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My grandfather, Walter Thomas Hamilton, was a man of settled habit and ritual. He did the same things every day. Coming into the farmhouse from the field or cow lot he would always stop on the backdoor step and stomp the dirt and cow manure off his shoes before coming on the back porch where he hung his hat on a nail there for that purpose.. Then he would put a bucket full of water into a wash pan on a small stand and meticulously wash his hands, arms, face and his head including the back of his neck in water directly out of the windmill at 55 degrees F and usually using Lava soap.. This ritual he always observed whether he had been out of the house all morning or for just a few minutes. I am sure that Grandad used the front door of the house on some occasions but I cannot ever recall him doing so except to meet guests arriving there.
Saturday morning was his time to go to town and he rarely went at any other time. After all it was 12 miles to Plainview and Grandad did not believe in wasting gasoline unless it was really necessary. It would take one gallon of gasoline selling at the outrageous price of thirteen cents per gallon for him to make the round trip . If he absolutely had to go to town in the week he would usually hitch the team to a wagon and go to Lockney which was only five miles away. Thirteen cents was not to be sneezed at and I have known times when Grandad stopped at the Aiken service station and got his one gallon of gas and promised to pay for it on the way back after he had sold his cream and eggs in Plainview.
Grandad had a flock of about 150 laying hens and had from four to eight Jersey cows. The cream and eggs he got from these were about the only source of money that Walter ever saw except for a small share of the cotton harvest in the fall which had to be used for major expenses. There was therefore a lively debate between my grandmother and Walter about what the money should be spent for. This debate was usually held just before his departure for town on Saturday morning and I remember that there was one item that frequently came up that I did not recognize. My grandmother would frequently say with a resigned tone in her voice "and if you can afford it I need a couple of yards of unbleached domestic". I finally asked my grandad what "unbleached diomestic" was and he said that it was an inexpensive type of cotton cloth that was not shiny white because it had not been bleached after machine weaving. I asked Grandad why she wanted it and he said "For many things. She makes quilt backings, cup towels, underwear , baby clothes, handkerchiefs, nightgowns, pillow slips and table cloths as well as many things that I don't even know about."
I don't know what unbleached domestic cost then or even if it still exists as an item but I do remember that Grandad crossed something off the grocery list that day and bought my grandmother two yards of unbleached domestic which made my grandmother very happy. It has been a very long time since I have heard of unbleached domestic and I wonder if it still exists as something that would make a woman's day brighter.
Love
Dad, granpa, ami
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You ever watch a movie that affected you for the time that you watch it then you shrug it off but then it keeps creeping up in your head then you can't stop thinking about it?
Into The Wild. Goddammit.
It's about a kid that's like real smart,man. College graduate,enough money saved up to go to (Yale was it?) and he decides to give all his savings to charity and live without money and just live off the land and meet people along the way to his destination Alaska.
There were parts of this movie where I literally cried,man. I mean a real gut wrenching cry thank god I was all alone watching this piece of shit.
I was thinking "Okay I'm crying for this could be my son. He's at a turning point in his young life where he can take any path and he may just take the path this dude is taking". And "Wow. You really CAN live without money. I want to do this,man. I want to do this."
I mean everyone he meets...I fucking related to that shit.
The old man...goddammit.
Y'all just need to watch this one,man.
I was at the library today and I almost checked out the book.
Naw. I'm gonna pass on that one.
...Cause I may just...I'm gonna pass on that one.
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I don't think there ever has been a presidential term that has affected me so hard. Okay,we can't blame Bush for everything but damn if shit around you has been hard.
Just the price of gas alone. Because truckers are struggling everything they haul has been marked up. Shit. This isn't the reason for this thread. This is shit we all know. We are ALL struggling with shit small or large. Whatever.
But here's the thing. I've been hearing some crazy drama at the agency I dedicated my life to that kicked me like a piece of shit. Yea I know. It doesn't concern me. But it does for my Host Home guy goes there for day program. More people have been kicked off. Now the school is struggling for a union it seems and the major players trying to get this together are getting the boot.
The economy? Sure it's the economy. Everyone out to save money cutting corners. Once you maxed out in pay,Bye Bye.
Besides all the people here I think of as my friends whether I had actually met you all but once or never at all maybe never will,people will have real friends that you could count with only one hand.
I have two. Besides my wife and family,in this world,I have but two.
One of them called me today. She worked with me and was kicked off,then a few months later because her two host home guys belonged to the same agency she soon lost her host home too. Yes. I blame the economy. They were out to save some money. We were part of the cut backs. She made too much money it seemed in reimbursement and the new host home guys are compensating for less..
That was about a year and a half ago. Since then the mortage company came over and gave her $1,500 to move out that day so they can try to resell that 6 bedroom home. That was a blessing for she was able to get a deposit down for a smaller shit-hole of a place.
She's been working two jobs and 12 to 14 hour days 7 days a week. She tries,dawgs. She tries.
So today she calls me wanting to know if I can put up an ad in Craigslist for ALL HER SHIT.
She's 100 bucks short of her rent. No big deal I tell her. She's seen far far worst. I couldn't fucking help her,but she more than understood. We are ALL struggling in one way or another.
She's proud. She will NEVER ask me for money. The desperation in her voice just broke my heart.
But she'll be alright. It's just so hard anymore. Here's what's fucked up. She has TWO daughters with kids. They got section 8 housing. They will not let their mom move in with them. There's just drama there. It's all fucked up.
I really shouldn't associate with her anymore. I mean we were work friends. We rolled together daily with our group for over a decade. That chapter is over now. We should just move on. No way. We are friends for life.
I hope she fucking doesn't do anything fucking stupid. She had a foster homes after foster homes growing up and has tried to kill herself on some occasions. Right now I just want to go over to her daughters place and kick the living shit out of them then hold my god daughter in my arms.
You know,our bills. Have you looked at them?
Notice something? Gotten higher,huh.
groceries have gone up 100 bucks a month,bills have gone up an average of 25 dollars give and take. Gas. Well I'm winning that war thanks to Cronus and MOOP but my close friend has a Dodge Ram 14 MPG truck with still another 5 years of 400 dollar plus payments. Yea. Her fault,man. But at the time we were working all those years almost maxed out in pay and with Host homes. So she could afford it then. Now,if she loses her truck,she would be defeated.
I'm just ranting here. I'll be flat out. I'm not asking for any generosity. Like I said,she'll be okay.
Her landlord will take SOMETHING from her and won't make her homeless. How do I know this? Because if she gets kicked out it would be MONTHS before she can find another tenant. That's the way it is. Some money to pay the mortage is better than no money to the landlord's eyes.
I'm tired already of this recession. Yes. We are in a recession.
On a good note,this is the Balloon payment month on my house. The original owner can just snag my house now and I'm on the street.
But he's a good man. There is a god.
There is a god.
He's gonna sign off a loan,he'll take the check,and I'll make the payments.
Why did he do this instead of banking 200 thousand reselling my house? Because he has integrity... and he may sit on this house for years with no buyers. Oh the irony.
So I'm doing good,and my friend is in a world of hurt... again.
My other close friend is all alone in this world. He'll do anything for you. He gave my friend that 100 bucks tonight. And she cried. Just got off the phone with him. He was pretty goddamn tearful in his voice too.
Fucked up world,man.
Fucked up world.
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Here we go again. The art flows like pus from a festering wound. The boy is working on the portrait of a certain noob. It will get posted tomorrow.
For now you will have to deal with old class.
And for his wallet...
PS> I had to make this from a shit photo the size of a postage stamp.
And from the Tman a noobian:
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This is a blog. Not a rant or a catastrophe. This is a blog.
This blog celebrates my Motor Assist Bicycles.
Most people simply don't get it,because you can do much better with a scooter.
Scooters are also really good in gas.
Scooters are also faster.
And scooters will keep change in your pockets so you can afford lunch thereby stimulating your local economy instead of Saudi Arabia.
So why is a Motor Assist Bike so much better?
Because back in my youth before I grabbed a drivers license,my BMX bicycle that I built from the ground up from salvaged parts in the trash day pick ups and parts given to me by friends was my way of getting out in the world. I've taken that bike far and wide,broken down quite a few times with flat tires and have had to walk miles from home walking my limp bicycle with me. Then every time I made it better I was proud because I built this thing.
Then when I grabbed my drivers license and then my car,my bicycle started collecting some dust. I would take it out every now and then and do some tricks (I still can ride a bicycle backwards) but those days of traveling far from home are no more. Then cars elevated to motorcycles then trucks then after family and kids it elevated to the daily grind called the rat race.
Then I lose my job. Then I asked myself "What came about all those years of struggling?" I had no answer except that job payed my bills and it gave me some joy but all that is gone now.
So early on in my sudden early retirement I went to Costco and saw that Schwinn. Right there I had to have it. I walked it out of the store and felt like a kid again. This is the first bicycle I have ever bought NEW.
But I'm not as fit as I used to be. I would ride it to the store and back. It's an easy ride but I just couldn't go any further.
Then I discovered bicycle engines and then that bike forum and things just changed.
My whole life has changed.
So why is a Motored Assist Bike so much better than a faster scooter or a Motorcycle or a sports car or monster trucks or even TRAINS?
Because every time I ride my bicycle,I feel like I'm 14 again.
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Yesterday, May 28, 2008, may become a day of true significance for ExxonMobil, as Exxon's shareholders voted against pursuing alternative fuels and making the transition to becoming a green company. The largest company in the Americas, worth nearly $500 billion according to the stock market today, not only shot down proposals to enter the alternative fuels market, reduce greenhouse gases, or appoint a chairman independent of the company CEO, one of the key attendees proposed "a prohibition on shareholder resolutions such as (these)" and was met with cheering. Who was Mr. Milloy's statement pointed at? Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a Tufts economics professor and a great-granddaughter of John D Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, which was split into 34 companies in 1911 because of its monopoly. Two of those companies were Exxon and Mobil.
This is the best part of the whole article:
Those calling for public action against greenhouse gases are practicing "junk science," Milloy asserted, and ExxonMobil should steer clear of renewable fuels. "Exxon sells gas," he said, "not moonshine."
I'm not sure Milloy and his colleagues have been reading the same articles I have lately, nor am I sure they have studied history, or at least heard the phrase "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." (George Santaya, I believe) Studying history is pointless if you have no intention of learning from it, after all.
Take a look at GM and Ford - especially Ford, who has dropped a few nuggets of knowledge recently. Both companies rode the American wave of bigger is better - trucks, SUV's, and cars oozing muscle wooed Americans in such a way that caused automakers to produce bigger vehicles with worse gas-mileage. Gas was cheap and people were sprawling out past the suburbs into quaint towns, willing to cope with long commutes to and from work in heavy traffic to own a bigger house in the middle of nowhere. In recent years there were warnings - companies finding fewer new oil fields, demand increasing as other nations developed, especially China, and a push for heightened environmental standards - that they ignored, believing the good times would be here forever (riiiiiiiiiiight).
Ford plans to lay off 10-12% of their salaried workforce as they project lower sales and a major shift in what Americans are looking for in their next car, causing a major overhaul in their production needs and future developments. From the second article:
Ford now believes that the change in vehicle choice is structural, not cyclical, Mulally said.... "I think it's a concession to reality," said auto analyst David Healy of Burnham Securities. "General Motors has done the same thing, just not with the publicity. Chrysler has been quietly cutting production. But it's a good idea to get all the bad news out at once."
I heard a report on the radio yesterday that women think a man driving a Prius is sexier than a Porsche because he's a more intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting guy, and nearly half of all women surveyed stated they are turned off by guys driving Hummers and SUV's. Looks like Borat was led astray in his search for a pussy magnet.
Speaking of the Prius, Toyota's earnings are down and projected to be lower in 2008 than initially thought. Even in this economy, with a strong yen vs a weak dollar, they're still raking in the dough, and analysts think Toyota's being a little modest. Toyota embraced changing times much faster than America's automakers, staying true to their original plan of getting a little better at everything each year until their cars cost less and lasted longer than the competition.
Still think ExxonMobil is doing the best thing for their shareholders in the long-run? The second largest company in the Americas, Petrobas, a fuel company out of Brazil, worth a tad over $300 million on the stock exchange today after an incredible recent run, produces as much sugarcane-based biofuels for Brazil as they do oil-based fuels. While they are causing a few problems by taking up a considerable amount of land to grow sugarcane, pushing some cattle farmers into the rain forest and preventing food from being grown there, they have garnered considerable attention from major automakers. Petrobas is also looking into making biofuels from castor and palm oil. They're one of the few companies still actively searching out new oil, as they're committed to both short-term needs while not sacrificing long-term vision. Dig deep enough in this article on Ken Heebner, considered to be American's top fund manager, and he talks about how Petrobas has been one of his top picks. Who am I to argue with Heebner? C'mon, the guy nearly cried when Peter Lynch retired because he felt the only fund manager worth competing against was gone; it takes psychotic obsession to do what he does so well.
It's not just the automakers who are interested in biofuels. (T_T is probably quite upset at this point, but bear with me buddy) As airlines go through cash reserves like water, they're looking to less expensive biofuels as a way to drive costs back down. (Linked to page 2, scroll down) Mind you, this is not something that will make an immediate impact, but it could be the only way flying stays affordable for most people, or even returns to some semblance of what we Americans have grown used to.
Maybe all this hoopla will blow over, the oil will flow and we'll all die laughing at this hiccup. And maybe ExxonMobil will get their own BudLight "Real Men of Genius" spot a decade or two down the road.
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Some of you know alot about my past, and others not so much... In the past I have posted utter nonsense, just for the fuck of it. I am taking a cue from Oxan, and am going to share with you an experience from my past.
In 1998, I was living in the town of Waco, TX. I was around 16 years old, a little gutter punk moving between Austin and Waco frequently. I lived in the ghettos (Parkside Villages, Waco TX), riddled with crack and heroin. To make extra money, I would sell "yea" (pronounced YAY), for extra cash. I had one guy named John, a 60 something year old Vietnam veteran, who was a regular of mine. Him and I became pretty good friends, as he was a decent guy. The VA had fucked him over, and he just fell into that life style.
One night, when I was making a drop to him, I decided to go to his door rather than have him come to the car. Its always shit risky when sitting idle, and puts your nerves on edge. I found apartment 208B (thats really it), and knocked. A 18 year old high school student answered the door. Thinking I had the wrong apartment, I said the usual "sorry" and turned away. Then John comes to the door, and tells me to come in and that its ok.
I went side, and found 2 families (2 sets of parents and 3 kids) living in a 2 bedroom roach ridden apartment, complete with teen children. John hurried me into a back room where I handed him a (2) 20 pieces. He handed me the cash, and exited the room.
When I came out, John exited behind me and was quickly rushed by the adults in the house. With kids watching this whole spectacle, everyone hurried to the kitchen with brillo pads and broken tv antennas in hand (make shift pipes). John pulls it from his pockets and inspects the buy. "ITS FUCKING PEBBLES", he yells, and throws the pieces into the sink. They clank like a stone rock would on metal. I caught on to what John was doing and backed off, affirming that I just got it "from some guy a few minutes earlier and had no clue what was going on". The females started to cry and yell, all the while the kids are watching. I gave John a wave, and exited immediately.
For years I never thought about this. I shrugged it off, and forgot about it. Last night I had a dream about this and awoke with a cold sweat with the eyes of those children engraved in my mind.
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I was watching Fight Club this afternoon. Great movie. You should watch it again. Anyway that part where they blow up the credit card buildings so that America starts at Zero again although doesn't make much sense was pretty brilliant.
That stuck in my mind as I fell asleep for the night rather early. I just woke up from a dream.
My dream was that somehow America wiped out all our debts to other countries. They simply nuked China and all these other countries that we owe money to.
Then we started at zero again owning no debt at all to anyone.
Suddenly,gas was at under a dollar a gallon,houses could be had for 10 thousand dollars and once again the wife can stay at home while the husband goes to work just like Leave It To Fucking Beaver.
It was like the 50's again. And what really intrigued me about this dream is that everyone was so happy about being able to afford everything again that no one cared about the billions of innocent lives we nuked in other countries so that we don't owe them any more debt. Yea,it doesn't make any sense but it's the whole uncaring of most of us was what struck me.
It's like with this war. People are so gun ho about their fucking morals and their Christianity that they are willing to bring back more of the same shit. It doesn't matter that we are killing entire families on a daily basis. Were doing it for God.
As long as our bubble of security is okay enough to sustain existence,fuck what other people are going thru.
Like with gas prices. If whoever our new president will be decides to tell us that we need to nuke Iraq so that gas will go down because they won't produce more all people would care about is that the price of gas will go down. Sure. It's more complicated than that but my point is is that the majority of Americans that vote are a bunch of spoiled rotten wussies that only care about themselves.
So this is my rant for the month.
I fear for November.
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a guy got murdered in my driveway. I was on the internet; I heard the shot; it was loud. I didn't call 911 because I hear shots relatively often out here, and arguing and cars screeching tires and that sort of thing. By about 4:30 the road had been blocked off on every side, and I told the scant facts to several cops. They spoke very loudly, so Ludmilla woke up. The first two cops were alright; I noticed the younger one was tearing up a lot, but he didn't look emotional or anything, just had tears running out of his eyes. He may have come into contact with some kind of solvent fumes or something. He had come to my door to back up the cop asking the questions, who was kind of heartbreakingly cute: mexican extraction, that way-too-far-forward hairline, Voice Immodulation Disorder, and huge serious eyes that flashed a beacon of "THERE'S A BODY UP THERE". They were both a little unnerved by me. It's because I'm tall and I happen to be up at that hour, and not afraid of bodies nor cowed by little boys playing at being cops. Welcome to the big city.
They told me a detective would talk to me, so I waited up. Eventually I got sick of waiting around so I went outside and hobbled up the hill-part of the driveway to where the cops were. They all paused as if I was catching them in the cookie jar or something; there were one or two cops I recognized - one of them is this inexplicably super-hot blond lady that looks like a short-n-skinny version of Euphorbia; she looked at me kind of levelly; I don't know what her deal was, really, but she knows who I am; ANYway these are the kind of details I retain, so - a particularly ugly and smelly cop strides over to me with that leather-boy-tough-fag-cowboy walk that some cops seem to think is really impressive, and tried to frighten me with tough talk. I tried not to smirk too directly into his acne-scarred fuckface, and just gave him such facts as I was able to provide. I told him about getting mugged in the driveway last week; he didn't even register the information. He just kept looking at me with a blank and typically redneck mask of hate, a tough-guy shit headed half-lidded glower that blinked in the flashing blues. I looked over at the blond, more or less thinking something like "what the fuck is this asshole's problem?", but her face was inscrutable. She was looking over at us, but also busy with some deal involving a tape measure and a couple of technicians.
Asshole-guy told me to wait while he went over to a detective, and I took that time to give the corpse the last human interaction he'd be likely to get in corporeal form: I knelt down and looked into the face to see if I could recognize him at all; I didn't. One of his shoes was off, and his foot was *white*, totally alabaster, which is weird for a black guy, ey. I wish I'd had a camera; it was quite a scene. His killer had shot him in the head. There was a small pond of blood making a small and truculent stream that was eking across the pavement toward the detective's car. Once I'd determined I didn't know the guy at all, I stood back up and looked over in their direction, starting to get a little annoyed.
The detective didn't cross the street when the cop spoke to him; he looked up from a clipboard and shouted, "Is there SOMETHING I can HELP you with, SIR?" at which point I meant to cross the street and give him the facts, because, unlike a sack full of fucking assholes, I'm not prone to shouting details of a murder at the top of my lungs in a residential neighborhood at that hour of the morning. He screamed "DAMMIT DON'T WALK ACROSS THERE", so I turned around walked back to my front door (well away from the scene), stood there for a few minutes glaring death and hatred at the fuckers that bust druggies and potheads, and swarm like flies on shit to the *aftermath* of crime, but can't be bothered to, say, send a patrol car past this location *ever* despite the fact that there are violent crimes on this street no less than twice a fucking week since spring began.
Officer Bruno, who gave me a ticket for illegal lane change not so long ago, saw me and nodded recognition (he was right to; I was a menace that day). Right then it occurred to me that, without exception, black cops I'd dealt with in Decatur were all cool and stand-up, while the white cops I've dealt with have been, with two exceptions, total redneck dickheads with serious IQ deficits.
At around 6am another detective came to the door, obviously sent by the universe to verify my earlier assessment: a bald black gent, totally rocking the "homicide detective" style with shoulder holster, cream shirt, and nice shoes, being cordial and grateful to talk to someone with a brain, clearly. We joked a bit, and I wished him a better one, just like in Blade Runner.
Mom's freaking out and says she'll pay for us to move "wherever you want" but somehow that mysteriously involves us putting everything into storage and moving into her basement. While I'm shocked and totally heart-warmed that she'd suggest it, of course I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than move into her home (but, on second thought, her husband does have the line on really amazingly good schmab (but: come on; I ain't moving into my mom's basement just yet - feels too much like the death-knell)).
Blargh!!!! Decatur turns out to be five times as crimetastic as metro-Atlanta proper. WTF? And it's always Americans doing this shit, even though this area is at least 60% immigrant settlers and farmer's-market-rescues (fugitives from around the world flock to the Your Dekalb World Farmer's Market because it's a sweet job and there will be at least three other people there that actually speak the same obscure language fluently (a lady that works there told me that it's not too uncommon for fugitives from two entirely different countries to meet, fall in love, marry, and procreate before entirely learning one another's language, which I find ultra-sexy)). The murdered guy was wearing a cool tee; it featured a grande-sized post-Naegle-style bust of a woman wearing a green hat and smiling. His pants were white, but not as perfectly white as his foot.
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On 1 April 2006 in the late afternoon I was out in the garden tilling and daydreaming when my father walked out and offered to buy me a six-pack of beer. That's about all I had going on at the time in my life. I allowed as how that was nice of him, and I said I'd run to the beer store and come right back.
"No," he said, "I'll ride with you."
I was forty-two years old, and I was struck by the fact that my father didn't trust me to go to the beer store and make it back with any predictability. I was overcome with this sudden realization that the only way I'd ever been able to survive the way I had was to make myself my father's pet and allow him to tend to my needs and bail me out when I made a mess of things. We had both become so accustomed to this reality that it seemed almost normal to both of us. I had constructed elaborate rationalizations for the course my life had taken. Most of the time I simply didn't think about the reality of it.
"I don't think I want to drink, dad."
I went inside and poured out the two beers that were in the refrigerator and changed clothes and went to a meeting in the little town of Weatherford, not far from the farm. It was a Saturday night, and there were about five old women sitting around the table. I recognized some of them, though it had been years since I had been there. I told them that I didn't believe this would work for me anymore, but that I didn't know what else to do. I stuck around.
Three or four days passed, and I began to feel better about it. I decided to drive into Dallas and hit a meeting at Lambda, where I had spent so much time in years past. Years ago I had told myself I wouldn't go back there, and that there was no point in making the attempt. But there was no bad feeling when I showed up there. I felt right at home. I began to drive over several times a week, even telling my dad that I was going to Weatherford and then heading to Dallas, an eighty-mile trip, to hit a meeting there. I was beginning to feel a certain degree of expectation about my life that I hadn't experienced in quite some time.
I asked a few people if they would work with me as a sponsor, but I was turned down for one reason or another. For twenty years I had come in and out, usually accruing a few months of dry time at most before devolving into a puddle of self-destruction and bitterness once again. I had become the bad example, the person people pointed to as a warning. That's no joke.
I finally asked George Stephenson if he would sponsor me. George didn't say yes, but he said I should meet with him at his home for a talk. I had known George since my early days with the group. He had been sober for decades, and he had been the treatment director at one of the facilities I'd been sent to by the courts back in the 90s. I trusted him completely, but I still wasn't sure if I would be able to remain sober and become useful in any real sense. We weren't close, but we had maintained a nodding, friendly acquaintance over the years, and we both knew quite a bit about each other. I talked to him about what my life was like, and I began to fall apart. That lasted an hour or so. He gave me some writing assignments and suggested we meet again in a week.
I continued to meet with George on a weekly basis for over a year. During that time he did what no other person had ever done for me, and something for which I will be eternally grateful. He took me all the way through the Twelve Steps of that process and gave me something I had never experienced before. Hope. Perhaps anyone could have done that, since my willingness was the trigger that made everything possible. But no one could have done it the way that George did.
I wrote letters and approached people in person to make amends. I began to pay off old debts, and I did extensive inventory of my relationships and began to develop new ways of behaving toward people in my life so that I could hopefully make right at least some of the damage I had created over the years.
I was beginning to feel true freedom from the tyranny of my impulses and emotional states, and I was becoming a co-creator in my own life with the order and organization of the universe. There developed a rhythm to my life that was sustaining, even when, as George would put it, I was "stirring up dust bunnies in my head". I had an Intercessor of sorts, and I began to experience real peace of mind.
I had moved away from my father and gone back to work at a company that had employed me back in the 90s. I had gotten a place of my own and given my father back his gas card and stopped taking money from him without paying it back. I was self-supporting through my own efforts. I made it to a year and began to sponsor other people myself. I really felt like I had something worthwhile to transmit to others for the first time in my life, and I fully expected not only my material circumstances, but my mind and behavior, to continue to improve with time. I was handed difficulties and felt no panic or need to run from them.
Toward the end of 2007 I began to experience some of the same old troubles that had afflicted me in the past. I was a bit scattered and casting about for a fix. I was encountering trouble from the same defects of character that had dogged me for years and years. This is nothing new, and I bided my time and figured some more work with George would help. Things were good, in spite of my misgivings about what lay ahead.
I talked to George about sitting down again and talking. We made plans to do that soon. All was well. George was not only a very spiritual man, he was also a trained therapist with years of experience in treating addiction. More importantly, he was my friend and had the ability to tether me back down to earth when I was spiraling off into orbit mentally. He would ignore my intellectual acrobatics and stay on point. Just knowing he was there was a great help, though I usually took it for granted.
George was kidnapped and murdered in early February 2008. For a couple of weeks, including his disappearance, the discovery of his body and capture of his killer, the various friends flying in from out of town and the eventual funeral, everything was rather suspended, and I was numb. All of us with whom George had worked gathered together and talked about his effect on our lives and how we should stay in touch and support one another, and we meant it at the time. But we were burnt out by the emotional rollercoaster of that period of time, and we have since retreated into our various corners and kept mostly to ourselves.
I've been off the rez the last couple of months, scattered and spinning my wheels. I still do those things that I've always done to sustain me, but I remain somewhat at a loss. I still wake every morning, turn on the coffeepot, piss and brush my teeth, make my bed and get down on my knees and pray. I then take a handful of pills for my heart and pour a cup of coffee and go into my study to write and read and meditate. I still give thanks every night and inquire what I may do to correct my errors, and I do that sincerely. I still meet with other people like myself, though not as frequently as perhaps I should, and I still stay in constant contact over the phone with friends who share that same road. I told the one remaining person I sponsor last Sunday that I was trying to fire myself from that job, and he said he wouldn't let me. I wasn't getting into drama. I just felt like I had very little to offer him. However, once we began to work on his list of amends I freely shared my experience, and we worked out a process for him to address those people and situations going forward. I was glad he had shown up, even though my phone was turned off and I was offline.
I signed up to chair the six p.m. meetings in April on Wednesdays, and that will anchor me a bit in place. I'm still not sure where I'm going, but I have that same urge to run off and live somewhere else, or get involved in some romantic adventure to distract me. I've done that before, with obvious results.
I'm grateful to be sober. I'm grateful for the time I had with George. I'm scattered, but I remain consistent with most of the things I've been doing these past two years. That is not a lot of time, but it is the longest I've been without a drink or a drug in almost twenty years. And it is the result of the first time in my life that I have surrendered completely to that process that carries me forward today.
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