weight lifted

my first visit to the psychologist was earlier this afternoon. wow, it went really well. even better than I expected. I get along with her, she asks great questions, has a good sense of humor and is already helping me—even though we haven't even gotten started.

she asked me why I was there. boy, did I told her.

All this time I always assumed she would help me figure out what the problem was out of the many issues in my life. As I told her things, she'd ask a seemingly unrelated question. But the answer I would give made me realize it's all of the issues that are the problem. No one issue takes the credit. I've got some complex, interrelated things going on. In fact, by the end of the session, my comments seemed to resemble something out of John Nash's office in Beautiful Mind. But I cannot wait until next week. She's good. We're getting it all out first. It's helping. Onward.

double digits

today is the ten month "birthday" of my sobriety. there are plenty of things I could do to mark the occasion: celebrate, relapse or use it as a positive reinforcement to keep on truckin' one day at a time.

I choose the last option.

Time is weird for a recovering person. First you have to find something to do with all the time you spent drinking. If you do not, you are forced to focus on the fact you cannot drink anymore—EVER. that can mess with your head. then you get into marking your first week, month and 90 days of not drinking.

then you start realizing that, no matter how long you have been sober, you could relapse quickly. I use the elevator analogy to explain this. it is always waiting to take you right back to where you left off—no matter how bad your bottom was when you hit. perfect example was provided to me just yesterday. someone that literally drank himself into a coma, then recovered and got sober, is relapsing. after surviving a drinking spell that made him comatose, he is drinking again.

instead of an elevator analogy, you might consider it this way:
when you admit you are an alcoholic and begin recovery, you have dodged a bullet. but the gun is still loaded.

so while I am damn proud it has been 10 months since I had a drink, I want to remain ever-vigilant. if I get too caught up in celebrating birthdays, I might start to assume I am in control of my problem. but I am powerless to alcohol. I am still dancing with it, it still controls my life. now there is merely a positive outcome to the dance. I have no problem with this. realizing I had a problem and admitting it to myself was a gift.

here's to ten months! thanks for checking in on my wacky exploits here at land of the lost!

me Me ME and something much more important

the bid we put in on the house was accepted *GULP*. so now the sweating begins as we try and sell ours QUICKLY. we need the equity in this fine bungalow of love before we "move on up" to our four-bedroom, suburban dream.

it is funny how your priorities change once you have children. character as a requirement was not completely ignored for this house search, but it was a lower priority. we wanted a newer house—less character, if any, with less problems.

soon I'll be able to walk up and down the stairs without wife or daughter hearing me do it. we'll have a dishwasher and an attached garage. woodwork? sigh, nothing worth mentioning. stainglass? if we hang it ourselves, perhaps. but life is full of trade offs and, as our priorties and needs have shifted, we'll be trading up.

flew in and out of Chicago in one day today. pretty non-eventful, our site check went well. the hotel we're holding the event in will work quite nicely. as I returned to my car at the airport, I checked my cell phone voice mail. a coworker had called me twice, asking me to return their call. she left NO explanation why she needed to speak with me. this bugs me. I found out why she did this when I returned her call.

a good friend of mine, a coworker, found out his brother died over the weekend. he wanted me to call him on his cell phone. he had left town, returning home to help make arrangements.

turns out his brother had been drinking a lot. the way my friend described his drinking habit, it sounded exactly like mine. "he would drink, sometime too much, but he could also go without it. he would just get bad every once and awhile. he was thinking about going into AA."

in fact, he argued with his girlfriend about it the night he died. after getting into a fight with her about his drinking, he went out and drank. wound up hitting a fire hydrant and a car. he left the scene and made it home. he died that evening at home. it is currently unknown if it was due to injuries sustained in the accident, or if something else happened.

my thoughts are with my friend right now. if there's one thing I've learned about death it is that everyone handles it differently. but, no matter how they handle it, it's never easy.

strangely calm

had a fast, full weekend, but a good one. daughter and I hung out on friday and I crashed early. saturday we saw a house, saw some friends and their new baby, I went for a run, did a ton of yardwork, we took my mom to dinner and we crashed early again.

sunday we checked the same house out again. decided to put a bid in. and now we wait. of course there was the usual sunday dinner too. my daughter gets to play with many of her 11 cousins and enjoys the fun as well as the food.

tomorrow I fly out and back in one day. so the day will also go quickly...and I'll probably crash, er, I mean go to bed early once again. but tonight I am thankful and strangely calm. hopefully nothing major will happen while I am out of the office. mondays can be quite the drama. at least perhaps I will not be involved in any of the drama. not being there will help this happen, but it's not a guarantee.

let the games begin.

weekly rythmn

for some sad, sad reason work has roused me out of bed a full two hours early. woke up and just could not get back to sleep as my head raced with things to do today.

a good portion of the day today will be spent updating various status reports for monday update meetings. it's nearly a full morning's worth of meetings on my end and the client has one on their end, without us, as well. I joke that we spend three days working...one day updating reports and another day giving the reports. I'm not too terribly far off.

my mind races with all the interrelated details around the event I am working on. rather than let this freak me, I got up and am getting organized for today so I can deal with all of them. I'm trying to get better at dealing with my anxieties, like this one, productively and not letting them paralyze me. yeah, two hours of sleep is a lot to lose, but I am less into sleep than others. if I have to, four hours can work for me (not all the time, but for a few days I can pull it off). and I got to bed nice and early last night anyways so I got more like six hours in. coffee is a beautiful thing.

my daughter is suffering from separation anxiety right now (all kids do between 14 to 18 months and she's in month 16). it's mainly with wife as she has a nine month head start on "THE BOND" and spends every day with her. I can handle it, but it's wearing wife thin. so she's heading out tonight with a friend and dad's spending q-t with daughter. we're both looking forward to it. once she's down for the night I'll most likely watch a flick from blockbuster...any recommendations? this is when I rent stuff my wife won't watch...action and horror particularly or off-beaten-path, indie, critically acclaimed stuff.

on Monday I am out of town for the day doing a site check for the event. this gets me out of the Monday morning status beatings, er I mean meetings. yay for me! maybe that's why I am up right now thinking about things. sadly, if questions come up in your absence...a negative or wrong answer can be assumed until you are able to address things. misinformed assumptions can be fact until you're back in the room to provide details. right now, this does not bother me. I have good `n' plenty details for all.

but clearly, the above is no way to live. that's why Thursday I'll be visiting with a psychologist for my first appointment. as of next week, I'll be 10 months sober. once again, yay for me. the reason I drank was to avoid emotions. did such a good job of it for so long, I have no clue how to feel and how to deal with how I feel...for real! so while I cannot change the fact that work can be, um, a "unique challenge," I can work on how I handle things*. it all gets back to the serenity prayer...the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

here's to *early* morning wisdom. here's to growing as a person again. here's to being sober and here's to the weekend! yay for all.

*there are two sides to every coin. the pay is good and, aside from the bullshit politics and insanity that follow most jobs, I like what I do. it's not like I'm making purses for Kathy Lee or mopping up after Martha on the set. and it's a good thing. so don't cry for me argentina. can you tell it's early and I've had no coffee yet?

strange things afoot

work is the usual rollercoaster. found out big changes are enroute. nothing like layoffs or something that dramatically impacts my day-to-day directly...just the usual, frequent change experienced in advertising life. in fact, I welcome this one as it might shake everyone out of the same old, bullshit, summer funk we seemingly are in.

coworkers, myself included, all bitch about how volatile the advertising industry is. and in the quiet doldrums of August, when everyone is trying to dump their last few vacation days, you can sense everyone's misery over not having any new clients to work on and being bored with the same old.

note to management: give us a bar of gold and we'll bitch it's too heavy. as much as it can stress me, I welcome the change. change is opportunity. it might force you to find opportunity elsewhere...but that can be good too.

note to the approximately two people that now who in the hell I am AND that read this blog: I ain't telling ya what I know. arguably whatever you think it might be is more fantastic and outrageous than what the truth actually holds. therefore, I am even more encouraged to keep mum about it.

in the hunt

tonight our realtor sent us 40+ home listings via email to check out online. we quickly narrowed it down to three friggin homes! we'll visit two and one we'll drive by before bothering.

the net is a good thing. and this beats humping it around to half as many homes with daughter in tow. but isn't it possible to get too much of a good thing? I must gird up and remind myself we're in the hunt officially come sept 1st. patience and extra effort is worth it when you're looking for the right home.

we're being proactive about moving. we'll need more space sooner than later and our area's property value will become questionable sooner than later. so we're moving...soon?

I must remember this is a good problem to have.

quick update

thanks to everyone for sending their support regarding my wife's grandsmother's funeral yesterday. it was over quickly. the only thing I will note is that we ended the ceremony at the cemetery, in the masoleum where grandmother was placed into a wall crypt. and while I knew these events would be coming, I was unaware that we would WITNESS her ENTOMBMENT!

I'll spare you the details, but evidently grandmother always regretted not seeing her husband literally "put into the wall." she must have brought this up to my mother in law quite a bit. We all stayed behind as the caretakers efficiently and silently did their jobs. And by all I also mean grade school children who were in attendance. My mother in law even had to sign a release not holding anyone responsible if someone were to faint or react badly to the process.

WTF? Why would anyone watch this process? To be supportive, all I could do is watch silently.

lotsa life stuff

the past few days have been nearly a blur as we move through a lot of stuff going on in our lives:

wife's grandmother: she passed away Thursday evening surrounded by her family. 93 years is a long, full life. her funeral is Monday. I'll be doing a reading and pallbearing. this is probably the third or fourth time I've done this for my wife's family. I'm one of five brother in laws. we're usually tapped, as a group, to be pallbearers. and while I have no problems with public speaking, the bulk of my wife's family does. I'm glad to be of help, but being a pallbearer is not a fun service to provide.

house: our realtor has another client that is looking for our type of house. we wound up cleaning late Thursday night once my wife got home—it helped us take our minds off things and pushed us to exhaustion...ensuring a good nights sleep. the cleaning prepped the house for a visit from our realtor and his client on Friday. early input is positive, but no bid yet. we'll be putting it on the market in a few weeks for real and I am sweating having to sell one house to buy another one for the very first time. *gulp*

boring miscellany: we bought a stove on wednesday and it was delivered saturday. nice to have a new appliance. weird to spec it out on line, narrow down price from three places, visit one and buy it in about 10 minutes. also wound up trimming our bushes today. due to lack of rain, I have not had to mow the grass for about a month?! of course the weeds and bushes still grow. on the very last bush, I wound up slicing right through the orange extension cord...instantly rendering all 30 or 40 feet of it useless. luckily there were no shocks dealt out to the clipper operator. DOPH!

so now, via email, I am prepping other team members for monday staff meetings to report on progress/status during my morning absence. I only have a half day of time left for attending the funeral (which should be enough). hopefully work will not be too stressful this week. life's been weird enough without work chaos.

signs

looking back through my journals, I had plenty of signs about my alcoholism. in fact, I 'd often tell myself I'd quit once I hit bottom...if I really did have a problem. it allowed me to keep drinking.

I liked the song, "I'm not an addict" by K's Choice, the first time I heard it. It's a good listen. It's even on one of my many mixes. And as I would listen, I would remind myself I'd quit once I hit bottom.

Well, thankfully, I did hit bottom. It was such a relief I cannot describe it to you. It literally felt as if I woke up from a Rip Van Winkle sleep when I finally accepted the fact.

I still like the song from K's Choice. It's still a good listen and it does a good job of capturing how it felt when I was active and rationalizing. As one of the many signs that were screaming at me, I offer the lyrics below:

Not an Addict

Breathe it in and breathe it out
And pass it on, it's almost out
We're so creative, so much more
We're high above but on the floor

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive
If you don't have it you're on the other side

The deeper you stick it in your vein
The deeper the thoughts, there's no more pain
I'm in heaven, I'm a god
I'm everywhere, I feel so hot

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive
If you don't have it you're on the other side
I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie)

It's over now, I'm cold, alone
I'm just a person on my own
Nothing means a thing to me
(Nothing means a thing to me)

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive
If you don't have it you're on the other side
I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie)

Free me, leave me
Watch me as I'm going down
Free me, see me
Look at me, I'm falling and I'm falling.

It is not a habit, it is cool I feel alive I feel...
It is not a habit, it is cool I feel alive

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive
If you don't have it you're on the other side
I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie)
I'm not an addict...

If you want the .mp3 file,drop me a line.

damn, baby. that's cold.

Indiana cops sometimes trap speeders using FAST, unmarked cars...particularly in the Indianapolis area. Miami cops just raised the stakes. Consider yourself warned.

mourning

my wife's grandmother has lived a full life of 93 years. that life is in its final moments as of this posting. my wife was called to the hospital at 2am this morning as grandmother's condition worsened. after a 10 hour vigil, my wife returned here and is sleeping briefly before resuming the vigil with her immediate family.

I could start a blog about death. for one reason or another, it fascinates me. that said, I respect it. my exploration of it is not intended to be macabre. so I'll spare you the tangents jumping into my mind and focus. the above is back story for what happened to me during my wife's vigil.

more back story. currently my main project at work is a special event. the myriad of interrelated, time-sensitive details is staggering. deadlines are, more than usual, of particular importantance—they're not "guidelines" they're drop deadlines. I did not even consider heading into work this morning. I was needed here. but it was not as easy as calling in sick—phone calls, emails and coworkers were required to keep things moving. It's a fact, it's a reality, it's our livelihood.

initially my wife and I prayed for mercy...that grandmother would be taken quickly. we assumed I might head into work this afternoon. I ultimately decided work would have to do without me. I'd be dramatic, and disrepectful, if I said jobs would be lost over one day's delay due to a death in the family. work will figure itself out.

finally, he gets to the point of the story. prior to deciding to take a full day, however, I called my Mom for help. I wanted her to watch our daughter to ensure my wife and I could do what needed to be done. my Mom informed me she is having a "party" tonight (a gossipy, coffee-klatch-like gathering vs. dancing, music and booze). she felt it best if I call my sister-in-law instead. however, if my sister in law could not do it, I could then bring my daughter over and my Mom would watch her for me.

I am naive. I am one who avoids conflict. sometimes I am just fucking slow. I agreed to all of this. Upon hanging up the phone, it hit me that my Mom was telling me that coffeecake with her friends was more important to her than a death in MY immediate family. it was then I also realized my wife would want and need me here regardless. so I decided not to call my sister-in-law. I also decided I would not tell my wife about my Mom's decision...my mom's priorities.

I was more hurt than pissed. It felt like I had been content with the knowledge that my Mom would catch me if I fell back—and I had been wrong the whole time. maybe she did not realize what she was saying to me. maybe she was not thinking quickly or clearly either. maybe it was not a case of me having misplaced faith in my mom.

my mom called me back. she called my sister in law to see what we had decided. my mom realized I had not called, and was told by my sister in law that she too was "busy" and could not watch my daughter. so now I am 0 for 2? my mom then tells me to bring my daughter over. I told her I was staying home for the day and not to worry about it.

I am focusing right now on giving my Mom the benefit of the doubt, prior to discussing this with her. If I do not, I'll fucking lose it and say something I will probably regret. but I too am in mourning right now. hopefully it is misplaced as it applies to my Mom. cross your fingers, light a candle, say a prayer, wish me luck. we'll see.

memory boards

my crafty wife is turning into an entreprenuer. she has made a few memory boards for our daughter and as gifts for a couple of people. they're essentially an upholstered bulletin board that is crisscrosed by ribbons. the ribbons are used to hold photos, recipies, notes, whatever on the board. they've gotten rave reviews, so she's made a dozen or two of them and will be selling them at some upcoming craft fairs.

her profit margin is nice if you do NOT calculate her time into the equation. but mostly it is cool to see her find a new outlet to get creative in. she went from being a teacher with a room full of students to being a mom with one student. our daughter benefits from this focus, but I could tell my wife wanted a new challenge to keep her sane. if all goes well, this one will help pay a few bills too.

life imitates art

congrats and shout out to Half Mad Spinster! her writing has, once again, been published. what an awesome reaffirmation of her talent.

to me, the cool thing about this is the story was originally written as a blog entry. it was a travelogue of sorts detailing her sidetrip to Little Haiti during her summer adventure in Florida. too cool to see an old blog post become a literary gem. no surprise though, as it's a good read...check it out.

"her half madness" is starting to post again to the halfmadspinster blog, much to the delight of her fans, after a brief respite. this piece being published will hopefully encourage her to start up full time again: WE WANT MORE! the publishing is also a well-timed birthday gift of sorts...her half madness' birthday is this friday, August 16th.

so, here's wishing you happy happy! joy joy! for your birthday HMS.

lipreading

evidently there is some new fallout over the catholic sex abuse scandal. a church in San Jose is adding windows to its confessionals. Some back story: confessionals are about the size of two phone booths, standing side by side. The priest sits on one side, naughty catholics file into the other side and, one by one, confess their sins. The priest gives you some feedback and discusses penance (what you must do to absolve yourself of the sins you've committed). This cleans your slate for a few months until you find the need to return and do it all over again. Without poking fun at, or holes in, the concept....let me instead address the idea of putting windows in these things.

have their been any cases of misconduct occuring in the confessionals? the way 99 pecent of these things are built, I have no clue HOW misconduct could occur in one of them. you have a metal grate between you and the priest for pete's sake. next they'll start cancelling the feast of st. blaize (I think that's the name of it, I'm rusty on all of this people and could not tell you the last time I even went to confession). during one specific feast, there is a ceremony where the priest takes two unlight candles and uses them to bless your throat...it's supposed to help you stay healthy throughout the year. anyway, next thing you know, THIS will be cancelled so no one gets the wrong idea about a priest coming that close to the unprotected necks of hundreds of parishoners each year.

fine, I am being extreme to make a point. and in no way am I trying to trivialize or make light of the sex abuse scandal. I am just hoping that, as we take proactive measures to ensure such a thing never happens again, we use a little common sense. instead of windows in confessionals, we should let priests get married. oy, don't get me started. All I know is I am learning how to lipread if windows are installed in my parish's confessionals. if only to see the look on someone's face when I address the details of their confession specifcially and directly upon their exit from the booth: "TWO sheep AND a pony? What in the hell got into you?!"

sleepy sunday

wife and daughter are sleeping after a busy morning. daughter woke up early, which means we had to wake up early. finished painting daughter's closet, wife went to the store and Dad got a 3 mile run in.

wife's grandmother is sick right now. at 93, I guess it's to be expected. they admitted her to the hospital today and from there she'll be going to a nursing home. wife went to the hospital for awhile before coming home. she felt sick which is why she's lying down.

come to think of it, that run kicked my butt and I think I'll catch a nap too. naps are one reason to like sundays.

photog plans

finally figured out some easy steps to get my ass back in gear as it pertains to photography. my current camera has a manual setting, but I have yet to play with it. I'm buying a small roll of film, 12 exposures if they still have `em. Then I'm going to retrace my steps with shutter speeds and f-stops. Basically I'll log the settings for each pic and then compare the results against the log to retrain myself. Gotta lotta subjects, ideas, things I want to take pics of.

oddly enough, I have my random blog redirect button to thank for this anal retentive ephiphany. the random blog button to the left brought me to farfromreality's photo gallery. Some of her shots inspired me to quit wasting time and just do it.

If I got back to doing it regularly, I could see me focusing on architectural shots—from close-up detail shots to wide sweeping ones. blue sky, my stuff would look half as cool as this stuff from Red Square.

If I was not so cheap, I'd buy some server space so I could post some of the stuff I've already done here. It's not too bad if I do say so myself. Someday I am going to have to. I have a URL registered, but it's my actual name. And as happy as I am to have that valuable real estate, it's ironic now that I would rather have a URL a bit more off the beaten path. according to Internic, landofthelost.org and thelostone.com are available. hmmm.

rage, falling water, train

today we made progress on fixing up our house to put on the market. our goal was to paint the guest bedroom/computer room ceiling and for me to fix and paint the wall in my daughter's closet. as of this writing, all I have to do is finish painting her closet wall and we're all done.

as my wife was dropping off our daughter with my wife's parents, my Mom called. she wants us to pick her up when she return's from her next trip (she's taking a cruise to Alaska. this has been planned awhile and was initially postponed. so it just seems like she's a globetrotter). I told her I would pick her up. then, as if to lessen the inconvenience of picking her up at the airport on a Monday at 4:15, she tells me she asked my sister in law to do it, but she can only take her to the airport for her departure the saturday before. my sister in law MIGHT be busy that monday.

after I got off the phone with her I got really pissed off. pissed my sister in law is selfish when she knows my wife cannot easily pick up my mom with our 15 month old, pissed I'll probably wind up taking vacation time to do it, pissed my wife would be pissed at the whole scenario, pissed my Mom did not just call us first, pissed my Mom doesn't just pay for long term parking, pissed I was back in the same bad cycle with my side of the family. ARGH!

so, upon my wife's return, I vented. it did not go too well. luckily I had to take a quick walk around the block to get some paint supplies. then it hit me. as pissed off as I was about the whole situation, as full of rage as I was, part of me was enjoying it. I guess now that I no longer get drunk, the emotional buzz from pure rage was as close as I'd gotten to being drunk in awhile. upon this realization, I disconnected from it.

the paint store sales clerk had on a Falling Water t-shirt. I asked him if he'd visited the Famous Frank Lloyd Wright home. He said he had and was planning his next trip. "How long of a drive is it?" I asked out of curiousity. "Six hours, in Pennsylvania." I knew it was in PA, and was glad to hear it was only a 6 hour drive. As I was walking back home, I realized I would probably subject my daughter and wife to a long weekend where we visited Falling Water and maybe even hit Pittsburgh to check out the The Warhol Museum. My Dad subjected us to similarly historic, short trips...but not quite as cool as this one.

As my mood was quickly turning, I also stopped into the Hobby and Lawn Equipment shop at the top of my street. Yeah, you can buy a $700 Snapper Lawn Mower and a model airplane kit there...odd. Anyway, I've been wanting to buy a train to put around our Christmas tree for our daughter to enjoy (and probably play with). I had a train set as a kid and think it would be cool to do. So I stopped in and picked up a catalog. I knew from pricing them last year they're not cheap-$150.00 for a ground floor model from Lionel. But this is the year for it. The nostalgic overload calmed me down and I even apologized for freaking out upon my return to the house.

It's time for me to tell my Mom how I feel. As much as I might hate conflict, if I do not get it off my chest, it's only guaranteed to get worse. Worst case, I guess I might not see my side of the family as much. But that is already the case.

black thursday

today was one of THOSE days at work. oddly enough, I was a spectator today. I watched four people have really bad days. and, while I was secretly glad I was not in their shoes, it just reinforces how whacked the ad business is. within said business, my place of work has grown a new, more potent strain of whacked. superwhacked or hellawhacked, perhaps.

all four people work with me on my one and only account. let's start from the bottom of the team ladder to the top.

junior, newest and youngest team member, got let go. fired. canned. bottom line was they should not have hired him for that specific position. he was qualified for a job elsewhere in the agency. but they figured they could teach him. the kid was right out of school and he just lost his first job. the mental spin cycle they just sent his fragile, fresh mind into makes my stomach knot.

I was let go from my first job after 10 months. I can only hope he looks back and realizes he was better off being let go. That's how I feel about my first job.

After letting Junior go, my HR-challenged management decided a personnel announcement should not be sent out...don't wanna alarm anyone. my office is one big quilting bee. without the facts, we'll spin a yarn Mark Twain would call bullshit on. THE MAN is out of touch enough to believe that no one will notice junior is not coming into work any more?

Management has a knack for screwing the pooch in grand style when it comes to Human Resouces. One ex-employee decided he wanted to part ways with us after being alerted to the fact that his exact job description had been posted on Monster.com by his boss. DOPH! The title was a dead match too. The only way it could have been more embarrassing if his name and phone extension had been in the ad. Yeah, makes ya wanna speed into work, don't it?

Above junior, we have diamond in the rough. smart as a whip, hard worker. all she needs is a few more months under her belt and she'll be moving on up that ladder. she's spread too thinly now and just lost junior as an assist. needless to say, she's bummed he's gone and stressed out by all the work.

in her defense, it's more than the amount of work. it's also the clients she has. all of them are volatile. every client has idiosyncracies: some are stupid, some are evil, some want everything NOWNOWNOWNOW. some are all this and worse. but all of her clients are demanding.

above diamond, we have Mom. underappreciated for all the work she does, and great at her job. she likes being the Mom of the group. she's also in an abusive relationship with our top client contact. if he's in a bad mood, he chews her out. she takes it. he'd be all four kinds of fucked without her and yet he still treats her like a tether ball. anyway, he was in a shitty mood this morning and took it out on her—once again. she puts up with it, and will continue to do so, but it sucks to see the fallout.

above her is top dog. he's at the top of our ladder, but worked and treated like a dog by our owners. he is responsible for diamond's accounts. so they're always putting out fires while I am trying to work with them on my account...it's tiring to watch. well, he finally threw a rod and vented in confidence to me. he's tired of it and has assigned a window of time he's willing to put up with it while trying to make a change for the better. if the change does not occur within this window, he suggests he'll walk.

it makes my day seem like a winning lottery ticket in comparison. I spent the whole morning in meetings, reviewing shit. by the time I got back to the office after lunch, I was useless. I spent most of the time rounding up contacts for junior to network with in the quest for job #2, while watching all of the above unfold and resolve. I'd spent 4 solid hours with my game face on so I could not have been real productive if I had tried.

Friday never looked so good.

quantity or quality?

per Blogger: During the month of July, there were 1.5 Blogger blogs created per minute (on average).

and for every 10 blogs there was seemingly an article in the media about blogging. I'll save you the rants and I will NOT take the high and mighty road. this blog, the blog community I am a part of, and my professional work blog make me nothing more than a joiner.

but I am tired of the blog sensation being created by the media. sigh. I guess it's better to burn out than fade away in this case.

taking responsibility

it's been one heckuva great day...and my lunch hour is not even over yet!

below is an abbreviated note I sent to my fellow recovering friends at Addicted Bloggers:

I need to be straight with each of you on a few things.
1.) EVERYTHING, down to the last letter, you’ve read from me has been true. It’s what I have NOT told you that is the subject of this email.
2.) I am NOT an official AA member. I have never been to a meeting and, as a result, I do not have a true sponsor. Going on 9.5 months now of sobriety.
There, I said it. ...

I am paraphrasing and not giving you the whole note. But I sent it this morning and have been overwhelmed by their supportive responses. I am very glad I took responsibility for my own actions and was honest. Now I can focus on my recovery with the knowledge my online friends have got my back.

I'm even having a good day at work...(he notes skeptically). I've been super busy and busting my butt and it's looking like it will ultimately pay off. A light at the end of the tunnel. Sweet justice!

august karma

check out who was born in august:

jerry garcia - 08/01/1942
louis armstrong - 08/04/1901
andy warhol - 08/06/1928
cecil b. demille - 08/12/1881
alfred hitchcock - 08/13/1899

gets my creative juices flowing just thinking about `em all.

it's hot and humid here in cincinnati--my grass is dead and I no longer run regularly (it's a heat emergency!). instead, I walked this weekend. also went to church. I decided excercise and church are to me what water and sunlight are to a plant. they're both a lot alike in my mind: I usually do not want to do either. but after I do, I am glad.

anyways, as I enter another action-packed week full of fun, I am well prepared.

letter writing project

to the roughly half dozen or so people that read this blog, I issue the following challenge: write a good, old fashioned letter to someone you love.

sounds corny, sounds stupid, but think about it. no one sends letters anymore. and I'm not talking about a hallmark card. correspondence is a dead art. it's evolved into something else thanks to the Internet.

do you loved ones know how much you love them? pick just one of them and write them a letter. it does not have to be a love letter. it does not have to be sappy. just remember that the "the medium is the message."*

taking the time and effort to put your thoughts down on paper means a lot. and getting a paper letter in the mail from you will mean one heck of a lot more than a phone call or an email. it'll surprise them. what a great way to get your point across. act now.

*Marshall McLuhan

headnote

what else do you call a footnote for a post that is below this one? footnote from above?

re: down, not out. figured out another way to encapsulate how I'm feeling, thanks to "American Beauty." do you remember when Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitts both reference beauty? Burnham says:

"there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..."

I get that too. I call it crazy love when my wife or daughter give me that feeling. but sometimes I fill up with bad emotions and feel similarly. it's just not quite the same, fun ride as described above. so maybe that helps get my point across.

down, not out

started this work week by getting the fear of God put into me (not by evil CEO). this got me to focus and kick into overdrive, working nonstop for the whole week. As a result, I nailed down what needed hammering and I'm ready to do it all over again next week. I've got tight deadlines that must be met over the next ten weeks to make the event in October a success.

the feeling of accomplishment one gets after kicking butt all week is welcome, but not reassuring. I am still out of sorts. now that I no longer drink alcohol, I am faced with the stark reality of all my emotions. I am forced to deal with them now and not ignore them after numbing them with beer.

over analyzing even the most trivial events is one habit I have. a simple house repair escalates into my being convinced we'll never be able to sell our house for example. it's a waste of time and brings to mind the serenity prayer:

I also think about *EVERYTHING* at once. you'll explode if you do that...or you'll at least feel like you might. your emotions can be the best thing that ever happened to you. they can also remind you of how selfish, insecure and afraid you can be.

so I'm still trying to learn how to deal with the good and the bad. all this clean living has shown me how dirty some of the corners of my life are. I try and remind myself how great it is to be out of the comfort zone.

ah yes, the comfort zone...the quintissential, trite descriptor for false comfort. it lulls you into a state of blind denial. but for fuck's sake people, being outside my comfort zone should not feel this uncomfortable for extended periods of time: that pit-of-your-stomach tension--as if a piece of wire is being pulled tightly from either side of your gut. you assume there will be some relief and it won't paralyze you. I want some tools for dealing with this proactively. I have to do more than ask for help with it, I want to help fix things.

all of this has me tired and down...but with more than 9 months sober, I am far from out.