2/20/03

Wake Up
-Mad Season

Wake up young man, it's time to wake up
Your love affair has got to go
For 10 long years, for 10 long years
The leaves to rake up
Slow suicide's no way to go, oh
Blue, clouded grey
You're not a crack up
Dizzy and weakened by the haze
Moving onward
So an infection not a phase
Yeah, oh

The cracks and lines from where you gave up
They make an easy man to read, oh
For all the times you let them bleed you
For little peace from God you plead, and beg
For little peace from God you plead
Ahhaahh, Yeah, Ahhaahh, Yeah, Ahhaahh, Yeah

Wake up young man, wake up, wake up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
Oh, yeah

Wake up young man, it's time to wake up
Your love affair has got to go, yeah
For 10 long years, for 10 long years,
The leaves to rake up
Slow suicide's no way to go, oh
Slow suicide's no way to go
Wake up, wake up, wake up
Wake up, wake up, wake up

I know, I know - I can get really carried away with this thing with lyrics at times. This song just fucks me up so much every time I hear it. Tony and I were in the car today. and he put this tape in and at the same time, we both started talking about my friend Sean, who died last May in an overdose.

I miss Sean. I am going to his son's 1 year birthday party this Sunday, and then the following Saturday, I am going to the "paddle out". His mom is ready to release his ashes, so we are all going to the beach here, where Sean spent a lot of his life surfing and we are all going to paddle out and form a circle, and then let him go.

I think that this will be a good thing. I still really miss that crazy fucker. He was a good friend, and someone who at one time, I was very much in love with. When he died, it hit me like a ton of bricks. His death was so senseless, and so fucking soon. I wished that I had done more, and said more and been there more for him. But the truth is that Sean had the same demon in him that I have, and Sean's demon killed him.

Funny thing is, that Layne here (see above lyrics) had it too, and he's dead as well. The same thing killed him.

Addiction is a cunning enemy of life. As an addict, I had at one time lost the power to do anything about it. I still don't have that power. But I do have tools. And I use them. I'm really scared not to use them. Without them, I will surely die. Or worse, I won't be that lucky and I'd have to live as a using addict in that miserable existence again.

It's hard to know what keeps some of us clean, and what makes some of us use, even after time. And It's easy to judge someone who relapses and think that I know what they did wrong, but the truth is that I don't know shit about anyone or anything other that what has kept me clean so far. I know what has worked for me, and I see that same thing work for others with the same problem that I have.

I'm not sure what is prompting this long speech about addiction, other that I have been really negatively affected by the disease lately in my life, and I am coming to the point of surrender and acceptance about the fact that I cannot do anything to stop this other than to continue to carry the message that there is help and that there is hope. I found mine in a twelve step fellowship.

I just want to be grateful tonight for what I have and for the fact that I know that my higher power is working in my life and in the lives of those around me. and mostly, I want to have a moment of silence for Sean and for Layne for Walter for Tyler and Jason and for Roscoe, but more importantly, and especially, I want to have a moment of silence for the addict who still suffers.

2/16/03

fierce flawless
-Ani D.

she was cuffed to the truth like the truth was a chair
bright interrogation light in her eyes
her conscience lit a cigarette and just stood there
waiting for her to crack
waiting for her to cry
his face scampered through her mind
like a roach across a wall
it made her heart soar
it made her skin crawl
they said, we got this confession we just need for you to sign
why don't you just cooperate and make this easier on us all

there was light and then there was darkness
but there was no line in between
and asking her heart for guidance
was like pleading with a machine
cuz joy, it has its own justice
and dreams are languid and lawless
and everything bows to beauty
when it is fierce
and when it is flawless

on the table were two ziploc baggies
containing her eyes and her smile
they said, we're keeping these as evidence
'til this thing goes to trial
meanwhile anguish was fingering solace
in another room down the hall
both were love's accomplices
but solace took the fall

now look at her book of days
it's the same on every page
and she's got a little tin cup with her heart in it
to bang along the bars of her rib cage
bang along the bars of her rib cage

2/16/03

God answers prayers. My higher power is looking over me and the ones I love in a huge way.

That is really all I want to say right now.

For those of you who read this, and care about me, just know that I am doing ok. I am walking through a really fucking horrible and difficult thing, and most of you who know me, know what I am referring to.

I'm not planning on posting too much in the near future. This thing needs to work itself out in whatever way it will and in the meantime, I need to focus my energy on what is in front of me. I just felt like I wanted to post that I was ok, since my last post was a bit dark.

Love you all - I'll be back...

2/11/03

Fear

Fuck Everything And Run
Face Everything and Recover

Fear sucks. Fear separates me from my God, fear isolates me and shames me. Fear grabs a hold of my heart and my mind with a death grip sometimes and squeezes out any and all possibility for hope and serenity. When I act on fear, things just get worse. I make the situation intolerable, for myself and for others.

To me, what it almost always comes down to is FEAR and FAITH. And I can sit in both, sometimes I do it quite successfully. I can be in so much fear and yet feel my faith, inside me - just this solid KNOWING. I know that nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Nothing.

But there are times when my fear gets way to big, it swallows me and I feel no faith at all. I can't see the light or feel the knowing. I just feel black and miserable and terrified and alone. I feel like I want to shut my eyes and go away to someplace, as long as it's not here.

It's in those moments, when I have learned to pick up the phone and call someone. It's in those moments, of horrible desperation, that I get on my knees and pray to what I feel like isn't even there. And it's in those moments that the people in my life who love me and care about me and my well-being, become my higher power. Something tangible for me to talk to, to feel, to see. For me, this is one of the ways the program works.

So, obviously, I am in some fear. Yes, it is justified and it is real. And all I can do right now is wait and have faith that I will know what to do when the time comes. Things will become clearer to me. I will be okay, and I will live through my feelings. As far as I know, they aren't deadly. Unless one lets them become that way.

My feelings wont kill me. And things will get different.

2/2/03

I have had a really nice weekend despite myself. LOL. I have just felt consumed with financial woes this week. I was expecting a nice tax return from the IRS, and did my taxes to discover that I owe them money this year. Aggh.

It's obviously not enough that I work the first four months of every year to pay my taxes to the American government. I STILL owe them. Anyways, enough about that bullshit. I am doing ok anyways.

Tony took me on a four hour ride on the Harley yesterday. There was a group of about 14 of us, 8 motorcycles, and we cruised up the PCH to Malibu Canyon and then Mulholland to the Rock Store for breakfast. It was fantastic! The smell, the sights.... I don't think I have ever really been able to appreciate the fantastic views of PCH as well as I did on that ride.

I was sort of scared at first, since I am still a relatively inexperienced rider. There's no sissy bar on his bike, so I have him to hold on to and that is it. At 80 mph, that can get freaky quick. But, I got used to it, got comfortable, and then just chilled out and enjoyed the ride. I didn't think about money, or work or any bullshit, just me and the bike and the road and my man.

I understand the whole "biker" appeal now. I will never be a "biker bitch" or a "Harley chick", but I can tell you that I am hooked for life. I had this weird epiphany on the back of the motorcycle too, yesterday. We were driving down the PCH, right past Morning Glory Drive near Zuma beach. That is the very first place I ever smoked pot. Essentially, that is sort of the place where it all started, the drugs, the boozing, all of it.

I though to myself how strange it was, that starting off right there, over ten years ago, that it would have brought me to where I was in that moment, on a ride with 14 good friends from the Program, living clean and free, cruising on a Harley down the PCH. I just felt so fucking grateful.

I love moments like that. My sponsor told me I need to start writing them down, those moments, in detail, in a journal, so that when the shit hits the fan, and I can't seem to remember all those magnificent moments and feelings, then I can go back and read about them to remind myself of what it's all about. Those moments.