That Wallace Wood Art

I let this lay fallow for many years because I am no longer fresh in my Adult Children of Alcoholics recovery and didn't need the catharsis that this blog provided. However, I recently in my private life found the third piece of artwork that shaped my life.

To refresh, I recounted a story of how I became obsessed with acquiring financial wealth and independence because of a sign my father had stuck in our fence. And then later I told the tale of how I had always felt like I couldn't get anything I truly wanted because of a dumb horoscope cartoon. In that, I mentioned a third piece of art, a Wallace Wood cartoon for Mad Magazine that forever morphed my taste in women.

I don't know why it did. Perhaps it was as simple as it coming into my life as I was becoming a sexual person. But I do know that it did inform my ideas of pulchritude. Since I'm no longer doing public psychoanalysis, I simply present that cartoon (half of a set, with a male version as well which affected me not in the slightest).

© Mad Magazine, no idea what year

This will probably be the last post here for the rest of all time. So have a good life and know that I am glad you came by and hope this helped you or at least entertained you. Peace.

“I'm not the problem, you see.”

I'm not the problem, you see.
It's everyone else that bothers me.
They make it so hard to be kind,
But when I'm with you I don't seem to mind.

— Linus of Hollywood

I have had occasion to have a relationship of sorts with an alcoholic. Kathy's late brother had a friend who is, alas, an alcoholic. We'll call her Patricia. She just had a child after having had to lose her older child because of her alcoholism. And now, thanks primarily to people she calls friends, there is a chance she'll lose this child to the system as well.

Her "friends" invited her and the baby over, coaxed her into drinking, and then called the authorities. They did this out of revenge, because Patricia at one point had a role in one of them losing a child to Children's Services.

Where I come in is that I recognize that she doesn't have much of a chance if she doesn't change her environment, so I have offered her the opportunity to move where I live, where Kathy and I can help her get set up in an environment that will support her quitting drinking.

The problem for me has been dealing directly with an alcoholic again. The promises, the excuses, the disappointments, and the lies are all familiar to me intellectually, but being the recipient of them in person touches buttons long dormant. I have to stop myself from becoming angry with her with the anger that rightfully belongs to and with my father.

I have decided to have no hope about the issue and just let what happens happen.

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Linus of Hollywood sings what I think of as the alcoholic's anthem.

Graduation Day

Well, this past week I graduated. Not from school but from therapy. After having gone to therapy actively since the summer of 2008, the summer when my wife and I had the last marital troubles that led to our marriage dissolving, I am now no longer seeing anyone. And it feels...weird.

I started going to the first therapist, Marie, as a marriage counselor with Portia, my then-wife. The marital therapy was about as effective in keeping the marriage together as the Cleveland Browns offense was that year (4-12) in winning football games. I then continued to see Marie for the next three years, surviving the break up and then the tumultuous relationship with Stella. But progress seemed slow and less than satisfying.

Then two things happened. The first was that Marie, after three years, found out that my father was an alcoholic. I never hid it from her. It somehow just never came up. This led her to suggest I read Co-Dependent No More, which is where I heard of Adult Children of Alcoholics. But the other thing that happened is that Marie took an opportunity to do some special work elsewhere, leaving me in the care of her colleague, Caroline.

Caroline had a much more assertive style. She pushed me. She gave me homework. And so, between ACoA and her, I began to make much swifter progress. Of course, it didn't hurt that my relationship with Stella was soon over, allowing me to focus even more on healing myself, since she was a bullet still lodged in my open wounds.

And in one last push, she pushed me to push off and leave therapy. I could argue with it. I'm better. I can do things in love relationships (like set boundaries) that I couldn't before. I have come a long way. Am I fixed? No. I will continue to evolve as long as I live. But I am moving to a new chapter, so play the music; I'm marching in graduation.

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Pomp and Circumstance No. 1, conducted by the composer.

Things I learned from looking up other things

A while ago, I ripped off Sydney J. Harris by titling a blog entry "Things I Learned While Looking Up Other things." It is one of the most popular of my blog entries, right behind the one that has boobs in it. And so, since I am always looking up something being a lover of learning and an autodidact, I decided to do it again.

This ÷ is called an obelus. This · is often referred to as a middot but is also known as an interpunct. This ‽ is called an interrobang and it denotes an excited question, while it's upside down cousin ⸘ is called a gnaborreti.

The name Calvary comes from a translation of a translation going back to the name Golgotha which means "Place of the Skull."

In America, not only are charitable donations of money and goods tax deductible, but so is mileage accrued in service of a charitable organization.

The song 25 or 6 to 4 was written about its own writing. That is to say it is a song about writing a song.

And finally, the actual, correct title of Sydney J. Harris's column is Things I Learned From Looking Up Other things.

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Chicago

They're coming to take me away

And then the days got worse and worse
And now you see, I've gone
Completely out of my mind.

— Jerry Samuels, a k a Napoleon XIV

It's quiet right now in the Lightning Cave, but instead of just enjoying it, I am taking advantage of this time to get a blog entry out before it starts again, the horrible menace plaguing my days for over a month now. What's "it"?

People!

I am a pegging-the-meters introvert, so the last few weeks have pushed me to my absolute limit regarding the company of other human beings and the noise they bring and the need to discuss irrelevancies. I did something actually pretty cool the other weekend, visiting with men in prison while talking about my religion, but that required me to spend a lot of time with people without much of a break. Then I also during this period spent a ton of time trying to teach someone at work how to do her job. She, however, has been a difficult student not inclined to independent study. And finally, with Kathy out of work, she wants to talk when I get home.

I have lost my sweet, sweet time of not listening to anyone and not doing anything for anyone, the time where I feel creative enough to write, or draw, or write music. Thank God for bowel movements or I wouldn't have time to read anything that wasn't on a computer screen. At any rate, I have been short tempered and snappy and have been making weird, sometimes sarcastic remarks. So much so that, like the fellow in the song, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I was hoping to take advantage of the Easter holiday weekend to recharge, but Kathy invited her adult niece to visit, so no soap.

What's that? Is that a siren I hear? Will I be happy to see those fine young men in their clean white coats? Are they coming to take me away? Hee hee. Hah hah. Ho ho.

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Napoleon XIV

Stormy

I had to go into work today and it was storming rather fiercely It was dramatic but also very beautiful. I have liked storms for many years and it was also appropriate for my current situation. I am going through a storm in my personal life right now and the squall made for a perfect metaphor.

I am doing a lot of things lately stemming from the religious retreat I went on last fall and they are both a part of and a respite from my current storm. I have decided that rather than put that information here I would keep this blog focused on ACoA and start a second blog, which you can visit here. Remember that this is a religious blog and might not be your cup of tea depending on your religion.

How any of this relates to ACoA is that I am better able to see the current situation as a storm and not the end of the world, and for that I do have the program to thank.

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The Classics IV.

Don't you care?

If something happens twice it's a coincidence and thrice it's a trend. So with that in mind, I want to talk about something that happened to me now with Kathy that also happened with Stella and Portia, namely jealous about how I talk to my friends.

From their perspective, I share more with my friends and I have a closer relationship with my friends than I have with them. I believe this is a misapprehension of what's really going on. So I decided to take a look at it and see if I could figure out what they were seeing and what I could do about it.

It seems to me that what they are seeing is:

1. I don't enjoy many conversations with them
2. I enjoy the conversations with my friends
3. I tell my friends things about my life and my day that I don't tell them

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Don't You Care?

"I don't like to talk" is usually what I say to people, but that is not the whole truth. That statement is actually made up of a couple of things. I don't like to talk about things I don't care about and I don't like to talk for no reason.

Portia, Stella, and even Kathy love to talk to me about things I don't really care about. I am not a great actor, so they all know that I don't want to hear about these things. The other thing I am asking in my head when we talk is "Why are you telling me this?" And usually in their cases I do not get an answer that has anything to with me. They're often talking for them, which is fine, but again they can tell that I don't care and it hurts their feelings that I don't.

Words With Friends

I do enjoy my conversations with my friends. This is due to several factors. One, they don't talk to me as much. I usually spend a lot of time with the woman in my life, consequently, I don't talk to my friends nearly as often. Thus when I do talk to them, it's something special. Two, usually enough time has elapsed that they have a lot to tell me and usually just hit the high spots. And three, they, to varying degrees, know what I give a crap about.

Sharing Is Caring

As to why I tell my friends things about my life, first of all, they generally ask. Stella and Portia in particular did not really ever ask me about my day or my life. I would have to force the conversation in my direction when I wanted to talk about my life. It wasn't worth the effort. To Kathy's credit, she does ask me about my day. However, she tends to ask me stuff right when I get home from work and am not in the mood to talk to anyone about anything or when I am in the middle of doing something and am not in the mood to have a conversation.

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But as with anything else the question is "What am I going to do about it?" I do not have a magic formula to find interesting things I do not find interesting. I have debated telling Kathy about any of this, because I don't want her to think I think her purpose is to entertain me. I think I will just assure her that it doesn't mean what she thinks it means and leave it at that. But since she reads the blog periodically, I figure she might learn about it anyway, which would certainly give us something to talk about.

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The Buckinghams