After Ironing

This is something new for me: to actually take the time to iron my clothes the night before I have to go to work. In the past, I've always sent my stuff out or paid someone to do it for me, but I'm trying my best to cut any costs at any section of the financial spectrum. Even though I'd rather help someone move than iron (and I'd prefer to be handcuffed to a chair and take a beating with a baseball bat than help someone move), it's only about ten to fifteen minutes (tops) of my time to get everything ready to put my best foot forward at The Firm (the place that was revealed to me today to be the exact thing that I've been working toward my entire life; I could write that I don't remember the last time that I worked in a place like this, for people like this - the truth is, though, that I don't think I've ever worked for people of such a high moral caliber and such genuine integrity... it's one of the greatest things I've had happen for me in my entire adult life).

I planned to leave the Lambda meeting and head home to make my list of everything that I desperately have to complete over the next seventy-two hours (not the least of which is completion of PACE's application for the Beaird Foundation grant), but I ended up tooling around on Spotify to download more music to play while I go on my (theoretical) morning run. Not a terrible thing - I'll just have to put in some extra hours tomorrow night to be sure that I get everything completed in time.

I'm also trying to watch an episode of American Horror Story: Asylum every night (I'm re-watching the entire season from the beginning since I never finished it last winter) to be ready for the premier of Coven when it arrives.

There's also the list of thank-you notes I have to write and send, the proposal I have to compile for Jonathan's approval to send out for evaluation, the notes I still have to type for LASCYPAA 2015 bid, and many other tasks - all of which I can't currently call to mind - that I'll need to finish over the long holiday weekend. All of this with the other plan to spend Sunday afternoon reading and writing and being generally lazy to usher in Monday's Labor Day holiday.

I'll get it done. I just need to get busy and stop procrastinating. I no longer hold the belief that I only work well under pressure. That stuff's for the college-aged me. I haven't been of that mindset for nearly ten years.

I finished "Sometimes They Come Back" last night - only mildly impressed, but I remember really enjoying the story tremendously the first time I read it. "Strawberry Spring" tonight, but first: the list...

Sometimes They Come Back

I didn't finish it last night, but I'm planning to get through it unless my eyes droop too low and I find it impossible to keep them open to complete this story. I was hoping to maintain my goal of completing one entry every night, but it looks like I may continue to fall behind.

Tons to do tomorrow. I have things due with LASCYPAA, the coming film festival, PACE in general, a new venture through The Philadelphia Center, and more edits to make on my short fiction to get it ready for publication in Henry Harbor.

Twenty-four hours are far too few. Especially when one factors in sleep.

Because This is What I'm Doing Here...

I Am the Doorway Photo Image

The image one might have after reading "I Am the Doorway." Actually, it would be impossible not to have this image in one's head if one were alive and reading Stephen King back in the 80's. It was the cover to the first copy of Night Shift that I ever owned.

Trucks

This was the story that served as the inspiration for the late eighties Stephen King flick Maximum Overdrive, which was - if I'm not mistaken - Stephen King's directorial debut (and, thank God, his swan song as well) and the second time I ever remember seeing the man himself pulling an Alfred Hitchcock and showing up in something of his own (Creepshow was the first time). It's not a bad story. Kind of The Matrix long before The Matrix was even a glimmer in the eyes of Keanu Reeves. It's simple and apocalyptic: man created machine, but at some point, machine gained the ability to think for itself and decided to take over - to make human beings the slaves to keeping machines in operation. The only lingering question I have after completing this story is: to what purpose? There's no real motivation for the sudden onslaught of trucks taking over this one specific place, and in the postulation of the short story's characters, other places everywhere else.

Not as great as "Gray Matter," which I think is the best story in the book so far, and far less creative than "Battleground," which I found really interesting.

Now that I'm back on track with using this blog for the specific purpose of its original intent, I feel better about things. The past few days have been trying, but I'm thankfully starting a new journey at The Firm tomorrow, and I'm definitely looking forward to every part of this adventure.

Sleep will come soon, but "Sometimes They Come Back" will come first.

Back on Track

Tonight, in quick succession, three pivotal events occurred to totally alter the trajectory of my thinking. Finally, for the first time in weeks, I feel like the cosmos got it right and answered several prayers at once, not all of them being things for which I prayed to receive.

Life is definitely looking up, and I feel more ready than ever to take on the slings and arrows that I feel have been thrown my way at an unnecessarily high rate lately. More specifics later. For now, I just wanted to write out a quick, little note of gratitude before I get wrapped up on my sheets and blankets and get ready to sleep the coming night through. I have a reason to set my alarm again, and I needed that desperately.

Finished "Battleground" yesterday and tonight I'll move into "Trucks," nearly reaching the halfway point in Night Shift after spending all my time lately reading everything in between, but nothing Stephen King. "Battleground" is a great story. It's like the one thing that I always wanted to happen with my GI Joes when I was a little kid warped into an adult's absolute nightmare. The master never fails to disappoint.

Halloween Countdown

Let the Countdown to Halloween Begin...

I'm tempted to add Ordeal (the incredibly poorly written, but equally incredibly compulsive memoir of Linda Lovelace) to the pile of other books that I've picked up and put down unfinished this year. There's Anna Karenina, Exodus, Lamb, The Host... I hate to add another title to the list of books that I plan to complete at some point, but there's this American Horror Story: Asylum marathon on FX and it's making me want to get back to Night Shift (I think the next story I have to read is Battleground), which I still haven't finished.

Maybe I'll just get ready for bed (which I'd planned to do over an hour ago - I'm whipped from this day) and finish the memoir before I go to sleep. I can get back on track with all the stuff I really ought to be reading tomorrow.

It's All About Perception

I have had a very weird month. Something happened between the time that I had off over the long Independence Day weekend and the time that I picked up my 18 month chip. For whatever reason, I associate the general oddness with the weekend of LASCYPAA, but I don't want to associate something strange, different, and uncomfortable with something that was also very much a turning point (in a positive way) for my recovery/sobriety; however, there it is.

LASCYPAA was the beginning of the Tradition Study group. It was the first point that I really felt that I had a place in the world of AA. It was the point at which I really discovered just what service is, what service work can be.

It was also the point where I stopped praying so seriously. I stopped reading so intently. I lost my passion for writing. The Shreveport Catalyst folded. I stopped meditating in the morning. I started sleeping later. I discovered that the position I'd accepted wasn't what I thought it was. And it was when I really started taking a long, hard look at the various people who color my world and seeing them for everything that they are: their good, their bad, and those indifferent little idiosyncrasies that combine to make them complete.

I've been in a crazy, stupid funk since the last days of July, and here we are: approaching the final days of August and I still don't seem to be snapping out of it. Every time I pick up my pencil to create another few pages, I immediately put it back down. I feel distracted and can't seem to get a handle on that zest that I had pretty much every day leading up to the time that this all started.

That's not to say that I haven't had good news. Positive things happen to me every day, but I forget to enjoy the moments and to express gratitude and to feel the pleasures that life throws at me at nearly every turn. The cliche stands that sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees, and right now, that's just where I am.  I'm hoping that with a little more blogging than usual, a little more attention to my reading and writing and spiritual life, I'll get past this point and move forward to the other side of things. I'm not the type of guy to stay down for long. This just happens to be one of those periods in life when all those forestry branches are blocking my view and I think my garden needs a little grooming.

Life happens. Jobs are lost. People fall off their pedestals. Family members get sick. Bills come due. People let you down. Life rarely gives me exactly what I think I need at the exact moment I'd consider it best.

However.

Life is mostly beautiful. There's always a better job. People surprise me. Family members recover. Bills get paid. People commit random acts of kindness. Life gives me exactly what I need at the moment I'd least expect it.

Tomorrow is another day.

The Way Things Are Now (A STARK Contrast)

Blasts From the Past (Thanks, Merce)

I have no idea where this was taken.
Notice the labret?

I know EXACTLY where and when this was
taken. Shockingly, I remember
this (very) early morning very well.

I recognize the apartment. And my dear friend, Marlene. But
who the hell is that guy standing with her??!??!

Oakwood Banquet

Another Night and I Still Have No Inspiration to Blog

At least I'm planning to hit the sack early again (earlier than last night), and I'm planning to actually get up, get out of bed, and get going on what will hopefully be a very productive day.

I got caught up on issues of The Advocate and Out (though I still have more of the last issue to finish), and I started reading Ordeal, the Linda Lovelace autobiography.

Something good's gotta come out of all that, right?

Blue Moon

I'm hoping the wishes, that all of the wishes, in the land of wish-making wishes tonight
Are granted and fulfilled and made to come true by the people who make wishes all right.

I have nothing more to write this evening. Hitting the sack early and planning to get up in the morning to knock 'em dead and get a better handle on being happy. Getting to that place has been a problem for me lately.

No Internet

Since I'm stealing this connection (Comcast is out - yet again), I'm not creating anything of substance tonight; however, Brodie Vines asked that I post something.

Here we have it...

Something.

More Progress In My Room

Three Photos: I Forget That Little Lady is There Sometimes

I played with the lighting consecutively...

There's something in this photo.

Just behind the chair that sits just to the right of the left
side of the door frame leading into the living room
(the lit room on the right).
See her?

Comments

After that last post, I just realized that I don't have any comments. No likes or dislikes or anecdotal remonstrances from anyone. My clicker/counter suggests that someone out there is reading, but are they? Do I have any fans? If so, why aren't you saying anything. And why aren't you following me?

Unemployment: The Musical

Less than ninety days after starting, I've already been evicted from the halls of Tiger Axles, Inc. Yes, there is quite a story here, but it's not coming tonight (I do this a lot, don't I? Throw little bits of bones out for anyone reading to gnash with their short, spiky teeth, only to draw my hand back in a fake-out to end all fake-outs). Since I seem to have a little time on my hands, I'll worry about sloughing out the details tomorrow. I just scarfed down two turkey sandwiches and I'm about to eat a handful of Pringles (the whole wheat version), so I'm just going to lay back, let my food digest its way into my fat reservoirs, and pick up any one of the many books and/or magazines I've been putting off completing for several weeks.

Fresh air.

Tuesday

Once again, I'm reminded that these days are all about saving my serenity, my peace of mind, my goodwill toward others, my perception, and my life by making changes where and when necessary. Another day in a row wherein I slept much later than I wanted, and then rushed to get ready and out the door and into work on time. After a conversation with Ryan following tonight's meeting (all about the places that people are finding themselves: the places that they'd much rather not be right now), I've come home to see that I have these stacks all over my bed. My journal, my magazines (two months' worth now), two books that I'm reading, a notebook for writing, my planner (I haven't doused it with a list for the week and it's already almost halfway through), and the other notebooks that I use for writing and structuring my thoughts and my life. I have got to get into bed and do the right thing: read until I pass out. No sense in trying to create anything more colorful and/or creative tonight. No sense in staying up any later than I absolutely have to. Alarm's are being set even earlier, and I'm determined to make have the full morning's worth that I need to have and to enjoy a successful day.

What I've Been Doing Tonight

After leaving work a few minutes early, I came home long enough to catch my breath before heading out to the fourth night of AA Tradition Study, a welcome addition to my weekly endeavors. It's now officially something that I look forward to attending. My plan for the evening (which was also to include taking Mary Louise for a walk and somehow fitting in a workout since I overslept this morning and was preventing from both, but I failed to accomplish each of these tasks as well) was to pick a corner of my room to deep clean. From my bed, especially on sunny mornings, I can see the layers of dust and dog hair on too many surfaces, and I've been meaning to really get into getting everything cleaned and ready for the approaching cooler weather (I don't want to have any reasons to facilitate distractions from the many great things the fall has to offer). I decided it would be best to knock out this de-griming one section at a time. I also wanted to reorganize my stuff (what else am I gonna call it? that's what it is), and to find a better way to lay out my books. I think I've succeeded so far.

As you can see, I cleared off the entire lower shelf below my night stand.
More space for books!

I set up the area to the left as an arts section. 

All of the toys that Mary Louise has accumulated are back
where she can get to them.

And I had Six Degrees of Separation playing to work me through.

I'll admit it isn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I began asking for another book case, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm planning to cover the top with more. Plus, I have three others where that came from. At least I have a better spot for what David started calling "the Library of Congress."

Now, onto another short story in Night Shift and another chapter in Orange is the New Black before bed. I promised myself I'd keep going with this routine until I'm finished. It's not yet half past ten, so I should be fine on sleep.

We'll see if I get up in time for early morning work, though.

Pre-August Cool-Down

Cooler weather is supposedly on the horizon. That is, if one gives credit to the forecast given my the weather application on one's iPhone. Of course, we can't expect crisp evenings and brisk mornings ushering in frost on the grass and pumpkins on porches just yet, but it's only a matter of time. Every day of the coming week holds the promise of rain to usher in the cooler temps wherein highs will top the mid-eighties when Wednesday rolls around - this is a welcome sight in the forecast what with the hundred degree days that we've had consecutively for the past several weeks. The summer was far more mild than we're accustomed to experiencing, and though I know that true fall is still more than a month away, I'm hoping that this cool-down will mean that a truer winter is coming right behind it. I wouldn't mind seeing snow days and icy nights indoors this year. In fact, I'll probably enjoy them if (when) they occur.

The time is less than twenty minutes until 11:00, and I've waited until later than I planned to begin posting in my blog, an activity I've been prevented from completing since the Comcast connection went askew last week and the company (as usual) bent over backwards to not help us get it re-connected at 843 Gladstone.

My weekend has been a full one. The work week tidied up on a positive note, and I managed to get everything gathered and organized when I went into work for a couple hours on Saturday morning, which made me feel better about work than I have since starting there at the beginning of June. Because book club was moved to tonight at six, I was able to make plans with Ryan and Christina to eat Indian at Indigo before finally heading to Tinseltown to see The Conjuring (absolutely terrifying! wonderful! an homage to the genre presented in a way that I appreciate: the kind of horror movies with which I was raised), and I had to come home and read some Stephen King (still in Night Shift, I read "The Mangler" last night - the occult-ish tale of a demonic laundry press that somehow works well and maintains integrity in the dexterous hands of the master storyteller).

I still haven't finished Orange is the New Black, but I was more than halfway completed to discuss it at book club tonight (other than Angie, who picked the title, I had gotten the farthest [furthest? is it time or distance here?] into the story). I plan to finish it this week and to continue trying to down at least one of the stories in Night Shift every evening. Add to that the new issues of Out, The Advocate, and Esquire are all in, and I have tons of content to work through for the new publication with which I will be published very soon.

After book club, riding around with Angie and having a long discussion about life and where we both are in our individual spiritual worlds and with principles in general, I felt a sense of re-invigorated health that's been lacking severely for several weeks. I feel so good, in fact, that I set my alarm for a half hour earlier than usual to get up and take Mary for a walk and to fix myself some breakfast to chow on before work. Now, I just need to get to sleep so I can make these plans happen.

I feel another gratitude list coming soon.

Here We Go Again

I've mentioned in numerous recent posts that I have a terrible habit of going onto things and then falling off of things. On again. Off again. On again. Off again. One week, I want to run the straight and narrow; to eat, drink, sleep, and breathe everything that is literary and of suggestive and supposed merit. All Joan Didion and The Republic. The films of Merchant/Ivory and the works of Marcel Proust. I try to engulf as much of what I consider high brow as possible.

And then something happens.

The trailer above, for example.

And I'm instantly transported back to the roots of my love for everything literary and cinematic and creative: the world of horror and thrillers and science fiction and fantasy. A world where witches really do roam the grounds at Satan School out on Ellerbe Road and a small family of three inhabits the attic space through the door just outside my bedroom (and hordes of as-yet-unnamed creatures creep along the interior of the crawlspace beneath my closet). A world of Stephen King and the evil, shape-shifting thing from Peter Straub's Ghost Story. A world where the music of Goblin gets me to and from work, where I lay in wait for another horror movie to hit the theater, and where I get back on track with my goal for Stephen King in 2013 to occupy most of the space of this blog.

Do I pick up the small paperback copy of Night Shift (what story am I on? "The Mangler," I think), or do I finish Orange is the New Black (the book club meets this Saturday night after the silent auction for Tri-State at the Highland Club)?

I know one thing: this trailer, teaser that it is, makes me hungry for brown leaves, foggy mornings, and the wonders that are the days leading up to Halloween.

Who am I to forsake my roots for Piper Kerman? Haven't I already read enough?

To Quote Sarah Erickson...

...and that's the coolest thing in my life today. I actually don't know that it's the coolest thing in my life, but it's definitely the one thing I have to which I can attribute everything else. Without this, there would be no profound and rehabilitated relationships with my family, no love from Mary Louise, no writing, no creativity, no painting, no zest for life, no honesty, no humility, no prayer, no relationship with a higher power, and not much of anything that I consider worthwhile. But for the grace of God, I've worked to string together 548 days. That's a long time to go without a drink, without a pill, without a line or a bump or a hit or anything Earthly. Now it's time to pay tribute in the many ways in which I've been shown to do so.

Brodie Says...

Stop playing on the internet. Stop wasting time. Get to work on your blog. Go paint. You need to read. Are you writing? Don't you have work to do? And then he remarks that I "sure do type harshly." What does that mean? I think he's tired of watching whatever crap I've picked to play while I waste time instead of doing all the things that he's always encouraging me to do. He's right. I have a million things I really ought to be doing besides reviewing Facebook and getting caught in a Tumblr-hole.

Generally Disappointed

And really nothing nice to write.

I think I'll go grab some fast food and come home to just be depressed.

Quiet Friday

I wish I could write that I had a successful day that started right at six a.m., that I was up and ready to go with a cup full of prayer and meditation to go with my morning jolt, but the truth is that I climbed out of bed nearly an hour after the alarm(s) began sounding off, and I was in a rush from there. The journal entries and quiet time that I promised myself didn't happen.

I did leave work early for my doctor's appointment for some wellness information, I got my hair cut, and I came home to take a late-afternoon nap - something of a delicacy these days. I didn't get any reading done, but I did make it to Barnes & Noble for one of those great frozen caramel drinks and copies of this Corey Whaley book I've been wanting to pick up and the Linda Lovelace biography, which I want to read before the movie hits theaters. I didn't hit a meeting, but I swung by Kroger to get Sarah some flowers, Nutella, and apples to help her toward a swift recovery from this morning's surgery. I didn't get any painting done, but I've finished all my laundry. I didn't exercise, but I thought about it. I didn't quit smoking, but I bought a disposable e-cigarette to begin puffing on tomorrow. In other words, nothing was really ventured, but nothing was really un-gained.

I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a more productive day. It is, after all, Saturday.

All the Time and Opportunity and None of the Drive

I'm posting just because I need to post something tonight, because I have the time to do it and because it's the first of the month, and I was less reliable with doing so throughout the month of July. Unfortunately, I really don't have anything to write.

Sitting in the Lambda meeting tonight, I was reminded to journal and I was reminded to pray. Every Thursday night, it seems as if I'm reminded of all the things I really ought to be doing more regularly, more diligently, but I seem to keep putting to the side to waste some time doing whatever it is that I do to waste time when I have it to waste. I think I've lost a little of the zip and zest that I had going for me for so long, and I don't really know why. The peaks that existed for a quite a while during the first 17 months of sobriety have sort of leveled off. I suppose I should be grateful that there are no valleys. Everything is just status quo and at a straight C average. I want some of that pep back in my step.

I told Brodie that I was going to use my time tonight to write. I've got a blank canvas staring at me from across the room. I have a stack of ninth step financials that I need to review and get busy addressing. I haven't moved forward on compiling anything of any sort of merit for my articles on local hauntings, folklore, and legends since hearing the news that the publication for which I was so excited to write has temporarily folded in an effort to regroup and rethink and (hopefully, in one month's time) reopen for business. 

I think that was the last good news that I had. Not the closing of the paper, but the news that I would be published, that my writing was being accepted and admired. The first issue that was to show my work was the one that was meant to come out the day before we departed for the LASCYPAA conference, which -ironically- was also the point at which I realized a certain stagnation exists in where I am in my recovery.

I've been here before. I think what I need is a good, long weekend away from everything other than some rest, some reading, some writing, and some personal creative stimulation. That's what's always worked like a charm in the past. Might as well look forward to it again.

Now, where's that Brodilific dude who sleeps over here. I've got the sheets and blankets all washed and ready to slip into...