Much ado-ing….

Johnnyboy

Much has happened since I returned from San Antonio in July.   It has been a month since my last blog and the world still turns, I am still here and sober, etc…I’m feeling a bit snarky today,actually, like I want to correct everything everyone says.  Not a good feeling for me, and all too familiar.  My ‘Daily Reflections’ reading today was about the ‘design for living’ AA has given me.  I have a choice: I can go on living the design, which seems to be working out splendidly or skip it and be my old, willful, arrogant self which got me nowhere good.  I’ll stick with working the program.

I have registered for the big LGBT Round-Up in Provincetown in October. According to friends it is a blast and a half.  I grew up in Provincetown (my family owned a house there for 40 years) from 1966 until 2001, mostly in the summer.  My father was, and still is, a part of the arts community there and I a lot of people.  I have never experienced it sober however.  This will be fun.  The light in October is especially lovely–good for photography.

I have been tossing the idea around about getting a new sponsor and have finally decided against it.  Instead of thinking that I have ‘outgrown’ the current one, I have come to conclusion that it is best to be comfortable in an established relationship than to jump ship when I feel bored or even unsure.  He and I are meeting tomorrow for coffee so I’ll talk to him about it.  That and other things.  I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with sarcasm and ‘ball-busting’ at meetings.  I think it is immature and only highlights the individuals inability to feel at home. Like me feeling snarky, they are not wearing life like a loose garment.  OK.  Off to greet the world, do my chores and bask in the beauty of sober living, one-day-at-a-time.

I have been watching re-runs of “Queer As Folk” via Netflix.  I have been enjoying the soapy quality of the show, and although all the characters are sudsy stereotypes i find that I admire Emmet the most.  He is the most out, proud and strong character, with more self-esteem than all the others combined.  He is also the most feminine and flamboyant.  Interesting.

Johnnyboy

Amazing convention, amazing meetings…

Johnnyboy

The AA World Convention in San Antonio was amazing.  I mean, really…How can it not be when close to 75,000 AAs descend like locusts on a small city in East Texas?  The weather was so-so.  Hot, humid, and rainy for most of the time but that did not stop us all from having a great time.  I bumped into some folks I knew from Europe as well as here in the US which is pretty incredible given the sheer numbers attending.

The gay and lesbian meetings were superb.  While some panel groups had 250 to 300 people in the room, the LGBT discussions were held in larger ballrooms that held, with standing room only, 1000 people, and they were packed.  Mind-blowing to say the least.  There was a lot of  discussion around Tradition 3, which was formed because a gay man wanted to be part of AA in the 1940s.  So it is because of this situation that all AAs can be a part of if they say so, not the group.

One of the closing speakers on Sunday in the Alamo Dome also remarked that when she got out of prison at the ripe age of 21 and went to her first outside meeting no one wanted to know why she went there or what she had done.  They were just happy to see her there.  Would it be that some groups around here acted like that.  Too many AAs in this neck of the woods are too concerned with the business of others.  Curiosity doesn’t explain it or apologize for the nosiness of these folks.  They can all meet at their own meetings, which they do, at noon in the village-by-the-lake, and gossip as much as they wish.  Me?  I’ll stay away from them and stick with the winners.

Johnnyboy