The Whiskey Fields: the Betty Crockers

Continuing my catalogue of AA folks

These are the women who found recovery in the 1800s and still attend meetings. They wear Christmas tree broaches during the holidays and bring candy on Easter while smelling of old soup and musty perfume. Their shares to the group usually revolve around the frustration they felt when their purse in Jazzercise class (placed carefully on a chair at the back of the room), was moved to ANOTHER chair. Blessed are we, they wail, to have the tools and wonderful people of Alcoholics Anonymous to help through this life struggle. They also like to talk about traffic. Basically, these people have weaved the program into every iota of their life’s fabric and attribute all positives to the program and negatives to their own failures. And when they talk, it’s SUPER hard to relate. However, in my attempt to see the positive, Gladys and Beverly have taught me that it’s possible to live a full life without booze. After that, they can go suck eggs, devil them, and head to a dinner party that begins at exactly 4:00 pm.

The Whiskey Fields: the Salty Sailor

THE SALTY SAILORThis guy has stumbled out of every bar he's entered since the 1920s and licked his gums to pass those awkward silences on the bar stool vis-à-vis himself. Then, a few years ago, for whatever reason (free coffee, warm room, available toilet) he decided to transplant himself in the front row of my Wednesday night meeting. He doesn’t sit with the other pirates, because the meetings and the bar share the same social circumstances for this turd: loners are left alone. Salty Sailor drank himself out of the relationships he had, from family to work to friends to his landlord. That's why it’s easy not to feel sorry for this toothless asshole in the front row of my meeting; people don’t abandon people for no reason.

And you know what changed now that he’s at an AA meeting? Absolutely fucking nothing. This fuckball still smells, talks to himself, and sponges off of the establishment. Instead of polishing off half-empty beer bottles, while exhibiting a form of DTs which never went away, he mosies over to his chair with a handful of cookies while leaving a trail of coffee behind him. Then when he manages to pillage his way to the podium, incoherent drivel spews out of his gum-riddled mouth. But one thing he wants to make clear is this: his enlightenment is goddamn magical, his bottom really was bottom he earned his spot. According to him, you will never get it the way he does. Salty Sailor likes to inform the group that he was always drunker than we could ever imagine, his hangovers shittier, his drunken spins spinnier, and his relationships destroyed with a way bigger cloud of nuclear destruction than any puffs of trivial despair we may have encountered. His message is clear: you’re not enough of an alcoholic to be there. Get out and drink some more. Lose your house and your wits. Live on the fucking street and get AIDS before you enter another meeting you sober piece of shit. Walk the plank!  

The Whiskey Fields: Keep Coming Back

There are other types and there are other truths. This just happens to be my experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s the best thing I have ever done with some of the worst people I’ve ever met. Some have magic in their hearts and love pouring out of their pores while others are authentic pieces of shit. In light of all this, I refuse to badmouth the program as a whole; AA saved my life. For a hazy seven years, alcohol was my best friend and the mother I always wanted: present, available, and comforting. Miraculously, the obsession to drown myself in booze lifted because of these degenerate and beautiful drunks who form my fellowship. I realized early on that the program of AA isn’t made up of bad people trying to be good, but sick people determined to gain mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual health. For the sake of my recovery, and because Alcoholics Anonymous is the only thing that’s kept me sober, I take the good with the perverted bad. One can’t throw the baby out with the bathtub gin…I’m learning this one day at a time. 

My Frenemy

An essay about an alcoholic and her bottle

Portmanteau is a fancy word for mash-up, and I really want to use it, so I'll do it here with a seemingly self-revealing analysis of my abusive relationship with alcohol. 

Alcohol and I are frenemies – a portmanteau of friend and enemy which, however fortunate, lends itself to this melodiously mashed-up word. The term most often exits the mouths of teenage girls when describing a delightful-turned-demonic friend. Indeed, the progression from friend to enemy to frenemy is an unexpected mess; because I’m sure as those teenage girls would attest, my Frenemy was the perfect embodiment of something I loved and hated at the same time. Unlike these girls, however, my Frenemy was not a person, it was a bottle…well, many, many bottles; seven-years of one long drunk. And now that I’m sober-minded and spiritually-centered, I repeatedly ask myself the same question: How had I come to live under the thumb…or the bottle…of my dear alcohol Frenemy? Here’s our story.  

FRIEND
The first encounter between me and booze was chummy--that’s the best word for it. Although our compatibility was instant, I remained wary due to the many stories I'd heard of her destructive tendencies. I was careful getting to know her. Just a few months later, however, Frenemy was fully integrated into my life and [I believed] enriching my time with others. She accompanied me to parties, bars, work events, late evening-musings at the fireplace, phone calls with old friends, boring family functions, and dinners under starry international skies. As my companion and war-buddy, we decided to carpe every diem going forward. People liked us together, and…that’s how it got started. I felt beautiful, funny, witty...relevant. Finally. That empty space isolating me from others was filled. 

ENEMY
After a few years of [mis]using Frenemy’s talents, my head started getting scrambled. Our time together was never as much fun as it was in the beginning; those early days hanging out in the sunshine, with friends…when people still wanted to be around us. Apparently, she was bringing out the worst in me but I could never attest to what it was people were upset about, so I just apologized. A lot. After a while, I did what seemed right and began lying to everyone. Oh, nobody wants to be around us anymore? That’s fine. We’ll hang out alone. I prefer it that way. We could get as loud and silly as we want without any of my asshole friends judging us, is what I told myself. But the truth was that by this point, our relationship was very quiet. Very strained. We didn’t laugh anymore. We hung out mostly in my room alone with the tears and the tears and the tears. 

At some point, comments from friends and unbearable hangovers led me to pursue other things.  Getting distance isn’t ever easy with the bottle; she’s clingy and insists on accompanying me everywhere; lurking in my room, hiding in my car, sneaking in at the park, lingering around breakfast. While I wasn’t ready for a break-up, I suggested a break--the coward's go-to move when she doesn't have the self-respect to actually make a change. Change is scary. But I tried. Enter: compromise. I promised myself that this time I would really control her, because it was just willpower I was lacking. If she can’t keep her distance, and I can't seem to get away from her, then we'd only hang out on weekends… and for no more than two drinks. Except for special occasions—then no restrictions...And, maybe as part of our deal, we can spend a few hours together during the week—just a little while at dinner. Yeah, I just keep changing seats on the Titanic. Moving from the bow to the stern to the cabin...that ship was going down and I thought I just needed a better view. 

It's futile to make a deal with booze, because it doesn’t compromise. It always wins while letting you think you’re in charge. It’s part of the brain-fuck. So when she started showing up everywhere I went, this time I didn’t fight her off. Our prearranged “controlled” encounters resulted in a complete loss of control. Goals were dismissed, romantic relationships destroyed, and productivity recognized in the past tense.

FRENEMY

In her magical nature, and in a way only she was able, she convinced me not to judge myself and made it all seem OK. But, I starting hating her, and I needed her. She haunted me....but, keep your enemies closer, right?  As days, months and years went on this way, self-loathing seeped into all my pores. There is no level of verbiage capable of expressing how much I hated myself. But she loved me. Something loved me and present like mother never was, available like sister never was, didn't blame me for all the wrong things like father.  

I knew my time with Frenemy wasn’t healthy, worthwhile, or constructive. She loved me when I hated myself, but then made me hate myself for hating myself. I relied on her and ignored her wreckage; I gripped her tight while calamity spawned from our embrace. And despite any attempt at control, our time together always ended the same way: self-destruction in clouds of chain-smoked cigarettes and open legs welcoming the next bad decision.

BREAKING-UP
Even as a drunk, I was clear-headed enough to know that self-loathing is not a healthy result of friendship. Shame took over my insides. If everyone has a bottom, we reached ours. This came when I almost lost the thing that was more important to me than the bottle: my sister, who made me decide between her or Frenemy. Three years later, I know that dumping her was the best decision I ever made.

Our very tiny world thrived on one daily task: get as drunk as possible without anyone finding out. And small worlds belong to small girls. Indeed, my world grew expansive we parted ways. I pour healthier things into my body, heart, and mind while attempting to alchemize self-loathing into self-love—a seemingly impossible task with her at my side (or my insides). Although I think of her fondly sometimes and remorsefully at others (like any ex-friend), I recognize her as part of a history I can't change. A history that ends in the survival of a healthy woman as well as the divine death of a scared little girl.

Suppressed feelings because they didn’t know where to go

So they went down

And then i swallowed some more whiskey

So they’d go farther

Washed those feelings away.

Take another swig, says I,

We got another one creeping out

Book review: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'm glad Mccarthy got his money's worth on the thesaurus he bought before setting out to write this monstrous piece of horse shit; here's a stellar example of his verbosity: the boy "was lean, wiry, rachitic". Really? "was" lean? Not "appeared" or the multitude of better words? I guess he used up all his energy looking up different way to say "skinny" that he had to phone it in with the easiest helping verb of all time. Oh, is it a testament to the sparse language of the book, you say? The writing is meant to parallel the bleak journey on the Road, Mr. McCarthy? Priceless metaphor, dickworm.

Another tiring-as-fuck metaphor from "The Road": hope. The hope coursing through the pilgrims upon arriving at a potentially lucrative spot (a house with food, boat...) paralleled my brief flickers of excitement that "oh, this is an interesting part....wait no. This book still sucks". I, like the boy and the man, trudged down The Road, waiting for something better. It's over now and I'm kind of wishing for the apocalypse.

Oh, and I wonder if it was cold? That wasn't beat into me hard enough.

Ironically, the only line which really resonated perfectly encapsulates this book: "He tried to remember the dream but he could not. All that was left was the feeling of it...". I can't remember anything valuable in this book, only the feeling of misery and self-loathing after having read it.


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Hunting Season

Stir not my dear, 
Please!
Sleep soundly while I plan,
Because you don’t have to be awake to be my man;
Nobody needs to know—not even you—that it’s all in my head,

Madly drawing, drawing 

on the perfect words we could have said.

Check my notes, 
because I've made sure our story ends 
with "happily ever after,"

Our fairy tale is oozing 
with mountains of fucking
love and laughter.

Because, you see sir, 

When forced to fill in those glaring empty slots and blank spaces,
Etched by unringing telephones and unkissed faces,
I must do my best to create a story that deters my tears,
One I can tell in my twilight years--
That you and I talked of love and read great poetry,
Sitting together, at that summer’s end, reciting Yeats, maybe?

Ah, yes! In our world I’m always smooth-skinned and tan;

Nobody can see the cut on my leg—at least I hope they can’t.

My hair is the perfect curly and smile so white;
Don’t worry, I don’t need you for this part--
You've been drawn in the perfect light.

What took me so long anyway? Oh, yes…
I hoped we’d do it together,
No bother at all though; I’ve created a better story in my letters.

So love me, or leave me, 
Just dim the lights when you go;
I crafted more lines for us to play out in our epic one-man show.

A Master of Her Craft

The hands of a poet

are being used to hide her face.

She finds safe nests 

in lava covered plateaus

(convincing herself that it’s for the best).

She’ll use the

intense heat and distorting burn marks,

to her advantage.

She thinks that it’ll make

a great prose piece someday.

Her stick is pen,

and her paper

superseded

with fiery floors.

Her words

never made less sense—

but she can’t stop now.

The lava is beginning to cool,

and her words may be set earthbound…forever.

While attempting to engrave her masterpiece,

she chisels the shape

of her hard round face

into the ground.

The edges aren’t too jagged,

but neither are hers.

And when the earth hardens

her face softens into its core.

This poet,

this glimmering creator

of passion and rhyme, claims

that she can’t see you,

so you can’t see her.

Hearts of Hoarfrost

Sir if you please,
I’ll get down on my knees—
My efforts to win your love are plenty.
I’ll bet to hold your attention
And get you to mention
my beauty, well...the possibilities are many;

Even cock-loving Wilde’s leer I could capture,
and suck into my rapture--
My abilities I can’t help but defend.
Yes, you may find it alarming,
But to most men I’m charming;
With these charms most would never contend;

Yet, I picture your ideal:
Her eyes bluer than steel,
Trilling her melodic and heavenly voice;
A buxom seaside girl
With flaxen springing curls;
An angel created by Joyce.

Well, I’m sure if I wear this,
Or continue to say this,
You’d scramble to lie by my side.
And your consistent denial
Of having me around for a while,
Will, God-willing, eventually subside.

After all, in regular fashion—

Even with Gonne-obsessed Yeats I’d imagine—

Men are sucked into my beam.-

This image of perfection I’ve painted,

Has been so highly rated,

Most boys get obsessed with my gleam.

So, if you’re not so sure

That I should be your whore,

I'll simply set all my clocks to your time.

How clearly you deny me

In an effort to try me!

To resist this is simply a crime.  

I've made myself easy,

Some might call me breezy,

It will be no struggle to get between my knees--

So when you come to your senses,

And stop putting up fences

I’ll open up for you, my love…rest at ease. 

The Witching Hours

My bookcase shelves a copy of the Holy Qu’ran with pages water damaged from the four times I drowned the book in a bowl of water and said a prayer to the Prophet. This is traditionally one of the many ways to break the curse of a Muslim witch. At first, my mother’s advice couldn’t have sounded more insolent; yet, I did it out of desperation to make all of it go away. Written in Arabic, full of shariah codes of conduct and misinterpreted veiling rites, this holy book sends a message of my past. Acting as a provocation to a thought, it marries cultural and personal disappointments while situating me in an unfortunate zone where outer and inner realities meet.

It started at age 13, as a frizzy-haired girl in Iran desperately trying to get through the annual family summer vacation when I saw him: my mother’s second cousin, related through marriage. He was handsome and tall, and upon my return to Iran on a snowy winter night at age 23 he was handsome and tall. And when I walked into the room he noticed, and I noticed that he noticed.

That chilly night his mother gave me a gold bracelet accompanied by a smile and a tray of lemonade. I smiled back and accepted both. The offer of a trip along the Caspian crept its way into our conversation and I readily accepted. We left a week later and I thought it was love. He really got me, and I so badly wanted to be gotten.  After 3 hours of windy roads and Persian carpet picnics along rivers and waterfalls, we arrived at our rented villa in the North. And after the perfunctory post-dinner game of gin rummy, we waited for everyone to go to bed, and snuck out to the seaside. We drank vodka smuggled in from Russia, and smoked cigarettes from Afghanistan and let our obsessions run along former soviet waters.

But, that night was the end of it all. The one room beach house does not make for comfortable mornings when a very Muslim mother sees a woman spooning her very Muslim son. I awoke to screams and curses pregnant with references to Allah and Muhammad and the departed. And then I knew I was fucked.

The next few days were difficult, as the shackles of Iranian propriety were fixed tight. Knowing that I was a guest and wouldn’t eat at her table unless offered, she didn’t offer me food for two days. Enduring these days of starvation, attempting to sneak food while she slept, getting caught, getting hit, yelled at and called a whore in more ways than I thought possible in Farsi, I ran away to a bus station. This was only to find that a woman cannot buy a bus ticket without a marriage certificate or the company of a man, same with a hotel room, and I had neither. All those emergency notes with Benjamin Franklin’s name and picture in my purse were worthless to me—just like his autobiography in high school.

I literally had nowhere to go. Hours later, and quite cinematically, he appeared at the bus station and bought us each a ticket to Isfahan. I spent a majority of the 10 hour bus ride to my grandmother's house mustering up the courage to ask about us...about this which we created on the beach. Together. Once he bid his farewell, I finally had the nerve to ask: “What happens now?”.  His reply was honest, and for that I will always be grateful; “I could never marry a whore. My mother sees you that way and that's what you'll always be in my eyes." A whore. A kiss whore. Because the reality was that we had only kissed that night on the beach…or ever. That was the last time I ever saw him. 

But the story doesn't end there. While at my grandmother’s house I got very sick. I started throwing up blood and dizziness ensued unless bedridden. This lasted for three weeks.  After various diagnoses, endless pills and tonics, I gave up. Soon after, my mom rushed into my room with a strange question: had I recently accepted gold jewelry from anyone? I realized the bracelet still encircling my wrist that his mother gave me. My mom ordered me to take it off immediately and pee on it. It was a way to break the curse. After three weeks I was willing to try anything. I was also curious as to why I was still wearing that bracelet. I peed on it and was better the next day. 

Now, years later, even though the physical part of the curse has been lifted—the greater and more profound cosmological effect still lingers. I have made this sequence of emotional events into a one-dimensional and quite simplistic vision: a witch put a curse on me that eliminated any chance of romantic happiness. I know this because I’m not married, and although I have had many offers, it never works out. This was the other part of her curse. I never thought I would fall in love with a distant relative, believe in witchcraft, pee on jewelry, or immerse holy scripture in water in order to ward off spirits. But, then I look at my bookshelf and cringe. I obviously believe in the curse, as I have tried to break it four times. Some objects exert a holding power because of the particular moment and circumstance they came into a person’s life. This Qur’an links the winter of 2000 to my historical narrative: a time machine to that week in the Caspian, lost love, a broken heart, and a witch’s curse fulfilled.

The days are getting longer

I’m sad today because…

My work crush is engaged  Conclusion: he doesn't want me

You would not want him. You want him to want you. It’s been a long time since a boy caught your attention, and you are out of practice with navigating through the complexities of a crush. While tricky to maneuver, it’s not impossible. Perspective is key: he is a repeat of that other boy with the fiancée. And the other one, too. Just be a fucking friend. That’s some beautiful shit, right there, if you can get it right.

I feel worthless at my job

Conclusion: I’m not perfect

Yeah, guess what. There are whole degrees for this shit and you came in cold. Let’s be honest—whatever you learned in the last job didn’t prepare you for this. Be nice to yourself. You’re a beginning Italian language student and tested into advanced. Navigate from there.

My sister is in constant pain

Conclusion: I can’t fix her
God isn’t even God sometimes. Those with all the power in the universe can’t control the universe, and I can’t blame myself for being one of the powerless ones. She doesn’t expect me to fix her, so why do I feel so suffocated by the pressure to do so?

I want to exercise but don’t 

Conclusion: I am neglectful

And the fixation of being thin and beautiful slips through another of these ten chubby fingers and courses through another of these endless and infinite fucking days.