Taking Stock at 12:42 AM. All my life I feel I've been tossed by the winds. It's not to say that the winds themselves have been doing the tossing, but in fact, you have control over what you put in your mind.. Over the information you can discard, in what you keep. It's no use beating myself up for what I've done. One of my heroes in the baseball world, Alex Rodriguez, was a guy who seemed to torment himself time & time again over the fact that he could hit home runs like nobody's business, set records right and left for players his age at his time, yet he couldn't win a championship, and couldn't come up with the clutch play or hit when the time mattered. You may think it a mundane example but at some point, those things that hound you, you need to stop listening to them. Just put them down and walk straight somehow. Too much has been made for me by the fact that I seem to be between planes. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm stuck am on a branch like I feel I am. Like the cartoon character who has someone stepping on his shirt and he's trying to run away or run after something, and he's swishing and falling over his feet.
To say I no longer want to live that way would be nothing but me being impervious to the truth that I know that I may continue in that fashion.

What do I really take seriously? What little property I have, a search for the ideal companion, the fitting job where you make a difference, comraderie, an exchange of ideas. All seemingly intangible things, when they are not in your grasp. In short I'm on the verge of a great discovery or else, another complete and utter breakdown. Going at life hard while chewing on an improbable bullet will do that to you. People tell me to calm down, to relax, just deal with where you are at, but sometimes where you are at is simply unbearable, unacceptable for what it is. I just want to get out, to be free of keeping one foot hovering over the break in case of the dreaded accident. Playing it safe, being calculated about the whole ordeal. So what happened today cannot be reduced to nothing. I made searches, queries, into starting a life somewhere else, made inquiries about what is possible in the immediate future. It's difficult to do without money in my pocket, but it was something I had to do nevertheless. I looked at teaching jons in other states. Weighed the options. I want to get out of Nebraska so badly I'm popping at the seams. That is a fact. Another winter, forget winter. Hope for spring. Be glad with spring.

Conventional wisdom- as it would have it, avoid then the deliberate manufacture of misery. I was sort of knocked on my ass again by a guy 60 days sober talking about the wisdom he seeks from the groups. Where it comes from.... I call it a matter of IQ points. In this case, it may be that the IQ points are extremely high as is. All you have to do is listen to these guys talk before the meeting. Guys who worked in the upper offices of the railroad, bankers, teachers, social workers. Guys who have put in time with the systems, have worked out their lives, corrected their lives and can talk about the world we live in today fluently.

The latest of what I heard this 60 days sober guy was rehashing an image of a man in a rocking chair, patiently simply waiting to say that lightning bolt phrase out of the blue that you need to hear. Problem is, you have to be awake for that statement, you have to be awake and ready for anything, you almost won't even notice this guy but then he'll give you what you need to hear at the opportune moment. The other part of it was Tom, the union bricklayer, who's made his way into the business management side of the industry, told the story of a guy who made a crash landing in a field, and struck with the approaching prospect of catastrophe on an epic scale, namely the prospect of certain death, his skill set entirely kicked in-- and he knew what gears to mainpulate, what levels to push, intuitvely he applied all his knowledge of airplanes in an instant in order to guide the ship to safety. That that is what we come to rely on in sobriety. Those sudden moments where we intuitively know how to handle the situation and guide ourselves to safety. How we elude sudden disaster and are saved. With prayer, with experience, with an out-network if sorts. And get through it.