And then I NEVER STOPPED LAUGHING.

And that’s twice now in this thread that you have made me laugh so hard I cried. First the bleeding eyeballs, then the big swinging intellectual dickdom…

I’ve got to figure out how to subscribe to your blog, Mara, so that I will know when people are commenting. Is that the whole RSS feed thing? I’m sorry to be so technologically retarded.

Doesn’t visiting the old homestead bring out the drama queen in all of us (at least internally if not externally)?

And in visiting my childhood home, as I do only periodically, and noticing changes around the house, the neighborhood, the city, I am struck on how I get caught between the Myths of Progress and Decay, that with both presenting their evidences I have to choose between accepting that both are simultaneously happening and thus reflect where we choose to put our energy and work, or falling into some fallacy of there being a moment, a Peak, that happens as the pendulum hits that change in momentum from Progress to Decay.

When I fall prone to believing in this Peak I grow unbearably nostalgic even for the very moment I am experiencing right now (my children are all past toddlerhood and none have reached adolescence and will family life ever again be so fun?), or I use it to self-flagellate or excuse myself (well clearly I peaked as valedictorian of my high school graduating class and no accomplishment since then has been quite so august). And telling myself I was never that great, nor have I ever completely sucked, well that just doesn’t feed my love of the dramatic arc.

I always thought the mediating-thing was Piscean wishie-washiness but since discovering I am in fact an Aries… well, who can explain it? Except that I spend my days making peace between four strongly-personalitied boys?
;•) back atcha!

Mara, have you abandoned us for your more recent post? –In which you adroitly manage to strike an heroic amiable balance between surrender and self-improvement? –You’re suspiciously good at mediating, too; were you a middle child? ;o) <–THIRD AND FINAL!

The Sponsor has yet another of his infinitely divergent interesting takes on Big Book fundamentalism concerning the word “defect.” His exegesis is that it refers to defecting from our character—those times when we step outside our integrity and behave in ways we don’t like. I like your take on it too—that God gets to decide when we’re “defecting.”

Brava for surrendering and for sweetness. I owe Ms. Jenzai an email–to be written when I’m less intimidated by her! ;o)

PB’s comment reminds me of this endearingly abrasive New Yorker I know, a woman who got sober back when I was probably learning how to tie my shoes, who likes to remind us in meetings that she “joined AA, not the all–better club.” I think that if I had found AA to be a club for people who were all better, I probably would have wound up killing myself.

At the same time, submitting myself to the process of the 12 steps has totally transformed my life. Are those changes for the better? Are they improvements? I know I couldn’t have gotten where I am now if I hadn’t first been where I was, so does it make sense to say that the way I’m living now is better? I don’t know. I know there isn’t enough money in the universe that could make me go back to the way I was living before I got sober (and I use the term “living” loosely here.) I mean there’s struggling and then there’s struggling.

The more time that passes between that period of my life and the present, though, the more sense it makes to take value-laden language out of the equation. I mean, it’s a hell of a lot easier to understand that the agony of those years was fruitful now that the wounds of the past aren’t still smarting. But how then to talk about the change? Is it that I am more useful now? More present? Less ridiculous and unlovely?

This is a great reminder for me that I don’t get to chart the course for my own spiritual development. One of the 12 steps suggests that we ask God to remove all those defects of character (there’s that pesky word “defect”) that stand in the way of our usefulness to God or to our fellows. This really kind of pissed me off at first: you mean I don’t get to choose which defects of character get removed and which ones I have to continue to wallow in? Damn! But really, this is a great gift because it lets us all off the hook. The aspects of my personality that don’t seem to work so well for me, that cause me pain – what the steps refer to as character defects – these can actually be useful to God and to my fellows (for example, the way that my friend C’s propensity toward interrupting me/talking over me and generally monopolizing our conversations is an excellent opportunity for me to practice speaking up for myself). In that respect, they are not defects at all. In fact, they are evidence that, in this moment, everything is exactly as it should be. But what a paradox! Because the more I submit to the process of turning things over and letting go, the sweeter life gets.

As I get ready to celebrate, yes, celebrate, that 50th year, I begin to look at my bulging midsection with pride” “I’ve earned it!” I begin to revel in my need to rest and my short of breath strolls in the yard.

However, when I take a stroll down memory lane, like I did last night at my friend’s retirement party (see last night’s #afterhours post), I see that all my OCD self-improvement has not gone to waste – in fact, to the contrary, I just couldn’t handle on the whining and self aggrandizement anymore – which is why escaping to the laughter at Portland Werewolf was such a delight!

Yes, self-improvement is overrated. However, the lack of it is less exciting – even though the unexamined life is certainly less fraught with self-loathing.

Or is it? Maybe that’s why there was more beer being drunk and the Firehouse Pub then there was at all of Lucky Lab last night.

I’m just sayin…