Due to some argueably minor recovery type issues that more or less popped up with both me and HAP(nyc) on a recent spray paint-y trip to Puerto Rico, I thought it was time indeed to take in a meeting. Not that I was putting much stock in that it would make me feel any better, but it was raining like a madman out and the room was directly across the street from my building and could be reached, sore knee or not, with a quick jog through traffic. That and the fact that my favorite bookstore was closed for some unknown reason. And when I wandered in I was struck with my usual seat selection anxiety and dread and couldn't help but think where that whole thing started. In grammar school I sat in the second to last row of desks in the class. There was no one in the last row. All the desks were empty. So you could say I was in the last row, but there was also that very last empty row if you were being totally accurate. I liked being back there, more of an observer or witness of the class than down in the thick of it. Oh dont get me wrong, I loved attention at that age and was in no way shy, but I liked to be in the spotlight on my terms and judge everyones reactions to things and see what was what from this vantage point. I was in the back corner by the rear door. If it was hot or stuffy or something, sometimes that door would even be open. If that were the case, then because of the way the room was situated, I could see clear down the hall and even make out some bushes near the entryway at he front of the school. That in and of itself was some how reassuring, let alone being in the back, with no one behind me and everyone where I could see them laugh and make sure nobody rolled their eyes or shot a thats lame look at one of my jokes or something. If people were behind me, no one would still do those thingsIm pretty sure, but I couldnt be absolutely 100% sure of it. I couldnt. And if someone was whispering or something, forget it. I would analyze it for weeks. So from my seat, I had the long view down the hallway, with the front vestibule and stone and wood beam lobby and bushes out there. I had everyone in front of me where I could see them and to the left, a wall of windows and the wonderful view of the sports fields and endless woods beyond. So, it was pretty good. It was really a pretty good set up. Oh and if it were raining or more incredibly, snowing, the view was sick. The blowing snow would nearly obliterate the woods if it were coming down at a good clip and that, coupled with the fact that the room was really warm and that if it was really snowing that way, we would probably be going home early, it was really great. I could judge if we were going to be sent home early by whether the woods way out there were visible or not. Thats how I could judge it. Oh and if the weather wasnt that bad, like light rain or flurries or mist or something, this old man would wonder into view every day in the late morning or so, walking his dog. And he would have the best umbrella. He was great to watch, with or without that umbrella. I looked forward to him everyday regardless, but when he had that umbrella, oh man, it was really great. It was a huge golfers type umbrella and it had a print like a big globe on it with oceans and multicolored continents and countries. It was amazing. For some reason, inappropriately enough, we later learned, we all called him Papa Doc. I know. But at the time we didnt have a clue. We really didnt. It just was a funny sort of name to call him.
And as I picked a seat in the meeting and sat there, I couldn't help but to let my mind kind of wander.
1. If enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee.
2. 99% of the head's thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself.
3. It is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in the microwave
4. Logical validity is not a guarentee of truth
5. The people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened
6. The effects of too many cups of coffee are in no way pleasant or intoxicating
7. The cliche "I don't know who I am" unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliche.
8. People can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid
9. It is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack
10. Certain sincerely devout and spiritually advanced people believe that the God of their understanding helps them find parking places and gives them advice on the pick six lotto.
11. Cockroaches, up to certain point, can be lived with.
12. "Acceptance" is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
13.Most substance addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking
14. Informing, squeling, narcing, ratting, or ratting out can also be known as "eating cheese", presumably spun off from the associative nexus of "rat"
15. Sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused
16. Female chicanos are not called chicanas
17. Purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape
18. You do not have to like a person to learn from him/her
19. Lonliness is not a function of solitude
20. Unfortunately I know what a "Texas Catheter" is
21. Exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape
22. Evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil
23. It is possible to learn things from a stupid person
24. It takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds
25. Perversely it is often more fun to want something than to have it
26. Everyone is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else
27. A person under the influence of substances will do things that he simply would not ever do sober and that some consequences of these things cannot ever be erased or amended. Felonies are an example of this.
28. Addiction is either a disease or a mental illness or a spiritual condition (as in "poor of spirit") or an O.C.D.-like disorder or an affective or character disorder and over 75% of vetran AA-ers who want to convince you that it is a disease will make you sit down and watch them write DISEASE on a piece of paper and then divide and hyphenate the word so that it becomes DIS-EASE, then will stare at you as if expecting you to undergo some kind of blinding epiphanic realization.
And as I picked a seat in the meeting and sat there, I couldn't help but to let my mind kind of wander.
1. If enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee.
2. 99% of the head's thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself.
3. It is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in the microwave
4. Logical validity is not a guarentee of truth
5. The people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened
6. The effects of too many cups of coffee are in no way pleasant or intoxicating
7. The cliche "I don't know who I am" unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliche.
8. People can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid
9. It is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack
10. Certain sincerely devout and spiritually advanced people believe that the God of their understanding helps them find parking places and gives them advice on the pick six lotto.
11. Cockroaches, up to certain point, can be lived with.
12. "Acceptance" is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
13.Most substance addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking
14. Informing, squeling, narcing, ratting, or ratting out can also be known as "eating cheese", presumably spun off from the associative nexus of "rat"
15. Sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused
16. Female chicanos are not called chicanas
17. Purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape
18. You do not have to like a person to learn from him/her
19. Lonliness is not a function of solitude
20. Unfortunately I know what a "Texas Catheter" is
21. Exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape
22. Evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil
23. It is possible to learn things from a stupid person
24. It takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds
25. Perversely it is often more fun to want something than to have it
26. Everyone is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else
27. A person under the influence of substances will do things that he simply would not ever do sober and that some consequences of these things cannot ever be erased or amended. Felonies are an example of this.
28. Addiction is either a disease or a mental illness or a spiritual condition (as in "poor of spirit") or an O.C.D.-like disorder or an affective or character disorder and over 75% of vetran AA-ers who want to convince you that it is a disease will make you sit down and watch them write DISEASE on a piece of paper and then divide and hyphenate the word so that it becomes DIS-EASE, then will stare at you as if expecting you to undergo some kind of blinding epiphanic realization.