Seasonal Affective Order (S.A.O.),

I was thinking. And I thought, the Pooka-sprite's folks must be all pixilated.

So, I suggested she go to Alanon.

I do stuff like this when I forget, you know. Like, I'll send her a cab when I want her to come over, and it turns out she's right here. Pick up the phone to call her when I can just make a thought balloon.

But she played along and went to one meeting. I was waiting for her afterwards and said "Thanks, Florie," and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"What? It was my idea. I was going to anyway."

I stepped back and her eyes were different. She smiled with extra twinkling and showed her pearly whites in a deliberate way. A friendly way , but deliberate. I mean she made a face. A nice face, but a face.
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Full week, and life is changing in this Sober House. Hardscrabble Ed, the hillbilly. It only takes one personality, a big one to be sure, but it's a bit thrilling, like you know you'll remember these days.

Also we have a secret house guest, a friend of Florie's who is pregnant by our other house guest. She's a child herself, and I like her being around. She approaches me like I'm a GROUCH (!)or something, and waits for permission to speak and then starts chattering like a certain cartoon character, all about her day spent hiding with the TV in their room. Dreading running into our constable, who is a dry drunk at times. (I guess I love this being the good guy, is what it is. But no, it's her too, she's just charming without having any idea she is. I must be getting paternal or something.)
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Working on the line all this week, except for the three hour reprieve that my phoney baloney job gives me. (Whew! Boxx forgot all about it again. That parade must have really done a number on him.)
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Florie took a candid shot of me after I'd just realized a political villian was live on my tv eating crow. I thought the result would be of me looking giddy. Instead what she got was the truth:




I am 45 years old and that is a 60 year old man, there. For 27 years I drank, and started with one or two secrets (skipped gym! won't graduate high school!) and ended up with scores of secrets, some I surrendered without caring finally. My drunk life was unending worry, dread, and finally horror. I would wake up in a small studio apartment staring at a ceiling fan and think "oh, god no." (and reach for a beer.) Everyday towards the end, for several months, I was liable any moment to have a knock on the door where I would either be put out on the street, or taken to jail for bad checks. Two hours a day I was almost at peace: between 3 a.m. and dawn, watching wonderfully escapist old movies on TCM. Two hours was all though. Then I had to stay drunk and I had to have company on the internet.

My last five years were after a three year period of sobriety, but not recovery.

This is what has happened. And I am 17 months sober and not getting younger, like I seemed to before, the first time.

I'm beginning to understand the promise, "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it." The photo shocked me but I don't feel the way you'd expect. Maybe Florie has something to do with this, but I don't mind, it's not that bad really. I AM SOBER and I have lost the compulsion and certainly the desire to drink. Life's menu is open now! How can I be anything but grateful (and often smiling and laughing).

Yesterday I remembered one of my teachers giving me the shocking news that I was only a semester or two away from a Bachelor's degree. (I had no idea. Didn't take those programming classes into account. Or the accounting classes.) I COULD get that degree and I COULD go to Graduate School. I mean, I could choose a profession still. Something for real. Teach Rhetoric or something. I don't know.

An idea is just waiting for me to let down my guard , I think.