Be Brave Project, Day 18: Ah, the Days When I Allowed Myself Distractions. . .

Don't really feel like writing anything here today: I sort of wish I could resume my normal off-line journals, which I have been keeping every morning for years and in which I do feel less need to censor myself--and no need at all to be even vaguely interesting! It's an unusual combination: Uncensored yet dull.

Could be the title of some ex-Saturday Night Live Cast Member's next concert film. "Eddie Murphy--Uncensored Yet Dull!"

But. . .must keep moving forward. In the last few days I've been trying to keep my eyes focused on just moving my goals forward, quietly, just in an undramatic inch-by-inch method. I have:

-Sent 2005 tax information to the Dream Accountant.

-Mailed Proof of Payment of an old debt to the NYC courts.

-Rec'd and signed form for new organization of bank accounts.

-Organized new debit card so I get miles for using it.

-Received 2006 tax information.

Still need to get more of the 2006 tax crap, and to keep moving forward on letting the credit companies know my debt to Asset Acceptance has been paid--though I don't know if that'll remove the negative information from my credit report. Should ask the guy from the 123Credit link on the right here. Also should call old Web publishing employers for old tax forms.

But today I'm going to work on that damned Self essay. Need to check word count (it may be over, which would be v. annoying. . .), write cover note to Paula Derrow. Essay needs to have more personal detail, as in age and current life. I read several old Self Expression essays in the mag, and they're not too strong on either dialogue or humor, which is good for me (in this case).

So I'm going to skip the AA meeting today, I think. Just don't feel like doing the meditation that's the focus of the Thursday meeting, and I also am feeling slightly--actually, perilously--over-exposed since the qualification earlier in the week.

Oh boring boring it all feels so boring!! Four years ago I was dating a 6 foot 5 rugby player and living in South West London, going to pubs and parties and staying in the odd country house on the weekends, visiting. . .oh, let's face it, I was hungover every goddamn day. Either working illegally or hemorrhaging money in some way, starving myself so I could save the calories for night, for booze. All dolled up in the evening, but during the day eating one McDonald's cheeseburger (which are better tasting over there--must be the subtle flavoring the mad cow disease imparts), or a sad old Tesco egg-mayonnaise sandwich. And as for the rugby playing big boy? He was absolutely lovely--and I didn't give a crap, about him or me.

But oh, I wish I had him around now. I'd love to cook him enormous meals of Tarragon Chicken and vegetables, and cut brick-sized slabs of home-made tarte tatin for his dessert; I'd rent him dvds and sit on his lap as he watched them, I'd find him some rugby games here in NYC. (But he'd have to do his own laundry. I draw a line there.)

Sigh. Anyway. Shower. Self magazine. Being Brave. Ok, ok.

Be Brave Project: Day 14: Cry Me a River, Elusive D. (or, The Lameish and the Sameish)

OK, well. This whole apartment thing has me somewhat distracted from my Be Brave Project mission, and from getting enough done on that essay for Self, though I did read some back issues and do some edits to make the thing more specific as to times and dates, etc.

What I'm really suffering from, as opposed to apartment worries or the usual grim knowledge that my mother is in Chicago pouring vodka onto her acute cirrhosis, is a thoroughly unattractive case of Self-Pity. I'm told (and I believe 'em, for they know) by AA that Self-Pity and Resentments are the hallmarks of the alcoholic character--and brother, I'm all hallmarked up!

Yesterday was feeling horribly hormonal, to the point where I thought it was probably good that I wasn't operating a vehicle: If I had been and anyone cut me off or even looked at me funny, I'd have felt compelled to repeatedly ram their car into a brick wall until it was a bloody mash of steel and bone, the entire time gently weeping at the other driver's selfishness and dark, dark soul.

So, you'll see, I was a little under the weather.

Looking around my apartment all I could see were things I don't want to wrap, to pack, to move. Furniture that might--would--get broken. Walking to the subway I felt fat, poor, unappreciated and under-utilized. . .sitting in the meeting I looked at all the women near me who were hoisting enormous rocks around on their wedding fingers, who have tanned limbs and expensive coiffures, who-I strongly suspected--have never bought a $1 bag of "old new potatoes" from the shopping cart outside of Fairway (I actually made some delicious potato egg and chive salad).

So, when I raised my hand in the meeting I said all this, minus the wedding-band envy and the potato salad info (though really, it was delicious). I bitched about not being able to afford to keep my shabby-ass apartment, about my mother's drinking and my father's violent lack of balance, about how I felt I was the "universe's bitch". So there, I felt, when I had finished.

And over the next ten minutes two other women spoke: One, aged 38, who had waited to find a man to have a child with and then discovered that she's going through premature menopause and can't get pregnant. Even with IVF there's only a 3% chance. The second woman who spoke was Jackie: In her 40's, single, apple-cheeked with short wavy hair that stands up on end, a struggling country music singer and songwriter, she's also fighting breast cancer and will be the only person currently in chemo who's undertaking the Tour de Pink, a 200 mile bicycle ride benefiting the Young Survival Coalition. But what Jackie wanted to talk about was just accepting the universe. Just deciding to take the leap and wait to see what unfolds. . .because she thinks to do otherwise would make her nothing more than "a dog chasing its tail."

I was utterly gobsmacked and humbled.

And I decided to stop with the lame bitching, about the same damned ancient things that bothered me enough to provoke me to drink in the first place. There's a vast, intricate, marvelous, admittedly frightening world out there and I want to stare and stare and stare at the same problems. Ludicrous and lame.