Sunday, February 28, 2010

HONOR ROLL

March 2nd was my first visit to Jail.
I was in the Ninth Grade, stolen car, two 14 year old chicks that would come out their window at 2AM when you knocked, and me driving down a country road smokin' Swisher Sweets and honking the horn at 3AM.
They were wearin' skinny little Halter tops and them cut-off britches and too much mascara and my God were they built for bein' 14.
I was wearing white hip-hugger jeans and a jean jacket 2 sizes to small unbuttoned to expose my 14 year old chest.
Cops pulled us over and took us to Jail; no DL, no ID, we looked like runaways and we had to call our folks to come pick us up.
If I'd have been my Dad, I'd have killed me.
The car?
It was my Aunts. Somehow, I had mananged to have a key made.

I never made the "A" Honor Roll again.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

WEDNESDAYS CHILD

I got a crush on a Redhead.
She is a writer of some sort. Took me to a Writers Workshop last night. They recognize everyone that got rejected, then they recognize any one that mighta got accepted then they announce all these contests to enter and talk about the upcoming “Conference”.
Then they break into small groups and people read what they wrote, and then people critique them.

The first one was a lady writing a story about a troubled teen that was starting to do drugs. I don’t think that this lady has ever done any drugs, but she has 8 books published, so I guess she must be good. In her story the drugs wind up in a pond and she says the fish in the pond will be "happy". If she had ever done any dope, she could find a better word than "happy".
The second lady wrote about an actress at an audition that fell off of the stage and went to the hospital and fell in love with the Doctor…"Dr. Smith" to be precise. She had a lot of incomplete sentences like
“There it was. A tree.”
I think maybe it might have been for dramatic effect, but run on sentences seem to work better for that I think don’t you?
The third was a grey haired man that wrote about an Airline pilot that women found irresistible; his latest girl, Jody, had a layover in Houston, and he couldn't help himself…
I think he might have been writing about himself, only lying, the way I do.

Anyway, it did not cure me from wanting to write, but it sure did almost cure me from wanting to read…
Its hard to listen to someone read.
It is for me. I mean, I haven't had anyone read to me in a long time. When I read, I have to re-read some words, even some sentences in order to chew the story I guess. If I find a paragraph I like, I'll re-read the paragraph.
Maybe I'll learn to listen better after a while.

The other funny thing was this dude that introduced himself as a "Highly successful blogger". He said the name of his blog. I just now went to see what his highly successful blog looked like. He only had 12 entries since he started his blog 3 months ago.

But I’ll go probably go back; the redhead is my cup of tea.


So heres what a chickenshit wimp weiner I am...

After the Writer Conference the redhead and I are talking in the parking lot:
I'm like "Well, I guess we better get home, long day tomorrow and all"
And she's like "Yeah, I have to be up at 5AM"
So I say 'Well, I'll like... call you before the weekend... and maybe we can get Angela (our friend that introduced us) to come and hang out or something"
And she says "This weekend?"
So I'm like "Yeah"
And she gives me this funny look and says like "Its Wednesday, you know"
And I'm like "Um, yeah, Wednesday, I know"

And I get in the car and drive off.
What the hell am I waiting for?
Thursday?

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

DANCE TIPS AND ETIQUETTE FOR MEN

"Rule #2. Lead her off the dance floor, and return her to where you found her."
(CLICK HERE FOR MORE)

Monday, February 08, 2010

THE HIGHWAYMAN

I was a highwayman.
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor.
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..
WRITTEN BY MR. JIMMY WEBB


Friday, February 05, 2010

GRAZIN' IN THE GRASS


Have you ever been to one of these Metaphysical Shops? They have stuff like big plastic Green Buddha’s, necklaces with Unicorns and Fairies made from silver; Incense, Voodoo pins and Salvia.
You can buy a Crystal Ball, a Wizards robe, books on the Occult and candles black or white to go with the books.
Somewhere in the back of the shop they probably have a used Magic Carpet they would love to sell you.
My friend Kissyface wrote about one of these places last year.(CLICK HERE, REALLY, DO, ITS GREAT!)

They also have Magic Rocks. They have little ones, big ones, polished and unpolished, all the colors of the rainbow that will bring you all manner of peace and healing and relief.
The really nice rocks are the crystals, Quartz and Amethyst and such, nicely sitting on a wooden stand that will keep them from scratching the glass of the counter or once home, the top of your table. The thing is, if these rocks were truly magic, they wouldn’t need the stand but would levitate all by themselves, floating on air just like I did in my Recovery Dream.
Before I got clean, I used to buy Magic Rocks that came in a little bag. They were more magic than the ones at the Metaphysical Shop.
When they get a magic rock that floats on air, I’ll buy that.
I am glad that they don’t try to sell me that stuff down at NA. Instead what they try to sell me is a set of principles written so simply that I can apply them in my everyday life.
They call them ‘Spiritual Principles”.
I used to be a pretty good little Church boy, I sang in the Choir and everything.
I have heard the whole long list of the Ten Commandments.
I’ve heard the 23rd Psalm and the story of Job; I've even heard the Sermon on the Mount, but I had never heard of a Spiritual Principle before I came to Narcotics Anonymous.

So here they are:
HOPE, SURRENDER, and ACCEPTANCE;
HONESTY, OPEN-MINDEDNESS, and WILLINGNESS;
FAITH, TOLERANCE, PATIENCE;
HUMILITY, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, SHARING AND CARING.
Each of the 12 Steps coincides with one of these Spiritual principles. These steps seem to be not only keeping me from buying the little Magic Rocks that don't float, orthe ones that come in a liitle bag, but they are providing a sense of peace and healing, and a sense of relief. My life has become fuller and richer because of this program. I have found faith in people that believe in me and want to help me with my recovery.

There was a sentence in a reading that jumped out at me a few weeks ago.
It said that:
“The true measure of our recovery is in the daily maintenance of our Spiritual Condition”.
Man, they got all this Spiritual shit going on down there all the time. The truth is when I came to NA I had no Spiritual Condition. I thought that we were all just carbon compounds and noble gasses, and when we died we were dead, and we were dead a long fucking time.
It made me think of when I was 18 and what Spiritual meant to me back then.
Spiritual to me in 1975 was a mountainside in Oregon with a group of long haired freaky people wearing Earth Shoes, grokking in fullness with the forest, growing vegetables, living without electricity and plumbing in a Tepee, smoking a lot of pot and having a lot of free sex, singing John Lennon songs around a fire every night.
John Lennon might even be there, because, well, it would be such a groovy place that John would want to be there.
Spiritual to me back then was smoke rings and mushrooms, paisley and patchouli, incense and peppermints.
It would be beautiful man, at least until it turned ugly and spawned a modern day Charlie Manson or two.

And even though I used to be a pretty good little Church boy, sang in the Choir and everything, I’d never really heard the term “Spiritual Condition”.
I referred to my Recovery Dream earlier in the post. (Click here) The dream may have been partly explained with a reading the next day that said:
“The gift of the 12 Steps is coming to believe in a God of our own understanding”
I have to be honest with you, you who may think I’m getting all spiritual and shit. There is something about this idea that seems to be more of a threat than a blessing.
It scares the shit out of me.
But its keeping me away from the Magic Rocks man. And I’m not just doin’ it…I’m diggin’ it.
I’ve got 565 days clean now. I might could have done it without meetings and the 12 Steps and a power greater than myself, but I seriously doubt it.
And even if I had.. I’d be miserable.
My life has become fuller and richer because of this program. I have found faith in people that believe in me and want to help me with my recovery.
Its a gas, baby can ya dig it?

Monday, February 01, 2010

WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS HAVING A MORTAL EXPERIENCE


This life is just a flash, just a moment, just a painful orgasm.
There are mountains, long conceived, still being born into this Mortal Experience.
A Mountain so large it creates its own weather system, Named 'The Ancient One" by the Indians, it is the highest point on the continent.
There is a river that has patiently carved a gorge into the earth over the last 2 billion years; a canyon that is a mile and a half deep and 18 miles wide.
And another river whose mortal experience disappears into burning sand 280 feet below Sea Level: the hottest, lowest and driest place on the continent.
There are forests of trees so old they have turned to solid rock, a mortal experience in a forest immortal; And trees still growing that were saplings during the time of Christ, long before Rome ruled the world, before the Greeks built the Parthenon, before the Egyptians built the Pyramids.

Tress that are the trallest, largest and oldest living things on the planet.

Our brief mortal experience spins on the surface of the earth at 1,000 miles per hour, 24 hours a day as our solar system glides around the galaxy at 550,000 miles per hour.
Who is to say how quickly the Galaxy moves through the universe?
Who can say when it began, and who will be there to note the time that it shall begin again?
“We are Spiritual Beings having a Mortal Experience”
This life is just a flash, just a moment, just a painful orgasm.

Credit to my friend Greg U., John Muir, and the Ken Burns documentary for most of the assembled verbage for this post.