Entries Tagged 'College' ↓

For some reason I cannot log in to this dashboard from overseas, so I have been lax in updating.  My apologies.  Much has occured and passed into the pages of history. In all reality these are minor blips on the radar screen but I have gleaned some sober wisdom from these experiences nonetheless.

My time in Greece was wonderful, productive and exhausting.  It tested my emotional sobriety to the breaking point when at last all I had to keep me sober was my Higher Power and the ability to go to bed early.  In many ways it is my fault, but, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.  It all begins with drinking, of course, but not my own, thank God.  I’ll make the tale brief if I can.

Halfway through the term the weather changed from cloudy, wet and cool to sunny and dry.  This allowed the younger students to stay out late and party.  Let’s face it, they are all very young, away from home for the first time in a country with a very lax drinking age.  For a solid week they began coming back to their apartments at 3, 4 or 5AM, making a huge amount of noise and waking the neighbors, of whom I was one.  So I complained.  I made waves.  In doing so I separated myself from the majority by underscoring my own sobriety (or really the fact that I do not drink) and becoming a wet blanket to their international fun,  just like the AA Big Book says.  I had not been to a meeting in quite a few weeks and was feeling the disconnect from reality. In my emotional state I turned to another student who I had become friends with over the course of the previous year.  I turned to her for advice, a way to vent instead of going crazy and, I hoped, a little solidarity.  Yes, we agreed on many things: that the school’s reputation was being hurt by this behavior; that something must be done; that there was little unity among the student body, etc…So something was done to stop it, and the noise ended.  I had opened up a huge can of worms, however, in confiding to this student In thanks for her friendship and a way to say ‘good luck’ on her future I gave her a gift, a small piece of sea-buffed marble set as a necklace.  Remember that this was out of friendship, a fact she actually acknowledged.

The end result is that she blew up at me, told me to stay away from her and in a very cold and callous way ended our friendship surgically and without anesthetic.  I was left feeling like my guts had been torn out with a dull spoon, but in the end the only thing I had done wrong was dump too much of my emotional needs on her young shoulders.  I have since made amends for that and am able to slowly let the event and her go into the mists behind me.  I really do have more important things to do.  My last month was lonely and angry, feeling paranoid and wronged.  I do feel she handled it badly, but I give her credit for being so cold and cruel.  That kind of action takes a lot and is not often found in someone so young.  She was obviously frightened of me because she continued to distance herself and even moved to a different apartment, the location of which she lied to me about-as if I was going to come visit her.  I have a feeling she felt that I was stalking her.  (Nasty business.  I even consulted my attorney at one point.) Of course I was not.

The fate of the necklace is truthfully unknown, but I suspect she gave it to one of the other students, a sullen and negative young woman from New Jersey.

There were a small handful of students who really worked and created art of beauty and charm–these I applaud.  Many were stuck in the Culture of Death that permeates the USA.

So what have I learned?

Do not rely on anyone except God or an adult older than I for emotional guidance in times of stress.

I return in the fall.  My goal is to build friendships with the locals in preparation of a possible move.  I will also stick closer to Program in any way that I can.  That was my first and biggest mistake and it could have led me back to the bottle and deat.

Johnnyboy

I wanted lots of snow, and now I have it-about three feet in spots here in Somewheresville due to winds and drifting.  It is supposed to end late this afternoon, which will be good and I am glad it’s finally winter.  As mom would say, “Well it is December so it’s time we had this…”

Christmas was quiet and a little sad.  Since it was just my elderly mother and I there wasn’t much hoo-pla or goings-on, but that’s alright.  I was a little disappointed that my sister who lives closest to us didn’t come down for even a night or two. Mom would have loved that.  This is the sibling who has grown somewhat distant in the past year or so.  I imagine that she’s having emotional difficulties in dealing with my mother’s aging and so forth, but then again, I am only imagining this. It would have been nice to see her and mom would’ve gotten a kick out of it.  The other sister is doing well and on her way with my niece on a little trip before the niece goes back to the Women’s College she is attending.  She’s practically a straight-A student which is a big testament to her mother and the Waldorf School she went to in Maine.  In many ways I am jealous.

I am jealous because I could have thrived in that kind of environment, and there were, and are still, two of these schools quite nearby–a Steiner School just across the border and a Waldorf just up the road.  My father, unfortunately, is narrow-minded and traditional when it comes to education.  His problem was that I could never focus on discipline and my studies and was always doing well at what I wanted to do and not what he wanted me to do.  After reviewing my past I am convinced that I have ADD.  I show all the classic symptoms.  His own ignorance prevented me from blossoming and growing.  Instead he stunted my growth with insults and invectives, accusing me of being lazy and stupid.  I remember once that he called me a “goddamn moron”.  I shit you not.  Sixth grade in Iowa.  This is from a man who claims to love me?   I have always wondered who it was who told me that I was stupid and lazy.  I always knew it was him, but was incapable of admitting it to myself.  I always blamed someone else.  No wonder I believed him–he was my father and fathers do not lie.

I had a visit with him last weekend in the Big City as well.  It was a painful 12 hours long and I felt better the more distance I put between the two of us when I left on Sunday.  I can’t bear to be around him.

I guess I have some resentments around my family, but maybe that’s natural given the time of year.  I am two weeks into my 9th year of sobriety and much has improved in my life–no thanks to most of them, by the way.  I need to set some new ground rules. For a start, no more books or clothes for gifts.  If you ask me what I want and I tell you and you get me something else, I am sending it back to you.  Unless its flowers.  I like those.  And coffee.

Johnnyboy

I am having a tough time trying not to control things here at the house.  Not that they are out of control, but I want them to run shinier, faster–more efficiently.  In reality they are running very smoothly indeed and I need not worry or push, but that’s how I can be sometimes.  Mom is doing well, the caregivers are wonderful, my own work is moving along (at a snail’s pace which is OK) and I am due for some travel time in about 2 1/2 months.  Yes–back to Greece.

It is December and it is pissing rain outside.  I want snow–lots of snow. A local newspaper ran an article last week regarding a small literature and arts magazine I have become involved with and in my opinion, the article fell short.  We gave the reporter much more and better information than she printed.  At least they got my name right.  The information was correct, and the article will help us publish, but…whatever.  I should just be grateful and leave it at that.  8 years ago I wouldn’t even have been a part of this project and incapable of this kind of life.  Let’s due a quick “its-2-days before my 8th Anniversary-countdown” and see where I am in my new sober life:

1. I am sober, working the 12 Steps with a sponsor and I have sponsees.  I am active in AA General Service and I am part of a home group that welcomes me.

2. I have regained the trust of my family and relationships that I once thought were lost are being rebuilt on fresh foundations.  Although the relationships with my sisters has shifted in the past few months, I have been able to not play the Finger-Pointing Game they both have done for years.  This also counts towards my father, with whom I have taken sides against my family members in the past.  Shameful, but no more.

3. I have graduated from university and am working towards a post-graduate degree in the arts.  Much of this has to do with my traveling, because if I hadn’t gone to Greece for the AA Convention in Ermioni in 2005 then I wouldn’t have met Jeanne Joy who introduced me to the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts on Paros.  I have also used all the tools in AA for a successful college career: I have shown up, asked for help, and done the work to the best of my ability.  As a result I have a 3.98 GPA–high enough to be considered for European post-grad programs if I choose to go that way.

4. As a result of sobriety and putting myself into the public eye I have become involved with an area arts co-op.   This has allowed me to put my photography work into the mix.  The experience has challenged all of my self-belief systems and I feel that if I had tried to predict the outcomes I will have sold myself short.

5. If you told me 8 years ago where I would be today, what I would be doing, etc…I would have told you that you were crazy and to stay away.  8 years ago today I was cowering in a darkened apartment, the shades drawn, hearing voices coming down the hall, whisperings through the walls.  I was terrified of life and what I had become.  Indeed, the monster under the bed and in the shadows, lurking around the corner–that was me.  I had created myself and it was not good.

Everything is very different today-many 24 hours later and a whole lotta pain and love.

Johnnyboy

Much has happened in the past few days.  The 14th Colony Photo Show went up without a hitch and the six b/w medium format pieces I submitted look lovely on the wall.  To top this off, I have sold one which makes me very happy.  I am here to get my work out there, not make a million bucks.  By the way, if anyone ever asks you about the difference between “b/w photograph (non-digital)”, “silver print” or “silver gelatin print” make sure you tell them there is no difference.  The fancier name was dreamed up by museum currators who felt that “black and white photograph” was too plain sounding and the  ”silver gelatin print” sounded more important.

There is one more group show this month that I am in and that will be it for me until next summer, unless someone invites me to be in a show, that is.  Plus, I am off to Greece in March for more work at the Aegean Center, so that will pre-empt any shows I might be in.

After five years of hard work and ceaseless toiling through a byzantine bureaucracy, I have graduated from the State University of New York with a BA in Historical Studies.  I am amazed and really don’t know what to do with the feelings: relief, joy, pride, etc…I also have pretty much visited most of the places on my to-do list.  This brings an end to my first Five Year Plan so I need to develop a new one.  What will it be?  I’m taking suggestions…Perhaps life will, as it does,  show me the path to take and perhaps I am already on it.  ”Keep going” my father said.  I will.

In a couple of weeks I am off to “Serenity by the Sea”, probably the largest LGBT AA Round-up/Convention in the country.  It is being held, as always, in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, and the organizers expect hundreds of folks from the sober queer community to be in attendance.  I’m pretty nervous, actually, so we’ll see what happens.  In any case, I hope to get some good shots of P’town, a place I grew up with and a place where as a sober man I can now travel safely and well.

Johnnyboy

The AA World Convention is next weekend and I will be there! San Antonio here I come!  I am meeting my friend Jeanne from…well, she lives everywhere.  She’s a gypsy.   There is supposed to be around 50,000 people converging on San Antonio. It will be quite the time.

I am through with weddings.  I just don’t have it in me.   Too many drunk people and I don’t like the vibe.  I do have one commitment in the fall, but that will be a small and sober affair and I owe it to the bride to do the shoot.  She will do the post-production.

The Lesbian and Gay AA meeting is really nice.  I feel very safe there and even though there are quite a few folks who are not queer, it is obviously a safe place for them too.  Plus, it’s on a saturday night and it’s over by 7PM.  This means I can go to the speaker meeting up the road that needs support.

Mom’s doing well and I am really excited about the convention…WooHooo!

Johnnyboy

I have discovered that if I really work the 12 Steps and frame my life within their guidance, I am much more serene, happy and successful at living than if I were to disregard them or take them granted.  It is all about my spiritual program and acting, not thinking, soberly.

My mother is very excited about my upcoming trip to Greece.  She keeps on reminding me that “your grandmother would be so proud of you” and that she is proud of me as well.  I have been able to help her these past years and still do today.  She is in much better shape than she was last year,mostly due to the introduction of the O2.  She will do fine during my absence.

My cat, on the other hand, is not so well.  She is losing her back teeth.  She has gingivitis.  This has been addressed by the vet but their response is that although we can care for our pet’s teeth, some breeds of cat have bad teeth to begin with. Poor Sweetie Pie.  Other than that she is the sweetheart with a temper that she has always been.

Off to Greece in 5 days!

Johnnyboy

It’s pouring rain outside and windy.  The temperature is around 50 degrees.  It’s January.  In two days the weatherman says the temp is supposed to drop to a high of 25.  Back to winter we go.

I am off to Greece in 36 days.  I ran through a test-pack of my carry-on camera/shoulder bag and it’s not too heavy, plus everything is well distributed.  I am bringing two film rangefinders (my Voigtlander R4M and the old Canon QL17 GIII) and my small Canon Digital Rebel XT with a 28-135mm lens and a 50mm.  The school said that it is not necessary to bring a digital camera, but if you are comfortable with a specific one, to do that.  The other option is that I bring the Beast (Canon 50D) and its lenses.  That would increase my weight considerably, so I am leaving the Beast behind.

Mom is doing very well, but is nervous about my leaving.  I am nervous as well.  I am moving into a new realm of travel and having to turn a lot over to HP while I am gone.  It is good practice for me since I should be doing that every day anyway.

My significant relationship is going well, as far as I can tell.  I like it the way it is, but I am unsure about her.  I think she wants marriage and children and that is not in the cards for me.  Today I will ask her about these things.  It is better to know than to try to be a mind-reader.

More will be revealed!

Johnnyboy

In 57 days I head back to Greece for the spring semester.  I will be there until June 1oth and then return for a lovely summer.  I have some work lined up for the summer and early fall, so I’ll be happy to do that.  I will be assisting a photographer friend with some weddings and then shooting her wedding in September.

I am taking two bags with me, as usual.  My backpack, with most of my clothes, incidentals, toilet kit, etc…and my large Domke camera bag, which will hold two cameras (film and digital), three lenses, battery chargers, batteries, paperwork for travel, and a few odds-and-ends.  The film I will buy in Greece.  I can stash it in the over-head bin.  It’s not huge, but bigger than the Timbuk2 messenger bag which I will also bring– stowed in my backpack.  It is still the best “walking around” bag I have found.

I am having issues these days regarding home care, it seems.  All the women are doing great, but I am having a tough time.  Mom has aged a great deal since last spring, and even though her mind is better and the O2 has improved her life, I want to make sure that she is in the best hands when I leave.  So I am over-micromanaging and hovering.  This is not good behavior, I know, but I cannot help it.  One of the women, at least, bugs the crap out of me and, although she and mom get along and she is a gentle, kind soul, she can’t figure out that this is a job and she needs to treat it like one.  This is not an experiment in social living or communal dynamics.  It’s our home, I’m her employer, and if she can’t deal with it, she’s gone.

I am dating lovely woman from California who is also in recovery.  We are very relaxed, there is little or no baggage, and it is fun.  That’s all you get to hear about her.  She is not blog fodder.

When I return from Greece I will have to write three short papers and submit them to my school so I can get credit for the three courses I will take in Greece.  This is a humiliating and backwards process and reminds me that I am happy that perhaps I can say ‘goodbye’ to SUNY Empire State College this summer.  Although it has improved my life, the bureaucratic bean-counters deserve little or no thanks for sitting on their rapidly widening asses and pushing virtual paperwork.  Once I receive my diploma, then I will write a letter to the ESC president and complain.

Drama, drama…

Johnnyboy

Last year after the Greek AA Convention I went to the small island of Paros with an AA friend to visit her former home and alma mater, the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts.  I was impressed with the small competitive school and set my next goal on applying, being accepted and attending the school to finish my BA.  I went through the process, which I think I have written about already.  I was informed last week that I have been accepted!  This was a shock, because I didn’t think I would be notified until December.  I am excited, nervous and very much looking forward to being there.  My semester begins March 8, 2010 and ends on June 7th.  I will be taking three classes (12 credits) which will finish my BA from SUNY Empire State College.  What a great way to cap off my 5-year academic odyssey.  All of this is a direct result of my finding sobriety and grabbing hold with all the desperation of a drowning man.

My mother’s health is very good these days and we are both looking forward to seeing my sister and her husband over the Thanksgiving week.  They are coming to visit and will be here for a few days.  It will be a quiet few days and, I hope, restful for our guests.

I have been participating in a commitment with a nearby Men’s AA Group.  Twice a month we bring a meeting into the very same jail I spent 19 months in between winter 2003 and fall 2004.  I was nervous at first, but truly feel that I am able to leave, any of the ghosts behind me every time I lave the facility.  Next week we go back in on the night before Thanksgiving.  Having been there, perhaps I can deliver the message that these guys never have to spend another family holiday in jail again, if they choose.  What a wonderful sense of forgiveness I have found in this action, this 12 Step work and this program of recovery.  I have been granted a new life in sobriety, one that I could not have imagined had I stayed drinking and playing at being God.

Johnnyboy

I have finished and handed in the final draft of my thesis on Yugoslavia in the 20th century.  This has been a huge endeavor and represents 5 years of study, research and travel.  It is done.  I felt good, at the end, in making some bold presumptions concerning the future of SE Europe, and that was it.  Now there is a space in my life…What’s next?  I still have to write some personal words about my goals for photography for the b/w darkroom course I am engaged in and finish the small portfolio I have started.  I can do the lab work next week and write the paper today.  Then I will have finished the semester, take the fall off, and cross my fingers over the spring semester in Greece.  I have begun thinking that even if I do not get in to the school, that I will go anyway for the time and visit the southern Mediterranean during the off season, finishing up my trip with the Greek convention.  In many ways I need a break from the former Yugoslavia and Greece and Turkey might be the ticket.

The date did not happen. I asked and she said ‘no’, but nicely.  The experience put me in an emotional tailspin that landed me on my pity-pot for a few hours.  I lost all gratitude for the above experiences as well as the whole of the past 7 years of sobriety.  I eventually snapped out of it and let it go.

Mom has bursitis in her hip. She also thinks she has been driving her car for the whole year-and-a-half she has been in bed, in the hospital, or whatever.  What a shocker for her.  ”Bullshit”, she said.  ”I can drive…I still have my licence.” “Sorry, but you cannot.”  I guess we should all be thankful that she can fight back, but that’s all he can do.  She cannot win.  She’ll wreck the car if she gets behind the wheel.  Time to keep an eye out.  She might try to make a break for it…

Johnnyboy