[7 weeks today. doing well, for the most part. stupid stupid stupid blogspot. rome, internal strife, army spread thin, religeous lunatics in charge... hmmm... watching sunrises and making tomato cages. still getting used to sobriety, but i kind of like it, most of the time. miss you guys horribly. also, spelling doesn't count, obviously. again.]
tropic thunder
armageddon
mean girls
[forrest gump?]
zoolander
the daily show: indecision 2004 special
the hangover
saturday night live weekend update
(included tds and snl on account of the geniouses seth meyers and rob corrdry, er, cordrry, cordry... or... right.)
more? i'd like quotes and the characters' names. and serenity more often than not.
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52 comments:
Nothing to add at the moment other than it's nice to see you.
Spending the day on Lake Erie with my folks tomorrow.
So, you don't go full retard? Glad to see you.
I'm still getting a few smaller varieties of the cherry tomatoes each day. So tasty. Such vigorous little guys - determined to burst into full flavor in spite of agonizing heat. The deepness of the red is breathtaking.
A week from Monday my middle daughter will have 7 years sober. She turns 24 in October. She's the one who loves to dye her hair multiple colors, and has an arm full of tattoos based on fairy tales.
She is out in Arizona with a group called "No Mas Muertes." Worth Googling.
Life is good; especially seeing you post.
Forest Gump is archetypal on so many layers. A favorite film of mine. I went to see "Tree of Life." Can you spell pretentious?
PS. New job has an office in Cleveland I will probably be obliged to visit from time to time. I know it's not exactly nearby, but perhaps we could arrange a Fray meet? bright? We will meet for coffee and pie and a raucous evening of mad libs. BTW, your security pass for this post was, no lie, frayvile. A sign.
Cleveland. Sounds fun. I spent a very cold weekend there once in August. Going to Joe’s High School Reunion.
Went to see “Beginners” with Ewan MacGregor and Christopher Plummer. Can’t tell which one I’m in love with – probably both. An exquisite film. I highly recommend it. Especially for dog fans. (rundeep, switters – I’m talking to you both.) Take a box of tissues.
i'm at a critical junction. long story too long: bro and i at odds, personality clash, i.e., and i hope this doesn't sound ugly, the more rigorously honest i am with myself, the more i am frustrated with dishonesty itself. i'm not saying all this very well, but it means i don't know if perhaps going back to piqua with myself, though dangerous, is just what i should do, not as a test, but as an embrace, full frontally, of just exactly what it is that i'm up against. e.g, i may just have to go full into-the-wild all up in the joint, but with a happier ending. also the meetings do help.
I don't think you should go back to Piqua unless you have a sponsor/regular meeting there. My biggest fear would be having to go to AA in a small town church, well, right after small, enclosed, dark spaces with no circulating air---Suddenly I see a connection.
Brothers do kinda suck. But then if families were perfect we'd never move out.
What Iso said, plus I think you need to be with or amongst people now, switters. Regularly. You're what they call a "people person" - a loner, not so much. If not your brother, then with others. Why go full on in to the wild about anything just yet? Baby steps.
When the folks in my family get sober it can be hard for the family that loves them to back off a bit and let them get their legs.
Maybe there is some Al-Anon that your brother can go to, where someone else who has been through the loving of another alcoholic can say to him - back off, let someone else help, work on yourself! Always a surprise to a family member of an alcoholic: "What? Work on myself? I don't have a problem!"
Yeah. Right.
Finding a place to focus on myself, and my own craziness ends up giving those I love some breathing space, and some dignity.
Not to mention, it is far more sane.
God knows what you need to do.
Seriously.
What they said. I was about to write some platitudes that sounded ridiculous, then realized that Iso, topazz and Cindy are all right. Maybe try a short-term (one or two day) stay by yourself, after you have identified a meeting there. Brother isn't that far away, amIrite? (PS. You have nothing to prove to yourself or to us or to your family by a grand gesture. WIn the war by winning skirmishes every day). Hearts and platitudes, bro. Luck to you....
Ditto all the wise women.
When you're ready to go back to Piqua, I would like to make a monthly lunch appointment with you.
And rundeep, YES, any time you're in Cleveland, let me know.
brightvirago at yahoo
Hey, you. Whether you're in Piqua or not, I'm rooting for you. Call any old time.
Well, maybe not after 10. I'm rooting for you right up until then, though.
Off-topic, but...
Over the weekend my daughter Maura returned from a two week stay in Ireland - where we have relatives who believe it or not, still live on the same land next to the farmhouse my grandfather was born in back in 1890, in Omagh, County Tyrone. Since farms and real estate were customarily passed down to the oldest son, my grandfather (who was the youngest of 6 sons) emigrated to the US when he was 27 years old, in 1917. He and my grandmother separated when they were in their 60's (the "drink" strikes again) and he lived with our family for much of my growing up years. My brothers and sisters and I loved him dearly and he was a true influence on every single one of us. His oldest brother Patrick (the one who inherited the farm and land back in Ireland) youngest child (Maggie, now 90 years old) is the last surviving heir to the land in Omagh, and she still lives there with her grand-niece's (Isabella)family, who will inherit it when she passes on. Isabella and her husband have six children too, all roughly the same ages as my kids. One of the terrific things about the internet is how fast all of our children formed friendships via facebook, and over the past five years they've all been crisscrossing the Atlantic to visit each other (although its been more of them coming here than vice-versa, what with the pound being worth 2 to 1 over our dollar.) When Maura returned this weekend, she brought a little bit of the Bradley/McKenna land back home with her. I don't know how she got it past airport security, but before she left she dug up a little patch of sod from the back yard of our ancestral home and stuck in a plastic bag inside her suitcase. Last night right around dusk we went to the cemetery where my mother is buried and tucked it into the still loose dirt around the foot of her grave. It was such a beautiful summer night! A poignant and bittersweet moment with lots of thoughts of love and family and the unrelenting passage of time.
topazz, simply beautiful. and profound. needed that after chasing cattle to new pasture.
Well, none of the alcoholics in my family ever admitted anything, and their families never got an instant of counseling, so far as I know. My grandfather, the one I knew best, although he was often a dick, carried his old-age alcoholism at a fairly high level, and all the still-surviving dysfunction carries, I like to think, a certain air of idiosyncratic problems.
[The only one I know in the family who ever tried (and succeeded) to kick it, did so before he married in. How he puts up with the rest of the gang is a mystery, but I think he holds himself as a much more reckless brand of badass were he to ever re-imbibe, which is bragging in a way. I could write a lot of entertaining blog posts about these people, but it seems like such a betrayal.]
In other words, I got nuthin so far as advice goes, even when it comes to dealing with it, me generally being one step or other removed from our real ringers. Wishing the best, however.
Lovely story, Topazz.
8 weeks. off to marion for another livestock water tub and good boots. will need cover alls for this fall and winter and running out of money. fox news radio, ironically, has made me more aware of muddled, sloppy thinking. group therapy thus far has been just me, but starting monday i'll be joined by 2 morrow county heroin addicts with about 10 minutes clean combined. i asked my therapist if i should try some china white this weekend just to fit in better. she said no. go figure. great day yesterday. now if i could just string 3 or 4 together in a row, we might be really on to something.
Bravo!
Good boots- One of the simple pleasures in life. 3 or 4 great days in a row? Let me know what that feels like, ok buddy? I think 2 is my personal record. Glad to hear you're making progress Swit.
Heroin is all fun and games till you puke up your spleen and sell your brother's baby for $10.
Topazz, I LOVE this story. Though I'm pretty sure my Irish relations are more in the Heroin addict line. Like the Committments meets Trainspotting. Go get 'em switters. I know you can.
Jerry Potter And The Gauntlet Of Fear was very good. as was the rain all day. 2 and a half rows of beans to weed, corn has tassles, and then mow the northeast pasture. sounds like a good sunday on a saturday night. but verb tenses and clause structures should probably be more consistent, like my spelling. no dangling participles tonight. dang!
So Canada's pretty this time of year. My friends made sure I got curds as soon as we got to their house. It's nice to be well-known by the right sort of people.
I am now referring to it as Harry Potter and the Boathouse of Denouement.
3 years + 1 day smoke free for me. Yay!
Erin, I cannot imagine you ever smoked. Impossible! Off topic: Can anyone tell me what is the final day for the fray? Has it been announced or something? I'm reading all the death knell type posts over there and wondering...
it's not already dead? Huh.
The Fray has been dead to me for years.
No date's been mentioned that I've seen. I'm in favor of bandaid-ripping. Just do it already.
(like a chimney, 18 years)
come on. Go over and say goodbye like you should. Your last post doesn't have to be anything standout, poignant or stellar - every single one of you have already done that ten times over, over the years. And I want to thank you all for it. I'm glad we still "hav our vays" of keeping in touch. And I hope we always will.
But topazz -- where?? Where??? BotF? Geezers? Fraywatch? Where?
(quit in 1992 after 20 years)
(bancoman - seriously, that's my word)
Anywhere you want! I'm showing up all over, even in "Fix the Fray." I even considered doing one last "Overheard on the Fray" but I don't have the time. So I'm going out in a blaze of drive-bys and banality. So much talk about the math and that Hillary can't win.
i don't know, topes! i've already said goodbye. sort of. plus, that hell hole is a bit of a drunk trigger, and i have a... er... wait... itchy finger? feather? something.
perfect weather.
I bumped the 2008 Trail of Tiers Thread.
Switters, avoid the trigger. It's not worth it. For me, it just triggers Di-gel. Hope you are doing well. Weather is gorgeous here as well, and I'm headed off for my annual Barry and Michelle vacation.
yes, listen to rundeep, switters, avoid it at all costs - I take it all back. It isn't even fun doing drive-bys anymore - no one even gets insulted! where's the love?
BV and switters, you both live near my family. Please go check the poster on my blog. I know it's a lot to ask, but if you could print out a large size and post it in the local gas station/restaurants/wherever it may help jog someone's memory.
Tractor Pulls this weekend.
Did a trip to Cincinnati and back yesterday. Waved at Piqua. It's so weird to not see Big Butter Jesus.
must you split infinitives!?!? 11 weeks today.
A ha!
11 was my number when I played volleyball in 9th grade. True story.
Hey buddy! 11 weeks is awesome. Stay proud and focused. 11 was never my number. But 12? When I played flag football in high school (really). Defensive end. You may not believe this, but a lot of girls who played flag football were stupid.
are you blogging the MTV Awards? Ugh. I didn't think so. Kids these days.
nice ohio weather. i finally have a sponsor. turns out sponsorship is like this big deal in aa. go figure!
hit the morrow county fair today. hit it hard. with hallie. ate my way around the midway to the poultry exhibit. end of story.
life is good. which is usually when al flips out about something unimportant, forgetting temporarily, we hope, just how good he and they and we have it. and stuff.
I'm two generations removed from the farm and yet I'm always drawn to the livestock and 4H displays at the fair. Maybe the farm never leaves you? (Though brightling pinches her nose and speed walks through the dairy barn...)
Life is good, indeed.
Are you watching Roddick -- Jack Sock? This kid is like 18 years old, and now Roddick is having his way with him, but it's mostly unforced errors. He's a Nebraska boy, you can see him on a tractor, and he's hitting the ball like he's been on the pro tour for years (he turned pro this summer). Unfreakingbelievable.
So the searches keep coming up with nothing. I'm a pariah among a certain bunch in town now, for defending my nephew to them.
Now I can see exactly what they say behind my back, on their facebook group page. It's pretty much exactly what I imagined people there said about me when I was forced to live there as a child, by parents with no common sense whatsoever. In a sick way, I am glad my nephew will never be able to live there again, no matter how this all turns out. It's the strangest culture I have come across in 53 years of globetrotting.
I've been without access for many weeks. Missed you all.
I do have it SO good -- thank you switters, for reminding me.
Iso -- many, many hugs.
I've been invited to a Round Up in Ogden, UT to tell my story. As my kid asked (in all seriousness) "Mom, do you have a story?"
Kids.
Hi Cindy: glad to see you again. Switters, check in honey, we want to make sure we're doing well by you. Little rundeep started high school. I started a new job. Mom's getting near the end of radiation therapy. And Iso, oh my God, what to say. Or do. It's all so crazy painful.
Hugs to all of you in my computer. And good night (Roger. I do love that man. Name me another competitor in any other sport so consistently gracious.)
The digital readout on our home phone no longer works so we can't see who's calling. It feels like time travel, to pick up the phone and say hello without knowing who is on the other end of the line.
Speaking of technology ... my daughter brought home a spiral notebook that has freaking RECORD, PAUSE and PLAY icons at the bottom of each page and (this is the truth, I swear) when you touch them with this special pen the writer can record speech that is then associated with the handwritten words (or diagrams) and can be played back later.
The freaking computer chip is in the paper.
People, this is amazing me beyond my capacity. I feel like I'm time traveling the other way, bright!
sure wish I would've had that notebook back in 6th grade. It might've taken pre-recorded burping and fart noises to a new level during arithmetic class.
Watched the Nadal/Djokovic match with my wife on Monday (a great day for doing jack crap overall, and what a match).
Tried to figure out who's likely to be the bigger asshole of the two, but couldn't decide. As for who is better looking, it has to be Nadal. My wife observed, "that ass just puts him over the edge ...even though he picks it constantly." And he does! I had never noticed that before. To amuse ourselves, we slow-moed a couple of his de-wedgiing moves as he prepared his serve.
Sports. A lot of it is really how you watch them.
Great match indeed, but they are both assholes. Both doping, I'm pretty sure, but Rafa is indeed better looking. Novak used to be a nicer guy. (I hear. Friend of a friend is in his entourage.) But all this use of MTO's by these two whenever the other guy starts doing well as a way of changing momentum is such BS.
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