send in the clowns

today i bought fat jeans at value village; winnipeg's vintage clothing boutique for the economically challenged.

that wasn't even the worst part. the worst part was that kevin thought these 31/30's to be uberchic and slipped them on like a glove. nothing like your husband modeling your fat clothes to boost your self esteem.

it's not even the number which has skyrocketed from my crackhead scrawn of 95 lbs. up to my last weigh in of 125 lbs. now, i must easily be pushing be 130 lbs, by the end of the day. the vast majority of gain is cyclosporine bloat, tight, constricted bulk; tissue swelling sponge like, then heavy ho it sinks, and i am super sized hen.

and i look ridiculous. in clown pants that fit nowhere proper, the choppy bob of regret and a face sprawled so wide, i've not a line in sight.

i am puffy, distended and miserable, and i've got a head full of wild, weedy thoughts that need tending.

["power through, until one year true...power through, we will reduce..."]

so i went to a meeting.

and i went to see my in-laws.

and now something else is swollen...

not my ego, no longer concerned with misguided attempts at identity...

not my brain, which is still flooded, but not swamped, with dangerous thoughts...

not my emotions, which although wildly rampant, have run their course for tonight...

...but, my heart....

a heart swollen with gratitude to those whose stories i listened to tonight...

and to those two who listened to mine...

[clown pants, be damned]

[i love you, c and l...]

goalie girl

two days in a row without meetings has left me with nubs for nails...

and my cyclosporine swelling is so painful that i'm officially shopping for men's jeans tomorrow at value village.

home turf is 2100 miles away, but my home is still undeclared.

and my own skin weighs as heavy and tight, as an aced up, laced up, strapped on, million dollar uniform.

tonight we caught a hockey game (a.k.a. "the game") between the winnipeg jets and the l.a. kings. winnipeg as a city, has been abnormally obsessed with acquiring an NHL hockey team again, after a 15 year absence, even by canadian standards.

and canadian standards are HIGH.

canadians do not want to win hockey games. they need to win them.

i even played goalie in grades 4 and 5.

[can pucks flying at your head be an analogy for life unmanageable?]

even the most cosmopolitan, sophisticated, cultured (or those who like to think we are) canucks, can't help but feed off the infectious energy when that puck clicks and clacks between sticks. it is a quintessentially canadian experience, that crosses all ages, genders, races and sexual orientations. its power is stranger than fiction. in our cabin, in the sunny, california hills, i watched the gold medal, olympic match between the u.s. and canada, ALONE, and couldn't stop berating the 50 " screen...

["he shoots...he scooooorrrrrrrrreesss!!!!"]

it is mandatory in being canadian:

hockey night in canada.

father/daughter bonding ran deep over the toronto maple leafs in the early 70's. he was an eager subject to his adopted country's king sport, embracing all things hockey from ear splitting slapshots, to helmet-less, tooth-less brawls and the unusual, graceful maneuvering of the almighty zamboni. he was my mvp, and i was his, until don cherry's voice would hypnotize me to sleep, like a countdown, just before the end of the second period intermission.

too hard for the little red haired girl; so deeply worried about the growing collection of molson goldens stacked upon his office floor. too hard for her to keep awake; too alert to the possibility of offside.

and tonight was too hard. tonight was too soon.

two weeks out of rehab, and i'm squished beside a man nursing a beer all night long. (read: long)

[i actually wonder if there could have been MORE beer at the hockey game...sigh...]

i thought a lot about my dad tonight, and how much fun we had together watching games; cramped in his tiny, leathery-scented office and i wondered if he watched any sober.

i don't know if i had that much fun tonight, but i did do it sober.

and i think we would have bonded over that.

the 51 st state

20/20 is hindsight, but since i am far-sighted and have an astigmatism, i thankfully can't focus on "the road trip less travelled (that was too soon)"...

despite all the professional advice sought and mulled thick, like hot rum punch, i chose to store those batches away, locked deep in an underground, darkened cellar somewhere back in west hollywood...

of course, i knew best. i was ready for the world; emerging from a pretty, pink rehabilitated bubble of a sticky, sweet mess...

but my world was never pretty in pink; rather wretched, rotten black tar muck. and i was not ready to trudge through this sludge alone. so, through unstructured days, i inch ever deeper into a quicksand of fear, emerging a slathered mess. addiction once missiled my life into a billion little pieces of sand, and now i hike those dunes, through tearing winds and gritty, slitted eyes; moving towards an oasis of my own creation where i can rehydrate, refresh, renew...

but, no regrets. i am here now.

and to spend the day with my niece and nephew, despite brief flickers of agony throughout the day, is always worth the price of admission to winterpeg. but these children are smart, so smart, so i will never lie to them about my addictions. if only to vicariously redo the anarchistic vibe of my own early childhood.

we had donuts at tim horton's. then cruised the hippest mall in town (so "polo"). we caught "we bought a zoo" in the most fabulous theatre in winnipeg. we did food courtside, loud and silly, and kevin didn't know us. then j. giggled over a male mannequin packing a something something, and t. dared her ten to sneak a peek. two guesses what i did instead...and we all laughed and laughed and laughed...

and although my laughter was true, strong, free, it still coated only a thin veneer over a pain so confusing, so omnipresent, it often twitches my feet to fly; fly like an eagle, fly long distances from this uncharted state inside.

but this wilderness must be claimed, charted, cultivated and flourish again. i must clear many, many miles, walk many, many steps; but for now, just twelve...

right now i am in canada. in winnipeg. with my family.

i am with people who will never understand, but, we all have love...

but, when i go to aa, i am home. with my peeps. where they will always understand...

in this new state of mine...

grace and will

what do you do when a stranger snowsuits into an aa meeting, disrupting the silence; assaulting the senses?

it was not his faux pas, ivory, unicolored winter wear. not the sheeting, rubbing rhythm as he dragged up the chair beside me. not the musky air of recent drag i coughed out, pulled in with the bitter cold. nor was it the casual toss of his "bud" black cap upon the unfolded table strong.

[will.]

what do you do when your nostrils suck and toss you flat onto a tarmac lined with 15 waiting airplanes; gaseous vapors poisoning your blood, your brain, your heart? suddenly you are flying high on second hand fumes; literally scorching the hairs on your throat, branding an image of a crimson thick goblet in your hand...

you move your chair away with an unsubtle screech across the floor...

you avoid all eye contact with this skunky drunk, this weak link, this 12-step misstep...

and you judge the ruckus that follows him constant: from smoke break, to pee break, to java hit...

and then you hear him speak. about losing his best friend to suicide at age 33 the day before. and you know that most "normies" would probably have a drink if something like that happened to them. you know you would if you could...

it's just that we can't. ever.

but he did. and so what.

because couched deep in his ruddy, raw face, were eyes shining, vodka glistening, but shadowed, dyed black from pain...

he is human. and he came back.

and when i reached my arms up and around to hold him briefly, that familiar whiff of delicious insanity weakened my knees. just for a moment.

[grace.]

for tomorrow that could be me.

never a bride...

tonight we watched, arguably, the funniest movie of 2011.

"bridesmaids".

i 'd already seen it twice before, but like a diamond in the rough, this sleeper gleams the more it's polished...

except tonight it cut right like a knife...

[and it didn't feel so right...]

a story of a woman's perceived life denouement unfolds upon the screen. her business goes under, her boyfriend dumps her, she lives in a shit apartment with two "personality challenged brits", she's broke as a joke, her fuck buddy's a douche and her newly engaged bff has acquired not only a higher socioeconomic status, but a prettier, richer bff...

her coping skills are pretty miserable. she is self-piteous, defiant, self-centered and judgemental. and it's only after her hissing hurricane meltdown, worthy of the most self-indulgent addict, that she can finally meet her calm.

in helping find her cold-footed bride, she is finally of service, of the heart, not of the self.

but tonight, "bridesmaids" was astounding, not so much for melissa mccarthy's brilliant performance, but for the casual glamorization of drugs and alcohol.

i physically looked away from the champagne toasting scene. stroked maggie's faux, suede ear while they guzzled sangria in the brazilian restaurant. and cringed when someone offered up a xanax as a calming, coping mechanism.

probably the comedic apex of the film is on the airplane with character vignettes flowing as freely as the booze. two female acquaintances can only open themselves up to each other after consuming alcohol; can only explore sexually after becoming drunk. and the lead, annie, is coerced into popping a couple of pills and gulping a scotch to "calm down" and ends up nearly bringing down the house (plane) with her antics.

[funny, no-one was laughing in my house when i acted like that.]

i think the hardest part to watch this time around were the peculiar jabs at aa. the mother who speaks at aa even though she isn't an alcoholic. i found that more offensive than any glamorization of using. this program has helped millions of people rise from spiritual bankruptcy to overabundant serenity and service. i cringed when this gift was minimized into a joke about a great artichoke dip.

[comedy= time + tragedy]

look, i enjoy a good laugh, hell, i need a good laugh; probably more than the next person...and i pray there is a day when i can laugh about being so drunk that i called someone "stove" instead" of "steve".

[but too soon? definitely.]

to see this film through sober eyes scared me.

alcohol is everywhere. and so are addicts.

but so is recovery.

so maybe one day i won't always be just a bridesmaid...

[stressing, messing (up) and second guessing...]

maybe i'll be the bride.

christmas presence

i went to an aa meeting in the middle of christmas dinner.

running down the clock within a bermuda triangle of sorts in the mcintyre homestead; simply frantic not to be sucked into a surreal oblivion...

pace the upstairs hallway. call sponsor in back room. go downstairs. fall on knees in bathroom. pray. sob. go back upstairs. repeat.

counting the minutes in my head until i could get to a meeting. don't imagine the open bottle of wine, coating your willing throat, burning, flushing, warmth, peace....

[spring out of your head, girl, dive into your heart...]

the meeting was across town in an area called st. vital.

and in this wee corner of winnipeg i received exactly that. vitality. and the christmas spirit.

not a $10 bonus card from target with every $75 spent!...
not 50% off all sales this boxing day...
and not a single item that was passed to me from under the christmas tree...

with my sister-in-love's hand clutched in mine, we sat at a meeting with 2 other committed members. at first, the speaker, d, began to ramble about the many jobs he'd held and let slip throughout his life due to the drink, his annoyance over the fortune oozing from his son's pores, and a mild flirt with membership back in 1966 that lasted a month...

old henriette to new henriette, "how the hell is this supposed to help me?"

[typical selfish, self-absorbed addict...]

and then it hit.

[my godshot...]

he is dying of terminal cancer. he is clearly in his 70's and his wife kicked him out a couple of years ago.

he has every reason in the world to drink, "to get on with it", was his heartfelt cry. but he now knows himself to be a better person without it. and he would rather die a sober man, a good man, than a drunken one.

and if he can surrender to sobreity for six years while facing cancer, i can surrender to my sobreity while facing these painful, uncertain renal times.

it's not the fight of willpower, but the surrender to serenity.

best. christmas. present. ever.

the sound of music

there was a show i used to watch with my bestie roommate, j, back when i was running around town makeup-less, gloved h to t in angst black, and quoting moliere and pinter whenever my pretension struck. as a theatre school student truly studying the craft, the television show "sisters" was like spray cheese on ritz crackers. pure crap, but oddly satisfying. at least for the hour it was on.

most of the show's arc is thankfully banked away in my long term memory vault. but tonight, i withdraw one particularly poignant episode.

teddy, (played by the luminous sela ward), is the free-spirited, artist/drifter, who is also an alcoholic. in a beautiful monologue, she unravels her tale of a flirtatious dance with suicide. her depression has paralyzed her. societies evaluations weigh down on her like the rocks virginia woolf pocketed as she walked downstream. and her thoughts have vaporized, melted away, as if inside sylvia plath's oven. but she sits down in front of the tv, intending to drink herself paranormal, when a marx brothers movie starts to unspool. and she smiles. just a little. and then a second film begins rolling, and she emits a single indiscernible laugh...

and she thinks. if i held this one tiny moment of joy today. maybe i can hold two tiny moments tomorrow...

i can't drive by a canadian drug store without thinking, "codeine"...

i am so painfully swollen i can only fit into pajamas...

and i won't anchor my husband as i descend ever deeper into the dank, cold abyss...

kick, kick, keep kicking through leaden churn,
grind salt water from your eyes, look upwards firm.
surface hope; translucent, sheer oasis,
gasp, no. like daddy, too far.
two diseases.
too far.

so i sit. analysis paralysis. and turn on the television. and it's "the sound of music". i.e. my marx brothers sweet spot...

still waiting for a smile.

fly away where?

'tis most appropriate that winnipeg is pegged (no pun intended) as the geographical centre of north america; for i spent most of today's conscious moments as if i were wandering middle earth. in so much emotional pain, i literally had trouble willing my jaw plate to scissor and speak.

like a hobbit, i am a small person with large (perhaps, not as hairy) feet...

[my kidney disease stunting my full, potential growth of 5'9'']

...and so these flesh boots trip me up on figurative, reactive land mines all day long.

keeled over by the weight of a 20 lb. sack of one singular realization: nothing around me is making sense! families wrapping presents, statistical hockey banter and how balmy the minus 5 (23 degrees fahrenheit) weather has been this winnipeg holiday season...and this didn't make sense to a canadian addict!...

but i have half an hour left, and guess what...

even though i hibernated deep, chattering, like the black, torontonian squirrel for most of the day...

even though i wanted to chug like fire, ablaze, something as liquid gold and sticky sweet as canadian-grade maple syrup...

and even though i desperately wanted to fly south, floating on wings of desire, denying this isn't my life...

[fly away home? but home is inside. and i can't find it.]

i didn't.

and my emotions, against all odds, didn't kill me...

just for today.

what's old is new again...

now i understand why there should be no be changes, no seismic shifts for the unsteady foal wobbling it's way into active recovery after a handful of sober days...

i barely trotted home from rehab for 4 days before we galloped onto the american freeway system; full steam ahead for mandatory christmas fun!

depite the harmoniousness wonder our claustrophobic tin can on wheels came to be, it was the swimming with sharks desperation rising within this foal, that would trigger a feral, unbridled canter across most of the country...

getting to meetings in nevada, utah, manitoba...calling my sponsor...trying to read from the big book every night...praying...meditating...all the tools i've been trained in, but was inconsistent in implementing over the last few days...

so now i am feeling the earth split and widen. it shakes and i tremble, looking ahead to a week of family traditions now all completely foreign to me. hell, brushing my teeth is foreign to me. but living in fear sets you up to spiral down the drain. and i've already been sucked into that vortex of destruction. and the spinning obsessions and compulsive perversions you funnel through down onto dank rot bottom, are no place for a new born.

for today i am 70 days old.

and everything terrifies me.

and i feel like a complete dependent.

so, i begin simply. and surrender my fear. with a smile.

[even though at that age, it's quite possible it's only gas...]

the peace garden state

today we logged 530 miles in 10 and a half hours on the road.

in stopping every 18 minutes to stream urine, my ass couched on more rest stop toilet seats than in the suv bucket seat...

"the kid" is alive and well and peeing in north dakota...

[and for the record, north dakota is b-o-r-i-n-g.]

we were supposed to park it in dickinson, n.d., where i could hit up an 8 pm aa meeting; but every hotel room was booked, save "the jacuzzi suite" at "the comfort inn". ah, as much as i am enjoying rekindling the romance with uberhubby, i couldn't imagine finding comfort in any tub they might offer...

there are just some motels that scream "enter room at own risk: beware the bodily fluids that flowed before ye..."

according to the blond with black roots manning the la quinta desk here in bismarck, she won't even get out of her car in dickison. it's that nasty. apparently "dere's oil up in dem der parts" and lots of temporary workers clog up the hotels...and appartently the jacuzzis...

i had a moment today, couching ass, at a flying j gas center.

[sure. go ahead. insert toilet humor here.]

i hadn't eaten much and my stomach and intestines were running on empty. anticipation hammered my insides, rattling the floorboards of my sober foundation. a handful of pills would jolt and smoothly cruise unattended throughout my bloodstream without the interference of food, sky rocketing me past afternoon, into evening delight.

[or in other words, god, a bunch of percocet would feel awesome right now...]

"do you really think that way?" he sighed.

"every day" she sighed back.

"tell me if you don't want to hear all the sordid stuff", she warned.

"of course i do, sweetheart", he assured.

but today, maggie met a friend name "boots", in billings, montana...

and tonight, i am shaking in mine...

for despite best laid plans, i couldn't make a meeting...

but uberhubby and i have only had one tiff, that lasted maybe half an hour, that we've already laughed about with a friend. one tiff in 8 days.

[it's a fucking miracle.]

and when i called my sponsor tonight, she called me a light. a wonderful, willing light.

and if i'm a wonderful willing light, then together, k and i are a set of wonderful, willing headlights...

...somewhere in north dakota...

dealbreaker

i almost ruined my marriage.

not because of the pill-popping, doctor shopping, pharmacist manipulator i came to be...

not because of the desperate housewife, bottle hamper-hiding, mouthwash, swish 'n gulping, cliche i came to be...

not because of the double overdosing, highly suspicious transplant rejecting, cedar-sinai frequent flier patient i came to be...

not because i shuffled in pajama pants frayed bare, with a barely there, zombie stare, and attitude of: "what from rehab should i care?"

no, no. no, no.

because i asked my husband to buy my tampons in bozeman, montana tonight.

i don't think he could've squirmed more if he'd heard they now make burgers at mcdonalds with fresh human feces patties (insert "mcdonalds is crap food" joke here)

i don't think he could've stalled more to find his wallet. glove compartment. nope. cup holders. nope..."um, i think i may have left my wallet back in vegas?" nope.

aunt flo is a very late arrival. appearing by proxy through aunt dot at the end of october for approximately 23 seconds, aunt flo is now 9 months overdue; resulting in overbearing generosity, if you catch my drift, (and i realize all you of the vaginal persuasion will). true, it's somewhat relieving to be ranked within the female gender again, but the timing couldn't be sloppier. and that was exactly why i couldn't get out of the car....yikes!

talk about your festive red...

[at least i wasn't wearing white fat pants.]

negotiating an extreme weight fluctuation of 30 lbs, has been rough on this tiny frame. first, in my prograf (the nasty immunosuppressive) summer months i bottomed out at a terrifying 95 lbs. next, off pain meds. third, doubling cyclosporine from 100 mg twice a day to 200 twice a day. and finally, taking neurotin as a detox med. that crazy cocktail catapulted me to a straining 125 lb....

i no longer tell lies.

so i will admit i feel miserable.

i have never been this swollen from face to feet...
the swelling is very painful, and it's difficult to negotiate...
but in two months dr. peng will reduce my cyclosporine a bit...
and in another two months she will reduce it a bit more...

on my one year anniversary. in april. it's december. sigh.

but i will no longer live for the future.

it may never come.

[you are exactly where you are supposed to be...]

so i will live in the bloody, messy, swollen, painful, medicated now...crimson tide...virgin style...

because kevin joked that picking up tampons is almost a deal breaker.

and if that's his deal breaker, my now is signed in ink.

strip mall serenity

my husband has often spouted a liquid gold observation regarding las vegas:

it's the only city in the world where both the offensively-stinky, private jet plane, flying-to-the-supermarket-clientele, can rub shoulders with society's pigeonholed down 'n out; plucked, primed and ready for roasting...

splatter me in the gun spray of triggering vegas thoughts; the cunning, compulsive slither over to the darker side. slather me in the dark mud of excess; caked on 'til thick and hard and cracked when i sink from the weight of it all...

drinking, drugging, gambling, fucking, shopping. moderation never does caress vegas' hot desert sands, but rather, compulsion. once the obssession is stirred lightly as with a cocktail stick; your tab is full and all roads out of sin city are shadowed over by the darkness within.

black thoughts carry you full speed within the cabin of an 18-wheeler, into the blackest soul science will ever discover; except it comets violently down from the milky way and crashes into you.

words, deeds and actions lived everyday by the lost, the sick, the terrified.

by me.

but today i found vegas' heart.

on a stunning, pollyanna morn, i entered a strip mall storefront entitled "serenity club" and found where the darkness parts.

where newcomers petrified of the seasonal alcohol blitzkrieg can find reprieve.

where i flirted with a dice dealer with 27 years sobriety, because he endeared me with the term "flea bag hotel".

and where i made a gentleman smile across the chasm of chairs, simply because i was from toronto, too.

our hearts will never be filled with that which we inhale, ingest or suck down with swirly straws...

but, they will be filled knowing that we are all the same: flawed humans, no matter where we roll the dice...

vegas, maybe?

"hi, vegas: welcome to not so fabulous, henriette".

or "four days out of rehab and i'm sleeping in sin city".

[a.k.a. i literally can't believe my life]

my one condition for doing the l.a.-winnipeg christmas slog was that i MUST hit a meeting every day.

and hit it hard.

then came vegas...

and as the strip's midway glare hijacked all thoughts of serenity, like a twirling rolodex, my brain rocketed frenetic through vegas adventures past.

"there's the killers's concert you went to at hard rock...", exclaimed, k.

yup. the one where i got so drunk, i peed down the back of my jeans in the port-o-potty. classy.

"south point!", kevin exclaimed, joyously.

the hotel where i shoved so many fiorinol into my glassy-eyed face, as i black-kohl-ed away from my loathed reflection. dressing up my zombie eyes with glitter and powder and catatonia in cerulean blue. orbited so sky high, that husband could spot his loaded lady away and far across a loud, drunken, crowded casino.

"we should stay at the four seasons again", dreams my excited, beautiful man.

the scene of my official spiral into the unofficial drink of siberia. frozen fingertips, clutching my icy salve; sporting my cossack with pride as the word "da", like a thawing icicle, never ceases to drip from my freezing tongue. bloodymarys poolside. martinis for lunch. and don't ever stop the vodka sodas with extra lime. it was the trip where i unequivocally drank my husband under the table...under the table, across the room, out the door, down the private elevator and lying face first in a gutter on las vegas blvd...

not as glamorous as nic cage made it seem in "leaving las vegas"...

and he ended up dead.

but as we curved a quiet back street on the way to maggie's first hotel sleep, he made one more observation,

"motel 6! you went running here one morning. i was so worried about you."

i laughed, "you are always worried about me".

and of all the hundreds of runs in my life, i remembered circulating my playlist over to ABBA that morning. and i was busting. busting like an ol' skool pop, chompin' on a cigar, skipping, handing out stogies to a hundred of his closest friends.

unbridled joy.

i've had that. fuck, it. i've had that in vegas. so i said,

"well, that's one good vegas memory".

what happens in vegas, definitely stays in vegas...

panic button

i'm too tired to understand why i deflate into tears 5 times a day...

and i'm too tired to be miserable about having to hack off the red mop today...

i'm too tired to try on any more of my clothes, as absolutely none of them can be hiked, snapped or zipped...

so i'm too tired to circle down the drain of self-pity, re: my 20 lb. cyclosporine weight gain...

i'm too tired to contemplate the gorgeous serenity i feel from my aa friend, t...

because i'm too tired to acknowledge the nauseating anxiety that squats low in my chest...and spreads...

and i'm just too flattened to recall a single name from the onslaught of welcoming women i met...

because i am just too tired to deal with being an addict any longer today.

[thank god it's already tomorrow...]

blogless 4: waiting for god(ot)

"nothing to be done"...

so proclaims estragon to his partner vladimir, as he struggles to affix a boot to his foot. stuck in an absurdist hell; the pair never get any further, figuratively or literally, than the edge of the stage.

[are they doomed never to grasp the inherent meaning of life, by parking butt and playing silly ego games?]

so anchored deep by existentialism, that they consider suicide by the end of the play, until estragon's belt snaps, halting all action:

[ah...coincidence or a higher power?]

for beckett primarily rejects the idea that estragon and vladimir were waiting for god, as the french word for god is "dieu". rather, they were stuck in the paralyzing mud that hardens over the reality and significance of human freedom and experience.

[wahhhhh...can't someone else do it for me???]

so we must create value and honor life by affirming it. living it. but mostly, doing it.

"let's go."

"yes, let's go."

(they do not move)

the end.

they used a million excuses to ride the wave of co-dependency one more day: a boot that doesn't "fit", a belt that "breaks"...

time for estragon to get his butt off that rock and pull himself and vladimir off to a meeting.

and who knew a multi-media, billion-dollar corporation would nail the most evolved slogan of them all.

"just do it".

[even if all you want to do is forever plant on a rock, snap your neck with a belt and trip up the next person who comes by with your singular boot...]

and the award goes to...

sobriety is exhausting.

i could comfortably surrender to all of mr. sandman's fetishes and desires, here and now, and slip away for a week of a thousand zzz's.

it has been 32 hours since i left rehab, and in true OCD style, i have notched every emotion on that belt slung low, dangerously so, upon my hips.

but i've got this much.

driving home in rush hour, painful, frustrating swelling, challenging the highest watermarked moments of PMS for irritability; i craved nothing more than arrival home, hermitic status up in our cabin in the hills, so i could unzip, crawl out of my skin and cry a tear or flood of self-pity.

ah, but it was the guy beside me. that's right, the chap who i stole pills from. the guy who became ensnared in a sticky web of poisonous secrets. the guy who was held hostage by a proverbial time bomb, and a literal nightmare built for two.

"you said you wanted to do 90 in 90, so let's find one".

and with the flip of his iphone, (wait. i'm the dinosaur with the flipphone.) he found a meeting. and joined me. and saw me take a 60 day chip.

i got an enormous hug from the speaker, t, who congratulated me with genuine serenity, encouragement and fabulous, twinkling, west hollywood eyes...

then i glanced over at the wonder that is my husband. embracing not only a wife, but a world that must seem as foreign as well, his wife...

finally, i looked down at my kelly green, 60-day chip, luminescent gold lettering, and sighed for everything it represents.

these are the kind of awards that matter.

and only these.

home bittersweet home

dodgy, wintery sky. long, palm shadows. and diarrhea 8 times before high noon.

[at first i thought i was dying, and then i remembered inhaling an endive /beet (stress: beet) salad the other night...]

as i ran around "klean" gathering the last of my possessions, i felt ready to snap; shaking, stretched long and thin like an elastic band.

arriving home, i stood on the edge of our view; of something, uncertain what to do first.

and so i grabbed my OCD by my blueballed lists and ripped and ripped and ripped...conservatively 64 down, no more to go...

["no more lists, henny dearest...now what?"...]

unchartered anxiety; unhinged compass, arrow haywiring due nowhere...

ah, first came the hug, then comes the marriage, and so off we went...

...to a meeting...together. to the gym...together. talking...together. being together.

and still, a teeny, tiny, GIGANTIC, welcome home gift..."your immunosuppressives have been reduced another 25 mg. a day. your creatinine is 1.1".

[apparently the 20 lbs. of swelling i've accumulated in under 5 weeks finally convinced the tx. team of my legitimate, painful side effects..."4 more months until your 1st anniversary; then we can reduce them to less than half"...]

is juicy couture still in or is it sean john now? 'cause i need me some temporary FAT SWEATS. STAT!

any brief happy here today, is now slip sliding away into surrealism...

[call sponsor! go! contrary action! go! live in the moment! go! get numbers at meeting! go! go to the gym! go! blog! read from the big book! go!]

done. still shaking like a maple leaf...

but the toilet seems safe for now...

the night before exit

are there any accidents in life?

it's easy to justify these events when the outcome is positive or much to our liking, but what about those events that leave us endlessly scratching our noggins (as my daddy would have said...).

today, december the 13th, 1978, my daddy died officially of pneumonia. but truly, he died from complications of alcoholism, drug addiction and type 1 diabetes. he was a gp, who still made house calls. he left behind a beautiful, self-sufficient wife, two healthy children of barely 10 and 8, and a pack of family, friends and patients whom adored him...

two weeks later, my mother, brother and i, and "friend, p.", were faking our way through a christmas eve of misstepping sugar plum fairies and a charlie brown christmas tree shedding all it's pines in shock. even the picturesque fire sparked with discontent. it should be prefaced that i sucked my thumb right up until i was 10. i can now self-diagnose this as self-soothing behavior, during a childhood jam packed with trauma and chaos. in addition to the thumb sucking, i had wee straps tied together in lieu of a security blanket that i took with me everywhere.

on christmas eve, 1978, a mere 11 days after daddy had died, the little red haired girl had an epiphanous moment. before kidney disease. before transplant. before acting. before marriage. before los angeles. before addiction crumbled her to her knees. she knew those little strands were a compulsion; she was obsessed by them, and she had to break the habit. so with a broad, confident flick of the wrist, she released those strands forward and into melting incineration.

how could such a little girl already straddle the empowerment to conquer addictive behavior after such a fresh, soul-stripping loss?

i have very few items of my daddy's. but the one i treasure the most is his final address book. it is a perfect green. a tad warmer than olive, and the covers are leather. i have kept it safely tucked away in my chest, my heart, for so many years, that it still smells from leather...and beer...and daddy, whenever i open it. and whenever i look at those pages, a smile inevitably infects my face with a tingly, nostalgic flush. for in every corner of every page are...names, notes, asterisks, scribbles, amendments...entered. exactly. like. mine. (sigh...) but, it's what's on the very first page that i hold in my heart tonight...

for under "a" he had written a phone number for alcoholism. and he had put it in quotations...

"alcoholism"...

["you knew, daddy. i know you knew. and you tried. as best as you knew how. and i know. i know how incredibly hard it is to live with 2 chronic, progressive illnesses "...]

so tomorrow, i channel that 10 year-old little red haired girl again. the one who had the fortitude to emerge through emotionally paralyzing chaos; break her unhealthy way of coping and change her behavior.

now i look from you, oh, "anne of green geoffrey st."; you who loved to write and then morphed it into a demented, stunted version of itself...lists, lists and more lists...your fiery ceremony is fast approaching, for you cement me in unhealthy stasis...far away from province "zen", city of "at one", and home of "a thousand yoga breaths". you paralyze me in a cycle of control and procrastination; and snip short creativity and trust.

so tonight, i surrender. to everything i learned here. and every moment i am not fully present in.

for i am not in control. i have never been in control. and i will never be in control.

[thank god...]

this afternoon, i signed my discharge/after care plan. it reads on paper like i'm "one hot mess":

-vocational and educational achievements: client is unemployed and currently not in school.

-employment status: unemployed.

-stresses: marital strife, anger, anxiety, depression, family of origin issues/relational strain with mother and brother.

-participant's exit plan: client will attend 12-step meetings. and work the steps with her sponsor. she will also engage in individual psychotherapy as well as couples therapy.

["and...scene"...]

but as i placed pen to paper to ink this state of affairs, i glanced at the date.

december 13th.

the day my daddy died.

i am being discharged into recovery on the day my father died from addiction.

there are no accidents...

blogless 3: living vicariously through your dog

i leave rehab in approximately 40 hours...

i am excited, so if i had a tail, i would wag it. instead, i drink a lot of coffee...

i am skittish, so my ears hang low and my body flinches, (and quite frankly, sometimes i pee a little in my pants)...

i am meditating now, so i often stare for hours at a rock, and then attempt to eat it...

i do yoga, so of course my favorite pose is downward dog, as it shows off my best ass(et)...

i have many, new friends in rehab and we like to greet each other by sniffing, because our sweats are dirty, stained, worn out and can be smelled from the moon...

i am experiencing intense emotions that have been suppressed for years, such as: "oh, my, god, you're home?" to "oh, my, god, you're leaving?" back to "oh, my, god, you're home?"...

i now like to run up to people at aa meetings, squealing and barking with enthusiasm about our common trek through recovery (almost as good as a walk in the park)...

being in the moment, with no expectations, is the only way i can survive this....the way maggie stops at a tree, hoping it will smell like pee, but feeling free to move on if it doesn't...

and i am so nervous about my new life that i took not one, but two crater-shaped shits in the living room today...

[actually, that one was maggie, not me...but i followed suit soon after.]

ah, there's nothing like a big ol', satisfying dump to help you be at one with your god...

and nothing like a dog to help you find it...

the seven deadly sins of christmas

LUST: so hot for each other, they can't even untangle the lights: annoying and unproductive...

GLUTTONY: not only is it addicting, but unrefined flour and sugar turned immediately into fat when not burned off...also, incredibly bad for the immune system...

ENVY: fruity, flush-hot rush, from the tip of my bright red nose to the tippy-tops of my frozen toes...need i say more?

ANGER: who hasn't been rear ended by a mad mom in a minivan on christmas eve? or been trampled by a feral pack of divorced dads grabbing for those last minute gifts off the bare shelves?...

GREED: "WAH...but brianna's getting an "IPHONE 4"..."kid, in my day we got nuts in our stockings, and we liked it!"...

PRIDE: goeth before the fall, man...so this is christmas?

SLOTH: you think i need to work on my spiritual deficiencies...hmmmm...?

go ahead...call me one of these...i've been called worse...

but amongst the commercialism and the chaos and the clutter i will not be, until all is calm...

until all is bright...

until silent night...

hot cross beams

the more you open yourself up to the universe, the more it catches you off guard...

but it starts to feel less like a moby dick nightmare, and more like accidentally tonguing your dog...

i have been wearing my nannie's crucifix since i arrived at klean. the second step of the 12 is the acknowledgement of a higher power that can restore us to sanity. it could be the glass on the table in front of you. it has NOTHING to do with religion, but spirituality. it is even referenced in the program as "a god of your understanding". and, quite frankly, i didn't understand what mine was for a long time. hence, my cemented pillar stance in step two for the last 60 days.

["we admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable"]

that one i got right away...

i wear the crucifix because my husband's nannie was a gambler, and from the day i met her, she was successful in recovery until the day she died...and that inspires me.
i wear k's chain because my sister-in-love, k., is always of service to others...and that inspires me.
and i wear "catholicism" because it connects me to my daddy; and israeli family...where daddy's sister lives; because t's, y's, ubercousin k's, and j's support has inspired me...

...this, my family...

and on the heels of my departure, i received the most loving, serene and encouraging of cybermessages, from a tiny state in the middle east, whose writer has suffered the same profound loss as i:

my daddy.

and in her gift she shared additional precious memories, gifts i'm still eagerly unwrapping almost 33 years to the day after his death...ah, so he was bossy, like me?...ah, he was generous, like me?...yes, daddy, we are hardwired, head to heart, with diseases aplenty...but the greatest gift she left me with was "to take these heavy pieces", and put them in my already straining pack...and..."tread softly"...

"know reality is the stuff from which dreams are made"...

so on wednesday morning, i will swing heavy that bulging, figuative pack over my shoulder, as i walk through the gates of klean into a sober life. my back will be strained from the weight of a past i will always carry, and my gut will be churning with a healthy respect for my disease. my hand will be clenching medications that stall this immune system, swell up this broken doll, yet restart this junkyard heap...

i will be nervously rubbing my crucifix, and it will reflect the warm, morning rays of the california sun...

yes, my face will be tilted upwards, where i can be one with "my" god, one with my daddy's legacy and one with me, myself and i.

and then, the work will begin.

[i love you, t...]

adventures in (sub)urbia

this morning she could NOT get this body to move. it was in a deeply committed relationship with the curl of her hound's back, and she didn't want to relinquish it...

[seriously. how DO you parents do it?]

but, hoodie up, snoopy pj's dragging, she danced the sleepy, rehab shuffle over to the common area, only to be informed,

"you are getting a roommate"...

"WHAT!" (and that was not her inner voice)

[not so sleepy anymore, eh?]

she started to panic at the idea of sharing her tiny bedroom with the unknown detoxer. a glassy eyed, incoherent, panicked mess of an addict. most likely selfish, self-absorbed and liable to be a gigantic pain in her ass...

[hmmm....remind you of anyone, girl?]

the morning prayer of acceptance held a mirror up to her irrational behavior and her internal thinking flip-switched over from reactive to responsive; her heart, seized skintight short, mellowed like creamy butter on hot morning toast, and opened wide and far to a new adventure...

and so, with demure humility, she apologized to two techs, returning their heads she had aggressively ripped off with bared teeth and morning breath...

and with this humility, she was met with such genuine love and relentless teasing...that this one hit the tape first for quickest life lesson ever learned...

all before breakfast.

and when her roommate, m, arrived from washington, she was crying...like she had been...
she was disoriented and overwhelmed...like she had been...
she was detoxing off benzos...like she had been...
she has a great man that she stole pills from...like she had...
and she is now lying asleep, fetal, in our bedroom, tears in her eyes...like she had...

she didn't get to go to the gym today, but, b, the tech, took her to "smart and final"instead, to help with community groceries.

she got to organize the community kitchen.

she had an amazing yoga class, that sizzled all her chakra fuses out with a sigh; with a body that remembered strength and poses from 6 years ago...namaste, indeed.

they didn't make it to the na meeting, because the streets of los angeles proper are shut down due to a shooting spree at hollywood and vine this morning.

[...infamous glamour...infamous horror..."hooray for hollywood"...]

but they stopped on the way back, and witnessed some phenomenal graffiti done by s, (a client here for one year) on gower st.'s walls, between santa monica and melrose, right across from paramount studios. encouraged graffiti runs along these walls; sophisticated color combinations, subtle shading and textures upon fences and brick... and the shit. blew. her. mind.

true urban art. true adventure. true dat...

she made a date with her sponsor for next saturday. and she leaves in 5 days, on wednesday the 14th.

[she is terrified. she is excited. she wants to vomit all day long.]

but all she knows is that today she found happy. not all day. not most of the day....

but she found it.

somewhere in surrendering to today's adventures...

she found happy.

tampons and titillation

tonight i went to the quintessential west hollywood aa meeting.

and by quintessential, i mean a room full of fabulous, sculpted, tanned hombres, and a singular, stringy haired, swollen hen.

i always love being in a room full of men, even if i am sporting the rehab uniform...track wear covered in stains and iffy smelling armpits...but i was the last dot on this particular room's radar (read: gadar).

for my canucks up north, west hollywood in the city of angels, in "canada's ass", is the wellesley and charles of toronto.

['nuff said...]

the speaker was young, with a fairly typical recovery trajectory. in and out of rehab and the program until he planted both feet in the mud and stuck it through. what i loved so much about this meeting was his articulated vulnerability, and yet he spoke in front of 200 people and shook his demons out; like a dusty, old rug, watching them flutter down from a four story walk-up. unfortunately, he articulated very quietly, so when the heater kicked on (yes, we have heaters in los angeles), it vacuumed out any potential for sound, and a spiky-haired, leather-clad chap, leaned towards me and commiserated,

"i can see you can't hear a thing he's saying either..."

i rolled my eyes and nodded in agreement.

"i bet you if he was at a bar he wouldn't have a problem speaking up..."

[oh, no, he didn't...!]

such is the fellowship of aa that rocks my world...

as we were leaving, b, r, c. and i went over to the restroom area. c., 19 , is a heroin addict and ends every sentence colloquially with, "that's right" in a nasally thick, OC accent (think surfer dude)...not to be out done, i threw in a "true dat" the other day and nearly left r, 18, c, 19, and n, 22, convulsing in teary-eyed laughter at my uberuncoolness...but, i digress...c. popped out of the restroom, a thin sheath of anxiety on her framed face, and marched right up into my personal space.

"what's up? are you ok?", i asked, rubbing her arm.

"are you still, like, do you still do the period thing?"

[COME AGAIN...?]

"sorry, what?", i fumbled.

"like, are you too old? do you, like, still get your period?...um, like, do you have a tampon?"

[keep it together, henriette, keep it together, henriette, keep it together, henriette...]

"yeah, but i have tampons back at the center", i breathed slowly.

"oh, that's ok. i just stuck a whole bunch of toilet paper up my vag..."

["that's right..."]

who says youth is wasted on the young?

private practice

yesterday, i had private therapy, with n, at 3 pm...
then kevin and i had couples therapy, with n, at 4 pm...

[then i had a breakdown at pavilion's, and ran sobbing all the way back to rehab, where i finally found calm...damn, there's irony for you...]

then kevin spent half an hour with the group family therapist, r....
then all of the clients joined the 4 visiting family members for a one hour family session, with r....

[and then i cried myself to sleep]

today we had a morning group, post-processing the family therapy group...
then i had a private psychiatrist session with dr. c....

["...crawling up into his lap, arms clinging neck tight in a desperate embrace, while he sooths me with his own unique version of brahms' lullaby; my fantasy ends with the words, "you are now cured", as he gently rocks me to sleep..."]

followed by a phenomenal psychodrama session with "dr o.", in her probational visit...
capped by a candlelit aa meeting focused on sex and relationships...

...now for some reason, i am desperately jonesing for one enormous jacuzzi tub, overflowing with frothy, lavender bubbles, and a deliciously, soft cotton robe to envelop my exhausted frame, as i curl fetal on the bathroom floor...

rehab is the f*@king hardest thing i have ever done...

and sobreity is even harder....

[and now i will cry myself to sleep]

how to feel 100 years old...

tonight,

i.

just.

can't.

i can't talk about the family session that left us more lost than found...

i can't talk about my secret fantasy for heroin, and being pissed that we never hooked up...

i can't talk about tripping over a loose tomato, because i needed to run out of pavilion's so quickly; sensing the holiday liquor displays were going to tackle me to the ground, spread me four-fold and force-guzzle large quantities of absolut down my throat...

i can't talk about my heartbreaking disappointment that my immunosuppressants weren't lowered today...

and i can't talk about how tired i am, he is, we are...spent. broken. unhappy.

dictionary definition of EXHAUSTED: tired, drained, fatigued, weary, consumed, finished, depleted.

our definition: ADDICTION in MARRIAGE (a.k.a. how to feel 100 years old...)

migraine...take me away...

migraines wait for no-one...even in rehab...

but there's a curious gift that's unwrapped everytime i'm cloaked in pain.

the heavy, velvet cape sheathes a burden of discomfort, pure, crystalline agony; but it's weight grounds me in a moment to moment existence...

complete surrender.

i have surrendered, accepted, my kidney disease; the one that left me dependent on other people's organs to survive. if i can do that, surely i can accept this disease of thinking, compulsion, obsession. it is just as fatal as not taking care of "the kid"..."our kid"..."my kid"...

[c'mon...just one more drink...follow the yellow brick road...to "jails, institutions or death"...]

i hate...the insidious aura that takes me back to age 17. purple, grape juice sweet, bedroom. teenage dream knocked sideways. addict awakened as she gobbles 4 tylenol; terrified...what is this new pain?

i hate...the loss of yet another sunrise/sunset. bedridden flip flopping. spatula-ed restlessness. no-comfort zone.

i hate...the imitrex that creeps up on me with unfamiliar fingers, choking at my throat. swollen digits, puffy flesh, a body impatiently waiting at customer service without a receipt.

but, you, you monstrous, morphing creature, you unwittingly leave me with something...

i would rather have another transplant than have another migraine...

but you remind me hour by hour, minute by minute, second by agonizing second, that i don't have control...and that i have to...

let go and let migraine...

rock-ribbed

i love being a cliche. truly.

because you get the opportunity to laugh uproariously at your utterly unoriginal behavior, while bonding with others who have done exactly. the. same. thing.

for no matter how low we have sunk, we can send each other sky high with peals of laughter over our absurdisms. our insanities. our infantile gaga.

a friday night narcotics anonymous meeting in the heart of hollywood, california. not a louboutin, chardonnay or (douchey) ed hardy shirt in sight. but a klean chain-gang, harlem-shuffling in: juicy sweat pants and juicy sweaty pits.

[and we're off to the races...]


saturday unravelled into typical isolator behavior...scan facebook briefly. after barely stomaching the perfect lives visualized, snowball speedily into emotive breakdown. play current favorite song on repeat all afternoon, and sob so hard and deep for that which you must leave behind...

[all that you can't leave behind, right bono?]

when "the doves" knew i'd been "caught by the river" and drained, i went to a meeting.

"saturday night live". lights. hip-hop music. and 200 of the prettiest alcoholics this side of the valley. but the speaker, w, rocked this little red haired girl into calm. he spoke of a psychiatrist, dr. tiebolt, who was not an addict, but studied alcoholics in the 50's...defiance, grandiosity, omnipotence...qualities that prevent us from surrender...

words that attach to me, that i need to release. where are the words of quiet acceptance, so i can be free?

tonight, i saw my husband. briefly.

and he called me a tenacious woman. he doesn't often refer to me as woman, which was sexy enough...

but tenacious?

pretty f#*k-ing hot...

[i love words...even the word cliche...]

"TENACIOUS" -thesaurus: determined, strong-willed, dogged, unyielding, unswerving, rock-ribbed.

blogless 2: the resurrection of rumpelstiltskin

can't spin the gobs of hair i pulled from the shower drain...

can't spin the swollen tightness that threatens constant pain...

can't spin the fear of losing "the kid", bulging large up on my gut...

can't spin a future of ugly tests and ego-ed docs and crazy drugs...

can't spin the shame of addiction; non-acceptance, i don't believe...

can't spin the chaos in my mind, lost i wander, frantic frequency...

can't spin my past destruction, angered screams, blood cries of endless grief...

can't spin the heart i sliced, then gorged upon with selfish teeth...

can't spin that final pick up, pills crushed and gobbled up so addict quick...

can't spin that final drink, failing to savor thick that last drop...

can't spin my fractured heart, heavy albatross of self-esteem i drag...

can't spin my pulverized dreams, white powder swept away by night...

can't spin my terror of your world, clear mind, clear heart, clear fear...

and just can't spin the rehab. i'm in rehab. i'm in rehab? yes, my dear.

[where is rumpelstiltskin when you need him?]

led zeppelin and the little red haired girl

"will you be my mom?", whispered n....

...in her thick o.c.-esque, shaky, detoxing croak. still, it couldn't hide her achey, break-y heart.

driving with teenagers is never fun, unless you are one, and tonight was no exception. i was driving shotgun, of course, (being the unofficial "hot mama" at rehab does have it's privileges) and it was all i could do not to turn around and pull rank.

but, their springboard banter wasn't altogether unamusing, for it landed us upon the universal equalizer : music. as designated dj, i chose the one station we could all agree upon: 106.7 kroq...korn, coldplay, social distortion, the naked and famous, the killers, fatm, nin...

and as friday night lights flickered midway bright down the sunset strip, a notorious 70's war cry was supplanted with a slam dunk cover. as the plus 40's, b. and i turned to each other and smirked "led zeppelin", but it's trent reznor/karen o's feral, shrieking cover of "the immigrant song" that bonded us all tighter than crazy glue.

with sync, head banging across the generations, a stillness came thick; silent surrender.

los angeles. friday night. righteous, heart pumping, blood thickening music...

[release the hounds...]

notes stinging my skin, leaving it red, aching, raw; open wound craving salve. my mind flitting back and forth, like the lashes that dress my widened eyes. fluttering erratically like the burnt wings of a moth; clean. use. clean. use. my chest pumped out with rhythm, breath drawn short at the thought of never tasting that crumbly bitterness on my tongue again; never rolling the velvet liquid into thickness of tongue, heat of cheek, rush of flush...again.

"will you be all of our moms?", c. asked, and the timing near broke this funny valentine...

for although i could have given birth to all of them, 18, 19 and 22, it was our hardwired connection to which she was speaking, begging...and to which we all surrender...

[lay down my childhood template upon my forefathers, and you will click a perfect fit.]

we are trauma survivors; needy, obsessive compulsive, self-absorbed saplings, lost in the forest of learned behavior...immigrants to the clearing of sobreity...

[if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?]

beware her clear cutting fall..."immigrant" to it all...fear her wailing wall call...

robert plant ain't got nothin' on me...

on stand by

tonight i spoke for the first time at a meeting.

i had to.

it was an na meeting in east hollywood.

small room. big church. giant panic.

i had set this as a goal for myself today. you wouldn't think it would be hard for the self-professed bossy, dramatic, chatterbox of a little red haired girl. well, it's not when she's "on". but she's currently off, broken, less than zero...

but the woman before unraveled in shaky, vulnerable grief, her husband's current waltz with death as he succumbs to liver failure. he needs a liver transplant, and her daughter is a match to give him a part of hers. not a dry eye.

well, you could have nailed my arm to that church wall and it would have flown off, while proclaiming, "i'm henriette and i'm an addict".

i spoke of my rejection, renal failure, dialysis, addiction to pills, overdoses one and two, then told of the miracle that is "the kid". and told her, i have been alive for nearly 24 years because of other people's kidneys. and then in a final, quivering whisper, i gave gratitude for these meetings...

[calm down. no-one drank any kool-aid here...]

i felt utter magic in the hushed room at my attention, the bodies leaning forward, and the warm voices thanking me upon my shaky denouement.

whatever you believe, how can you not believe in a program of support, acceptance and respect.

fellowship.

"i am henriette, and i am an addict." and i am proud i shared.

with this support, i will share again and again, and i will flick that switch "on" again...

and no longer be on stand by...