Black and White

There was this kid I knew in high school, he was a couple of years younger than me, and he was a real piece of work. A "grade A" fuck up. He was always latching on to us at parties, trying to hang with the big boys. So we took advantage of him. We tortured him.

We would always get him hammered and make him do ridiculous things. Once, while he was so drunk he could hardly stand, we made him run his head into a fence in the backyard of the house we were at. He didn’t do this once, he did it multiple times. He would run full speed at the fence, smash head first into it, and fall into a pile on the ground. What a pile of shit. We would scream and cheer, then pick him up, dust him off, and make him do it again. We just stood around drinking, watching this moron smash his face into a fence. I don’t know how long we stood there watching, but he was half dead by the time he was done.

So, finally, after watching this idiot kill himself had lost all comedic appeal, we took him inside and sat him down on the piano bench in the living room. He could barely keep his eyes open he was so drunk and, most likely, concussed from getting beat up by the fence.He just sat there in a daze staring off in to space, while we drank and praised ourselves for what we had just made this imbecile do.

After some time of just sitting there in a stupor, he clumsily turned and placed his fingers gently on the black and white keys of the piano. This was going to be good. This genius was about to play us a tune. We all gathered around, drinks in hand, ready to watch this half dead, half-whit serenade us. He was amazing.

It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. He was incredible. He sat there, eyes closed, covered in dirt and grass, drunk out of his mind, and played us a masterpiece. I don’t think he even missed note as he sat there and quietly told us to fuck off.

Trash men and Dinosaurs

Danny-

Yup, got pretty bad. It was hard for anyone to see because I was still holding down a job and semi-functioning. But, I was dying. Literally dying. A lot of people knew and tried to say stuff, and a lot of people got tired of saying stuff. People drifted away, but that's what people do. That's what I would probably have done.

As for me and you drifting apart, I'll shoulder the blame for that. I became an extremely selfish person over the last several years of my life, and only looked out for my own interests. Unfortunately there was nothing I could take from you at the time, so there was no need to be around you (Sorry if that sounds harsh. That's not how I feel, but that's the reality of it. I'm also trying to be dramatic). I could never figure out what I wanted, but I knew I needed more of whatever it was. Nobody could have helped me but me.

I've always felt that we will always be friends, though. I've always known that when and where our paths cross, our friendship will still be there. And, I will do everything I can to make sure our paths cross on your wedding day. I am around alcohol and drunk people all the time, so no big there. All of the people I enjoy hanging out with are alcoholics. That's why I'm back in school now, and on the path to one day becoming an addiction counselor. Maybe specialist. I like specialist.

Drinking and druging doesn't work for me. Not one bit. Some people can handle it and continue on with their lives, but it became my life. I'm in a good place with it now. Once I stopped thinking about it, it all became easy. It's like playing a game of tic-tac-toe with your mind. I kept thinking about ways I could win, ways I could beat this, and I kept on getting cat's game after cat's game. The key is just not to play. (I shit you not this all came to me after watching "War Games" with Mathew Broderick. That's how they stop the computer from nuking the whole world: Tic-tac-toe. I just stopped my brain from nuking my body.) It’s not that easy, and it is.

My other analogy is this, if I was allergic to peanuts, if I would die from eating peanuts, I wouldn't fucking eat peanuts. I wouldn't spend all my time and energy trying to figure out how I can manage my peanut intake. I wouldn't be trying to have just one peanut a day, or only have peanuts after 5. I wouldn't eat fucking peanuts. They kill me. So goes with alcohol... and cocaine for that matter.

Life is great, and I'm so happy to know things are going so well for you. I have the magazine you had the cover of, and I've been keeping up with your new stuff online. I would love to be able to have you explain all of them to me. We showed some stuff to grandma Shirley and she was very impressed. Especially with the rabbit eating grapes out of that dude's ass. You are so unbelievably talented. I'm in awe.

So I've got an idea for a painting. Hahaha. Nice transition. I was imagining this story while taking a shower:

There's a place that exists where all our future selves are patiently waiting for us to one day grow into. These future selves are the image of what the child dreams it will be. There are a bunch of trash men and baseball players, astronauts and firemen, and dinosaurs, things kids want to be when they grow up, all sitting around waiting to be grown into. They are waiting to be the fulfillment of these children's dreams.

There is one future self, though, that is always changing what he is. Sometimes he's a movie star for a few days, and sometimes he just works at a nine to five job. A lot of the times he is the exact copy of another person's future self. He can't make up his mind, so he let's others do it for him.

But, the majority of the future selves start disappearing one by one as the children grow up and face reality. The dinosaurs and trash men first, followed by the astronauts. Some actually become firemen. Some become baseball players, but give up on their dreams too early. They all get stuck in "what-if" for eternity.

One day the future self that could never be happy with whatever costume he wore, comes to meet up with all the others wearing absolutely nothing. Everyone laughs and points, they all call him names, but he just smiles from ear to ear and keeps on walking by. He is finally comfortable in his own skin.

And, the child smiles and keeps on walking too. He's done searching for the right fit. He's done trying to fit into a costume. Just being is the right fit. He nods to the other children who point and laugh, and smiles from ear to ear, and keeps on walking by.

So the painting, as I see it, is a bunch of children staring at a bunch of firemen, dinosaurs, astronauts, and trash men. All of them look nervous, but one is smiling, and his opposite is smiling too. And naked.

But, hey, painting is your thing, not mine.

Sorry this is the longest email ever, but I have really been enjoying myself.

Hello my name is...

Hello, my name is Jay, and I’m an alcoholic.

This is probably one of the truest statements about myself that I can make. It’s the one aspect of my life I know to be 100 percent real. It’s the one part of my personality, or image, or psyche, or whatever the hell you want to call it, that I haven’t fabricated over the years. The alcoholic in me helped to create all of those things, though. It helped to shape me into the person that I’m not, not the person I’m supposed to be. The alcoholic made me believe things I don’t believe. It helped me to make tough decisions in situations where there should have been only one choice. The alcoholic beat me down like a drill sergeant. It left me an empty shell, or rather, a bottomless pit. The alcoholic made me sink to new lows, only to find I could go lower still. This is because the alcoholic is extremely smart; smarter than I’ll ever be. It outwitted me time and time again. It’s patiently waiting to con me into a drink right now. It’s waiting until the one day my guard is down, and it can convince me that I ended up in rehab by accident. The alcoholic wants me to believe things just got a little out of control last time. It would have me believe I just lost my grip, but things won’t get that bad again. It’s trying to convince me, right now, that I was just going through a phase, a rough patch, and that I couldn’t really have a problem because I’m doing so well now. It has been relatively easy to stay alcohol free and get my life back on track in these past several months, and this is probably all part of the alcoholic’s plan to convince me I never needed to stop drinking in the first place. The alcoholic is probably helping me learn to live again. It is probably holding my hand every step of the way, as I grow to love life more and more. It is very smart, the alcoholic. Very good at what it does. And, if I slip up for one second, it will have me right back where I was, choosing death over life.

Hello, my name is Jay, and I’m an addict.

This aspect of myself I know to be 100 percent true, but at times I don’t believe to be 100 percent true. If that makes any sense to you, check yourself into rehab, you’re probably an addict. If it sounds completely insane to you, that’s because it is completely insane. The addict in me has me believe I’m not an addict, I just really like cocaine. The addict in me has me believe that I don’t pop pills addictively; they just don’t work as well on me as they do on the average person. The addict has me believe that doing any type of drug, even if it is just on occasion, is completely normal.

Doing any type of drug is not normal, no matter how you try to justify it, and I don’t just do drugs on occasion. This doesn’t mean I don’t think you shouldn’t do drugs. By all means do whatever you like. Shit, I love drugs. But, I can’t stop once I start, so I can’t start. If you, on the other hand can go to Vegas for your best friend’s bachelor party and do enough cocaine to make Tony Montana think you have a problem, but can come home and jump right back into the stream of life, you probably are not an addict. If, even though you’re a little tired, you can get up Monday morning, go to your place of employment, and put together a semi-productive day of work, you’re probably not an addict. You probably just like to have a good time. However, if you’re the person that supplied that other person with the mountain of cocaine, and yet, you had your own personal Mount Everest hidden in your pocket, you’re probably an addict. If you come home from a vomit inducing weekend, and the first thing you do is hunt down anyone you may know that might be out having a couple drinks on a Sunday night, you might want to take a long hard look at yourself. If Monday morning rolls around and you have vodka and cocaine for breakfast, and the only reason you call it breakfast is because you’re consuming it at the same time as the people who have gone to sleep the night before are now eating their eggs and bacon, you’re with out a doubt an addict. You are an addict.

That’s the beauty of the addict. It is one manipulative, crafty motherfucker. The addict instinctively knows how to take the guilt off of me, and gently place it on you. It helps me point out all of your faults, so I don’t have to look at mine. The addict will help me make you feel miserable about your life, and then slip in with a helping hand. The addict has the solution to all your problems. It will make everything all better. But, the addict will give you one, and take two for itself. It only pretends to care about you. The addict doesn’t give a shit about you and how you feel. It is looking out for its own ass, and it doesn’t care who it takes down with it. The addict really just doesn’t like to be alone.
In my case the addict never had to be alone, because the alcoholic was always there feeling sorry for itself.

         Admittedly, when I first got out of rehab, the only reason I was going to stay sober was because I had to. My parents had just shelled out a lot of money and they would be pretty pissed off if my ass didn’t stay sober. That’s putting it nicely. They had to cancel a trip to Cancun they had been planning for over a year. However, by throwing down the plastic for my hospital stay, they earned enough points on their credit card to take a nice trip to lovely Palm Springs. There’s really no comparison there, but that’s how my dad explained it to me, trying to make the very best out of the very worst situation.

I guess now, it should be viewed as making the best out of the best situation. That foregone trip to Cancun saved my life. It’s interesting how certain situations can take on a whole new life as time goes by. All the crying and worrying and anxiety, all the what-ifs, all the imagining of scenarios that may never happen, all for not. Everything has been going smoothly since. Everything is calm and serene now. And, if it wasn’t, it would have all still been a waste of time. We can’t predict the out come of the events in our lives, and all the worrying and crying and imagining in the world is not going to change them. I’m learning to live my life this way today, and I’m really learning to enjoy the unpredictable.

I hope that trip to Palm Springs was the best trip to the desert they have ever had. In hindsight, it should have been a celebration of a new life about to begin. A celebration for giving life to me for a second time, and giving life to themselves in the process. For a long time, my actions had kept them locked up like prison bars.

I plan on trying to celebrate everyday like this. I plan on celebrating in advance.