Tempests Follow

Dear 2016, I really want to say that it wasn't you, that it was me, but I can't. To be honest I haven't met another one like you before. Strange, enticing, emotional, you were like drinking a sriracha shamrock milkshake while riding the inverted roller coaster. I know that it could have been better if I had tried harder, though you will have to fill me in where that was because you just took a contrarian stance. I should have known though, things were just starting to go right again before you came along. Always throwing away what we have worked for for the next flashy thing. I hear you are with a casino guy now with spray on hair and tan, you sound perfect for each other. I wish that I had the chance to... WTH? Nooo! I don't wish to do it all over again, I am just going to hope that therapy and STD treatment can help me through this one. You are like the smoker that never leaves my clothes, and the little sores that pop up out of the blue to remind me of those blackou...

On the fiftieth Christmas that I got to spend with some family I observed quite a bit. It has been a year of so much change, why should it stop at the family doors. Let me start by saying that the overall message I got was to stay far away and quiet and to just send money. My family I have found even more convincingly values the worth of a person by how much they make, how much they don't need anything from anyone. So since I am going through so much change, giving them what they want will be job number one.  My being unable to drive is a hindrance and a burden on people around me, so if I cannot get somewhere on my own I won't ask for a ride. The money we make is barely able to support us and falls short about time for rent, I will not ask for help. I will just let the consequences of being ill take its course and try my best to live through the outcome. I will stay my distance from family and friends because apparently I am not doing anything rig...

I haven't felt much like writing much lately. Either in a funk or a change that I am still sitting on, waiting until the next indicated thing arrives. The aspects of life that I once felt connected to so much thinned to the point of re-evaluation. There is one aspect of all of this experience though that has arisen as a point of note, about sobriety and well, life in general.  In the Big Book there is a whole chapter to the family about how to deal with the recovered alcoholic. There are simple tools that could be used to help the process along, a viewpoint that they may not envision and as well suggestions for the alcoholic in this phase of their lives. Myself, I have been having a flurry of memory recalls of the oddest and old variety, things I thought I had well forgotten. Not all of them bad or good, just there and to a certain extent troubling me, my expectations of the world, that like many things has changed its mask much in the recent months. I am finding that belie...

I published this on the Yabberz site Months ago. I just thought it needed re-posting here.  I went to a grade school in Seattle named John B Allen. It had and still does to this day an air raid siren mounted high atop a tower in its northwest playground's corner. We used to hear it every now and then growing up, a ominous reminder to the past and an even scarier one to what its future soundings would mean. It was the Cold War and during those times before internet and instant everything its roar could start at any time. Those sounds would mean we would have just a few seconds or just a few minutes left to live, it would mean Russia would be nuking us. Yes, even as a five year old kids we knew what was in store for us, we were scared, we didn't understand this stuff. Russia was the big bad enemy growing up, and yes I will admit there will always be a certain affinity for mistrust when it comes down to dealings with that country and its leaders. It is at times l...

This last five days or so has been one of deep reflection and filled with a thirst for understanding. Not of the world outside as much as the inside, and what things that happen in society and the world at large really mean to this life, this direction, this passion of mine. Sure, I could easily go the apathetic route and just put on an aire of not caring one bit, but that would be ingenuous. I could also start wallowing in what the assumed consequences could be and that would do me very little good if any at all. Yes, anger, amazement and astonishment, disdain and pure rage ran deeply through these emotional pathways. In the old days I would still be on a bender, trying to assuage my reality with chemicals of one kind or another. Trying to argue and manipulate my world into something that I could handle, not manage, but handle somehow. I am noting that at almost five years sober at the moment, I have had a more honest and meaningful life in that amount of time than I did in the thir...

I have been trying to wrap my head around this acceptance that is now forced upon me. My writing going forward is not for posting to the general public, but rather back here in the tiny hole I have tapped out keystroke by keystroke. Something that once bled from my hands and mind as easily as water has turned into a cold gray cinder block of fluidity. I am amazed that I have typed this much without a curse word or fifty. I have to use this all in my recovery as well because I am almost five now in sobriety years and that is always a touchy time. How all of this is going to play out in that arena is hard to say right now, but I do not wish to go back to those rooms, I do not wish to be a part of something that would support killing off my country. All of this has turned my world and my views upside down. I am someone who has the greatest of empathy for others and can forgive with just a thought. Here I am though on the other side of the fence, a growing apathy and indifference of a...

 ​​I had to apologize to my Father yesterday, he passed away in 2000. I had just had coffee with a friend, and we discussed everything under the sun and then some. As I left I felt a strong sense of remorse, I stopped and looked up and said my piece. I don't know why either was my last thought... I have always had heroes, and even though I was too young to understand, I knew from the start that my Dad was one of them. He was a soldier and a war hero, along with all the rest of them from my childhood and younger years. The white hatted Cowboys and the colorful supermen and women. Bionic or biological, tough or just pushed too far, there were always heroes to be found. A sense of belief if not in the character, a belief in the principles are found and admired. In that framing, a belief also came that I could aspire to be anything... and that I could succeed. The heroes and beliefs I formed through those years would not leave me, rather though they would be tempered with time. ...

Hopefully soon I can get to cleaning and stirring this thing up some more. Editing pieces and getting more content typed in, I still have a stack of old stuff to add. :)

 Sometimes getting caught up in the moments of your life will paint it with colors that just don't apply to the real pigments of it. The too much of one shade or another creeps in on the carefully blended ones and it leaves a less than appealing shade. In the last few years the painting is happening around the clock and the real colors of life have taken their place and there is no more painting over them. While these colors and shades have been around all along, they have recently began to bleed out, in some cases quite literally. The atmosphere of a country at a focal point, its people ready for change, and equally ready their own personal manifest destinies. You could claim a massive lack of understanding from all corners, ignorance, and divisiveness. You could claim cronyism and unfair advantages, cheating and illegal activities, it's the government, it's those people, it's business...Whatever the basis for the blame or the belief, understanding or lack thereof, t...

The human universe is vast and varied, and every now and then I like to use my unique neuron firings to try to examine this story of us. Apologies for its length, the thought was easier to see than the explanation of the thought. Rituals, traditions, there is a definite large scale change happening to our collective consciousness and I am not sure if we can always recognize that. To do so would mean to step outside of our little spheres and look at the entirety for the patterns. We are always told not to forget history or we are doomed to repeat it. The curious thing is though we seldom rewrite that history with what we know now. The classic human reaction is to lock in those events and thoughts of that time and there it is, that's our memory of it, or our belief. Throughout life we collect a good sized pile or two of these memories and beliefs, these automatic reactions more than anything else. Most of what we learn and accept in society today has come about out of a ritual pr...

What was the most surprising aspect of this for Tom was the amount of pure unadulterated success of those companies. It was something he was going to keep his eyes on. He scratched the number down on an index card and slid it into his desk drawer for another time. Back to the Middle East accounts and Iran's in particular. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lori did not want to make a statement so she just put on her everyday clothes and waited patiently for Oliver. He pulled up right on the minute, he was a man that did what he said when he said, Lori had figured out. Maybe a little control issue, maybe just organized too though. Lori climbed into the older but well maintained truck and noticed that Oliver must use this as an office of some sort as well. He had a set up sort of like the police cars did for a few electronic gadgets and a mobile Ham radio to boot. This guy was prepared for anything it looked like to her, it was then that she noticed a few magnet...

I copied my recent piece from Yabberz here. I try to keep a lot of this separated but this is a compilation of emotions that belong here as much as anywhere. I received some wonderful replies and hardly a bad one. It is as someone said a wonderful manifesto to the way I feel and they couldn't agree more. Thanks. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is not about politics, or personalities any longer. That choice has been made and it is time to move, to work, to enable, to heal, and yes, to love. You see before all this, before all of this divisiveness got crunchy and thick. There was a country and a people that I could truly be proud of. That belief has never left me in my lifetime, there was never a moment when I believed that we were a nation without a soul. It is being challenged, and pulled, and twisted and diminished by some, but there it is, a very alive, and very much a capable soul. I have come to the conclusion that I must...