Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Oh. And the J chick? grrrr. But that's a big "whatever, sister." I tend to analyze people like that into the automatons that they tend to be when it comes to reactions about this disease. I also channel sci-fi stuff and wish that I actually had the Spock mindmeld. Or better yet that death grip thing-y when he knocked people out by grabbing their neck...)

And what I really wanted to say, instead of the tome, was this:
I hope you
Just. Keep. Writing. (attgdp of course)

Nice work, la. Thanks again.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

StuckinLA;1347739 wrote: And did I really just spiral off into this defensive freak-out because I missed NE's quote of my "letdown" comment, and so instead feel like I was getting a wholehearted smackdown for drinking/wanting to drink/sorta blaming drinking on things other than myself? Yep, I think I did.

Um, my bad.

I missed this. :H:H:H

Sorry for the really long-winded explanation/excuse for writing what I wrote. When you'd already figured it out.

MY bad.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Assonance is a great word. I'm going to have to go with facetious, though, as it's the only word in the language that has all the vowels, in order (J's a poet, and good for some things! :H). But the rhyming thing? Makes me feel like I'm trapped in some hellish 19th century British nursery, for some reason... Like where they put the children with the servants so they (neither children nor servants) interrupt the looooonnnnggg dinner/conversation that always seem to happen in those novels...

Anyway, I just hate sounding sing-songy. Which is why even though it's pretty freakin' delicious, I WILL NOT order a chorizo burrito from the taco truck at the corner.

Yeah, but I do like drinking. Reading back over what I've been writing the last week+, it's funny how much I bought into the "romantic" struggle... makes for some good material, sorry to say. What it came down to, though, is I wanted to drink and I did. Had a couple here, went to the bar, had a few there--and of course, you're absolutely right. Whether it was just because it was busy or the time of night or whatever, there was no bartender-love to be had, even though 1/2 the time she seems to be trying to get me to drink. Like the night she texted one of her friends to meet me, and I was actually relatively indifferent/adverse that night, and she (bartender) started giving me free shots, and everyone was strangely disappointed I was slowly sipping them, but that's a different story.

Anyway, expected a different crowd at that party, and it was pretty low-key, or at least I left when more people started showing up so who knows, maybe it did get all wild and crazy but I just wanted to drink at home and, again, I did.

So yeah, God help me, I do want to hold onto some regret for a while, and I'm sure I'll have a pretty easy time doing that. I also don't want to go through complete f--king withdrawal again, so I'm not going to quit cold turkey... but am going to try tapering down. (We'll see how that works :H.)

So I got drunk, saw in your post what I wanted to see, and that was me being a total douchebag for blaming my mom. All that was a long time ago. And I knew she's drinking again. Hell, for the first time in my life I actually drank with her last fall, after my grandfather's funeral, and it was kind of fun. Weird, because I was just having a few beers, and had a bottle of whiskey stashed in the bedroom for later... I could just tell she was kinda blitzed Saturday night, and hadn't seen that in a long time... Whatevs!

Never ever even considered not taking the pills. The opposite, actually, and working up the guts to make a phone call. Need to make a couple phone calls I don't want to make... Gotta get a lawyer to sort out the driver's license issue, too. Ugh.

Sorry this is getting all long and rambling. I just don't want to think about teaching in a few hours. Giving back their 1st papers today and they are going to hate me. This is the part where I go from the fun, maybe a little clownish, pseudo-marxist who swears all the time to that --hole responsible for their grades.

Anyways... Good morning, Internet, I hope it's a good day all around.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Or better yet that death grip thing-y when he knocked people out by grabbing their neck...

YES.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I often forget to give myself credit for this:

I'm 28 years old, a firefighter/paramedic, working a full-time job and 2 part-time jobs and a volunteer. I'm making almost $60,000/year, living in a $600/month apartment, having sex every night--2 regular girls, 1 of whom is my girlfriend, + random girls every once in a while--and I find out my # on the list for the Chicago Fire Department is pretty low. Meaning all I have to do is wait, and I'll have a career on the CFD.

I freak out. I like being a FF/Medic. I like working out every day and doing dangerous shit, I like being a drunk, and I like being a womanizing prick. (EDIT: By the way, this is all about me having pretty much no self-esteem. No excuse whatsoever, but at least a reason for why I was really shitty to every woman who ever came into my life.) But suddenly, it looks like that will be the rest of my life. This, this is intolerable, so I flip the fuck out and apply to graduate school. I get accepted to USC, and it looks like all I have to do is move to Los Angeles, where I'll make just shy of $20,000/year and do some stuff that I haven't done in years--that being writing and trying to seem smart.

So I say yes. I sign the damned contract, and I tell my fire departments that I'm leaving. I pack my shit up and I move across the country and end up here in LA, doing what I'm doing. I feel like I got myself trapped by a lot of stuff, DUIs, money that I don't have, a life here in LA with no friends, a future that I'm completely uncertain of, but I did this--I got myself here, and I shouldn't forget that.

So a funny story. I worked full-time, part-time, and volunteered at this one fire department. (It's confusing, but not important.) So I said, hey, I'm leaving for graduate school so my last day full-time will be X, but I'd like to stay on as a volunteer for the rest of the summer, until I move, just so I can hang out and have coffee with my friends and everything, and maybe go on the occasional call and save the occasional life.

So it's the morning (my shifts were 8 AM to 8 AM) of my last shift, and I'm getting ready to leave for the last time as a full-time firefighter. The Chief is in his office, with the door open so I can see him right there behind his desk. But it's the Assistant Chief who stops me in the hall and says "the Chief wants to cut all ties with you right now." So no more volunteering, I have to turn in my badge, ID, keys, everything. (EDIT: I got flipping fired from being a volunteer!) And I'm supposed to write a letter of resignation to the village manager.

You guys have probably figured out by now that I have some problems with authority, which is why the Chief hated me, and why he wanted me gone. So I wrote that resignation letter, and it went something like "gosh, I have no idea why Chief wants me to resign early. Maybe it has something to do with my knowledge of department officers misappropriating department vehicles, driving department vehicles while intoxicated," and something else I can't remember...

So the next morning I find myself in the Police Chief's office, extremely hungover, with the choice of retracting or being a real whistleblower. I'm smarter than most people give me credit, actually, so what I wrote can't be construed as a retraction, but it definitely diffused the situation. Still, the whole affair may or may not have had something to do with the Chief retiring earlier than he'd originally planned.

So, I don't know if I fucked up his career or not, but I do know for sure that I then immediately slept with his daughter. Enough times that she fell a little in love with me, and produced a play (she was a theatre major) based on one of my short stories, which her dad (Chief) had to sit through.

Not sure at all why I felt the need to tell y'all about this, except to say I can be kinda a bastard... and that's how I leave things. I chose to pursue a different direction in life, and had to burn everything to the fucking ground.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

I get to Los Angeles, looking for a place to live, and can't for the life of me find anything. Mostly because I'm a drunk, and really bad at planning. So this kid who's also starting the PhD program emails me and says he's found a great place and would like a roommate.

I meet him in Long Beach, and the place is pretty fantastic, but really it's how hot his younger sister is that sells it for me. And I move in with him.

For the next 2 years I take my alcoholism to levels I'd never known before. And I watch him spend every night writing a novel in his chair in the living room.

Before that, though, and I mean within the first few months of living there, I meet J. She and I hit it out of the park from the first time we speak to one another. I spend every waking moment with her, I don't go home for 3 weeks. We have coffee, we eat dinner at her dining room table, she cooks deliciously organic food for me. We sleep in her bed without having sex, or even making out. Neither of us is sure if this is a romantic thing or just a deep, deep connection. But I remember the few times I did go home for clothes or whatever, I found myself wandering through subway stations talking to myself out loud, saying "yes, yes this is right."

She goes to a writing conference in Chicago over Valentine's Day weekend. My roommate goes to this same conference. I don't go because the conference is for "creative" writers, and I'm in school to be a "critical" writer.

I pick them up at LAX when they get back, and I'm thinking I'll drop my roommate off and maybe spend the night with J. But what happens is I drop J off at her place, and on the way home my roommate tells me he and J are dating now. For the next 8 months it's like I have the whole apartment to myself, because he's never home.

I'm glad she and I never tried to have a romantic relationship, but I've also never forgiven her, and I have no idea, again, why I'm telling y'all this...

Probably because I've had some drinks, and I'm typing away at what would otherwise be a diary. Maybe I'll get to something relevant soon, but really I'm about to write yet another post that isn't relevant to anything.

So you can stick with me or not... I just need to type for a minute.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Today I finish up talking with the children, and giving them their 1st papers back. They hate me now, because their papers sucked and they got bad grades on them. And I went to happy hour.

And then I went to my bar, where it's totally game-on with the bartender. Again just the little things, touching my hand when she's talking, or telling a story about how sore she is from kayaking yesterday and putting her hand on my back and shoulder to show where she's sore.

I... I just miss this kind of build-up and flirting.

So she's cleaning all the liquor bottles, and wants to put new labels down. So she gives me the label maker, and holy lord I love office supplies. Label makers are fun, no? Does no one else go nuts with those? Anyway, I'm realizing how f-ing retarded I am right now. So I'll just say I'm now immortalized at my bar, as one of the labels is "Stuck's Jameson."

And with that I figure I'm done. Really should have deleted all of this. But screw it. I'll have better posts soon. Thanks for hanging in here with me in the meantime.

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Ugh. Jesus. Please just ignore my last 3 posts. I'm not going to delete anything from my thread... but just ignore... Thanks.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Still with you. It's a process. No worries.

I have the same problem, ftr. It's a doozy. I'm referring to burning down the bridge, or any connection, really. It happened most recently last semester. For some reason I felt the need to write a scathing review of my biology professor. I can do scathing. It's a gift!

Yep, the bio professor that is the head of the bio department and very close friends with the woman who runs the nursing program. (Actually the gossipy woman who works for the woman who runs the department. Which is worse. Because it is she who makes the real decisions before they even get to the dean. duh.)

Why'd I do it? For the students who come behind me. Because I was right, the class sucked and the teacher took the easy way out. Because I have to stamp my opinion on everything. Because I think I'm smarter or better or something. Because I abhor authority? hmmm. Maybe. But that's probably b.s. I just don't like people telling me what to do, and think I'm above rules. Hence the numerous speeding tickets and chronic red-light-running. Whatev. Point is this: I feel your pain. for whatever that's worth.

One of my many mantras is: Head down, mouth shut, eyes firmly on the goal. (FTOR, not cowed, or bowed. Studying, concentrating, focused.) It is possibly the hardest one to remember in the moment. But all that, too, is relatively moot. It's just what your post brought to mind.

That and a This American Life story. I'll see if I can find it and link it here.

Hope it's a good day!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Love facetious. Thanks.

Shel Silverstein. That's what rhymes should be. But also to be avoided at all costs. That said, I've started an ode to Space on her thread. There used to be some really good limerick-ers around here. (Coalfire. God I hope she's doing well. She was BRILLIANT off the cuff. It's a British thing, I think. )

I wrote my first poem for a creative writing class last summer. Took the class as a test, to see if I could actually take a class! She loved it. Gushed over it. Said I should work on it and try to publish it! How 'bout that?! Pretty cool right?
Thing is, I read some of her poetry. um. yeah. That bad.

Time to stop procrastinating and do...something!

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

SE update.

The shit with my legs. Not itchy, not OMG spiders are crawling all over me, or anything. But holy shit my legs are super sensitive. Seriously, it's constant. And painful. Like anything touching my legs fucking hurts. It started when I started bac, but it's fucking worse, and constant, now.

Like I can't get into bed without wincing in pain because my legs are sliding under the covers. Help? Is this just an SE I have to deal with? Or maybe it's something else that I should have checked out?

Just my legs. But fucking pain, people. Like lots of pain....

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

And I just fell.

Got up from my chair at the desk to get another drink, and I'm not sure what happened. Changing direction from facing the desk to turning to my left where the kitchen and whiskey is, somehow I completely overturned my chair and landed on the floor.

Found myself on the floor with my chair on top of me, and my left arm hurting quite a bit. This has not happened to me in a long time. A long time. And it's really strange, as I don't feel drunk.

In my head I don't feel drunk. I don't feel nearly drunk enough. But objective evidence tells me I am, drunk enough, that is. [EDIT: Holy Hell I fucked up the commas in that sentence.]

I dunno. Again, just documenting the journey.

I made 1 phone call to Chicago today. I didn't want to do it, but I did. I have 1 more to make, and I will. I promise I will. It's just another step, and I have to take that step. But Goddamn, I can't believe how hard it is. But I will. It's funny, 'cause I'll KTTGDP anyway, but I still want to make all y'all proud of me.... And I've got to do a couple things first to do that...

It was a quiet day today, and I hope that means everyone had a good day. And I hope this day is just as good.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

You okay?

[StuckinLA]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Not really, no. Not nearly as hungover as I should be. Woke up, without the aid of an alarm, at 8. A few scrapes and very sore arm, but otherwise intact. Obviously there are some things I need to work on.

[spacebebe01]

Totally new to forum, sort of new to bac

Hi stuck Im sorry I havent been here over the past few days, are you ok? Do you have any idea what you want to do now, this bartender, is she really worth the hastle right now, go to a different bar for the next weekif you need to, just to save your head getting screwed up more, yes she is flirting with you a lot, I dont know if she wants to get you into bed, to use you as a puppet, fall madly in love or whats going on but she will still be there in a weeks time, you brain could probably do with a rest from it. Either that or just go and ask her...

You sound exhausted, after work can you just get home and lie down for a bit before you do anything else, rest will make things so much better.

Im glad you havent deleated, your ok you know, so just try not to worry.