little aa world

It's a cold, windy afternoon in Tulsa and I have minimal motivation to accomplish the task before me: to clear out the stuff in this house. In these pre-Christmas days, no one's buying much anyway. I hope the first quarter of 2010 is back to normal. Usually our best of the year in my business, 2009 was absolutely wretched, with sales in January, February, and March over 50% down from the year before. I am so ready to be done with this.

So why write at all? Why not snuggle with the puppies under the blanket, drink more coffee, and read one of the good books I've got going? Because Mike just called from Mexico and his news filled me with such joy that it had to come out. It's such a little thing, but I'll take joy anywhere I can get it these dark days of winter.

What was it? What lifted my heart and made me laugh out loud? When I was in Yucatan two weeks ago, we sat down with a carpenter and worked up plans for doors and windows for our little house. The carpenter was great. Very warm and gracious. He took us to his shop where he works magic with rudimentary tools. We liked the plans, so as usual, we are casting aside all recommendations and putting in hardwood windows and doors rather than the more practical aluminum.

Aluminum won't rust and it looks good and it's reasonably inexpensive. But wood. Wood just feels right, and I know it will take more maintenance, but I think of the cedar-shingled houses of Nantucket which have stood for years in the salt spray, and I think we'll get by. I'll be retired, after all. A little house work won't kill me.

So the windows are in. Mike called to tell me they look incredible. He actually said "incredible," my calm, steady husband, the one not prone to superlatives, the one who never gets overly excited. "Incredible."

And then within a few minutes he called back and he sounded incredible himself. Happy, laughing. What could it be? It's so simple, and it's hard to put into words if you haven't experienced it, but in the course of providing food and drinks for our hard working crew at the house, Mike discovered that our carpenter, who we both fell in love with, and the general contractor from Merida, are in AA.

Not just dabbling in AA. They're long time sober people with years under their tool belts. And there's a meeting just a few blocks from our house in Chuburna. Isn't it odd that I'm writing this at 27 years sober (thank You), sitting here with tears in my eyes, and a heart filled with gratitude, because a couple of guys 2000 miles away don't drink anymore?

I can't figure it out. Some of my favorite people drink a lot and it doesn't bother me one bit. Mike's been having a blast running all over the Yucatan peninsula with people who drink most of the time. I have no problem with folks who drink. My favorite people in the world are drunks.

But there's something about the idea that 2000 miles away, two other people felt the need to live differently, and we met them just by chance. And they were people that we were drawn to and liked a lot. And that just seems very, very cool and it makes me really happy. There's a little bit of old home waiting for me in my future home.

Oh, and even more happiness: I found 15 unapproved comments in this thing when I opened it up after a month. That made me happy, though I'm wondering how it went into approval mode. One of the mysteries of life, just like the way the Universe finds a way to connect AA people. And the way that connection fills a heart with joy.

And you? What's making you happy these days? Tell, please.

home

It's a little after three a.m. and I'm telling Daddy yet again where home is. He can't remember. He doesn't know the street or the town; thinks he's still in Peoria where he settled after World War II. "Where is Pat?" His wife, my stepmother, his anchor. "She's at home, Daddy." "Where is home?" And the loop starts again.

My very proper father has to urinate. He tells me "I'm sorry, but I really have to p-e-a." It's the way we said it as kids. It was never pee, never #1, but p-e-a. I am 52 to his 92 and he still surprises me by remembering those little things. But home? Where is home? Where is it?

"I feel so lost. Where am I?" I can say that it breaks my heart, but that's so inadequate as to be laughable. I can't describe the pain. It's actually physical, this emotional anguish. Could my heart truly shatter? It feels like it.

I don't know what to do. This is the second night we've been in this miserable excuse for a hospital. He's hooked up to IV fluids, trying to raise his sodium level to something approaching normal. He walked into the hospital. Now he can't even stand.

"I have to p-e-a, real bad." I call the nurse. Again. No one comes. I call a second time. An aide appears at the door, tells me that the last time they helped him urinate, they put him in pull-ups. That's nurse euphemism for a diaper. Pull-ups. "So he can just go, he doesn't have to use the urinal every time."

She helps him p-e-a one more time, and as she leaves, she grabs my arm and says "next time, just have him use the pull-ups." Use the diaper.

He doesn't know where he is. These two weeks away from the home he's lived in for 50 years have left him untethered. "Where is home? Where is it?" I tell him about his life. "You were born on a farm west of Dodge City. You couldn't wait to get out of there. You left for college on a train, your parents waving goodbye with tears in their eyes. They thought they'd never see you again."

He stops me to say, "My dad, he was a really good man. A good man." We talk about his mother, Wilhelmina. She was a live wire, so like my middle sister. Daddy smiles at that, the vision of his busy little mother and his hummingbird of a middle daughter.

"You graduated from St. John's and went to Washington D.C. to work for the FDA, and then you enlisted in the Army." I tell him about going to Manila, about offloading Japanese prisoners of war from the massive war ships, and how he felt so sorry for them. "When you came back after the war, you had a baby daughter, Karen. You went to graduate school in chemistry, remodeled a huge three story house, and worked full time too." He shakes his head and I think he really remembers those years in Peoria, in the late '40s, early 1950s, when everything seemed possible and he worked 20 hours a day for his little family.

I tell him he went to work for Conoco, that he worked as a research chemist for years and years. He shakes his head and says "I don't remember it. There's something wrong with my brain. It's in a fog and I can't get out of it." I tell him he is very, very smart, that he was known around the world for his work, and he squeezes my hand so hard it feels like the bones will fracture.

"Honey, I have to p-e-a again. I'm sorry." I look at him and I hear the nurse firmly telling me to tell him to just let go. "Daddy, you're wearing a special kind of pants that will keep you from getting wet, so it's okay when you have to go pee, to just go. It will be fine and then we'll change them later. Just go ahead and go where you are. It's okay."

My dad releases my hand and looks at me with sorrowful eyes. He's shaking his head as his face falls. "Oh no, no, I can't. I can't do that," and he starts to cry. I know he remembers this: That his own gentle father, a good man, was incontinent at 65, the result of steroid therapy for arthritis. He remembers the shame on his father's face as he got down from the tractor with wet pants. This he remembers; the painful things he remembers.

I've just told my father to urinate in his pants. In his diaper. He is crying at the very thought of it, his eyes overflowing with tears. He has to p-e-a one more time and the nurses are tired of it.

In an instant, I'm at the nurses' station, where there's plenty of chit chat, not much work going on. It takes a few moments for anyone to recognize that I'm there and by the time anyone speaks to me, I'm past the point of being able to say what I want. I am crying too, just like my dad. I can barely get the words out. We've been awake for most of 48 hours, and this night has been hell.

"I just told my 92 year old father he's wearing a diaper and that he should pee in his pants and now he's crying. I can't do this. You have to help him with the urinal. He can't do it on his own and I can't either and I can't tell him to pee in a goddamn diaper because the very thought of it is breaking his heart. Please help him."

An aide scurries down to the room. The RN on duty comes around and grips my upper arm. If another nurse snatches my arm, I'm going to hurt someone. "This is going to happen. There's something that happens with these people called sundowning . . . " and I stop her. "I know about sundowning. I know all about dementia. It's been 10 years. He wasn't incontinent before he came in here. He has never worn a goddamn diaper." I shake her off and go back to my father.

He's been taken care of and the tears have dried.
"Where's am I?" he asks, grabbing my hand.
"At the hospital, Daddy."
"Where's Pat?"
"She's at home."
"Where's home? Where is it? What is wrong with me?"

I take his hand in mine and in a soft voice, I tell him "It's okay, Daddy. I'll take care of everything. Tomorrow I'll take you to your home and you'll know it when you see it. Just relax and close your eyes and don't worry. You don't have to worry. You're safe and I'm here and I'm not leaving. It will be okay. Just sleep. I love you. Go to sleep."

He squeezes my hand and tells me thank you. "I thank God you're here, honey. I don't know what I would do without you." Half a dozen times tonight he's asked me who I am. Each time I tell him I'm Lynette, his youngest daughter, and it makes him smile. It's nearly five a.m. and he's closed his eyes; he falls asleep at last. His hold on my hand has relaxed and the pained expression has vanished.

I look at him and pray that he's dreaming of home, his home, surrounded by the family that loves him so. I hope he has peace in his dreams, just a little bit. Does sleep take it away? In his dreams, is he strong and healthy and clear-headed? Does the escape of sleep protect him for just a moment from the hell of dementia? Lord, I hope so.

I'm watching my father sleep as he watched me sleep when I was a baby, a small child. All my life he's been there for me, a constant presence, comforting, and safe. I am grateful I can be here for him. I am desolate. I am heartsick. Bereft. I miss my Daddy and he's sleeping right in front of me.

overheard at the old folks home

First gentleman: "How's it going?"
Second gentleman: "Horrible. Awful. It couldn't be worse."
First gentleman: "Oh, I'll bet it could be."
Second gentleman: "Do you have a colostomy?"
First gentleman, looking at his watch: "No. But I have the time."

My father is in a home. That's how we used to say it growing up. "She went to an old folks home." It was always the old folks home, never a nursing home, and retirement centers and assisted living centers didn't even exist. Just old folks in their homes away from real home.

Daddy's with the old folks. It's temporary, but spending the last several days with him left me feeling sad and a little hopeless. So many old, old bodies, barely functioning, so many with brains not working except in the most basic sense. It's easy to say at my age that I wouldn't want to live that way. But something makes them cling to life, no matter how wretched the quality.

We had lunch with a man who's only 62. Chemical engineer, worked for Conoco, just like my dad. He is worse than my father at just 62. He is terrifying to see in such a state: withdrawn, nonverbal, unable to respond to conversation. I review the things I know contribute to dementia: high blood pressure, smoking, lack of social outlets, inactivity, lack of exercise, family history. What, if any, of these factors led to his being incarcerated at the home with the ancient ones? He's just 62.

My sister and I can't take our eyes off of him, she with white matter in her brain "like a very, very old woman or someone who smoked for a lifetime." Me with a brain that cycles at insane speeds and veers off onto tangents and can't concentrate on a single thing for more than an instant. Our family history is frightening enough to instill in us both a grave sense of foreboding. Will we last as long as Daddy, who was lucid into his late-80s? Or will we be like aunt Tilly, like cousin Molly, who were mad with dementia in their 50s and 60s? My grandmother had it, a grandfather too. My father's brother is in an old folks home in Dodge City and he no longer knows his own name.

I picture being locked up in a home in Mexico. My Spanish language skills will have vanished with the shrinkage of the frontal lobe that brings on the madness afflicting my people. I imagine that if I get really bad, I could set out on that six month around-the-world cruise I've always wanted to take, and at some point, under a full moon, perhaps in the Indian Ocean, I could leap over the side and let my last breath be the salty sea that I love. Maybe I would have the presence of mind to know when it's bad enough that I should sail out into the Gulf and simply keep going until it's too late to turn around. I don't know that I would have the courage or the consciousness of my condition to decide when I've had enough, but should it happen to me, I pray that I will.

Meanwhile, I don't smoke. I watch my blood pressure, exercise a lot, learn new things. I avoid behavioral ruts, interact with people, and pray. I pray that I can have another 15 or 20 good years; 25 would be a blessed gift. I pray that my father will be able to let go of this life before his suffering becomes unbearable. And I curse the empty space where his frontal lobe used to be as I lie awake at night wondering if it's already happening to me.

chuburna at dawn

East, toward Progreso.

(Photo courtesy 4 BP)

tile and windows and doors, oh my!

I've been through renovation obsessions in my life, but nothing like what's happening right now, as I envision our little plain (pink) vanilla beach house turning into a lush little gem on the water.

When I bought this 1942 cottage in 1989, I lay awake nights envisioning different colors on the walls, what to do about wall paper, bathroom issues and the like. Then I focused on how to rectify the sins of the previous owners, beyond having ripping up the shag carpet and popping off the mirrored gold stickem tiles that sprouted everywhere on the walls.

In 2000, just before Mike got sick, we were in the midst of a kitchen renovation, opening the wall between kitchen and dining room and expanding the space into what was eventually a glorious, light-filled, exquisite, custom kitchen as perfect as anything I imagined.

The bathrooms were next, but not until the floor nearly collapsed beneath the tub. The result is so pretty, and it's a treat just to brush my teeth over a 1920s carved oak French washstand that we turned into a gorgeous vanity, to take a dip in the clawfoot tub, or to shower surrounded by black marble and sunshine from the skylight above.

But this beach house. I'm stymied. Maybe it will all come together. Aluminum windows are recommended but I want the rot-resistant ultra hard Mexican mahogany. Sliding windows are common, but I want casement windows that will open in, with screens, and the usual protectores made prettier for the outside.

Tile? Tile will be everywhere, covering inside and out in the same floor color. But what color should it be? Mexican Modern, the most evident beach style, calls for creamy travertine or some other kind of light tile, and white walls, glossy surfaces.

I've tried to imagine living in a modern space and I can't see it. I look at the pictures in books and they're lovely, but they're just not me. I need terra cotta tiles and Mexican Talavera as accents. Wooden windows. Ancient old wooden doors. I want colors in the bath and in the kitchen, deep, dark, rich tones that are really at odds with beach life.

In my mind, I'm painting the walls a creamy white, to make up for the richness of tones elsewhere. The sofa and chairs are slipcovered in white canvas and the furnishings are spare, with lots of open space and a few very large, favorite pieces from home.

It doesn't seem like mattresses and box springs are typical, but I want a bed high enough that we can lie there in the morning and without even raising our heads, see the emerald waves of the Gulf right outside the bedroom window.

In my mind it's beautiful and all I want to think about. But other things creep in, like propane tanks, and water pressure thingies, and ceiling fans, and where to put the electrical outlets, and outdoor lighting, and hookups for the washer, and whether we can just skip having a dryer. And what about surge protectors? And water heaters?

It's occupying every waking moment and some in the middle of the night when my eyes pop open with another vision that I simply must remember. In the meantime, I need to do something here, tagging the garden perennials I recognize so I can have a plant sale in the spring. So much to get rid of, inside and out, in this cottage I've lived in for 20 years.

That's what's going on in Tulsa, where we are studiously avoiding anything to do with the H word (+ealthcare) or anything P (olitical). I keep thinking it's probably not smart, planning this move, giving up work at the high point of my earning years, and then something rises up in me and says fuck it, do it now or maybe never. What the hell.

You? Got plans? Dreams? Taking a new, possibly risky direction in life? Tell, please.

done writing about anything but getting out of here

Done. Can't stand it anymore. From here on, the only thing you'll read here is what it takes to get out of the US and the adventures of moving to and living in another country.

What caused this, you might wonder? Imagine if you live in a state where both senators are utterly worthless, and one in particular, a medical doctor, has aides who say things like this:

“. . .All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.”

That's Tom Coburn's Chief of Staff, Michael Schwartz, expounding on his beliefs about homosexuality. The stupid is burning my eyeballs out this morning. The rest is here, at Think Progress. I read it to Mike and he looked stunned, then said "let's just concentrate on getting out of here, baby."

We will. And I'm going to write about it, but I am turning a blind eye to the rest, to the political bullshit. It's pointless. Nothing changes and nothing changes and nothing changes. On the other hand, I'm moving to Mexico. Hallelujah!

happy right now

I stay angry about the health care disaster in the US. Tuesday I'm admitting Daddy to an assisted living center. My stepdaughter won't speak to me, and insists I fired her, when she actually quit of her own accord. My middle sister had a wreck with someone uninsured, of course. My nephew's recovery from back surgery isn't going all that well.

So what's to be happy about right this minute? I'm trying, and the fact of being able to escape the US in the next 6-8 months fills me with joy. To remember my future home, I watch this a lot.



Things are steadily leaving the house. I remember when I obsessed over finding one of these:


The hunt for a plump, red, Riviera tea pot consumed me for years, long before the internet improved the odds of finding one. Mine's going to Ohio, along with a pair of the Riviera handled tumblers that fueled my relapse into Riviera obsession twenty years ago. I'd collected Riviera in the mid-'70s, then sold the bits I had. Once I found the pair of tumblers for a dollar each, I was hooked again. Now I can't even remember why I cared. At all.

It's hard to believe such a passion could simply vanish, but if I could wave a wand and have all of the stuff I've devoted half a lifetime to collecting suddenly disappear (leaving behind a cash equivalent, of course), I'd be thrilled.

I just heard from our attorney in Merida and he okayed doing some minor construction now. "Take possession," he said. "It will be better to do a little bit now. The house is yours." Sounds good to me.

I took possession of that little beach cottage in my heart and soul the instant I walked in the door. Tonight I'll go to sleep thinking of the day I'll wake up to the sound of waves right outside my window. I can't wait. It keeps me happy right now.

more teabaggers

Uninformed. Ignorant. Biased. Absurd. Illogical.

teabaggers. god help us.

on a happier note . . .

the flamingoes of Yucatan.

restless. irritable. discontented.

It's the dreadful RID syndrome. I am afflicted. It's not an unusual state for late summer, but this year's version is especially severe.

The Doctor's Opinion, opening chapter in the AA Big Book, opines that alcoholics "are restless, irritable, and discontented until they can again experience the ease and comfort that comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks which they see others taking with impunity." I'm paraphrasing, but that's a pretty close, if not perfect, recitation of a paragraph that was an epiphany for me once I got it.

But I got it almost 27 years ago and I quit drinking as a result. So what's wrong with me now? My friend Joe sends gentle reminders that it's a spiritual problem. My other friend Joe, committed atheist that he is, would scoff at that. But I'm leaning toward the first Joe's opinion: I am spiritually bereft.

When I was a child, my mother used to read a Kipling story to me about how the rhinoceros got its wrinkly skin. The rhino took off his skin one day to go for a swim. As he had previously done wrong in stealing from a man, as he was swimming, the wronged one sought revenge by filling the rhino's skin with cake crumbs. The rhino's efforts to alleviate the itch of the crumbs made his skin wrinkle and so it goes, this parable about karma and what happens if we do shitty things to others.

I'm not wrinkled, but I sure am itchy on the inside. It feels like my skin doesn't fit. I'm not comfortable living this way. It's a familiar feeling with echoes from long, long ago, but I don't have the tolerance I used to.

In direct contrast to the spiritual exhortation to be here now, to live in the moment, this instant of time, I am all over the place. I'm in Mexico. I'm on the coast of Baja snorkeling, in Chile hiking in the mountains, in Florida kayaking the rivers and swimming with the manatees. Do you see the theme? I want to be anywhere but where I am, and it's all magical, glorious, delicious. Where I am is work, effort, drudgery. That's a sure recipe for itchy skin and I can tell you that it a recipe that never fails.

Now the thing is to get out of it. How? How do you get out of your itchy places? Or maybe you don't have them and you can tell me about prevention? What I used to know, what I used to do, doesn't seem to work as easily anymore. Maybe it's just lack of practice.

I used to start out the morning sitting on the deck reading something that would help me get focused. I'd drink a cup of coffee, pet the cat, let little Boo cuddle on my lap for a while. The quiet and the peace seemed to last most of the day. I don't do that anymore.

I used to fall out of bed, onto my knees, to ask for help staying sober, and before bed, I'd say a thank you to the Spirit of the Universe that's brought me this far. Not anymore.

I used to talk about living a spiritual life all the time, with others who were also on a spiritual path. No more.

I used to try to live in the moment, to try to find something joyful in every day, and I sure as hell didn't live my life in the future. Today all I can think about is getting out of the life I have. I want away, to Mexico. Now.

This is how I picture it: I'll finally get rid of all of this stuff that plagues me, I'll close down my business, move to that little beach house, and then ~ then ~ I'll have time for spiritual practice. Then.

It's so ridiculous. It's really basic, AA 101. I have to accept that this is the way things are today and quit living in the future. There is joy to be had in this day, sitting at my desk in my warehouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I really want some of that. With my itchy skin, life is just a chore and too long. I want joy. (Now!)

beach house

We did it. That little pink house on the beach, just a block or so from the town square of Chuburna Puerto? It's ours and that's the view from my front porch at sunset. It's shocking. I'm excited. I'm terrified.

I am a child of caution, the baby of Depression-era parents who planned and conserved and didn't take inordinate risks. Though I cast off their conservative ways in my teenage years and have carried a certain free-spiritedness into adulthood, faced with something as dramatic as giving up my life in the country of my birth and moving to a strange land, it all comes back.

I am afflicted with what-ifs. What if beach erosion takes my little house away. What if the Category 5 hurricane comes. What if the massive number of gringos fleeing the US results in an anti-gringo backlash among the Yucatan people, a people, by the way, who only allowed paler-complected folk into their state in the early 1900s (read about the Yucatan Caste War for details ~ the Mayans were justified, but they are the fiercest of warriors).

The idea of being without income of my own, of relying on my husband is as terrifying as anything. I've earned my own money since I was 12. I was essentially self supporting (clothes, activities, doctor visits) from 14 on. Yes, my parents put a roof over my head and paid utilities and such, but my urge for independence was so extreme that I refused almost all other financial support.

On the other hand, I fell in love with Yucatan. Merida is stunning and such a gorgeous, cosmopolitan city, that it felt like a more beautiful New York. My little village, Chuburna Puerto, is home to 2500 souls. There are tiendas, a cement store, a soon-to-be-internet cafe, and a town square where people gather. There was a carnival going on while we were there, and a real bullfight, replete with blood. I'm told the town is sleepy, quiet, slow most of the year. There's not a Wal-Mart in sight. I can do that.

On Yucatan time, I felt free. My mind stopped racing. Oh, we started planning some changes to the house, but that was fun and wasn't anything like the constant low level hum of anxiety and dread that afflicts me here.

Basically, I have to make ~ or I've already made ~ a decision to go rogue. I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do. I'm not going to work until I'm 67. I'm not going to stay put any longer. I'm going to be a bad grandma and a worse stepmother. The good daughter in me will keep me around until Daddy's gone, but I don't expect that to be more than a couple of years and then I am out of here for good.

Out of here for good. Out of here for good. I type those words and it seems unreal. Really? Me? Moving to a foreign country? It's incomprehensible. And exciting. And frightening. And really, really exciting. I'm happy. Except when I'm scared. But I'm mostly happy.

'bye

Merida, Yucatan, the White City. Whale sharks. Pink flamingos. Can't wait.

what if?

In the her book How of Happiness, Sonya Lyuobimirsky proposes that people writing about how something wonderful might not have happened experience a greater boost in joy than those who simply recount how the happy thing came to being.

. . . People who wrote about how they might never have met and fallen in love with their sweethearts had a bigger jump in happiness than those who wrote about how they did meet and fall in love.

Apparently, contemplating the fact that a key event might never have happened, at all, makes it more surprising and mysterious. Just think how close you came to having a different fate - your life could have gone in another direction, so easily!

For years when asked how I met Mike, I'd tell the long version of the story rather than simply saying "oh, at an AA meeting." The long version is a story of near misses and out-of-character behaviors, all leading to the moment in which he asked and I said yes and so began 17 years of a wonderful life together.

In AA, it is commonly accepted that people with a lot of sobriety are not to become romantically involved with folks who have just a little. It's a wise prohibition, having much to do with vulnerability and discouraging those who would take advantage of that, as well as maintaining a safe space for recovery.

As a relative old timer of nine years, when I met a three months sober Michael, I was friendly, as I am to every other newcomer. Over a period of a couple of months, I noticed that he was unusually happy and excited about recovery. I was too, and so we chatted after meetings, and I sometimes steered him away from the occasional bristling long sober old toads who attempt to steal the joy from another while avoiding the personal work necessary to acquire their own.

In all of my life, I haven't come across anything as exhilarating as watching a real, live, in the flesh spiritual transformation taking place before my eyes. I have shared it here before, but there is nothing that convinces me of the existence of a Power more than watching a hopeless, desperate, dying alcoholic catch fire with recovery. That transformation, the miracle that puts the light back into dead eyes, that puts an end to the suffering of alcoholism ~ to the desperate mental obsession, to the agony of physical craving ~ that Transformative Power is my God, my proof of a Great Reality. It is all I need, and all I need to know, to be assured that there is Something.

Mike had that fire, that electricity that arrives with the gift of a sudden freedom from the horrors of the disease. I have always envied him that, since my freedom came over a period of years, many some of the most miserable of my life. Given that instant release, he was boundlessly joyful. Having come to the rooms of AA fresh from thirty days of treatment preceded by two weeks of DTs and three weeks strapped down in an ICU, he was like a fresh-hatched chick, waking up in a new, perfect, and beautiful world.

This man I love is the worst kind of alcoholic. Physically damaged by the disease with cirrhosis and chronic pancreatitis, physically addicted to alcohol as few people really are, his alcoholism seemed to him to be hopeless. I have met a number of men ~ and a few women ~ like him. Knowing they can't quit drinking, they look forward to death as the only hope of relief.

Mike's pancreatitis and a severe seizure sent him to the hospital where he was told he'd have to be admitted or he could die.

"How long do I have?"
"Not long."
"I can't go in the hospital, doctor. I drink."
"I know."
"No, I drink. A lot."
"I know."

Mike didn't know that pancreatitis is, about 90% of the time, the result of alcoholism. He likely reeked of alcohol, as most physically addicted, late-stage drunks do. It wasn't news to the doctor that he drank, but her matter-of-fact acceptance of it somehow made him feel there might be hope for him.

I wasn't around for all of this, but I know the little miracles hidden within that story. Had he not developed pancreatitis, he would have been able to continue drinking. Had he kept drinking, he'd never have had that seizure and he'd have surely died of cirrhosis. Had he not been delivered to that ER, given that compassionate doctor, he might not have been given a way out.

And then I know the miracle of our meeting. Why would he have chosen that particular meeting in that little clubhouse, from among 300 meetings in this town? Why did I sit in that room rather than the other five in the building? Why did we strike up an acquaintance and find that connection of joyful sobriety?

And then there was the night we really did connect. I was at a Friday 5:30 meeting, one I usually didn't attend. Mike was there with his spanking new little Chevy truck, a nice change from the $500 Goodwill Datsun he'd been driving for five years. It was April 18, 2002, and everyone was talking about Springtime in the Ozarks, the annual conference in Eureka Springs.

After the meeting, Mike was standing outside, talking to four other men. He wanted to go to the conference and none of them were planning to take the trip. I walked by and Mike looked up at me and smiled and said "What about you, would you like to go?"

"Where?"
"The conference in Eureka."
"Oh, I . . ."
"It will be fun and I've got a new truck!"
"Maybe I . . ."
"I'll pick you up, we'll be back tomorrow night."
"I guess I could reschedule . . ."
"Do! Let's go on a roadtrip."

And so we did. I rescheduled. He picked me up that morning and we set out and we never shut up. We talked all the way there. We talked over lunch and between the meetings. We walked the streets of downtown Eureka talking, talking, talking. I never talked so much to any man, ever, and my experience with men is extensive.
It was entirely different, this thing with Mike, from the moment we set out on that trip.

But here's the thing. I'm not one to cancel plans with others. I never went to that Friday night meeting before. I am really not inclined to launch out on the road with someone I barely know, without any means of escape. I'd never gone to that conference, never wanted to. Mike always laughs when he says he'd never have asked me if he'd still been driving the Datsun. Too embarrassed, though now he knows I care little about the material. He just wouldn't have asked.

And so we fell in love almost instantly, the two of us. That evening after the meeting, we ran into each other at a poker game. I played across from Mike and drew the only Royal Flush ~ in hearts, what else? ~ of my life. And it hit me today what a fluke it was and how it could so easily not have happened. Had those circumstances not occurred, would I have met someone else? Would he? I don't know. Don't want to.

I think when everything is right it just happens. Maybe the Universe thought we looked cute together. Whatever it was, whatever it is, Ms. Lyuobimirsky is right. My happiness has increased in telling you why it almost didn't happen. So before I go and kiss my dimpled sweet man, what about you? Have you had a near miss that led to something wonderful? Maybe it wasn't a true love, maybe it was a lifelong friend, a wonderful job, a change of direction in life. Tell, please.

the great american bubble machine

Read it and weep. Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs in Rolling Stone.

"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. . . .

"The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pumpanddump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumercredit rates, halfeaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals."

going away

Going away to look at houses in Mexico on August 6. Can't wait. Maybe I'll come back with a beach house?

well fuck mark sanford

Okay. I was wrong. Forget this asshat, he's just like the rest of them. Nothing special in his love affair with the Argentinian woman, just another cheating man ~ a serial cheater at that ~ caught with his hand in the cookie jar. So to speak.

I was willing to allow that he'd had a post-Clinton conversion, motivated by finding his soulmate in the romantic Argentina. I imagined him having second thoughts about his judgmental proclamations, having met up with this woman eight years ago, beginning his slo-mo affair of the heart. But now he's confessed to involvement with at least three other women, assuring us, of course, that none of those relationships involved sex. Of course not.

Despite my naivete, my hopefulness, my wish that folks were better than they are, I do know hypocrites like this one. I mostly want to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to love. But this guy, good lord. What a tool. I expect in his version, no sex means assfucking, cocksucking, and handjobs, just none of that other thing. You know, the real sex thing.

I was wrong. I admit it. He's an asshole. Same as it ever was. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Nothing like a Rethug spouting the Bible while some woman's blowing him (or man, they're all about equal opportunity when it comes to cocksucking). I was wrong, so wrong. Fuck Mark Sanford.

***And Oh. My. God. If my husband stood up before the country, said Miss Argentina was his soulmate, then said he was going to "try to fall in love with his wife again?" Are you fucking kidding me? I would be so gone. Just try to find a wife to fall in love with. She's a Yankee, but she's living in the south, so she could be armed.. She ought to shoot his sorry ass.

more

Where has she been? The world needs lots, lots more Tracy Chapman.

poor mark sanford

Mark Sanford's breaking my heart. Oh, I know he's been a judgmental ass, sitting up all high and mighty, yammering about Clinton's failure, about gay marriage; bloviating about family values.

I'm feeling sorry for the man, especially after catching Keith Olbermann's repulsive reading of Governor Sanford's emails to his lover.

The thing I detest about Republicans is this: they seem wholly unable to put themselves in another's shoes, to see the world from anything but their own vantage point. They lack imagination.

That Mark Sanford, with his proclamations on family values, his insistence that marriage is only for individuals of opposite gender, his emphasis on keeping one's word, would find himself caught up in an affair is really just unimaginable. I believe it was unimaginable for him when he condemned Clinton, Larry Craig, and others.

Now he can imagine it. This is my hope for Governor Sanford: That this experience will humanize him. That he'll get off that Republican high horse and recognize the fact that we are all human beings, all subject to failure, all subject to bouts of dishonesty, of less than stellar moral performance. We are. It's part of being alive and Republicans are just as likely to succumb as Democrats.

I hate his hypocrisy. I hope that he's learned something from this, and not just that he shouldn't cheat. I hope he's learned that he might not want to judge another until he's experienced life in their shoes. I really hope that he has a come-to-Jesus awakening moment in which he realizes that most people don't intend to do bad, they just fall into it. Republicans, Democrats, and all the rest of us. We're human. We all fail. We all manage to not live up to even our own expectations of ourselves at times.

Wouldn't it be lovely if we could just get past all this morality bullshit and work on good public policy and governance? Maybe the Governor will learn that a lot of what his party is about is the condemnation of what should be personal and individual and private. You know, that freedom thing. Oh, and I hope he gets it that live and let live is just pretty good policy.

runaway

When Bessie finally got Water Moccasin's truck fixed, the two of them took off to see how it would run. Water Moccasin always bragged on his wife. She could fix anything and did, because Water Moccasin himself was a drunk and if he wasn't on the job, hanging drywall, he was passed out in his recliner.

I loved to hear Water Moccasin stories, how he bragged on his wife, how strong she was, how competent and capable. She was a legend among the working men on the construction crews, a tiny little dark tanned woman, tough as nails, as hard working as anyone I've ever known. Bessie. I called her Mrs. Water Moccasin which never failed to make her cackle. Her grin was a little snaggle toothed, and she had laughing eyes. It was impossible not to feel happy in her presence.

I always wanted to be just like her, like Bessie, with her competence in the manly arts. I pride myself on my physical strength and my way with the power tools, but Bessie could out work most men, and she didn't mind dirty, a thing which has always stood between me and my urge to do physical labor.

When they took off that day, the truck was running rough. Over time, it smoothed out and as they traveled, it got better and better. It was finally running so well that Water Moccasin and his Bessie kept on driving until they hit the west side of Alaska. That's a long way from Oklahoma, a lot of driving for a drunk old man and his tough, merry little wife.

Water Moccasin died a few years after that. Bessie never came back to Oklahoma. That's how I feel a lot of days, like I could just get in the truck and drive. I could load up my little husband and hit the road. Never look back. Just let go of this life and responsibility and obligation. Goodbye to all of that. You? Ever want to run away, cut those ties? Did you do it?