I'm in love with a dead jazz singer...

The title of this is misleading. I was only peripherally aware of Amy Winehouse when she was alive, but now, with her passing, I'm terribly saddened.

I have watched all of her performances on you tube, as well as interviews, and in her voice I can hear every reason why she was so troubled.

I am particularly haunted by her version of, "Will you still love me, tomorrow?"

A lot of us have had an "Amy" in our life, someone we love and have to walk away from because we can't bear to watch the self destruction.

Some of us are the "Amy" and continue to believe the lie that addiction wraps up and presents to us in so many different guises, looking for that weak spot, that will allow it to take hold.

I pray the "Amy" I had to walk away from doesn't end with that phone call, the one that seems to always happen late at night, the one that you can't wish away or ever take back, and as soon as you hear the words spoken on the other end, your life changes, permanently from that moment.

There is still time...

The deadline approaches...

I gave myself until September to have the first draft of the manuscript finished. I'm on Chapter eight, just finished actually, and it looks like I may need more time. I didn't know I could remember so much...

It's good for me to write the truth, of who I was and probably still am, to a large degree.

Had I had the insight I have now 30 years ago...well, a lot would be different, but I wouldn't have the material needed to finish this project.

I finally get it. The life that was given to me and the life I've lived were so this could be written.

Now I understand.

Just checking in...

Still here. Working on the book, and it's coming along better than I could hope.
Medical issues still a hassle, but I guess it's the price of living long enough for stuff to start breaking. Lucky me.

Still sober and once again have quit smoking. Over 2 years sober, and 30 days today without a cigarette.

Visit to the cardiologist on the 18th. Nothing wrong, just having a stress test to see where things stand.

My oldest brother died when he was five years older than I am now. First (and yeah..only) heart attack. Died after work, walking to his truck in the parking lot to go home.

Procedure on the compression fracture of my C5 vertebrae on the 10th of August.

I will not go quietly...

An update from the end of Spring...

The book is coming along better than I expected, so yes, I'm still writing. But it's been some time since I checked in on the Blog, so keeping things current, here you go...

I should be licensed and legal on my old British motorcycle within a month or two and and that's the closest thing I can think of to being in tune with a higher power. I can hardly stand the wait...

Trying very hard to get my own place by the middle of the summer.I lost that gift by my own actions two years ago and I will not forget how hard it's been to get back to having my own spot on the planet. (room mates are NOT my thing) When I do, I have been given the option to work from home and I'm taking it.I'm an isolationist by nature and that would be, as they say, the cats cooch.

Some of my friends in recovery have been given the gift of "things getting better" in a big, sudden bundle. I have received that gift before, several times, and I instantly took it for granted and screwed it up in spades.
So this time, over the last two years, not counting willful mistakes of self, I am being parceled out "improvements" in doses, a bit at a time. This two years has been my journey into delayed gratification, and I think I can accept why, and experience a level of grateful humility in that acceptance.

I am now at a place of digging middle age, realizing the lessons of the past and what they were for.

I can now accept being in love with someone that I'm not with, and watch her grow in her own way, from afar, while understanding that while our "outsides don't match" our connection on the inside still does...

Recently two people I have known in recovery have passed on, one just today, and I saw them go through the horrors of cancer with grace and peace and sobriety. I'm superstitious regarding that deaths like this happen in three's, and If I am unknowingly the third,(and I promise I'm not trying to be) I don't want a memorial, I want my friends and family to take a day and have a giant lunch together and eat till they get tired, and for that day don't follow the rules; laugh, eat, and for those not in recovery, drink and dance and howl at the moon, and find at least one "authority figure" and declare them "silly" and if brave enough, give 'em the finger, it's on me...

Dreams can come true... if we wait long enough.

Just picked up my bike. It's brilliant! (not to mention a sexy little motorcycle) 206 miles on it, great shape, new tires, two extra gas tanks, new helmet, gloves and ballistic nylon/armored jacket (with tags still on them) and all free because two guys chose to get sober and clicked as real friends. The bikes never even been registered, I shall be the first.

Take off the pillion seat, (I ride alone) put on clubman handlebars,get a new battery and registration (and insurance) and I will have the bike I've dreamed of for the past fifteen years. Pretty awesome day, and thanks all around.

My next goal is a place of my own (my job has offered me the option of working from home,) and after that, publish my book before the end of the year. My plan is to have it finished by September 1 and have it sent out by then.
Just have to stay focused, believe and breathe...
.

That about covers it...

I live to fulfill my own dreams and aspirations. And I do it by my standards. If you find my actions, my intentions, to be wrong, well I'm sorry.

Those are your opinions on my outward appearance. How you see me through your eyes. If you like, I can pluck them out for you.

Maybe then, when you have nothing to judge except me, the real me, we'll be on the same page about things.

so it begins...

I now have a 343 page manuscript, (double spaced for manuscript submission) with 61 chapters to edit, re-write and flesh out by Sept 1. Writing my blog for three years gave me all the material I need. here goes...oh, fyi, if at one time in my life we interacted, and I said I wouldn't blog about you, I kept my promise. I never said you wouldn't make the book.

Ok Muse, you're on notice...

I'm giving myself from March 1, tomorrow, till September 1 to finish my novel. I will still blog a bit, and possibly post passages from key chapters...just know, I'm busy.

a stuck spot...

The previous post was written three months ago. How odd. I am in exactly the same state today.

While there have been many changes over the past three months, it would seem some things remain as they were.Time for active, non-static change.

More than just a change in outlook, a change in perspective, or a change in choice.

Something drastic this way comes...

When you come to a fork in the road pick it up...

He realized that slow, sluggish starts were simply the backwash of messy endings. For something to begin, something needed to end, and for him, it was never clear and concise.

He was at one of those places, the universe doing it's thing, bringing him to a new chapter, while throwing the last chapter into a shredder. It was increasingly difficult to hang on to shreds. A few crumpled pieces in his tightly clenched fists, with the rest collecting around his feet, and blowing intermittently across a pebbled parking lot.

He knew what he needed to do. Just couldn't bring himself to do it. He wanted a neat, surgical ending and a bright and shining beginning, which was impossible while chasing confetti.

Clutching and grasping, he would collect some remnants, and chase the rest, missing most, and losing the few he held on to while grabbing at the remains.

It had been his experience that when things fall apart, they were in fact falling together, but this time the ride was losing bolts and screws and shaking apart and there wasn't much in his power to stop it.

So he relaxed, stood tall, put his head back and arms out and unclenched his fists.

He allowed the winds of change to wash over him.

He let go.

...fall begins.

He wanted to shake his ego like a baby in mid-tantrum. It was causing him no end of grief.

For whatever reason, his brain was telling him his present circumstances were probably permanent, and that he was in fact, a grade-A fucking loser.

H wanted to change careers, in an economy that was driving degreed professionals into the fast food industry. Every day, resumes out and no responses in. He worked with undocumented Latins, who thought it was pretty great to have a middle aged white guy to abuse daily, and who took home less money than they did.

He drove a twelve year old truck-in various stages of decay- and rented a room in a two bedroom apartment, with three other middle aged roommates, all on their own medication schedules.

He was pretty sure his daughters were embarrassed by him so they kept a distance and he continued to be attracted to women he knew deep down were out of his league. He was good for one cheap date, then the financial bitch he was in generally brought any further developments to halting text messages and phone calls that grew less and less frequent.

His hopes and redeeming values included being sober for over a year and a half, and beginning to get into some kind of middle aged shape, through a drastic diet change and real exercise. His mirror in the shared bathroom was crueler than his three ex-wives going over his will.

Recently, after a boring shift at work, preparing over priced food for people with too much money, he had come home and started to read. That was still a pleasure he could count on, and he came across a quote from Dean Koontz that in an odd way, comforted him and gave him pause because it was alarmingly close to home.

"Of all the things I am, a killer is one of them. Not a murderer, but still a killer. And a fool. The only child of a mad mother and a narcissistic father. A failed hero. A confused boy. A troubled man. A guy who makes up his life as he goes along. A seeker who cannot find his way."

The wheel is turning but the hamster is clearly dead...

He awoke one day, shortly after his birthday, to a sense of clarity. The image he viewed in the mirror was suddenly uncluttered of past illusions.

His self knowledge, which often times availed him very little substance, had been ratcheted up a few notches.

He was able to take stock of who he was and where he was and the thought came to him very clearly.

"You, are fucked." But the difference in this moment was he knew his overt fuckedness could be changed, but would take courage, and sacrifice to unfuck himself.

He saw, with detached horror, the him he would be at sixty if something drastic did not occur.

Drastic moments required drastic action, which was why he remembered kicking the giant rat at Chuckee Cheese squarely in the giblets.

This, he determined, was a giblet kicking moment.

He immediately changed his diet and started the painful process of getting into shape. He even shaved his moustache. No sense in hiding behind it any longer.

And he also set about changing his career. Updated the resume, and sent it out, to jobs that were far different than anything he had ever done.

Soon (he hoped)it would be time to strike out on his own again, new, gently used furniture and an apartment to himself. A vehicle that he could count on, and a job that he could actually have weekends off from.

At least that was the plan.

And plans always made the God of his understanding giggle...he was glad he could amuse.