeit against medical advice. I was strongly urged to check myself into a rehab center or at least join Alcoholics Anonymous...I didn't take any of their advice. I had plenty of time to make up my mind while I was in ICU, I knew I wasn't going to drink again and listening to their dire predictions about my relapses and demise only pissed me off.  

I'll keep myself sober just so those bastards don't get the last laugh, I thought.

Maybe that was their intent. All I know is that it worked- for me, anyway.

I don't have a secret method or gimmick that miraculously cures alcoholism; I swear to Godzilla that I wish I did have one. If I did, I would share it with my friends and my family and sell it to celebrities-  I'd never have to work another goddamned day in my life if I could cure drunks of drinking. Of course, I'd probably be assassinated by agents of the the Liquor Lobby, but that's a whole 'nother rant.

.

Cheer

I got called into the Boss' office today. It was a good visit.

I was asked to give a little bit of background about myself and describe why I would be a good office supervisor (I have been supervising the office for two weeks already)...it was just a formality interview, I was told right away that my promotion would go into effect Monday.

I had been expecting it but it was good to finally hear it from On High. My job duties won't be different, I have been serving as supervisor already, the only real change will be in my paycheck...and better parking. And a key. And PC access. But mainly the paycheck. And a sense of pride- I set my sights on this particular job months ago and had all but given up when I was called and offered a lesser position. Now I have the job that I wanted in the first place.
Success!

Tomorrow The Twin will arrive and we'll visit relatives in town.

The Twin has been at Dad's (it feels strange calling it Dad's, it was always my grandmother's) house for a couple of days and the Twin has barely seen Dad. We guess he's holed away upstairs, drinking alone. Twin had a argument with him about Christmas- he wanted Dad to participate- but Dad declared that he wanted to stay at home, alone. Dad really hurts my brother - Twin drove 800 miles to visit and the first thing he had to do was clean the kitchen. Then an argument with Dad, followed by more cleaning. Dad would rather drink than see his son. It's beyond sad.

Dad has placed himself under a sort of Alcoholic House Arrest. He can leave the house enough to purchase booze and prepared foods, but leaving the house long enough to sober up is out of the question. By nightfall, he is invariably too drunk to walk, much less drive. He has chosen to live under a curfew of his own design.

I guess I should be sad or lonely or angry and maybe I am- a little- but mostly I'm happy and looking forward to seeing my brother again- and to my two radio shows this weekend- and to my 'new' job after that- it feels good to be looking forward again, period.

Have Happy Days!

Celebrate

Three years ago I was told not to expect much of a future- I was in hospital, hooked up to machines and was on a number of not-so-optimistic "watches".

-My heart was expected to stop beating. Again. Apparently, alcoholic withdrawal is hard on the old ticker.

-My liver was in danger of failing. Seems like drinking alcohol is bad for the liver. Who knew? Live and learn...it healed, perhaps with a few scars, but still working.

-One or more of my assigned counselors thought I was at risk for suicide. I had to tell a lot of lies to convince them otherwise- today those lies aren't.

So I never really expected to see the future, but here it is anyway. I haven't had a drink in a little over three years and it's about the last thing I can imagine doing. That last shot (in 2005) sure did hurt and I really hate pain.

Three years!
Whee.

I'm still doing radio...I'm still blogging...I still have friends. I've lost over fifty pounds and my last check-up was pretty darn good- so what's the problem?

Financial ruin? Nah.I'm too poor to sink much lower...job crisis? Nah...I apply to dozens of jobs every week-while I'm at work. Besides, I make as much money as file clerk today as I made as a dishwasher in 1985 and I lived pretty well in 1985 (my rent was $150 a month in'85 but is $700 now, so maybe that salary doesn't go as far, but what the hey? I like an affordable diet of beans,potatoes and dust.)

Health? I've been feeling pretty good lately- except for this weekend.My stomach was killing me- I thought I was going to be very, very sick again but now I'm thinking that it was just a "flashback" to my hospital vacation of 2005...today I feel crappy, but it's Monday and I usually feel like shit when I'm at work, so I'm not alarmed- five o'clock should cure my ailments...

I think I have some good news but if I tell anyone , it'll never happen- so I guess I'll just shut up and go away now.

Nothing Says

I've been blogging for well over four years and from the very first day, I've experienced what I've come to call "deletion ideation"- the powerful, unsought urge to erase my entire blog. Sometimes there is a "reason", sometimes not, but it is a recurring pattern. There was a period when I was creating new blogs almost weekly and deleting them before I became attached to them...a lot of this activity coincided with periods of prolonged boredom and isolation at the workplace, a problem that I'm currently experiencing in a profound and distressing way.

A great many friends and relatives have either recently lost their long-time jobs or have found themselves in tenuous positions, waiting day-to-day to see if they are among the latest wave of lay-offs and it makes me wonder how much longer I will have my job- after all, most days I have absolutely no work to do.
None.
When I am given an assignment, I finish it as soon as possible because that is my habit. I don't know how to drag work out so that it fills what would otherwise be empty time- that is what blog is for. I can drag the hell out of blog. Were it not for blog, I would probably be very, very good at Minesweeper right now...I would also have considerably fewer friends and my life would be poorer for that.

So why the urge to quit? I don't know.

Part of it, I think , is guilt. Sometimes I feel that I am a "bad blogger" because I don't visit or leave comments as often as I feel I should. I often visit blogs where others have left long, multi-paragraph comments and the best I can manage is a weak "hello" or "that's cool"...blog is a reciprocal thing and sometimes I feel as if I can't give back enough to warrant asking anyone else to care...but when I hear others express similar sentiments, my first instinct is to tell them not to worry so much, it is what it is and no one should "keep score" or feel virtually obligated.
Hypocritical? Bass ackwards?
Sure. It's part of the human condition.

There's another factor and that is commitment. My childhood was nomadic, to put it mildly, and I was often keenly aware that I was an unwanted, burdensome thing, pawned off on the grandparents or left to the care of schoolmate's families...in retrospect, the time I spent with my friend's families -one black, the other Jewish- provided some of the most important formative lessons on tolerance and humanity that a child could have, something that it's taken a lifetime of adulthood to even begin to appreciate.

On the other hand, those years of uncertainty have made me leery of forming attachments to people and places because I know that those bonds can be shattered at any moment , for any or for no cause, and experience informs me that I have a difficult time "letting go" of those attachments. If I invest a penny, I''ll usually invest a pound- as a result, when the market crashes, a Great Depression is likely to follow. I have been depressed before and it is no way to live...but it's very difficult to get out of. At times- when I had insurance- my doctor tried treating me with different anti-depressants (the kind that take a week or longer to work) and those pills just made it much, much worse, leading my doctor to conclude that my depressive periods aren't chemical in nature, that they are situational, usually tied to some sort of loss- the death of a loved one, a lost job, a broken heart- sometimes, I have thought I would be better off if I lived in total isolation from the world and it's occupants- I mean, if I don't have anything to lose, then perhaps I won't become depressed, right?

Wrong.

That's the kind of thinking that made me drink myself to death. I still have those thoughts, but I recognize them for what they are- the voices of Depression and Addiction. They have nothing at all to offer me, yet they make compelling arguments and at times it's difficult to resist them, but I know I must. It is my responsibility to deny those voices the foothold that they seek. My survival hinges on it.

That doesn't mean that I can't look for help, even though it's not in my nature to do so...I recently borrowed money from my Twin so that I could be reunited with a very special friend that I met right here in this virtual space. Even with a full-time and a few part-time jobs, I can't afford the lifestyle I used to have - who can?- but I can't afford to shut myself off or give in to the fear of what might be. Chances must be taken. Thoughts must be shared. If there is pain, so be it. It's part of life, pain. It's when one goes numb that one needs to worry, but it's hard to worry if one is numb- it's the vicious circular trajectory of Addiction and it works it's insidious words into the most sober of moods, how easy it would be to be free of these thoughts, it whispers to me, just one drink and you can delete everything forever. Isn't that what you want?

No. That isn't what I want at all. I want to spend my days sharing words and music with as many friends and strangers as possible and my nights making love with someone I deeply care about.
I can't do those things in a vacuum. Sitting and staring idly into space might seem harmless when done for a few relaxing moments, but when it becomes the default emotional state, something is wrong. It might not be as drastic or as rapid as say, drinking a fifth of vodka per day, but it is just as lethal; a slow death caused by not living.

I'm not having any part of that. I quit drinking on my own terms, I didn't follow a program or any specific advice, I did it for myself and by myself. It took time to adjust-still adjusting, in fact- but once I felt free, I started finding other things, new and old, to replace the all-encompassing void that I left behind.

That void is still there, it sometimes slips it's way into my mind even without alcohol or pills, it tells me to do things like delete your blog or quit your radio show or don't take a chance on another human ...it knows that if I give in to those suggestions, then sooner or later I will have nothing left to lose and I will have no reason to preserve myself. I'll drink-and die- and those evil little voices will have won.

I'm not giving them that satisfaction. If I have to listen to voices in my head, I will choose to listen to the ones that tell me to keep trying, keep plugging even if it does hurt- especially if it does hurt. You can't crawl out of a briar patch without getting cut and crawling out from underneath the bottle is more like sliding naked over twenty miles of concertina wire and broken glass- but it's infinitely better than Depression.

When-if- I quit blogging , or radio, or music, it will be on my terms, for my reasons. It won't be because a mean little voice tells me to. Life is already too short and I've worked too hard to throw it all away over nothing.

And that's what the nagging, whining voice of Addiction is: Nothing.

Things Could Always Be Worse

That isn't my truck in that pic but I know the feeling.

I recently had a terrifying close call. Like many such incidents, my brush with disaster felt as if it were happening in slow motion; I suppose that's appropriate in my case since it lasted almost two weeks.
I was depressed. Seriously depressed.

For me, depression is like driving over a cliff and having a fortnight to dwell on the consequences of landing on the bottom. I take ten seconds of pure free-fall terror and stretch it out into a two-week supply of free-floating anxiety...it's also a good time to hurt someone's feelings- it doesn't have to be my fault, I just have to feel bad about doing it- the guilt keeps my self-esteem at bay. Self-esteem is the enemy of depression.
If you want to be depressed, it helps to hate yourself. But not enough to change.

At first I thought I was merely lonely, so I broke two of my own rules:

-Never sleep with anyone crazier than me.
-Never sleep with a drunk.

I thought it would help- it had been a while. A long while. But it only made things worse- suddenly I was faced with the consequences of being involved with a self-destructive alcoholic woman with a fondness for theatrics and abuse.Again.

So I chickened out. I gave an ultimatum of sorts: stop drinking or stop seeing me.
I have been on the receiving end of that decree before, so I was certain of the outcome- she chose the booze, just like I always did.
And I felt like a loser and an asshole, familiar territory for me, albeit from the other side of this discussion.

Karma, it is. I ruined a few good things because I was drunk...years later, the roles have been reversed and not for the first time, but this time felt different; I was becoming tempted to return to a world I can no longer survive and that temptation was unnerving. I felt the urge to drink again, the first time in nearly three years. I know better than to have any serious involvement with a practicing alcoholic.

So I withdrew. I felt like shutting down. I couldn't get anything done...watching TV was too complicated. Writing?
I have a lot of draft.
I read toothpaste.
I put comic books in stacks and moved them from box to box without rhyme or reason.
I sorted guitar cables by length and then tossed them willy-nilly and tangled as swept webs, into a milkcrate, then 'hid' the crate behind two more just like it.
My radio show last week sucked. My friends said I sounded "shaky". Polite, they were.

But this weekend was better. I had two shows Saturday and they were a blast.
Sunday, I ate an entire gift-box of chocolate peanut turtles for breakfast and I didn't feel so good afterward, but that was OK because I got to keep re-living the delicious chocolaty turtle goodness in my mind, which did a good job of making me forget what was happening in my stomach.

Monday, the agency finally called with a job, a good thing because I am officially broke and have no income. Until now.

I am a now a file clerk at a big company that designs stuff. Today was my first day...my new boss apologized because there wasn't any work. He said most days there wouldn't be much to do, but I'd soon have computer access, so I could read CNN, play solitaire, search for jobs or whatever...huh?

At first, I thought he meant that this job is a lot more temporary than I thought- but it's indefinite, a month or two at least, probably more- but he was saying it's OK to slack off...I'll be alone in a giant-ass file room most of the time and a great deal of the work is just making PDFs out of Word docs, so I can have a radio if I want...and there is a coffee station in nearly every nook and cranny of the office labyrinth...outdoor picnic area, nice kitchen, friendly people, bookshelves of 'honor libraries' in the break rooms...I could like it there. .
Plus, I blog a lot more when I have a job.

Well, I'd better call the Twin and tell him the good news. He's probably expecting me to call for money...ha! Sad, but true.
I wish I could tell my Dad, but he's drinking and I know better than to get involved with drunks, even if I do love them.

Unpredictable

I just received a phone call from my Twin in Chicago.

"Killed...killed...bodies...killed...."

Whoa. Slow down. Who got killed? Are you OK?

He is OK. Physically.

The Twin was, as he is almost every evening, standing at the Cermak bus stop after work.
Unlike most days, today a runaway tractor trailer plowed into the station.
He felt the air move as the truck passed.
It was very close.

There was a deafening , exploding sound - louder than a hundred earthquakes- and suddenly bodies were flying through the air, people were screaming, blood was everywhere.
The Twin actually saw the truck coming in, but those who didn't thought it was a bomb or a derailed train.

After the shock, my brother and other bystanders tried to lift a piece of metal ( from his description, I think it may be the 'L' shaped beam directly in front of the truck's front tire) off of a pair of women who were pinned underneath. They were in a pool of spreading blood.
The women were not moving.

The rescue was not successful.

Two women died at the scene and nearly a dozen other persons are in critical care.

I'm not sure if the dead women were the ones he was trying to help or not; in any case it was a horrible scene and the Twin was very shaken, on the edge of tears...to make matters worse, someone stole the Twin's backpack, which he had dropped when he ran to help. It had his wallet, credit card, checkbook, cell phone...the works.

With any luck, the authorities picked it up while they were clearing the scene...maybe they thought it was a potential bomb and they took it somewhere and blew it up, it'll ruin your Blackberry but your ID will be safe.
I suck at comforting.

The Twin was still in a state of mild shock. He was afraid to watch the news...he didn't want to know how many people died. He started down the what if path:
-What if I hadn't stopped to tie my shoe?
-What if I hadn't seen the truck coming?

Don't think about that, I said.
Just don't take anything for granted, ever.
I don't.


There are degrees of near-death experiences. His was brief, unforeseeable and left him unharmed- dodging the proverbial bullet, as it were.

My own experience was a bit different. I didn't have a brush with Death, I had a long disagreement that went on for six days...I remember the doctor coming into my room and telling me that they had "lost me" a couple of times while I was on the operating table.

What operating table? I had surgery?

Yep. I went into alcoholic withdrawal while they were trying to repair my innards...I had a grande mal seizure while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. Everyone present was amazed that I survived. I used up four units of blood. This seemed like a pretty impressive statistic to the doc, he repeated it several times for effect.

Jesus. I'm glad I don't remember that. Doc, how long will I be in the hospital?

Not long, he said.

That's good news.

No, it's not. We expect you to die.

Die? When?

Today. Perhaps tomorrow.

That sucks. I don't feel like dying.

The doctors didn't believe me. Over and over again, I was asked the same questions in different forms...did I ever have suicidal thoughts? ...did I plan on drinking again?
I felt like screaming : of course I NEVER have any suicidal thoughts! I drank myself into a bloody pulp in a joyous, life-affirming manner!
I mean, nothing celebrates life like a 1.75 liter bottle of Bowman's Virginia Vodka... I sure could use a drink...but I didn't say that.

I lied and said : "No and no."

It's a good thing that I did.
I have since learned that if I had admitted to having "suicide ideation", I probably would have been placed into psychiatric care, which would have driven me insane...instead, I was left alone with Death, who can be a real asshole.

The smug, undying bastard was convinced that I was going to drink again.
"C'mon in, man", he said with a wink and a scythe, "the water's fine. One drink and you can swim here forever, you'll never feel any pain again."

"But", I protested, "that means I'll never feel anything good either."

"Dude", he said, using a condescending tone that only immortals can truly pull off, "your life sucks. You are a fat, used-up drunk with no job, no future and no friends. No one even knows that you are here...they won't miss you when you are gone. Loveless , hopeless, forgotten...that's you."

No. That's not me. Don't say that. No.

The Reaper grinned. "Why not? You say it every day. I'm just agreeing with you."

I had to admit that he was right.
I also had to admit that I was wrong.
Death was using my own words as a weapon against me.
That pissed me off.

It was then that I decided that I was never going to drink again.
I've been sober ever since.

Poor company, Death was, but I'm richer for having met him.

Sometimes persons, on hearing my story, will comment that I must possess remarkable strength.
Or courage.
Or willpower.
Or faith...or any number of other things that I don't have.

Those aren't the things that keep me sober.

The secret to my sobriety isn't a secret at all.
I don't want to die.

That's it.

*********************************

In 1996 I wrote a comic book mini-series titled "Destiny Angel". This is the opening page from issue #1:

In which my protagonist is asked the question:





Eerie, eh?


I thought so.

A Sign of Pretty Things To Come

When I was a teenager I purchased a used LP by a band that I'd never heard of- The Pretty Things. The LP was a double-record reissue of the albums S.F. Sorrow (1968) and Parachute (1970) ...S.F. Sorrow is one of the most influential rock albums of all time, yet few people outside the world of musicians and rock historians have heard it; it's one of the first 'concept albums' ever recorded; it's based on a short story written by singer Phil May and it tells the sad tale of an Englishman named Sebastian F. (S.F.) Sorrow.

The story is told through a combination of songs and written words printed between the lyrics :

The Sorrows named him Sebastian F although nobody knew what the 'F' stood for , and nobody really cared...





The U.S.A. version of the album cover is bleak, cut in the shape of a tombstone...the stark logo is enclosed in a purple casket, quite a contrast from the colorful psychedelic imagery being used by other bands of the time, such as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's or Cream's Disraeli Gears .

Musically, Sorrow was far ahead of it's time; lyrically, Sorrow's story was that of a life filled with tragedy, loss, isolation, madness, followed by a slow, indifferent death of loneliness. Sorrow never actually dies, he just fades away, unnoticed.

There's a good summary of the S.F. Sorrow story on wiki, here.
A great blog on the band's history can be found here.


In 1970, ( back when it still meant something), The Pretty Things' Parachute won Rolling Stone magazine's Album of the Year award but it wasn't a commercial success...it's my own theory that May's lyrics and themes are just too honest, too dark and too brutal for mass appeal...much of what he writes has a cruel authenticity to it that I believe unconsciously disturbs the average listener- it is this dark quality that attracted me and continues to do so...after a long, bleak period (the 80's) Phil May bottomed out-
From producer Mark St. John's liner notes to 1998's 'Rage Before Beauty':

...there are only so many times that you can turn up at the singer's flat and see the remains of the sodden mattress out in the street after the Fire Brigade have dealt with another drunk's self-induced Holocaust. Watching the sun slant through the windows of the Fulham hospital and looking at the back of Phil's head, covered in soot, shit and dust, just sitting there in front of a blank TV screen, trying to put it all back together in his head and then turning as he hears me coming, he summons up the old charming twinkle and a deprecatory little joke- Jesus, Phil, that was my old friend coming apart at the seams. It was bleak fucking year, 1989.

Phil May was able to put it back together. The Pretty Things reunited and started playing again and they are still playing today...Rage Before Beauty was released in 1999 but I didn't hear it until 2005, shortly after having my own "drunk's self-induced Holocaust"...mine didn't involve fire, it involved bleeding and I wasn't expected to survive it- but I did.

It was a bleak fucking year, 2005.

I have always found inspiration in the The Pretty's music and the story of Phil May's return from the precipice of self-destruction moves me on a deeply personal level.

I recently saw a blogpal mention the old game of " People You'd Like To Have Dinner With"...Phil May and Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor would be on my list but a dinner date with them seems fairly unlikely...the best I can hope for is a long-distance telephone interview.

Hmmm...what do I have to do to make that happen?

Not much, really. I wrote an email last week and got a reply from Mark St. John himself...Phil and Dick would surely love to do this, he said, details to follow...well, cool. I'm into that.
I'll soon be picking the minds of my childhood heroes, recording the interview as part of a two-hour Pretty Things radio show that I've planned for summer production.

I must say that I'm not much of a fanboy. I've met more than a few 'stars' and I generally don't care for 'famous' people; in person, they are usually far less impressive than their non-famous counterparts... but the Pretty Things have been the background music to my life...I want to tell them how important they have been to me and to say 'thanks' personally.

I'm a lucky guy in so many ways- I may not be able find a job but I can make some of my childhood dreams come true.
I'm not sure that I'd be happier if that situation were reversed.

****************************************

The New Breakfast Snob, April 13, 2008:

Clannad- Ri Na Cruinne
West Of Eden- Raising O'Malley's Barn
Cranberries- Yeat's Grave
Anousheh Khalili- Modern Genius
Fiona Joyce- Long Road To Travel
Brian Eno- Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More
Quiet Sun- Trumpets with Motherhood/Bargain Classics
Bela Fleck & Tony Trishka- Yaba Yaba
Blue Oyster Cult - Searching For Celine
Elvis Costello- Let Him Dangle
Hot Lava- Apple+Option+fire
Talking Heads- Mind

Klark Kent- Don't Care
For E. I wish you'd come back.

Altan- Mother's Delight
Can- Hallelluwah
Pretty Things- No Future
XTC- All You Pretty Girls
Grin-Boy and Girl
Bruce Cockburn- Justice
Alvin Lee- Education
10 CC- Sand in my Face
Crack the Sky- Maybe I Can Fool Everybody Tonight

Pink Floyd- Bike
For Leo, who turned me onto Bruce Cockburn and loves him some bikes.

Faces- Cindy Incidentally
For Cindy. I wish you'd put the junk down and come back to your friends.

Jimi Hendrix- House Burning Down
For Whim. This is her award for bravery. This song was posted on her blog. That takes courage.

Nina Hagen- Lucky Number
For Fontaine, because she gets it.

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There

I wish I had a comfortable and well-equipped place where I could set up a group of musicians and record them. It would also be pretty cool if I had a way of getting that recording onto the public airwaves.

Hmmm...well, I have a radio show already and I just finished re-wiring the music studio at the radio station, so that much is taken care of- I even have a pair of enthusiastic volunteer trainees, so it's now become a classroom as well as a studio, which is good because I'd like for other DJs to have live music skills too.

So, cool. I gots me some students to put the learnin' on.
I can get them to do all the stuff that I don't want to do (which is everything) and I get to take all the credit.
Awesome!
(Actually, I really like one of my vols. The other one is this guy.)

Next step: find a band.

Over the last few years, I've become increasingly enchanted by Celtic and Irish music in all it's forms, but I know shamefully little about it- it would be great if I could find a group of musicians who not only played such music, but were also well-versed in it's lore and traditions- enter my real-life friend Schlep!

Schlep put me in contact with a band called Poisoned Dwarf, a group which fit my needs exactly. If you like this sort of thing, check out their website (that means you, Sling), you will find that they are quite good and also have a great attitude towards the music they perform. I think it will be a great session. (Props to Schlep for the tip!)

Beyond my personal interest in the music, there is also a practical reason for me wanting to host an Irish folk group: the variety of instruments!
They have strings ( bowed and plucked), woodwinds, percussion, pipes and voices- this gives me a chance to demonstrate different microphones and proper mic techniques to my assistants.
I love teaching mic technique. I really do.

What a great deal: The band gets a free studio recording with guaranteed radio play and promotion, I get exactly the kind of group I need in order to teach my 'class' and I get to produce a kick-ass radio programme for my own show. As a bonus, I get to learn about music at the same time that I'm imparting my voluminous sonic wisdom to my volunteers. Tradition and technology, the cycle of preserving and sharing knowledge... man, it's pretty fuckin' Zen if you ask me. Even the terms used while recording reflect this: signal flow; balance; unity gain;harmonics;equalization...ahhh, I love it!

And ya know what?
Nobody was gonna fix that studio for me.
A band wasn't just going to magically appear.
My friends aren't gonna learn about sound by just looking at quiescent audio gear.
I have to do these things myself and I'm glad I'm doing them because it beats the hell out of sitting around and feeling sorry for myself.

Today it has been 30 months since my last alcoholic drink. In that time I've lost my grandmother, my cousin and three jobs; I wrecked my car, went on bad dates and have suffered almost every form of rejection that a man can suffer and I still haven't had a drink! That may not sound like much to you, but it means everything to me.

So, if you are imbibing an adult beverage at the moment, have an extra one for me. My drinking days are done, but I'm not done toasting: here's to making stuff happen!

*clink*

Pouring

I was getting ready to pull out of my building's parking lot when I realized I had forgotten my thermos; I shut off my car and ran back inside, a quick dash that set my trip back about ninety seconds. I cursed myself for my absent-mindedness and headed for the interstate.

After a few miles of rain and heavy traffic I was seeing red. The red wasn't my temper, it was the sudden flashing of brake lights- I was watching scarlet dominoes as they fell towards me, blinkity-blink, closer and closer...I skidded to a stop a few feet from the car in front of me.
I thought the guy behind me was going to hit my rear but he didn't. I didn't see anyone hit anything - we just stopped.

I wish I had brought my camera, but I wasn't on the sort of trip that one takes snapshots of- otherwise I might have photographed the milepost we stopped at. I'm going to call it '150' .
I was stopped at 150, nothing to be done but watch the emergency vehicles race down the shoulder.
Ziiieeeooowww!!!- State Troopers.
Wweeoohweeeooh!!!-Ambulances.
AraraaaaaAarrrrraaaarrrraaa!!!- Fire Trucks.
Beeeppppbeeeeppp!!!- Animal Control. Animal Control?

Shortly after the vehicles passed traffic started creeping along...after an hour I rounded a long , sweeping curve, passed milepost 151 and was presented with the accident scene- a tractor trailer was on the right shoulder, four or five badly dented cars and SUVs were lined up along the narrow left shoulder, shaken people talking to police and medics. It didn't look too bad until I saw that there were wheels sticking out of the small ravine separating north and south-bound traffic...someone had flipped over.
I didn't see any animals.

By the time I reached milepost 152, traffic was almost back to normal. I estimated the accident occurred one and a half miles from where we first stopped. That's a ninety-second trip at 60 mph. Ninety seconds is how long it took me to run back into my apartment and grab my coffee.
If I hadn't forgotten my thermos, I might have been much closer to that wreck. Maybe.

A couple of hours later I arrived at the family home. My twin brother was waiting.

The Twin went upstairs and came back with a paper grocery bag full of poison. Here, he said, and handed me a beer- Miller in a bottle. Yech.
For the first time in over two years, I opened a beer. The Twin opened his.
Together, we poured them down the kitchen sink.
It was a strange feeling.

We followed the Miller with a half-case of Busch, then another half-case of Yeungling. I topped it all off with a 1.75 liter bottle of Bowman's Virginia Vodka- my old brand. When I died in 2005, it was Bowman's that killed me.
To me, Bowman's Virginia Vodka is not a life-affirming beverage.

Our dad, who is ostensibly not drinking, had beer and liquor stashed all over the house. It's difficult evidence to ignore. Alcoholics who don't drink don't have to hide their liquor; he hides liquor, therefor it's a sure bet that he's drinking. I'm not sure that he ever really stopped.

There's a wonderful feeling of liberation and freedom that sneaks up on you a few months after the hiding stops- it's a rush of empowerment and once you have felt that, it's hard to imagine ever wanting to go back. I have tried to discuss this sensation with my father, but he doesn't seem to know what I mean- it made me wonder if he really wanted to sober up. He doesn't want to. He wants his mother to die so he can resume his business of mortal drinking.

I know this because Fred Thompson told me so in a dream. Fred's Law& Order character was serving me a Manhattan at an old bar that doesn't even exist anymore.

"Arthur", I was complaining, "Manhattans were the ex's drink. If there was nothing in the world to drink but Manhattans, I would have quit drinking in 1988."

"Look at your glass", he said.

He studied my face with jowly authority as I looked down. It was empty. Had I drank it? All of that work wasted on a Manhattan?

"Arthur", I reasoned," I don't consider a Manhattan to be a drink, it's a waste of whiskey is all. Just because you are wasting bourbon it doesn't mean you are drinking. You can't knock me off the wagon with a Manhattan. It's a technicality."

All of those Law & Order marathons were finally paying off.

"Look again", he growled.

Four fingers of Wild Turkey bourbon. Straight,101 proof, no vermouth and no cherry. I raised it to my lips, thought better of it and set it down. Pushed it back to Arthur/Fred.

"Nice try. No thanks."

Fred looked at me with dead basset eyes. The drink vanished.

"Too bad about your father", he said, ice forming on the words. He didn't explain what he meant because he didn't have to. He was gloating.

"I know,"I told him. "I'm ready to wake the fuck up now."

And I did. Fred didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

*******************************

In 2005 I was very sick.
When I got out of the hospital I went home and poured my Bowman's Virginia Vodka down the sink. I never wanted to touch it again. No more Bowman's. No more hospitals.

In the last days of 2007 I found myself pouring Bowman down the drain and preparing to enter the hospital, this time as a visitor. My grandmother is very weak and ill - she has a recurring blockage - but she was alert enough to give me a highly detailed description of the gruesome and invasive medical procedures she is undergoing- out of nowhere she started talking about a cyst she had removed in the 1950's, something we had never known about; I blotted out the details at "then they split me open"- after a few minutes of that, all I could hear was my brother's voice saying: You better stop talking about the cyst, I think Allan is going to faint.

Maybe you should get some food into him, suggested my grandmother.

So we went to a nearby diner and I ordered a deep-fried salt block with a lard-based cream sauce, extra starch and green beans soaked in pork brine. In my younger, fearless days I would have called this a 'chicken-fried steak special', but yesterday it seemed more like a blockage waiting to happen...that's why I ordered it. I need some potentially self-destructive danger in my life, but that danger has to have a certain plausible survivability.

I can outlive dinner. That's easy. I can even do dessert.

What I'm dreading is the unknown. My family, as I know it, will be soon be extinct. When the inevitable occurs, there are going to be complications- always complications- and the idea of having to babysit binge-drinking adults while dealing with lawyers and funeral homes is not a happy one.

The Twin needs to return to work but he is afraid to go home, lest he need to return immediately, our gran's been touch-and-go all year long and there isn't any real hope of improvement- if this blockage passes (as of 6pm , no go) , there will be another soon after.
Four times this year alone- four hospital stays in one year. That's too many.

Still, she's stronger than me. I am completely spent after a hospital visit. I start having panic twinges as soon as the doors open...when I am in a hospital all I can think about is getting out. The sounds are too loud, the smells are overwhelming, the lighting is all wrong -everything spins, blinks and whirls- I want to curl up on the floor and scream until I am somewhere else.

But I know that if you curl up and scream in the hospital, it dramatically lessens your chances of getting out, so I didn't do that. Eventually I found myself back here, but now I don't feel like screaming anymore, which is an improvement.

Best of all, I slept without dreaming of Fred Thompson, bourbon or vermouth.
I dreamed about the buoyancy of salt. It was good.

Thanks

A little over two years ago I had a very unpleasant night. It started on the evening that I quit drinking.
I hadn't been feeling very well, so I thought maybe I'd lay off the booze for a week or two...but after less than a day, I started feeling ill- I had to leave work early, I could barely keep from throwing up and I was so dizzy that I could hardly speak: "sick...must go home", I mumbled and left.

Other than a beer, I only wanted two things:

1) An ice cube. For hours, I had been plagued with an indescribable thirst, the like of which I had never experienced- but every time I drank water, I vomited. A small sip of water would result in a small geyser of black, bloody bile; followed by incapacitating stabbing pains in my guts...perhaps a smaller sip of room temperature water would help...more blood and pain. Ice cubes felt good in my mouth as long as I was careful not to swallow any of the melting water- I felt hot and cold at the same time and the ice was the only consistent thing in my world at that moment, cool, always cool...me, I was sweating, shaking and shivering but the ice made me feel stable...until it was gone.

2) I wanted to die. The tearing, burning pain from my ruptured esophagus was almost as bad as the realization that I really didn't care that I was dying...I was losing blood by the mouthful and I really expected to expire at any moment- alone in a filthy apartment, surrounded by vodka bottles, beer cans and my own bloody puke, which I didn't see any pressing need to clean up.

I wonder if I'll ever understand why I changed my mind, but obviously I did.

I used my last twenty minutes of consciousness to drive myself to a fairly distant hospital - the same one I was born in, in fact. I live across the street from a hospital, but I didn't want t go there- I once spent 12 hours in their ER waiting room and I didn't think I had 12 hours to wait...it was late -not much traffic- I ran a few lights, sorta hoping to get pulled, but not caring- any cop would see that I was sick...anyway, I made it into the emergency room with a few minutes to spare. Just a few.

A gauzy figure asked me who they should notify. I probably wasn't going to live and they needed a next-of-kin. I wanted to say something but I don't know much after that...it was all tubes, machines, masks and bright rooms full of worried people...and then nothing.

A few minutes later, I woke up in an unfamiliar bed. A stern-looking man in a white coat was standing over me...I was in a hospital. There were things inside my nose , my mouth, my arms...other places. I immediately wanted to be somewhere else.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital..."

"Do you know what day it is?"

I told him. I was wrong by three days.

For three days I had suffered a series of grand mal seizures brought on by my sudden alcoholic withdrawal- after years of daily drinking, my body wasn't capable of running properly without alcohol...at various points it looked as if my heart, kidneys and/or liver were going to quit altogether, but luckily, they did not.
All told, three surgeries were required to repair the physical damage done by decades of alcoholism. The emotional damage is a different matter. That is something that I am working on at this very moment.

After I was told what had happened to me, I knew that I wouldn't drink again, but convincing my therapists and doctors was not so easy...one woman told me that statistically, most people who arrive in my condition don't live more than a few months- they usually drink again as soon as they are released and die shortly thereafter. Given my personal history and family background, she was not at all optimistic about my chance of recovery- my liver was starting to break down and it was too early to tell if it would recover (it did)...I was advised to start getting whatever affairs I had in order.

Fuck that. Football season was getting ready to begin and my 39th birthday was right around the corner...my previous plan of "dead by 40" didn't seem so appealing...I didn't know dying would hurt so much. I was in no hurry for more pain.

During those days I learned to love ginger ale, though I seldom touch it anymore.

Ginger ale meant I was getting better- one straw full, sip...wait...take another, smaller one...in an hour you can have another sip. Maybe.
Tiny sips of ginger ale and an IV full of Valium sustained me for several days...eventually, I convinced my keepers that I wasn't suicidal and that I could be trusted to go home unattended. If I'd been insured, I imagine that I'd have been placed on the 5th floor psych ward...but I wasn't insured, so I was freed.

I didn't have much to come home to. I had lost my temp job during my absence and had spent what little money I had on medical bills and Nexium. My car was a 'rolling total', an '87 Honda in worse shape than I was...at home, all the blood and mess from that dreadful night was still there, dried and caked onto everything...

For two years after that, I left a little blackish spot of dried blood on the wall behind the toilet- I pointedly avoided it during my rare cleaning episodes- I left it there as a reminder to myself as to how goddamn fucking lucky I am to be alive and that one drink could put me right back behind the toilet.

Last week I cleaned that speck off. I don't need it any more.

I was going to make an "inspirational list" of things that I am thankful for, but honestly,
the one thing that I am most thankful for is the fact that I am still alive.

I spent today in my kitchen.
My grandmother has been too ill to prepare a 'real' dinner for many years- for a while we made do with the store-box type, which are awful- but after I sobered up, I took on the job of preparing our holiday family meals.

With Grandma, my Dad and my Uncle all in bad shape, I have to face up to the fact that each holiday may be the last one. There's nothing I can do about that except try to make sure that we have the best dinner possible... today I prepared homemade stuffing, laced with cranberries and fresh rosemary leaves- sadly, parsley, sage and thyme were of the dry variety- I boiled, peeled and mashed five pounds of fresh russets, adding just a touch of cream, white pepper, fresh roasted garlic and olive oil...mmmm...so good...and finished with a rice pilaf, using just a touch of cumin...a recent experiment showed that this blends exceptionally well with traditional gravy and stuffing-important life lesson: don't be afraid to take chances when cooking! Some odd combos work nicely... mangoes and goat, for instance.

Anyway, I don't need a list of things to be thankful for.

I have only one thing to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to be alive. That covers everything.

The Importance of Being Frank

I had the extreme good fortune of seeing Frank Zappa perform a half-dozen or so times...the show I recall the best was Salt Lake City, circa 1985. FZ was originally booked to play at The Salt Palace, a god-awful sports arena with acoustics that were so bad it pretty much didn't matter what band was playing- all one heard was the sound of permanent hearing loss.

Luckily (for the fans) , Zappa didn't sell enough tickets for the Palace, so they moved the show next door to a small auditorium designed for symphonies- the sound was impeccable, the view from our third row seats was unbeatable and the skill of Zappa's band was on a level I have yet to see surpassed by anyone of any genre - and I have seen a lot of bands since 1985.

Frank would often light a cigarette and watch as one of his bandmates- such as Steve Vai- played a solo...after few minutes, he'd stick the cigarette in the strings of his own guitar's headstock, which was the signal that he was about to play his solo, which he would do until the cigarette was almost burning the guitar...oh, man...nobody had guitar attitude like Frank Zappa. Frank was better than almost anyone alive and he knew it. He didn't have to boast or talk it up, he just played and when he did there wasn't much you could do but stand in mute awe and try to absorb as much as possible, hoping to retain some fleeting bit of the creative mojo that came so easily to Zappa but so rarely touches most of us.

Years later, I was descending the stairs of a stage here in Fallentown after one of my own concerts and an excited young man approached me.

"You must listen to a lot of Zappa", he said, " you play a lot like Frank."

That was the highest compliment I have ever received, although I'm nowhere near the caliber of FZ. Few are.

If you really want to play like Zappa, it helps if you are Zappa. Dweezil Zappa, that is. I was interested in this show, but the $32 price tag was way out of reach...so I asked for free tickets on the virtue of my overall coolness- and got them!
So last Thursday night, a friend and I want to see Frank's son Dweezil play a concert of his father's material. When we arrived, all I could see was a jumbo screen playing concert footage of FZ himself...was this the warm-up, we wondered? On tip-toe, I could see the band...they were playing along to old footage while a roadie was trying to isolate the malfunction on Dweez's amplifier...a bad cable, I think...once all the tech difficulties were straightened out, his band- featuring FZ stalwart Ray White and a cast of great young players ( the sound was so bad I couldn't catch their names during the introductions)- launched into a 'best of' medley that lasted three hours, finishing with 'Muffin Man' and 'Illinois Enema Bandit'.
Awesome.


Zappa really did love his fans and he passed that on to Dweezil. After the show, he stayed on stage, shaking hands and giving autographs to dozens of fans, myself included.

"Your father would be proud", I said. It was loud and I don't know if he heard me, but I know it's true- what father wouldn't be proud to see their son carry on the family tradition- especially when it's a musical legacy as rare and powerful as Zappa's?

I spent most of the next day playing the riff from 'Muffin Man' over and over again on my guitar. It was pointless but quite gratifying.

Until my mixer exploded, that is. Every light that could go RED did go RED and a horrible buzzing sound blew out the speakers on my cheap stereo. I checked my receipt...the warranty expired 30 days ago. Fuck.
Might as well take a drive, get some food, calm down.

My engine died. After months of auto-drama and thousands of wasted dollars, I blew a cylinder and now my Volvo is little more than a giant Swedish paperweight.
Now I can't use it to not drive myself to the job I didn't get on Friday.

Except for the great show Thursday, my life has become pretty goddamn unbearable. For the first time in months, I have found myself thinking about drinking again, and how easy it would be to lose all my problems by crawling into the bottle and never coming out again...but, no.
Not gonna happen- I have too many things to do. The thought of drinking scares the shit out of me, which is exactly what it should do. As long as I have fear, I will be sober. I have lots of fear.

I have fun too:

I have a radio show today at 3PM, Songs from the Big Hair, which is our weekly 1980's program. I found a concert CD that has Dweezil's first ever live performance on it-, it's from 1984- Dweezil is 15 years old and he trades licks with his father on 'Sharleena' ...how cool is that?
I've got more Zappa lined up- I'll be carrying my tribute over to tomorrow morning's show...I might have to walk 20 blocks through cold rain to play my old Zappa records, but, by gum, that is what I'm gonna do.

There are a lot of things I can't seem to do- pay rent, eat, find a girlfriend, etc.- but there is one thing I can always do, and that thing is playing music.

After my show is over tomorrow, I'm gonna go home and play 'Muffin Man' until my fingers hurt.
Why?
Because I can.

Trying etc.

For years I was what is known as a 'maintenance drunk' and one of the things I was able to maintain was a body weight of 198 lbs., which made it impossible for me to fit
into the suit I'm wearing in the pic to the left.

Once, back in 2001, I drank eleven Natural Ice beers in the two hour period preceding a job interview for assistant manager at a large retail shoe store.At the interview I was drunker than a lovesick astronaut, but I somehow still got the job...on 9/11, 2001, I was promoted to store manager.


In hindsight, getting promoted on 9/11 was a bad sign.

By January 2002, the store's ownership and myself had reached an agreement: I would withdraw my unemployment claim and they would convince our regional manager not to file assault charges against me for throwing a Nine West boot at his head . He's lucky that my arm was in a sling at the time...seriously.

I am a very adaptive and capable person, but there are some jobs that I am wholly unsuited for; selling shoes, thank Godzilla, is one of them.

One thing that I know I'm really good at is putting books on a shelf. CDs too.

So I donned my suit and went to a job interview at the Public Library. The meet went really well, I thought. I was able to answer all of the questions easily and kept my two-person interview team smiling throughout- the atmosphere at the library was a lot more relaxed than I'd come to expect from my old job, which was in a truly uptight law firm.

The position I was seeking involves shelving books and little else.
After our session, I was told that I'm considerably overqualified for shelving books and that the position is only part-time. Would I still be interested?

Hmmm....

I asked about advancement from within. Mrs. J, the older woman who was interviewing me, told me she had started working PT in 1974 and was retiring soon...well, OK, then.
I'm officially interested!

I hope to hear back next week- in any case, it felt good to have an honest-to-gosh job interview. It has been a long time since I'd been to one, a real one anyway. Phone and web stuff...not so good.

It's also been a long time since I've been on a real date.
I have a date tomorrow night.
Dinner and conversation with someone I've known and liked for a long time. We met shortly before I quit drinking, so she's already seen me at my worst...tomorrow I hope to be at my best. My friend has seen me pull off some pretty amazing accomplishments( if I do say so) but to me the most amazing thing of all would be if she were to like me as much as I like her, which is to say considerably.

That's all I'm sayin'.

Break The Jinx

I awoke to the sound of jackhammers and profanity. Outside my window there were five men sitting, watching another man as he used a powered hammer to pound a hole into the asphalt. The sitting men sounded like they were playing a game of ' Who Shit?', but were having difficulty hearing each other over the din of the jackhammer. Their shouted conversation went much like this :

"Fuck you!"

"What?"

"I said FUCK YOU!"

"Fuck who?"

"FUCK YOU!"

"What?"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck who?"

"Fuck YOU!"

"Hhahaha!"

The shouting men were white. The working guy was black. They were all contractors, working for a local company with a name that sounds like 'cocks'. I wonder how much the City is paying Cocks Co. for this pneumatic morning serenade ?

Anyway, on to the good news:

My car runs wonderfully! Here's a quick recap of my automotive woes, starting early springtime:

- Car begins running erratically, producing massive clouds of smoke, stalling out, not starting etc, then running OK for a while, then sputtering again...'Check Engine' is on...during a search for the problem, it is discovered that my engine still has the original timing belt (162,000 miles) and it is frayed, almost ready to break.

- Spend $400 having timing belt replaced. Problems with engine continue.

-Engine problems become moot when I collide with a deer at 55 mph. I dig into my vacation money and spend $1200 on body repair. Eventually, another $600 is spent on replacing and re-aligning the tires.

-I get laid off. No more income. Begin DIY mechanic approach.

- Many failures later, I relent and take car to Volvo shop, where I am told it will cost $2500 to replace wiring harness. Intensify DIY approach.

- Info found on internet suggests mechanic may be wrong. Take car to different mechanic: It is a pair of faulty sensors- total cost, including labor, is under $200! Car runs great!

-The next day I told a friend :" Ya know, I'm afraid to say this, but I think I finally got my car fixed..."
Jinxed!
Within hours of making this statement my car started running badly again- no smoke, but it shook and shuddered when idling, had absolutely no power, was getting 10 miles per gallon...with some help, the problem was traced to a cylinder that wasn't firing properly. My friend said he thought it was a fuel injector problem- some online research supported his theory. But I had tried fuel injector cleaner when my car started fucking up...it didn't do anything.

That's because I followed the directions on the FI cleaner bottle.
Try again, I was urged. Ignore the instructions this time. Do it like this.

So I waited until my tank was almost empty and then I added two bottles of Old Engine Gumout. Then I pumped in four gallons of gas and started driving...by the time my tank was nearly empty again, it was running smooth and quiet- I had driven just over 100 miles, so my MPG was a little over 25, which is normal for my vehicle.

Yesterday, I shared this news with a group of friends -and my car didn't break down.

This morning I called my grandmother and told her I was going to drive up and visit her- and my car didn't break down.

I even started this post about my car not breaking down- and it didn't break down.

I went to market and back- and my car didn't break down...you get the picture.

Oatmeal, rice, bananas, beans...Godzilla, but I'm sick of the poverty diet.I was craving meat.
I don't eat very much meat- it is usually too expensive- but $1.59 a lb. for skinless , hormone-free chicken breast? Stock up!


Clockwise , from L to R : Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

The way my luck has been lately, I half-expected to manifest symptoms of salmonella , but it's been 24 hours and I'm OK. The leftovers are even better...

After my repast, I took a short stroll. I hadn't gotten far when I saw this:

Two unopened cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon sitting atop the trash cans behind a nearby building.

There was once a time when I would have wiped these off with my dirty shirt and slugged 'em straight down; instead, I dashed home for my camera before Scotty, our local hobo, found them.

These cans, to me, are a sign that one of my fondest wishes may yet be granted.
Somebody that I care about lives in the building where I saw this -I think these may be their cans...I would say more, but this time it's not me that I'm worried about jinxing.

Fingers crossed!

Mother of all Defense Mechanisms

Shortly before Christmas 1996, I got a call from my mother, who I'd not heard from for several years. She was in Billings, Montana and seemed to be at a loss for words when I asked her how she wound up there- she really wasn't making much sense at all, she was drunk, rambling, crying.

And coughing.

Mom had been sick for a long time. First she thought it was the flu, then pneumonia or even TB- she had started noticing blood in her phlegm and went to a clinic; it turned out to be lung cancer, which had already started to metastasize. Mom had no insurance , in any case it was much too late for anything but palliative care. She only had a few months to live.

So I flew to Chicago and from there the Twin and I drove to Billings to see what could be done. When we arrived, we found Mom living as a boarder in a dysfunctional house of alcoholics and addicts. It was a terrible place to live and a worse place to die.

At this time, I had just ended a bad relationship with a heavy drinker, and I had decided to "take some time off" from booze- I hadn't admitted yet that I was an alcoholic , but I could certainly recognize it in others and Mom's room-mates were drunks of the worst kind- violent, thieving dangerous people that physically scared me. None of them had Mom's best interest at heart.

We convinced Mom to return home and stay with her brother in Richmond.

She arrived here early in 1997. She survived an entire year longer than the doctors said she would, and she and I used that extra time to try to mend what at one time was an irreconcilably estranged relationship.

She had abandoned us as kids...but we worked that out. Finally.

That's what I told myself.

After Mom died, I boxed up her meager possessions and put them into my closet and pretended they weren't there. I ignored them for years.

Sometimes, when the subject of cancer or illness would come up in a conversation, I would talk about how doctors are sometimes wrong, about how my own mother was granted an extra year of life etc etc...

My friends and family would sometimes look at me strangely when I made those sort of comments...but I never really thought about why. I just figured the whole subject is an uncomfortable one- it is- what I didn't know is that they were watching me for signs of a mental breakdown.

They needn't have worried. I had my breakdown a long time ago and it's over now. It was so traumatic that it took me almost ten years to even know that it had happened, and now it doesn't really matter- I had to face facts is all.

Last winter I started going through my mom's belongings, seeing what I could put together of her life, much of which is mysterious to me. In her things, I found a journal which I cannot help but call her "Death Book", because that is what it is.
It's her journal of dying.

It ends, suddenly, in 1997. Her last entry mentions going shopping for wigs with me.
I remember that trip- we had a blast, Mom had the saleslady cracked up laughing, trying to find the worst possible wig- "I want to look my best for my cremation!"... I remember that.

But I also recalled that extra year of life that Mom never really had.
I remembered an entire year that never was.
I first noticed this last winter when I couldn't find any photos of X-Mas 1997 that included Mom. I thought that was odd. She was here... where are the pics?
Then I read her Death Book.
There was no X-mas 1997 for Mom. She was ashes.

The truth is, Mom came home in 1997 and passed away shortly thereafter. There was no extra time.

After she died, I resumed drinking with a vengeance. Literally.
Not only was I punishing myself for a past I couldn't change, I was also trying to comfort myself with memories of things that never were.

I didn't just realize this this morning. I've known it since last Christmas, but it's not an easy thing to accept or discuss. I'm quite used to the idea of missing memories- some are repressed by trauma, most are blotted out by liquor- but I'm uncomfortable with imaginary memories. It makes me question reality, and that is a slippery slope...but now, when I try to recall that never-year, I find nothing. I'm glad it's not there.

I remember remembering it, but there are no details left at all. I find that to be reassuring, since that year didn't really happen the way I remembered it.

What really happened is that after Mom died, I tried really, really hard to drink myself to death and I failed to do so.

I failed because I wanted to live.

When I questioned my own will to live, I used my mother's memory as a source of strength- Mom was sick and she didn't give up...I would tell myself.
This was about as useful as a delusion could ever be- it kept me away from the booze for over a year; by the time I started to notice that 1997 didn't exactly happen the way I thought it did, I had already started to find other reasons to stay sober- one reason, really.

Not dying is my one-step recovery program.

So I guess I should be terrified that my mind is capable of fooling me in such a significant way, but I'm not. I think I created that extra year because I really needed something to hang onto, a source of courage-anything to get through my post-drinking adjustment to life- and when my subconscious decided that it had served it's purpose, I was compelled to finally read her journal, and learn the truth without falling to pieces.

And it worked. Despite my endless litany of complaints and troubles, I haven't felt the urge to drink. That imaginary year might have saved my life at one point, but I don't need it any more and it seems to have erased itself.

Better it than me, I say.

A Pep Talk

Yop, I sure done fixed my car good. It ran wonderfully until I got a block from the garage- then the CHECK ENGINE light came on and the motor started ghost-revving crazily- the engine runs faster in Park than Drive...I don't know what that means, but I don't think it's good.

Remind me to never, ever be optimistic, cheerful or upbeat again. If I let myself become happy, I am almost always immediately crushed by circumstance.
According to one friend :
" Everyone is put here for a reason, and some people seem be placed here to suffer. You are one of those people."
They meant it as reassurance- that God had a plan and that I would get my reward in Heaven for my suffering on Earth; but I didn't find any comfort in that idea. I almost snapped at my friend:" I don't believe in God, or Heaven or the afterlife and it really pisses me off that people who have known me for years just assume that I am a Christian! Why do you assume that? Blah, angry,blah!"

But I held my tongue. If I am consigned to Damnation, it won't be for being an asshole to my well-meaning superstitious friend.

Anyway, I had to put my car in for a tire alignment and a new pair of tires- I was told it would be approx. $200 total, which isn't too bad. I dropped it off at 8AM and was told it should be ready by lunchtime.

At 10:30 the phone rang. It was the garage.

"Have you been driving this car much since the accident?"

This wasn't what I wanted to hear.

"Yes. Almost 1,000 miles just last week."

"Mmmm. This vehicle is highly unsafe.You really should have your car checked out immediately after a major collision..."

Yeah, I knew that, but I was too busy losing my job to do much more than get the body repaired, besides, I have been broke since the accident...anyway, after I got a mini-lecture on collision protocol I was told that the front wheel assemblies were basically bent all to hell and that there was no way to align them, that they would have to be be replaced. This would add $400 to my bill.

Oh. How about the engine?

They still hadn't run the diagnostic on the engineso I asked them to hold off on that. I don't have the money for it- I'm going to have to call my Twin and ask for another loan just to get the front end fixed.

The bad news is: Volvo parts cost a lot of money.

The good news: Volvos are very safe cars. I was told that most cars wouldn't have survived hitting a deer at 55 mph and I was pretty lucky to walk away from the scene. When I told the mechanic that the deer has been literally split in half, I could hear him whistle to himself..."you got lucky", he said.

Lucky? Since July 4th I have lost my savings , my job and my health insurance. I've had my heart used as dual-purpose trampoline/doormat. My grandmother is back in CCU and I don't even have a car at the moment- it may be a couple of days until I can get the cash to retrieve it...yeah, I feel lucky.

I must admit that my first thought was :"I wish that fucking deer had killed me, because life has pretty much sucked since then."

Then I realized something important.

Exactly two years ago today, I had less than 72 hours to live and I didn't even know it at the time. Back then, I had somehow managed to convince myself that vomiting "a little" blood was normal...that 18 beers and a fifth of vodka per day was perhaps "a little" too much, but certainly not deadly.

Sept. 7, 2005 found me with a ruptured esophagus, bleeding out on a hospital's ER floor, struggling to survive . During this, I went into alcoholic withdrawal and suffered a grand mal seizure on the operating table while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. The docs were sure that I was going to die. Obviously, they were wrong.

Nearly a week later I was released. I am not ashamed to admit that I lied my way out of getting placed in the Psych ward- over and over again I had to tell therapists that , no, of course I never think about suicide, that I never cry for no reason -I even told a priest that I would start going to church if he would just let me go home. I just gave the nodding heads the answers they wanted and kept hoping they'd release me.

Was I sure that I had never thought about suicide?, I would be asked.

Yes, I would lie. I didn't mention that my uncle had blown his own head off just a few months ago or how many times my mother had hurt herself during her drunken depressions...shit, why in the world would I ever think about suicide? Please note that there is a significant difference in thinking about suicide and considering it. I think about it often but I have never consciously
considered it- the drinking was as close as I ever came to tying my own noose. I didn't feel that explaining this was going to do any good so I lied. Repeatedly.

Just about the only true thing that I said was that I really didn't feel like drinking again. That's the only thing no one believed. Eventually, they reluctantly let me go. One therapist said that she felt there was a high probability that I'd be back very soon. Or dead. She was wrong.

When I was finally released, it seemed that I had nothing to return to. My old Honda had gotten me to the ER,but it was in worse shape than me. I had lost my temp job, my uninsured medical bills had consumed my entire life savings and I was sobering up and finding out that I was very, very lost and afraid. I didn't want my family to know how bad I had become, so I couldn't turn to them...I had also lost most of my friends by this point-albeit temporarily in some cases- nobody wants to be friends with someone who is drinking themselves to death.

I remember getting home and scrubbing the dried blood off of my bathroom walls and noting how the splash pattern looked exactly like the one Mom left on her bedroom wall when she died.
Then I wondered what sort of splash pattern my uncle Steve left. He used a gun.
After that,I curled up on the cool tile bathroom floor and cried until I was exhausted. It may have been for hours or for days...I forget.
I had a lot of mourning to catch up on.

I kept thinking: "I am never going to make it. My mind is going to snap and something terrible and uncontrollable is going to happen. I am helpless, hopeless and doomed."

I was wrong. I was none of those things and nothing terrible happened.

Lately, I've been having brief episodes of that hopelessness again, but this time I'm much better prepared to face them. I've come clean about the booze and illness with my friends and my family and have found that they are still there for me- I was the one who went away, not them.

Today, almost exactly two years from the time I quit drinking, I find myself in nearly identical straits- broke, unemployed, forced to borrow money just to pay for day-to-day expenses-but it's different this time. This time my friends and family know what's happening and I'm lucky to know that if things really get bad, there are people to help me- if I had a dime for every person who has offered to loan me money over the last two weeks, I wouldn't be in debt right now! (...except for their no-interest loans, of course)
I can't begin to list all the small favors that folks have done for me since i sobered up, I can only try to make it worth their while.

When I was a hopeless drunk, not many people wanted to do me any favors. Not many people are willing to waste time and money on someone who has given up, no matter what their former relationship may have been. Even family has limits. I turned my back on my own father- but he came back last month and I have set aside my anger. For now.

Today, I have help and it is offered willingly. Hopefully, I won't need to accept it, but it is there. That means that there are people in my life who have not given up on me.
There always have been, I just wasn't always one of them. That was a shame.

So yeah, I'm fucking sick to death of my $3 a day diet , I'm tired of getting ambushed by devastating repair bills , my creditors from 2005 are howling again and I pray to Godzilla I can find a decent job before I am forced to become 3rd shift assistant manager at Skippy's Quik-Mart for $9.65 an hour...but I haven't given up.

Sad? Sure. Why shouldn't I be?
Depressed? Yes, but I recognize it this time so I won't let it win.
Despair? Nope. I am done with despair.

I'm down and out but this time there's no shame in it, it's just me being 'lucky'.
Shame is the difference between mere sadness and utter despair. When I drank, I was consumed by shame that could only be eased by shameful drinking. It was truly horrible and I promise that I will never let that happen again.

The only shame would be to give up after surviving so much- first I tried to destroy myself, then others tried to break me and failed and finally it all came full circle and I was watching my grandmother fight for her life in the Critical Care Unit, hooked up to many of the same machines that I was attached to in 2005. As her blood pressure dropped, she reached out her hand and gripped mine with an impossible strength and it was at that moment I realized that she was afraid to die- not because she fears death, but because she is worried about me and what might happen without her to look after me.

I want her to get out of the damn hospital and go back home where she belongs. Then I want to drive my fully-repaired car (it was a beauty before the wreck) show it to her and tell her about my great new job. This isn't likely to happen overnight , but it won't happen at all if I give up now.

I meant for this to be a bitter, depressing post much like the ones that used to cause readers to jump ship in droves- if three can be considered a 'drove'- but when I started putting things into perspective I realized that I'm not as unhappy as I thought. I'm hardly radiant with joy , but I don't exactly have a personal storm cloud either. Things are what they are, is all.

I'm not done yet.

I have shows to do.

Don't touch that dial.