Category: ch-ch-ch-changes

Farewell Balkan studies…

Johnnyboy

My paper on Yugoslavia is done.  I have handed in the final ‘first draft’ but there isn’t much to correct, in my opinion.  The bibliography will be adjusted and tacked on, but what should I call it the paper?

I have been doing a lot of old-time AA service these days: driving guys around to meetings and so forth.  there has been one kid that I have been driving to meetings.  He is, in my opinion, a real mess.  He is on 15 different medications for bi-polar, addiction, etc…and I am not sure if I would call him sober of not since one of them is a med that keeps the urge to use heroin at bay.  That’s chemically induced clean-time.  I’m glad he’s not my sponsee.  If he ever asked, I would have to say ‘No.’

Mom is doing well and her mood and memory seem to be leveling out in a good and happy space.

I have asked a woman from a nearby AA group out on a date…yet again.  This will be the third (?) attempt at dating and it is pretty low-key.  She lives in the Big City most of the week and I have asked her to be my date at a photography opening in early November.  Nothing serious, just the show, then maybe a quick bite and then I have to head back home on the train.  I am not even considering sex…well, I suppose I am, but that’s normal.  I am not expecting it, that’s for sure.

I have registered for the 2010 International AA Convention being held in San Antonio, Texas.  It will be a big deal, with about 80,000 people in attendance.  AA holds it every 5 years.  How fun!  I am thinking of driving the 4000+ mile round-trip journey, but that is far away from now.

Johnnyboy

Paper done, tweaking ahead…

Johnnyboy

My paper on Yugoslavia is finished.  All I have to do is finalize the bibliography, correct some of the last few pages, and submit it for official inspection.  Done.  All forty pages.  Granted, I could have written the thing in two weeks, but it took me all summer.  Now I can concentrate on the b/w work in the darkroom and be through that as well.  12 credits to go after this month!  A light at the end of the tunnel…

On an AA note, I realized last night what Step Six means.  It means that my character defects limit me from being all that I could be.  It seems obvious, but it has taken me 6 years to understand that concept.  I think my friend Lolly is right…A Step a year…

I ran into an old friend at the Men’s Group last week.  He was always a good man, supportive of me and now he has 6 months of sobriety.  We talked of old times and he told me that another old colleague had OD’d last year sometime–found dead in his dirty, dark apartment.  Too much Crack. His heart exploded.  No one was surprised.  I certainly wasn’t.  RIP George Benner–It could have been me.

Johnnyboy