Random impressions, opinions and ruminations from a woman who would really like to invite EVERYONE over for a good meal, a glass of wine and passionate conversation, but the dining table only seats so many . . . .
The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.
What do you think of the new and updated Stamp Woman? Click for larger image.
A friend at work showed me a picture collage on his iPhone, featuring his young grand - son's face tricked up like stamp images. "Isn't that cool?" he asked. Boy, howdy! My head began to spin. "Hey, Mark, if I e-mailed a couple of pictures, would you mind . . .?" He said he didn't mind. When the picture landed, I chortled a little, being a woman who is pretty easily amused. Then landed another e-mail: "What do you think of this?" Ha! Coin Chick!
"Now you're the Leslie Morgan Silver Dollar," he wrote. Having not
seen this possibility before, I guffawed right out loud. David commented that my hands resemble claws, as if I were clawing at my face, in the coin version. "Yes, Sir. Distressed at the economy. Clawing for my life."
The end of the work day neared. Only George and I remained in the office. "Would it be bad form if I took the rest of my birthday cake away rather than leave it here to be enjoyed with coffee tomorrow?" For, despite having served plank sized portions, there was still half of that mammoth cake remaining. "Darlin', it's your birthday cake. You do whatever makes you happy." I decided to take it to AA. Sometimes some people there haven't eaten all day. The free coffee and refreshments might be all they get for awhile. Jenn and I attracted a lot of attention in the parking lot. Typically, when someone appears with cake at AA, it means they're celebrating a sobriety birthday. Everyone applauds that. But the cake, on its own, is appreciated, too. "Whose birthday?" "Mine!" "Oh, do you have a year now?" "Nope, I have 59 years!" Odd looks. We set up for the meeting, answering all the questions: "Leslie's birthday, brought the rest of the cake, etc." A woman who is rather contentious came in. "What's that?" We explained again, though we thought a giant slab o' cake was pretty self explanatory. "We're not supposed to celebrate belly button birthdays at AA," she pronounced.
I don't care for the term. I understood she meant we celebrate sobriety birthdays more than natal days, but her comment made me bristle a little. I looked around the room where are posted the 12 Steps, the 12 Traditions, all the short slogans we live by . . nothing about "celebrate no belly button birthdays here". I said, "We're not celebrating anything. I simply brought refreshments to be shared in fellowship." And, besides, there are no "supposed to's" in AA - it is a system of benevolent anarchy. Everyone does it his or her way. Jenn grinned. "Well done," she mouthed. Some others came along and someone said, "Hey, it's your birthday, why don't you lead the meeting?" I did so, with pleasure. The question of belly button birthdays vs. sobriety birthdays was thoroughly chewed upon, as AAs on both sides of the question munched away at my cake. Since I was leading, I got to observe rather quietly, and it pleased me to watch people rant about what was right and what was not and to tuck absentmindedly into that confection that aroused such passionate conversation.
Up just with the sunrise, I flipped on the coffeemaker and the TV, started the shower, stroked Virginia Woolf's fur for a moment, yawned. It requires a lot of my energy to get myself up and out every morning. Oh, I want to go! It's just been a long time since I kept a work schedule and I have to be disciplined about meeting all my obligations, one such demand being to allow myself rest and relaxation and pleasurable activities. An ad came on announcing a concert at a casino-resort I could walk to. I've walked to a concert before. It's kind of fun to simply stroll through the madness as everyone else tries to maneuver cars through chaos. The streets between the venue and home are well lit and busy around the clock. I'd be safe. Maybe . . I like John Sebastian, coffee-house folkie who fronted the Lovin' Spoonful and a handful of other good groups in the day, as well as having a solo career. He's a great songwriter whose voice remains true and who still looks adorable. Maybe . . The announcer raved on about the intimacy of the venue, the rare opportunity to see a performer as special as John Sebastian. One of the artist's songs kicked in, fairly loud compared to the spoken part of the ad, and I had a "WTF?" moment. For performing in person is one Joan (pronounced "John", at least in this TV spot) Sebastian. Not at all the man I had in mind. So, maybe not . . . Oh, I'm certain Joan Sebastian is a marvelous singer. Just not what I was expecting.
Special thanks to Mark Bubel for indulging my whimsy.
It took about 7 days. I was still speaking and writing joyously for having some new things fall into my life and about how much I was going to relish experiencing them. Somehow - perhaps this is just very human and not at all specific to me - I connected those nice new things with the degree to which I've been working my AA program and my sobriety. Hey, if you save your money, you get a nest egg. Work your body, you get fit. Start leading a good and righteous life, good things come your way. Right? Sure! I had a busy July 4th weekend planned - busy for one who has been emerging from shadows and clouds for many months. Things were going well. I hadn't said it out loud in too many places yet, but I was beginning to think - just a little - that I was getting this "life" shit down pretty well.
Then came the routine blood draw with dubious results. Yes, it's an old enemy and one I understand very clearly. My doctors were wonderful to fully school me about it the first time around. I know percentages and survival odds depending upon age at onset, gender and ethnicity. I know what the levels should be each time I have a blood draw. I know many people walk around for years with the precursor and it never develops further. The precursor is as much as I ever had to deal with, and I found it nearly made me insane. Blood tests, wait ages for the returns. Biopsies, wait longer for the returns. Medicate as necessary, begin entire process again in 90 days. It is maddening and terrifying. In fact, last time it nearly sent me around the bend. It broke me in a handful of ways from which I have not recovered.
Frequently mistaken for Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, I went into my usual mode. I spun. Man, it was 4th of July weekend and I had some plans. A party here, a dinner outing there, some rare mall shopping, AA meetings with coffee afterwards. I had a couple of pieces of writing in mind and planned to work on them with the French doors open, the monsoon blowing cool breezes into my little work station. I spent some hours helping a friend create a blog and I was asked - for one of the first times - to listen to and advise a struggling alcoholic. A fellow member of AA asked me to critique his thesis paper and then to work with him on the presentation. I was flattered to be asked! My friend and I are planning a joint blog post featuring some of the only-in-Las-Vegas things we see every day. We spotted out some locations to shoot photos and kept eyes and ears open for more of the startling things unfolding on every corner when a woman stops for a red light. Yep, I got through that long weekend just fine. Tired, in fact, just a little bit, for all the increased activity. The neighborhood fireworks banged on a few hours longer than I hoped, but that's what earplugs are used for.
Tuesday morning rolled around. I felt unsettled. No more long weekend stretching ahead. No more forgiving doctor's offices that did not return calls immediately - the holiday was over now. Time to get serious. I spent the morning digging out records, making phone calls. I noticed I needed to change the bed sheets and the cat litter in both boxes. The monsoonal thunderstorms have occurred daily, remarkable in intensity, mucking up windows which I hurry to clean before they dry dirty. Yes, I am eating a little. Not very much coffee. I arranged for someone to come in to repair the fine, fancy, new washing machine that spews water everywhere. And then I just stopped. Stopped everything. No reading library books, which I bring home by the bushel. No e-mail, no text messages, no phone calls. No blogging, either reading or writing. No writing for pleasure or economic purposes. No meditation, no music, no movies that make men scrunch up their toes in their shoes, no daily readings for AA and other forms of serenity. I have stopped, utterly and completely. Slammed into the wall. Splat.
I have not missed an AA meeting, and I am talking at those meetings. AAs give good advice to their fellows. They are kind to me, but will not kill me with kindness. Many have approached me to tell me how they meshed their program of sobriety with their own or another's illness. I thank them. Some simple speakers say, "Just keep coming back every day." Yes, I will. I get good encouragement like, "Tomorrow try to make it to the meeting and just read one of your books." I shall try that. And one man I'd never seen before said something really profound to me: "I can tell by your face and your words you're beating yourself up pretty badly. This isn't crazy, alcoholic reaction. Anyone would be concerned about this." That helped me! I didn't know. How would I compare my reaction to anything "normal"? I've written before about my intense distaste for using the words "I can't" about any endeavor I take on. I don't allow myself that very much. It can be a very difficult burden to carry. It is an old reaction I've not yet been able to correct in myself, and yes - that is my safety button: "I've not yet been able to . . . "
Yes, rely upon it - I am in near constant evaluation of just what I'm waiting for. The other shoe to fall? Perhaps. The lab to call me back to say "Sorry to have scared you to death. It was a mistake!" That would be nice, but I don't expect it. Am I channeling the Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"?
. . . Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer Came down upon her head Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer Made sure that she was dead . . .
I've been crazier than that before! Channeling isn't so weird. So, the best I can say is I'm struggling. I'm modeling Bambi in the High Beams. I don't have all the answers for it yet. And I'm working on all of it as best I can. My sponsor gave me a new tool yesterday. "Les, can you live with 'I can't today, but I may be able to tomorrow'?" Hey! I can live with that.
There has been little sleep in these almost couple of weeks. That's a chronic condition for me, though this bout is more intense and I've found myself both tearful and irritable. This morning after coffee, I managed to read one of my daily meditations and thought I could doze a little. I popped in some earplugs, pushing each almost through to the other side. I located the most boring book in my current repertoire, firmly planted a cat on either side of me. I was ready! And soon enough, I felt myself drift. Until, through the earplugs, an unholy noise sufficient to raise my body from the bed tore me from sleep. When my heart slowed to the rate of a mouse's, I stuck my head out to see WTF? Ah! Home dudes here to fix up that washer leak. It seems the concrete slab has to be jackhammered, followed by some other ungodly noises. This has continued for hours. The very structure is shaking on its foundation. There are 6 homies on the property speaking very loud in Spanish. For hours. And so it goes. I can't do my laundry today, but maybe tomorrow.
Pull it up on your shoulder,
dear, you're losing it.
OK, so at P. F. Chang's where our adorable server, Chad, custom-concocted a fiery sauce to our specifications, we chopsticked through a really good dinner and scooted on over to the Henderson Pavilion for our second volunteer gig as ushers. It is not common for me to struggle for the proper words to describe something I've thought or felt or experienced, but I'll have to dig hard this time. This evening was kind of surreal in ways. Not at all like the afternoon we ushered families to their seats for the live play, The Wizard of Oz. I wish I'd done a little online research before the concert, to learn more about Yellow Brick Road. Then I'd have known they were a local iconic cover band and we were going to be in the midst of an event of epic proportion. I'd have known the lead singer, Brody (age about 15 by appearance), was "retiring" after 14 years of leading the band and this was his last performance. Women wept. T-shirts sold like hotcakes. The Pavilion sold out to its biggest crowd ever, with 3,300 in the seats and 700 on the lawn. My comment that there didn't appear to be enough Security should have earned me a free ticket to a future show! "You two are old hands at this, I want you down in front, stage right," exclaimed the volunteer coordinator. I'd have preferred the word "veterans", but it's nice to be recognized. "I've got tough news," she continued. "All the vests are enormous tonight. Sorry!" Boy, howdy.
Picture a big old dumb hound that doesn't get to leave the yard much. Picture him taken out on a leash to an event packed with smells, noise, color, people . . like that hound, I took in the night with all my senses. From flowing beer to wafting pot, from women who should know better but dressed that way anyway, from hard-working event staff to some slightly cowardly Security, I fairly consumed all there was to be had from that evening. Had I a tail, I'd have wagged it! Science question: Why, if my body was going to complain so badly within 24 hours, did it even allow me to sprint up and down those stadium stairs so many times? I was a sprite! Now I am not. I moved wheelchairs and jumped into a fight I had no business taking on. I worked my friend, the security guard, into allowing me onto the stage, much to Brody's surprise, though he didn't miss a note. Disclaimer: All pictures and video taken in poor lighting conditions on a cell phone by a woman who was also working. However, if the words appeal, some of them may be worth mashing one's nose up on the monitor to see. Click on any photo to see it larger, but still poorly. Double size the video for perhaps a better view.
Click for insider
shirt caption!
I'm pretty fascinated by the staging of a show. I have no knowledge of it, though Jenn has a degree and many years experience. Twice she has commented that were she producing the show, the sets would have been ready long before curtain time and tested twice. That doesn't seem to be the way at The Pavilion, a bevy of activity right up until the last moment and sometimes a rather late curtain. I asked questions a mile a minute. We'd already seen all the band and orchestra instruments, music stands ready, piano taken through a dry run. Now they were moved backstage in a jumble, a really ugly curtain dropped, what appeared to be paint dropcloths placed and duct taped to the floor and paint buckets brought out. "WTF, Jenn?" She had no idea. When the stage crew rolled out the gigantic bell in bumblebee colors, I raised my eyebrow at her. Still no idea. So we simply watched, like everyone else. For a good sound venue as to the concert music and play dialog, the Pavilion lacks a lot in quality of the announcements mike. The opening act was announced without fanfare - just his name, which I missed. He defied description.
He stepped out onto the stage and yelled into that mike in a very loud voice. The mike distorted every sound and his French accent was thick enough to require a machete for cutting. He stood before his gigantic bell, throwing up both arms now and again, to much cheering. Ah. And the bell tolled. We looked at each other. "What?" "What?" "What the hell?" I felt some relief that Jenn didn't understand it, either, and she is much younger than I. Let's see. How to tell it? In words? Frenchy had a bad collection of very poorly recorded music and a collection of pretty remarkable dancers if they were still in middle school. In costumes one couldn't quite mesh with the music, the dancers worked their asses off, the music thundered, and Frenchy . . . got into the paint buckets with his hands, rendering some pretty credible likenesses of Hendrix and other rockers. With each number, Frenchy got more worked up, flinging paint from his fingers at each completed canvas, hollering louder but still incomprehensibly. Ultimately, he slipped on the paint and fell - hey! It was wet up there. He ended his show with a frantic rendering of Led Zeppelin on the curtain. Alas, I cannot name the icon he painted on the gigantic bumblebee bell, but said rocker sported a big old helmet like Brunnhilde in the opera. It is my opinion that Frenchy
Video # 1 - Yep, me (voice only) directing a patron to row RR. Hey, I sound as good as Frenchy.
Video # 2 - Frenchy's Dancing Queens.
Video #3 - Frenchy's Hendrix painted by his bare hands on a spinning platform.
Frenchy gets his Led Zep on to close the opening act!
OK, we tolerated that for a good long while, directing folks to restrooms, concessions stands, lawn chairs and more. We grinned, we chuckled and we guffawed. We asked one another over and over and over again, "Why?" I still don't know the answer. I only know the first act is over and I'll serve up an intermission before the headliner comes on.
Yet to come:
Les jumps into the fray during a fracas, but manages to avoid the tampon fight in the womens restroom (yes, really).
Les impresses the Security Captain as "being someone" so the Captain consults her on everything for the rest of the night.
Les works herself onstage to the surprise of the lead singer.
