In Gratitude

Thank you this lifelong tumbling-down
early in this winter that has no age
our window along the street
for the family you led me to
when it was time at last the words
the words coming at me from nowhere
thank you to the words from the air
that carried me through the clear decades
and come even now to me, come still to find me,
for the echoes of old friends, of what used to be,
of mistakes I made so well
heartbreak that guides the ploughshares
from somewhere they have loved before
from somewhere they were buried in the earth
thank you to my body and my hands and my feet
and the places been and moments known
clocks watched, cars started, cats stroked
revisiting me now, only to me revisiting
once again now complete just as they were
just as they were before
and the evening stars I have seen
and the dog who guides me every day,
who trusts me to be the man
who will feed him
and give him the long walks.

My Friend Paul

My homeslice Paul and I just had a public tiff on my blog.  Which sucks, because there aren’t many people in this life more important to me than Paul is, so I thought maybe I’d write a blog about our friendship.  Although it should be noted that we do have a nice history of being little bitches to each other and arguing about stupid shit, but that was mostly over a decade ago, while we were cooking together at the same restaurant, probably sleep-deprived and hung-over, but still.  We fight.

I’m sure I knew who Paul was before he knew who I was.  Why?  Because he played football for my high school.  He was a year ahead of me, and we weren’t within light years of each other’s social groups.  I wasn’t extremely aware of him, but I was aware of him.  Years later, I’d frequently have dreams that I’d been transported back to high school (with all of my intervening memories and experiences intact) and I’d seek out Paul, who, when I found him, had also been transported with his memory intact.  And so there we were, in high school, finally knowing each other.  They were weird dreams.

In the months following high school, I became a regular at the restaurant Paul worked at.  I frequented it late at night with my friend Jeremy and his girlfriend Cory (who I would later coup d-etat away from him); Jeremy had known Paul in high school, so Paul would come visit our table.  I remember being suspicious, because Jeremy had been the star of the soccer team, and here was this Paul guy, also an athlete.  And Cory, although she didn’t attend our high school, was the captain of her cheerleading squad.  I suspected I might soon find myself on the outside.  I know you’ve all seen pictures of me in wrestling or baseball uniforms, but I assure you, I was no athlete.

Fate is a fickle broad.  Before I knew what was happening, suddenly, I worked at that restaurant, too, and before long, I was a cook there, too, and before long, I was working overnights in the kitchen with Paul, too.  And (long story short here) we ended up going to the same college and being roommates and having the same group of college friends.  Paul and I had quite rapidly become insperable, the kind of friends that when you show up somewhere alone, people always ask you where the other one is;  although how that sort of thing happens is beyond me.  All these years later, it just seems natural that Paul and I are hetero-lifemates, but back then, it didn’t seem so simple.  Paul and I are quite different men (as good friends often are).  We share some simliar interests, but actually have more differences than similarities.  And not just the surface items like, he’s into sports and I’m not, or I’m into poetry and he’s not, as these differences are what can make a friendship keep ticking over the years (the male friends I do have whose interests most align with mine, I mostly don’t care for all that much, and I just keep them around because I might need them some day…for what, I have no idea).  But Paul and I’s differences seemed a bit deeper than that to me.  Mostly, he was a good soul and I was a bad one.

Now, he’ll probably want to argue with that, and he certainly could make a case for it.  After all, we were damn young, and drunk and tired pretty much ceaselessly, and in college, and—dare I say it—completely captivating to the opposite gender.  Neither of us were perfect young men.  But in Paul, one could see the seed of a quality adult, and a man who could discern right from wrong (even if he still sometimes chose to ignore that distinction), and how to be honest, and forthright, and helpful.

I, on the other hand, was a total shit.  It was probably obvious fairly early on that, while a whole bunch of us were partying constantly, I was the only one who couldn’t have stopped if I tried.  And no matter what you believe about how much I am to blame for that addiction, the fact is that being a drunk is not often accompanied by positive personality traits.  All those positive traits I listed above for Paul, think of their opposites, and apply them to the me of back then.

But somehow, we fit together.  We picked up some company on the way (“Nature Boy” Chris Davey, Burke “Testudo” Bowen, Heidi “Heidi” Dagen, “Mello” Cory Kelso, “Sultry” Joel Holtry, and quite a few others) and within a year of meeting Paul, I suddenly had a brand new group of friends and a new lifestyle, the old high school chums all-but forgotten.  And this was just in time, of course, for my descent into serious alcoholic oblivion.

There are lots of people to thank for how they handled my alcoholism and for what they did to help me, but as far as my friends go, nobody can really get more credit than Paul, a fact I’ve never really told him (fuck!  I’m crying now!).  Paul never made me feel like I was a bad person because I was unable to stop drinking.  He always seemed to understand that it was like any other addiction; for instance, his own reliance on cigarettes.  Now, he never said that to me, but his actions and the way he treated me suggest he thought that way.  He never told me I needed to stop, or slow down (that might sound reckless to you, but it’s my philosophy that “intevention” methodologies are counteractive.  Making somebody feel like shit never chased an addiction out of their skin, a philosophy my parents also seemed to share, which is another big reason I think I’m alive today);  when I would, on rare occasions, talk to him about my addiction and my fear relating to it (being in the grip of an addiction to a mind-altering substance is absolutely terrifying), he was understanding and helpful, never demeaning or judgmental, but forthright and honest in ways that showed a maturity and understanding that I’m not sure I could master even now, at age 34.

I still remember the day I decided—firmly, absolutely—that I could get sober, and that I would go to rehab and attempt to live the rest of my life and not die ASAP. I was at the apartment of Paul and his girlfriend at the time, Shelley.  I was drinking, but I wasn’t sad, I was just talking to them about being addicted, and how much it sucked.  I’ll never be sure which one of them said it first, but someone said, “Why don’t you just go to rehab?”, and they said it so…normally.  Like it was just something you could do, if you wanted.  Now, obviously the time was right, and there were plenty of other factors and people that contributed to that moment in time, but I said, “OK.  I’m going to!”  And I got the phone book and called a rehab and reserved a bed, that very afternoon, and then called my mom and dad (by then, that was two seperate phone calls) and told them “I’m going to rehab“.  It would be close to a year by the time I celebrated my final sobriety date of April 3rd, but that afternoon in Paul’s apartment stands out as the beginning of the beginning.  And he’s been so beautifully understanding and intuitive in regards to my sobriety.  He was my first friend to order an alcoholic beverage when out to dinner with me;  it was time, I was OK with it, and he just knew.  He knew that at that point I’d prefer him to do what he’d normally do.  It was more important to me that I not feel like the freak.  He was the first friend of mine who seemed to understand that I hadn’t really changed; sure, I had always been known as the guy who drinks all the time, but the core me was the same and now more me than before; the diseased filter had simply been removed.  Many friends felt the need to treat me, for a few years, like a kid who had just barely recovered from Leukemia.  Paul seemed to know that was unnecessary, and just kept treating me like the same guy from before, only without a drink in my hand.

I would love (really, I would) to just keep writing and writing and tell tons of little stories from our lives together.  Paul and I have lots of great stories.  But maybe I’ll just hit some highlights (and maybe there will be more blogs like this in the future…I feel as though I could write a book.  Tonight.  In two hours.  But anyway, the highlights):

—Paul and I share an intense love for two bands: Seven Mary Three and Hey Rosetta!  And these loves mark two distinct eras in our lives: college (7m3) and now (HR).  In an intereting twist, the first TWO times I saw both these bands, it was Paul and I together (along with others).  And these were amazing experiences that have shaped my idea of how concert-going should feel: like you are touching the hand of god.  It rarely is that good, but it is an ideal to strive for.  In many other ways, Paul and I’s musical tastes diverge, but they align where it counts. (hey Paul…the trip to see 7m3 in York…remember D’Marco Farr?  And please always remember, I called the opener in DC (“Peel”), and also, remember that fancy restaurant you picked for us to eat at in Ithaca, NY, the night we saw Hey Rosetta!?  That night was the beginning of my ongoing love affair with the Americano.  But I now drink them iced.)

–The Chair of Good and Evil.  Paul and I found a horrid, ratty, falling-apart recliner by a dumpster when we lived in college.  For reasons unbeknownst to us, we took it into our dorm room.  It really was a horrible chair.  It’s existence to us was more of a joke than anything else.  We wrote all over it in magic marker.  Quotes from movies, things we said all the time, lines from 7m3 songs (“A little motivation goes a long way down, down, down.”)  I somehow got the chair to my dad’s house for a year or two after college, but I’m sure it’s long gone by now.

–Remember that dorm room I mentioned? Yeah, we got kicked out of it.

–“Circus Midgets Ate My Balls”.  That’s all I’m saying about that.

–Movies we watched dozens or even hundreds of times together, even if they weren’t that good:  “Friday”, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, “The Borrowers“, “Mallrats”.

–The first time I visted Paul after I got sober and moved to New Jersey, we played golf and I beat him.  Which is the only time I can remember beating him at anything other than MarioKart.  So I bring it up here again, even 8 years later.  The gloating continues.

–I had the disctinct pleasure of giving the toast at Paul’s wedding to his fantastic wife, Liz.  I have never felt more honored in my life, and that honor continues to this day.

–Paul is a big Baltimore Orioles fan, so for his “bachelor party”, fellow Paul bud “Mello” Cory Kelso and I took him to an Orioles game, making the odd fact true: the last major league baseball game I attended was a Baltimore Orioles game.

–Mr. Turnpike, Nature Boy, and the Wise Guy (Man) in the Back Seat

–Ham on Both Ends

–Aint got me on tape.

I love you, Paul.  You continue to be the model for the type of man I want to be.  Thank you for being part of my life (and helping to save it).

L-R, Paul, Me, Davey (code names: Mr. Turnpike, Wise Guy in the Back Seat, Nature Boy)

Davey, me, and Paul, the first time we ever saw Hey Rosetta!, in Ithaca, NY.

Picture of Paul on the day I beat him at golf. He sucked that day.

Living Like Living Was Good

I can rise in the morning and electricity like bugs will crawl from the top of myself down through my extremities and out my toes to meet the world.  This can be in excitement or dread but it is never in boredom.  Boredom would be to not feel the sunshine, or the echoing confines of an empty room, or the dawning smiles of the friends who love your own dawning smiles.

I can drive along colorless interstates and imagine each unique spot in the countryside as we pass. That tiny grove back in the field that no one can be bothered to safely look at: I bet it gets nice shade, and is full of happy and fattened bugs and rabbits.  I’d like to read a nice comfy book there.  I’d like to nap like a praire animal.  Smell it’s smell.

I can light incense in the living room and dance poorly naked.  I can wear new socks without shoes when I take the garbage out.  I can make instant coffee and smell the vapors coming off it, my nose a visceral clitoris. I can wear any hat I want, but I don’t.

I can sit on my couch and turn off everything that uses electricity.  I can be in the silent dark.  I can live like living was good.

Bathtub Gin

imagine me sitting in a bathtub a bathtub with no water in it with all my clothes on staring up at you in the dark with the world’s saddest frown a moment before you hadn’t known where i’d disappeared to and you searched the whole apartment you skipped the bathroom the first time around because you saw the light was out so you were pretty sure i wasn’t in there but then after failing to find me anywhere else you went back to the bathroom and there i was in the tub with the shower curtain pulled just frowning at you what could you have thought I mean there are the obvious interpretations you know such as I must have found myself unclean and hence being in a state of such extreme intoxication my subconscious mind was in control and trying to cleanse me or maybe after getting up off the couch after having done that bonghit with you I thought you’d follow me into the bathroom and then the bathtub and we’d have insane glorious drunken sex in there and when you didn’t follow me I naturally got sad but the truth is who knows i mean it wasn’t the first time or the last time that someone found me in a bathtub like that and let me tell you sister it is right embarrassing the morning after when they tell you about it (He sat quietly in his dark apartment, pondering.  Was it still important if, all these years later, he still find the answer to why people always found him in bathtubs?  Perhaps it was no longer a key to unlocking his existence, if there are in fact such keys.  But what if it was?  When does one stop searching?  He thinks for a moment about the fact that both his parents were and still are bath-takers, not shower-takers.  And, in fact, as a child, so was he.  So are all children.  When does one make the decision to shower instead of bathe?  For him, it was early pubescence, shortly before the virginity-loss.  Was the drunken-bathtub-sitting a way of communing with his younger self, or even his parents?  Ah, but the things you think about when life is good!)

Gratitude Through ‘Life Wasted’

It was a longer than normal day at work.  I haven’t slept well the past few nights, nor eaten properly.  I am driving home hopped up on caffeine, majorly.  My body is weak, tired, shaking a little.  But it is sunny, and I am headed home, and everything is pretty close to being almost perfect.  I riffle through the CDs in my console.  I come up with Pearl Jam’s newest album, which is self-titled but affectionately referred to as The Avocado Album.  I slide it into the CD player, which eats it like it does any other CD.  The first track, Life Wasted, begins to play.  The opening riff is monstrous, thunderous, and somehow sparse.

Bum-bum-dumdum, Bum-ba-dumdum!

Then the drum and bass kick in:

BUM-BUM-DUMDUN (wuaa!), BUM-BA-DUMDUM!

I know before Eddie even sings a word that somehow I am now hearing this song for the first time. Months ago, when the CD first came out, I knew I had a connection to this song, as most people probably feel. Anyone who is through something, on the other side of something, who is doing good or feeling better, probably feels a connection to this song.  I’ve used a quote from it as my MySpace headline more than once.   Maybe it’s just that there are so many Pearl Jam songs that are already personal to me, so many that I’ve internalized, that for awhile there wasn’t room for one more Big One, one more emotional juggernaut for me to process.  But today, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that opening riff hit me square in the gut like a dead fish on the poop deck, and I knew I was in for a ride. He started singing, and I started to sing with him, loud and with more gusto that I expected:

You’re always saying that there’s something wrong. I’m starting to believe that was your plan all along.  Death came around, forced to hear it’s song. And know tomorrow can’t be depended on…

It’s seven years ago. Younger me sits by a fire, a bonfire of sorts, in the yard of some tiny cabin in some vast woods.  I’m by myself on a makeshift bench formed by a log and two large rocks.  In the cabin, 50 yards away in the darkness, loud thumping rap music is playing and the kids from work are dancing.  Some of them are probably making out.  The stars are out in force but I can barely see them.  My head spins wildly, like the amusement park rides I’ve always been too scared to get on.  I’m wondering where all my money went.  I got a 600 dollar paycheck just three days ago, and upon opening my wallet at the liquor store this afternoon, found only a twenty.  And I cashed the whole thing–there’s none in the bank.  I had enough for a bottle of gin and a pack of smokes.  After the party tonight, I’ll be distinctly fucked.  Nobody wanders over to sit next to me and chat, because I turned into “Wolfman” an hour ago.  I snipe at everybody who comes near, or tell them there’s no God, or their shirt is ugly, or they’re fat, or whatever I deem to be wrong with them.  I drink my gin and coke and my stolen wine coolers like they were Gatorade and wander off into a meadow, where I pass out wondering where my money went and why women don’t jump at the chance to sleep with me the way they used to.

I’ve seen the home inside your head, all locked doors and unmade beds.  Open sores unattended.  Let me say just once that–

It’s eight years ago.  Younger me is crouched alongside the house I’m sharing with a married couple.  It’s somewhere around 2 AM, and it’s raining.  It’s not pouring–this isn’t a movie, after all–it’s just drizzling.  But it’s cold.  It’s that barely-autumn part of autumn, where it wants to be summer during the day and winter at night, and fools like me refuse to change from shorts to pants.  I have no idea why I’m not inside.  Maybe I’m locked out and maybe I’m not.  I’m drinking the cooking wine my friends kept in the bottom cabinet, beside the dishwasher.  It’s salty as hell; it tastes like flavored tears.  Even for someone in my desperate position, I must drink slowly or risk vomiting.  It’s a small bottle–probably two liters, but it takes me over an hour to finish it, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and, yes, singing Pearl Jam tunes.  When it’s finally empty, I find I’m not even buzzed.  But I managed to keep the shakes away, and somehow (and somewhere) fall asleep for an evening of listless, dark-dread dreams.

I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I have tasted a life wasted! I’m never going back again!

It’s seven years ago. The alcoholic girl I am dating has stood me up again.  I don’t even like her that much, but it’s fun to have a girlfriend after all these years without one, and especially nice that she doesn’t even look at me funny, no matter how much I drink, and she lets me fuck her no matter how drunk I am.  We made plans to meet at 2 PM at Nell’s Supermarket, because she has to drop her sister off there for work.  I prepared for the evening by waking up at 11, showering, dressing and getting thoroughly drunk.  Swaying and stinking I left my Dad’s house and drove the 20 minutes to meet her.  At 2:30 I already know she’s not coming, but I keep hope alive by getting the ready-made gin and coke out of my car.  I’ve always got one in there, in a McDonald’s Super Sized soda cup.  I replenish it every time I go home, so it’s always full.  It’s a sunny winter day and the sun sets early.  The black flat pavement cools like a huge ice pack.  I wander around in the dark, sipping my drink and smoking, looking in people’s cars, admiring the red Exit sign glow in the closed banks, talking to some local skateboarders about God-knows-what.  I pass out in my driver’s seat around 7 PM.  I awake, with no saliva in my mouth and an intense need to pee, at 3 AM.  I drive back to Dad’s house and pee in the lawn.

The world awaits just up the stairs…leave the pain for someone else. There’s nothing back there for you to find…or was it you, you left behind?

It’s a little over six years ago.  It’s my first morning waking up in rehab.  It’s a strange, glowy feeling.  I need a drink, that much is clear.  I also can’t seem to move.  It’s about 18 hours since I had a drink, which is much longer than I’ve gone over the past year.  The shaking is bad.  The fever is worse.  And yet, I am not afraid, because here I am safe.  Here I cannot get it.  Here they will make me whole.
It’s a 3 bed room, but I am alone in it.  The other 2 beds lay undisturbed, made up with precision like a hotel bed.  My blinds are drawn but sun beats through them, is hot and sticky like summer, although it’s December.  Shadows of people move across the window, they laugh and blow smoke out of their mouths.  I wish I could join them out there, but am afraid.  I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to move again, I’m afraid I won’t fit in, I’m afraid they won’t identify with me, I’m afraid they’ll call me short and laugh, I’m afraid I won’t know what to do.  I’m afraid I’ll want to drink for the rest of my life, always and forever, without ceasing.  I’m afraid everyone will know that about me.

You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong.  You’re harder on yourself than just about anyone.  Why swim the channel just to get this far?  Halfway there, why would you turn around?

It’s six years ago.  This is to be my last day living with my mother.  It was a nice, idyllic half-year stay in the countryside of New Jersey.  Almost a second childhood.  Her home, like her, a womb.  Her three silent cats who seemed to know I was nursing back to health.  The sun-drenched linoleum floors while I had the place to myself, shiny like a summer lake.  I watched the years final snow melt from my bedroom window and watched Spring inundate the thirsty world with water, and green, and everywhere insects.  I gained real weight and shaved everyday, ate candy like I meant it and apples, too.  I wrote so many poems about so many things, my mind surprised by time and clarity.  I cried with joy and sadness as I drove away, toward home, toward my boyhood town, to see if I could now do it this time.  To try to live on my own without fear.

Darkness comes in waves.  Tell me, why invite it to stay?  You’re warm with negativity, yes, comfort is an energy, but why let the sad song play?

It’s three years ago.  I’m moving the last of my boxes into my my first very-own apartment, the first place that I will live totally by myself.  It’s a nice, wood-panelled place with a pretty big living room and off-street parking.  I’m not worried about affording it, or about being alone, or fitting in or being able to do the next right thing.  I walk into the bathroom, looking at the sink and the mirror.  My sink and mirror.  I just stand and stare, because I can’t believe I have my own sink and my own mirror.

I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Oh I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Having tasted a life wasted, I’m never going back again!
Oh I erased it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!