Just got back from a noon AA meeting. I love the Monday noon meeting. It’s called “There is a solution” and it’s THE meeting that helped me sober up.

I don’t always talk about being a recovering alcoholic. It’s my problem and not yours and I figure most of you will be bored by my stuff in that area of my life.

Anyway, during the meeting, someone talked about quitting drinking forever and having to change playmates and playgrounds.

It’s very typical talk for the Monday meeting since that meeting is often filled with people who don’t have much time in the program. Also, the really sick fucks like me.

Anyway, I get asked at times about how long I’ve been sober and how can I do like I did Saturday night and go to bars, maybe even a bunch of bars, where people are drinking and at least some people are drinking hard.

Well, I’ve got to admit that I’ve had it much easier than most folks who have a drinking problem. I “got it” pretty early on.

One of the things I “got” was that there was no need for me to think about quitting forever and not even quitting for the 11 years I’ve quit. If I had ever tried to quit forever or for a stated long period of time, I’m not so sure I could have stayed sober.

I just try to not drink right now.

Sure, I still have the thought come to me that a cold beer would taste really good or that some red wine would top off this Italian dinner or that a flute of champagne with a strawberry floating in it looks very tasty.

I do a kind of Mike Carpenter Zen thing. I have the thought and let it evaporate and go away.

I just don’t have that drink right now. I’ll have a drink tomorrow or the next day or some other time if I still have that craving. Right now, I just think I’ll pass.

After all, the last time I had a drink I went off to kill myself because I just couldn’t stand the thought of living even one more day like I’d been living: waking up to a hangover, drinking coffee, smoking cigarets and taking aspirin in the shower, hating every single moment of my life, refusing to leave the house, go to work, answer the phone or even coming to the door if you knocked on it. Drinking left me with nothing but remorse and self loathing.

And, I learned that it wasn’t the fifth or eighth drink that got me drunk, it was that first one. It wasn’t the caboose that was killing me, it was the locomotive.

Eventually, I understood that I would stay sober because of what was going on in my own head and in my own heart. If my sobriety depended on what was going on around me, I would always find a reason to drink. So, if you’re around me and you are drinking, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t make me want to drink. It’s like I’m allergic to strawberries and they give me hives. No matter how many people around me are eating strawberries, I’d still get hives if I ate one. So, I don’t eat strawberries, even if it’s strawberry festival.

Therefore, March 17 will come around and “everyone” will be drinking green beer on St. Pat’s Day. Not me. I’ve puked green beer and been puked on. Been there, done that and no thanks.

Drinking isn’t any fun for me anymore. It’s dreadful. It’s death in a glass.

No longer do I wish that I could “drink like a gentleman”. I wasn’t much of a gentleman when I drank.

Quitting drinking was the smartest decision I ever made.

I hope that when you are drinking, it’s good for your palate and that the red wine is good for your heart health and your mental health. That’s as it should be.

Even the best medicines have side effects and bad results for a small part of the population given the medicine. I just happen to be one of the ones that has a bad side effect from alcohol.

I can’t begin to tell you how much better my life is without drinking. Even when I have problems — and I’ve been through the death of my father and a divorce from my wife of 30 years while sober — those problems are better and my bad times are better than when I was drinking and couldn’t get out of bed and into the office.

Everything I have today, including my law office and wardrobe and car and house and the best circle of friends any man could wish for, everything I have today flows from my sobriety. I would not have all that if I were not sober. I would likely have completed my wish to die and be dead, but even alive, I would be in hell.

Thank you God and Thank you to AA.

Peace.

Sunday was the perfect antidote to Saturday night.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to the lovely Juliet.

I mostly stayed home Sunday and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Eventually, who would have guessed?, I had to get out in the Miata and drive around.

I went to the grocery to get some cat food.

Then, to Barnes and Noble, but the one up on Memorial and not the one right next to my house. I bought three mind candy trash mystery novels, one by my all time favorite, Elmore Leonard, one by the truely magical James Lee Burke, and one by Neuromancer author William Gibson. I dove into the Elmore Leonard immediately upon returning home.

I sat for 100 pages in the sunlight from the south in the open door to my back yard, interrupted only twice by a needy Sinatra whose belly just had to be scratched at that exact moment OR ELSE!

It was like taking a really long breath. A sigh out of all my “troubles” and a breathe in of good, sweet, smokey and tree pollen filled fresh air. Yeah, I’m stopped up as can be, but it’s OK. It’s not much different than a really tight starched shirt collar.

Anyway, went for a late coffee at Nichols Hills Plaza Starbucks with the lovely Juliet and we hatched a terrific plot.

I gave her a little cash and she went to the grocery for bell pepper and onion.

I went home and put pasta on to boil.

Yes, I actually cooked and ate at home.

Whole wheat penne pasta covered with marinara flavored by sweet garlic and Italian sausage. I paired this with a romaine lettuce salad drenched in Flip’s dressing and some garlic toast. Sweet Iced Tea as the beverage, YUM!

Juliet is such a good dinner companion. She’s so relentlessly upbeat and happy that she even turned around my restless and discontent mood and I became giddy with content and serenity.

She even brought with her a wonderful DVD to watch after the meal was put away and the dishes were in the dishwasher.

We cuddled on the couch and watched “Central Station,” a Brazilian movie that I liked quite a bit.

Thank you, Juliet. You were perfect, as usual. J’adore.

Now, it’s Monday morning and back to the grind. This Monday, though, I’m ready to face whatever shall come my way.

TTFN

I’ve now put up 200 posts.

Think of it. I’ve posted 200 times.

Charles, Kat with a K’s brother, says the blog is all Kat, cat and pussy all the time. Pretty funny.

And a big “shout out” to the internet deprived, Luddite Pink Lady. She’s the latest to arrive at Blogblah!!!

Welcome, darlin’. I’ll dance with you anytime.

It’s spring, the moon is very large and bright and I was restless last night.

I went to: The Red Cup, Galileo’s, Isis, Rococo, Sober Grounds, VZDs and Flip’s.

I heard bluegrass, blues, jazz and rock’n’roll.

Saw folks I knew everywhere I went.

But whatever it was I was looking for, I didn’t find it.

I couldn’t stay in one place.

Everywhere I went, no matter how many people were there and how many of them I knew, I felt alienated and alone.

All those places are familiar to me, but they all felt a little uncomfortable and strange. I finally realized it wasn’t the places that felt strange, it was me that felt strange.

Meanwhile, although I was live and have a penis everywhere I went last night, I was on film and my penis was showing at the Erotic, Exotic film festival at IAO. The Oz and Debster went to see the premier of Oz’s clip starring your faithful blogger and the lovely Amanda Joy. Ralph P also showed his film of 50s pinup photos in an erotic montage.

Maybe that had something to do with the strangeness factor.

FULL FRONTAL NUDITY.

LIVE ON SCREEN!

SEE JOHN NAKED.

AGAIN.

SHOWS NIGHTLY.

Get over it, Oklahoma City.

The way I feel this morning (and who knows how long this will last) is that I’m finally at the place where clubbing on the weekends is as boring as the television I used to watch. Time to give it up and find something else better to do.

What do you think? How about handyman John? Maybe buy a few power tools and go to work on my house. Do a little painting here and some floor work there. Maybe change out some of the antiquated light switches and fixtures. Sand and paint the ugly and depressingly dark cabinets in the kitchen. Maybe do a little landscaping, take out the dead stuff and clean up the beds and water the yard.

Hey, it COULD happen!

Maybe I could just do some of the things I already have on the plate: finish the novel and do some watercolor and sumii.

Get back to cooking and fix some meals here at the house.

I did do one thing that felt satisfying yesterday. I worked on cleaning up the Miata. The trunk was whack since I had a flat and put on the tiny tire. All that stuff was just thrown back in the trunk and I couldn’t fit anything in that smallish space. So, I washed the car and vacuumed it out and re-did the trunk. I even fit the tonneau top over the ragtop. Just those minor changes made the car look a lot better. It passed 90,000 on the odometer this week and it’s time to take it in for a major workover, including a new timing belt. I really can’t afford that this month because the tag has to be renewed this month as well. I’ve been thinking about trading it in, but my “in” with car dealerships, Dayna, says to drive the sumbitch until the fenders fall off or the repair costs equal a car payment averaged over a year. It’s 10 years old this fall and maybe it’ll be a “classic”. Hey, it COULD happen!

Anybody else notice that all the trees are in bloom? Redbuds, dogwood, mock pears, lotsa stuff. It’s pretty but it also messes with my allergies. Enjoy it now, folks, the drought is killing everything and it may not last.

The Gary calls to note that the number of billionaires in america has doubled under the Bush Administration. With only a couple hundred million inheritance, you can graduate into the real money category as long as the tax the poor bribe the rich Bush administration is in power. Please see “Billionaires for Bush” site at right.

Like the late Ev Dirkson once said: a billion here a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.

Peace! Out!

blogging is such a self absorbed activity…

I sat for Maybree Ormes last night. She’s in town from Chico, CA, doing a project in which she’s painting 100 portraits. It’s just my face from forehead to chin, no ears or hair. She described a portrait as being a painting of a face in which the mouth is wrong. That’s really funny to me. We had a good time and she’s a good companion and conversationalist. I’m glad she’s on Paseo and I’m grateful to John Belt for giving her some space in Case Rosa.

Being in Casa Rosa again reminded me of MB and made me miss her more than usual. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking into her old studio and feeling a little sad seeing it empty when once it had been so full and lively a place with all her fabrics and colors and textures strewn about and carefully stored. Now, it’s just one empty room after another. No music, no sewing machine, no bustling about.

I have pictures of my grandson cavorting on the deck around the koi pond and walking around that converted swimming pool also made me a little nostalgic.

Some of you know that Bookemdano had a family crisis yesterday that turned out better than any of us expected. I found I couldn’t work and went home and got on my knees and prayed for a couple of hours. I’m quite sure that’s why things turned out so well. It’s my own particular hard wired straight connection with God that makes the world go ’round, as all of you know. Maybe not. I’m grateful in all events.

Speaking of John Belt, here it is the weekend again and I’ve not blogged about Joy Reed’s show last weekend. I absolutely LOVED the work done by my friend Eliz. Brown. Very textural, brightly colored and satisfying, all as a work of art should be in my humble opinion. I can’t say enough good things about what Joy Reed is doing at her gallery. She has very nice works by a variety of artists and her openings are class acts every time. There were also pieces by some familiar artists that I very much liked including some larger pieces by Michi Susan and a gorgeous portrait called “Remembering Big Horn” by Mike Larson.

Last weekend was also an opening by a new art space, Blue Moon, with Randy Clemons on Dobro and Paul Wingo’s watercolors. Have no doubt that Randy and Tara F. are onto something with Blue Moon, especially with Amanda Joy and Christin as assistants. It was exciting to be there at the start of something I think will be really big in a very short time.

I also want to give props to Shy Oren who plays jazz Thursday nights at Rococo and will be playing with Bat-Or tonight at VZDs. What a wonderful bassist he is!!! I don’t want to let him go back to Israel, I want him to stay here for my personal entertainment.

Speaking of jazz musicians, seems like I saw the Ills and haven’t blogged about them, but their atomic jazz at Galileo’s was a very big hit with me. They are really good musicians and I really like their music. Once I picked up on what they were doing, I’ve liked them better and better each time I’ve heard them. Along those same lines, I sat for quite a while with my hero, Michael R. Mutt, on Tuesday night listening to a Japanese jazz guitarist who was technically perfect and played very mellow music along with a bass player. I’m making a guess that his name is something like “Iagashi”.

I know I’ve left you guys hanging on my Tail of Conquest, but don’t worry, I’ll get back to it this weekend. Next installment: Sinatra finds out that trees can be climbed easier than they can be unclimbed. As I’m writing this story, I sort of realize that my attitude towards God and Sinatra’s attitude toward me are eerily similar. I may just be projecting since I’m anthropomorphizing the hell out of the cat.

Paseo dinner and movie night last Wednesday was fun, albeit a small gathering. Six of us ate at Pepperoni Grill and the discussions was swell, if truncated on my part by the addictive necessity that I will go outside to smoke. After dinner, only four of us gathered at my house to see “Bonnie and Clyde”, and we all agreed it held up quite well and was a solid classic film. “We rob banks” is my motto for this week .

I’m not blogging much these days about politics because so much of it is so discouraging: we’re violating civil rights at home and even China complains about our human rights violations and torture abroad; the Patriot Act has been renewed and Tom Delay was re-nominated by a big majority in his home district in Houston. The polls say Bush is at a low point in popularity and that sounds good, but as long as Congress is so strongly GOP, that won’t help since he’s not up for election. We are approaching the anniversary of the start of the Iraq invasion and I watch helplessly as that country tears itself apart under our tutelege. So sad.

Back to work. TTFN

The Times of London; March 08, 2006

Enjoy that next cup of coffee: it may be your last
By Sam Lister

Research suggests that carrying a particular gene prevents some people from processing caffeine quickly and makes them more vulnerable to heart attacks

COFFEE drinkers who have more than three cups a day could significantly increase their chances of suffering a heart attack.

Here’s the link to the whole story.

Times Online

I am SOOOO dead.

From Forbes online 07March06
By Tim Harford
Harford, a Financial Times columnist, is the author of The Undercover Economist.

“The hippies,” claimed economist Andrew Oswald recently, “are having their quiet revenge.” Oswald, a professor at Warwick University in England, is one of a growing number of economists fascinated by the question of what makes us happy. In a recent public lecture he announced, “Once a country has filled its larders, there is no point in that nation becoming richer.”

That, at least, should bring a smile to a few faces. Economists have suddenly realized that money can’t buy you happiness? This is like the squarest kid at school suddenly discovering beer, girls and music in his 30s. The rest of the world had worked it out already.

One of the things that excite economists like Oswald is the ability to compare data on wealth, education and marital status with the results of happiness surveys. In these surveys, people are asked such questions as “Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite happy, not very happy, not at all happy?” Economists have been trying to make sense of the results across individuals, across countries and across the years.

The headline: Once a country gets fairly rich (though much poorer than the United States), further economic growth does not seem to make its citizens any happier.

So, money does not buy happiness. Or does it? “In every society, at any point in time, richer people are happier,” points out Will Wilkinson, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., who runs a blog (The Fly Bottle) on happiness research and public policy. “But that in itself doesn’t tell you much about the relationship between money and happiness.”

Richer people, after all, tend to have high-status jobs. They tend to have more control over their lives at work — why pay someone six figures if you’re not going to ask her to use her own judgment? They also have higher expectations and will be comparing themselves to wealthier people. It’s hard to say what is really driving the results: money, status or expectations.

Perhaps each society’s richer people are also happier because happiness comes not from absolute wealth but from relative wealth — recall H.L. Mencken’s quip that “a wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife’s sister’s husband.”

A more skeptical view is that, while it means something to compare my happiness with that of the guy asking me for change on the street, it means nothing to compare my feelings today to those of my grandfather in 1950 — or those of a Portuguese shopkeeper or a Japanese salaryman.

Wilkinson and economists like Oswald and his compatriot, Lord Richard Layard, are thinking about the policy implications of happiness research. My own interest is a little different: Can the new breed of happiness economists offer us any tips for happier living?

Much of the advice is pretty slippery. For instance, married people are much happier than single people. So perhaps you should get married? (Even better if your fiancée’s sister’s husband is unemployed.)

Not so fast. More-sophisticated surveys show that the causation runs both ways: Happy people tend to find spouses, while those suffering from depression don’t find it so easy. And, not surprisingly, some people do brilliantly out of marriage, and others are utterly miserable. As an economist, I’m afraid I have no idea whether you should propose to that cute girl you’ve been seeing. (You may or may not take comfort in Oswald’s finding that you can always get out of marriage: People are happier immediately after a divorce than immediately before.)

Oswald also suggests self-employment, if you can pull it off without losing out financially. “Everything associated with self-employment — independence, autonomy — is also associated with being happy.”

Both Oswald and Richard Layard argue that relationships are more important than money — and that includes professional relationships. “I’ve come to believe in the old-fashioned view that one should be tender in one’s dealings with colleagues,” Lord Layard said. And what else? “Think about what you have rather than what you don’t have, both materially and in your relationships and your personal strengths. To use the language of economics, don’t try to rectify things that aren’t your comparative advantage.”

This is spiritual thinking from an economist, but Oswald goes one better. If you’re depressed, why not just wait? “There’s a kind of J-curve describing happiness over time. Your late 30s are the most unhappy period of your life, but then the older you get the happier you are. Life really does begin again at 40.”

I think the most useful research, though, is by an honorary economist: Danny Kahneman, the only psychologist ever to win the Nobel Prize in economics. He asked nearly 1,000 working women in Texas to reflect on their previous day, list the different episodes in it, what they were doing and how they were feeling.

Some results are predictable enough: Work is miserable, and commuting is worse. Others are not so obvious. For instance, praying is fun, but looking after the kids is not. Spending time with your friends is one of the most enjoyable things you can do, but spending time with your spouse is merely OK. In fact, parents or other relatives turn out to make more enjoyable company than the supposed love of your life.

What is perfectly clear, though, is that socializing with anyone except your boss makes you feel good. Sex is best of all. This is handy advice at last. But what if you are having sex with your boss? Whereof economists cannot speak, we must remain silent.

My faithful servant has been dutiful this morning. I have been fed and given fresh water. My kitty litter has been cleaned. Although I had to chide him for being such a slowfoot, my milk treat was placed in the sacred blue saucer.

To reward my slave, I have jumped onto his boney lap and allowed him to pet my fabulous furry face and stroke my back and belly. The servant, cursed with a barren and wrinkled face, wholly without whiskers as a sign of his insignificance and lower form status, covets my face and fur. How can I blame him?

I sniff his blue cup of hot liquid and watch his inferior paws, clawless and misshapen things, dance on the folding machine on his table.

He stops and strokes my back from the top of my skull to the tip of my tail. I allow this. It is what he lives for.

It is not what I live for.

I live to conquer.

I will go onto my game preserve and fulfill my destiny.

My servant whines and brays, but I am adamant: Open the door, slave!

I am drawn to the earthy smells underfoot, the good odor of my own domain.

The tallest tree in the universe is outside my glass doors.

I gaze at it and listen to its fluttering leaves call to me.

The tree and its leaves mock me.

I will conquer them.

I will bite the leaves.

First, I will enslave and eat their youngling at the foot of the tree.

Inferior beings, trees. They cannot run, they cannot pounce, they have no servants and they are not soft and furry.

They are meant to be conquered.

There is the first basecamp.

A black and pourous mountain of rock beside the tree and next to the impenetrable doors that give servants access to my game preserve.

I am the King Kong behind the great wall humans have erected in reverence to my powers.

I easily leap to its summit and observe the obedience of all that I survey.

Someday, I shall punish the flying things for refusing to come play with me.

Their doom is at hand.

There’s one now!

(sotto voce) If I remain very still, perhaps it will come close enough for me to pounce!

It’s back is turned.

I shall advance to the flat, white stone pathway.

I am frozen in midstride. Invisible in my unpreturbable stillness.

I see my chance and I dart forward at the highest speed attainable on the planet.

Coward!

Upstart!

What’s this? A vine?

I meant to come over here and inspect the vines.

The flying thing did NOT make a fool of me.

The flying thing did NOT make me leave my base camp.

I meant to come over here and inspect the vines all along.

The flying thing means NOTHING to me.

NOTHING.

It’s the vine that’s interesting.

I always intended to come over here and practice my pounce on the small bit of paper caught in the vine.

See, watch this pounce.

POUNCE!!!

I might have done that to the flying thing at any time I wanted.

Hey! What’s this?!? The monkey grass is waving at me. A crowd of them lined up for my royal review!

I shall grant them their wish.

I shall walk over to them, sniff them, bite off the tip of one of the leaves and parade my magnificant self before them.

My adoring subjects, waving me onward to victory and immortality.

It is good to be the master.

TO BE CONTINUED

Sinatra stayed out all night on Fat Tuesday and I’m not sure what all happened but his drug pusher showed up Wednesday night with a new catnip mouse. AND his junkie source is a blonde babe.

Which means, dear readers, that my cat had a better Mardi Gras than I did.

Now, he just sort of hangs out listening to the stereo play Led Zep II and whenever I ask him if he wants to go do something, he just says “Yo Yo Yo, dude”.

Or “Phat!”

I’ve tried to tell him that’s so last year, so old school and not at all hip.

He’s not listening.

Today, there are three female cats hanging around my back yard and every once in a while, he goes out, talks to them, has a little spat, and comes back inside with another gold chain around his neck.

What’s that about?

And just try to tell him the broad brimmed hat with a feather in it is declasse and he just shows new gold fangs. It’s his “gangsta grill”, he says. I’m really confused about some of this stuff.

I mean, you take them in, you feed and pet them, you buy them a new kitty litter box, you try to instill some FREAKIN’ VALUES and what happens? They’re alla time asking you the spread on the Knicks game. I answered “butter?” and he just looked at me. I tried “jam?” and he gave me the most disgusted look. It was all the spreads I could think of.

He used to be content with a spot on the carpet next to the heater vent. Now, he wants in the middle of the bed, which is one thing, AND UNDER THE COVERS!!! I’m not having it.

He’s constantly in the back of my closet. I think he’s trying to saw off the barrel of my shotgun. There’s a lot of noises I can’t otherwise explain.

I even tried to tell him he’s mostly white except for his ears, tail and mask. That got him going . Something about a “single drop of black blood” and all us southern honkey racist oppressors.

Next thing I know, he’s got a pair of my best sunglasses and IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

gotta go now. something about how he wants me to pay him for rent on his crib. Crib? He doesn’t have a crib. He sleeps on my bed. Oh, well. Talk to you later.

mardi gras

carnival

fat tuesday

I went to parties, bars and restaurants and didn’t get home until after midnight.

Didn’t see a single flashed breast.

Nor a pair of them, for that matter.

I went to a Fat Tuesday brunch on the invitation of privacy shattered Sharon. It seemed like a wonderful gathering and there were lots of people and good food there. Perfectly lovely time. That was the problem. It was lovely. By which, of course, I mean that no one got good and drunk and rowdy and started taking off their top.

So it went all day long. I went many various places and saw and spoke to a wide variety of lovely women, many of whom I absolutely adore and think the world of them. Not a one of them was rowdy or drunk and MORE TO THE POINT, not a single one of them would show me their breasts, even when I offered the obligatory beads.

Not even the ordinarily party hearty types. Tina and Sandy were bartending on the Paseo last night and they’ve become old married women and there wasn’t a breast in sight. Not in my sight in all events.

On the up side of mardi gras yesterday, I also wasn’t around anyone puking pink hurricane into a gutter and down the front of their not-as-clever-as-they-think carnival tee shirt.

I did see a few of the faithful with ash on their forehead this morning, however.

Since I have to grow old, why oh why do I seem to have to do so gracefully? Dammit.