For you

Its almost been a week since Anthony Bourdain committed suicide and this is the first day I’ve felt I can write about it.  I wept as I read the news Friday morning in disbelief.  He was much more than a celebrity chef to millions of people and trying to capture the essence of why has been kicking around in my head ever since.  I felt like I knew him, that’s why this was so difficult.  He was a role model, an inspiration, and a wordsmith.  He was able to spin the intangible things in this world into a unique, interesting point of view.  He was my hero and now I have to wrap my head around the fact that I will never again hear his take on anything happening in this crazy world around us and that hurts so deeply that its hard to put into words.  RIP, chef.  Your audacity, snark, and insatiable curiosity inspired and changed so many lives.

I drank.  I drank this weekend and every day since.  Maybe it was the fact that booze was romanticized by Bourdain so often and I bought into that as an excuse to indulge my demons.  Now I sit here writing in reflection of these last few days.  I’m not beating myself up, in fact I’m putting my armor back on and charging back into battle.  A strange culmination of things in my life has left me feeling naked and twisting in the wind.  I realize how tenuous our time on this planet is and that scares the shit out of me.  But how do I want to spend that time?  Not as a slave to booze as I have been for most of my adult life.  I relapsed and it sucked but it also provided me perspective.

I realize that there are two settings to me as a person.  Me as an alcoholic that barely lives day to day, letting my life happen to me passively.  Or me as a recovering alcoholic that has time and bandwidth to deal with life and make the changes I so desperately need.  That kind of thing requires courage.  To take control of your life and live the shit out of it takes courage.  Sometimes I lose faith that its going to be okay.  I lose courage and inevitably I drink.  But, those drinks and that lifestyle and I seem further and further apart every time I try to slip back into that old life.  Its like a pair of shoes two sizes too small, it doesn’t fit and its painful.  Somehow that realization is comforting.  It means in a seemingly hopeless situation, I have grown.

Some days I feel like I will never, ever be enough for myself or anyone else in my life but that is the whispering of a nasty little demon I have been dealing with for years and never knew until recently–anxiety.  Seeing a therapist and finding out that I suffer from this has been a game changer.  How could I fight this if I didn’t even know the size and cunning of my enemy?  I am taking steps in my life to treat this and deal with it.  That kind of shit also takes courage and it scares the fuck out of me.  To acknowledge and deal with mental illness takes self-love, compassion, and cojones.  I never want to get to the point where death is an option better than life itself.  Never, ever give up.

Bad days

It’s the doldrums of a Thursday afternoon at a work and I’m actively avoiding any real work by looking at random self-help articles/blogs.  One catches my eye:  “5 things to do for yourself if you’re having a hard day.”  Duh, 97% of us would click on that, right?  I clicked and the damn thing kept timing out and I finally gave up, but got to thinking…

My number one go-to after a real shit-turd of a day was always booze.  By the time I had slammed that 3rd gin & tonic, that magical relaxed feeling would course through my veins as I lit another cigarette and all of it felt so far away for a bit….until the next morning.  I had actively avoided any acceptance, problem solving, or coping for a night and now I have this added anxiety with a hangover on the side.  I operated like this for most of my adult life.  Actively avoiding pain or discomfort of any sort.  As you can imagine, my personal growth was severely stunted as a result.

So, what in the hell do I do now that I don’t get torched out of my mind after a bad day?  It’s a weird thing, when I was drinking it seemed like I had a lot more bad days.  I was never mindful of things as they were happening, I had no idea about the small anxieties and things that would seemingly out of nowhere ruin my day.  So, I guess the huge difference there is that now I am more mindful of things that creep into my psyche and affect my emotions.

Turns out, its extremely hard to be present in the moment when you’re fucked up or recovering from being fucked up 24/7.  You go into survival mode.  The “look I got out of bed today, what else do you want??” mode.  Being mindful is not easy.  I feel that I’ve only begun this journey but I can already see huge strides in my daily life from small efforts.  I meditate and I pay attention to my current emotional state constantly.

I also tell myself that I don’t have to be ‘happy’ all of the time.  To me, it seems that happiness is this thing we’re told we must have at all times if we are living life at it’s peak.  To me, it’s a high end of the emotional spectrum that’s hard to maintain but great to experience.  I aim for peaceful(ish) most days.

Yesterday, some aspects of my current job were bothering me and I knew it.  I got to comparing myself with others (DONT DO THIS).  That made me feel inadequate and so small.  True to old habits, I thought about a tall, cold beer and it was all I could do to go home.  Instead of beer, I got a sack of tacos, took my pants off as soon as I walked in the door, sat on the floor and ate those tacos.  Some days you do what you have to in order to replace that habitual shit-show behavior that’s so easy to indulge in.  The hard part is not judging yourself and being kind to you even though you feel like a failure (you’re not).  Its like a muscle–or at least this is what I tell myself–the more I do this, the more my mind recognizes that there are options when the going gets tough.

What to do when you’re having an awful day?  It seems like the ‘bad days’ are fewer and farther between now.  I feel better equipped to deal with life as it happens these days.  There are still shit-shows that happen…but the good thing is that I feel better equipped to deal with those too.  So, keep working that sober muscle…flex it.

Inner Peace

April is here and I can’t believe how quickly March came and went.  March is usually one of the longest months out of the year for me.  I’m usually impatiently awaiting Spring and March just seems to get in the way.  Not this year.

March brought about many interesting changes in my life.  My job has decided to let me travel much more than ever.  Lots more responsibility and visibility in the company and I couldn’t be more excited–except a job opportunity landed on my lap while I was traveling for work last week.  This job is a slight pay-cut but it has the bonus of being a state job where I get to be an actual geologist.  I took the interview.  It will be a week from today.

I also reconnected with an old friend recently.  This last weekend, we met up to explore small town Idaho together and it was a wonderful time.  Suddenly I am able to listen to love songs without groaning and rolling my eyes.

How am I remaining sober with all of these changes?  Carefully.  I recently quit smoking and I couldn’t feel better.  I use that as an excuse to avoid booze like the plague when my little brain starts to romanticize it.  I know if I had a drink or two, I’d be right back where I started with all of it.  Pull on one string and the whole thing comes unraveled.

Those few little drinks on an outing seem innocent enough (I didn’t even get drunk, I just wanna fit in!!).  But they’re all the rationalization I need to hit the ground running again with the whole stupid bullshit.  I’m sick and tired of chasing my tail.  My future looks incredible and I am slowly being filled with hope.  I had lost hope.  Hope that I would ever meet and be with someone that would enrich my life as a partner, hope that my job would ever be something I could look forward to, hope that I’d ever stop hurting, hope that I could ever break this shitty cycle.  Now instead of running away, my dreams are full of things my brain wants to explore such as rivers, mountain sides, forests, painting.  I had laid down and let life happen to me instead of taking proactive steps to control my own destiny.  I am not a passive woman, I cant believe how much I had let alcohol drive the bus.

I know with all of my past failures just how tenuous this hope is.  Its fragile and easily broken.  That’s why this time, I choose to hide it in my heart instead of wearing it on my sleeve.  This crazy outside world will not fuck with my hope or peace.  It may ruffle my feathers, but it will not have my unshakable core.  Here’s to never, ever giving up.

Insanity

Reading through past entries, it seemed like I had it together until I didn’t.  I began to slip and eventually fell off the wagon.  I would love to blame this on my ex-boyfriend or my job–nah, it was me just being a fucking idiot.  Around late November, I figured it was a good time to rekindle a formerly disastrous relationship.  I guess I hadn’t had enough insanity or hurt.  Things played out the same exact way they had in the past and I ended up drinking for two months.  I had desperately wanted things to work out between us but you know that saying: “Relationships are like farts.  If you have to force it, it’s probably shit.”

This time around I started to realize that he was abusive.  Extremely verbally abusive.  How could one not realize something this awful you ask?  This is the major reason I don’t think most people should date for a while after a big relationship.  I was so bound up in not wanting to be alone (I was also really drunk too) that I was willing to overlook and compromise things…things no one should compromise.  I tried so fucking hard to make it work.  I don’t know why it became imperative that I couldn’t lose that relationship.  It was like all my past failures amplified until I realized that sometimes admitting that something doesn’t work for you and walking away is actually a personal victory.  It took me damn near a month but I did it.

I tried to moderately drink for those few months and actually did okay until the end.  I wasn’t having fun and I knew in my heart I shouldn’t doing this to myself again.  I know where it ends up and it isn’t pretty.  I’d rather move forward in my life rather than back to that old familiar scary place.  This time around I’m not gonna sit here and dwell on past mistakes or even that past relationship that still hurts so much it makes my chest ache.  I am back to plodding along, taking it one day at a time.  People talk a lot about being present when they get sober and its true.  Booze keeps you in your head, it keeps you away from life unfolding in front of you.  For once in my goddamned life, I’d like to get through something without falling into the bottle.  So, that’s my new goal.  Let life happen and don’t be so afraid of feeling it.

On tragedy

As an adult, you will likely have some horrible things happen to you.  Friends and family die, divorces and breakups happen, you lose jobs, etc.  The more years you spend on this planet, the more people and things you tend to surround yourself with.  The stakes are higher and loss is inevitable.  I’ve been through my share.  I have tried to dull the pain and emptiness the best I knew how.  I had drank my entire adult life, so predictably I drank when my life fell apart.

Oh how I wish that someone would have leveled with me hard at that point.  I wish someone would have explained to me the uselessness of trying to shut out the pain with booze.  I don’t know if I would have listened, but that little voice in the back of my head would have been nice.  My drinking was far worse and insidious than I had consciously suspected.  Would my husband have left me for another woman had we have talked about my drinking?  Would he have stayed with me if I would have quit?  All questions I will never know the answers to and frankly, its useless to even ponder.  Now, I look back and all I see was someone who betrayed me at my worst and left me without a second thought.  I spent the next 2 years wondering what was so wrong with me that I could be so easily discarded after 13 years of marriage.  I was so fucking pissed off, betrayed, and beyond hurt.  I couldn’t believe that her bras were drying in my bathroom as I moved out the last of my things.  I couldn’t believe the quickness in which I was forgotten and put away like I never even mattered.  I still cant think about that part of my past without getting angry….no, livid.

All my life, I’ve felt like being angry was not a healthy emotion–it should be repressed until it goes away.  Nice Southern girls dont get angry.  Except I was.  I was so fucking angry that I tried to drink myself to death.  I tried to suppress rage with gin.  At first, it seemed to work.  Single for the first time since I was 19 and no one can tell me when to come home.  I can drink as much as I want and no one will bitch about it.  Except I was all alone now.  Going home alone slayed me.  The emptiness inside me seemed like a black hole.  I barely even unpacked or bought furniture for my new apartment.  I felt homeless even though I had a place to sleep.  Friends fell by the wayside and I fell further down.  But outwardly, it was fine.  I still had a job and even though I was over-drafting my account monthly, I had some money.  I barely slept.  I ran on anxiety, cigarettes, and booze.  Whatever weight I had lost with the initial shock of divorce crept back.  I hated myself.

This carried on for two fucking years.  Two years.  Last fall, I changed doctors and they insisted on a blood panel.  Numbers came back and surprise(!) my liver function was poor.  Extremely high AST levels.  I was freaked out.  I quit drinking for a week or so and re-took the test.  Numbers were more in the normal range, but that scare got me to thinking.  I started to wonder why I even drank anymore.  I always did it alone, it had long ago ceased to be any fun at all.  Maybe I could experiment with a week or two of sobriety.  The thought of quitting booze forever astounded me.  No fucking way could I ever give up that outlet.  However, as of this November I will have been sober more than half of this year.  I didn’t drink all summer long.  I’m completely convinced that I am an alcoholic and my life is worlds better without drinking.  I’ve had my fair share of relapses but I always get back up and try again because I never, ever want to fall so hard again.  You don’t realize how deep that hole is till you start to drag yourself out and look back down.

Those years were a blurry mess.  In fact, the last 5 or so years were.  I desperately wish that my life was worked out, but I’m starting to see that the good things don’t come easily.  When I say good things, I mean stable relationships, financial security, self esteem, and peace.  I got trapped into this instant cycle of gratification via drinking.  I trashed my life and wondered why I had none of these things.  I still get angry sometimes, but now I’m more tame.  I’ve had to set aside that heavy burden of hate and learn to love myself in turn.

I’ve begun to re-enter the world with a fair amount of trepidation.  My social life is extremely limited and I have very few actual friends I see on a regular basis.  These things used to really bother me.  I used to measure my value in external things….friends, nice house, car, good job, college degree, husband, etc.  Well, fuck that.  I know exactly what will make me happy and fill my soul with peace these days and it aint dependent on any of those factors and certainly not a drink.  My happiness comes from within.  Same goes for my peace.  The longer I travel in this journey, the less I care what others think of me.  I’m crippled with credit card and student debt and likely wont be able to afford a place of my own for a long time.  If I had the energy or inclination, I’d hate what I did to myself two years ago.  Instead, I’ll just use it as motivation to never get that low again.  I can use my pain to relate to others in similar situations.  My heart has grown five or six times its normal size since all of this.

I’d never take any of this back.  Because somehow in that last decade, I forgot who I was.  This woke me up and taught me to stop wasting my fucking time.  Never again will I waste away in a relationship where my needs aren’t being met for fear of being alone.  I was a coward that took a coward’s way out.  The next tragedy will be met head on because now I know what not to do.

Discomfort

Discomfort.  I’m at this awkward stage in early sobriety that makes me uncomfortable in my own skin.  It’s not like I’m in uncharted territory here, I’ve been sober for periods much longer than this before.  It just seems so much more heavy now, like I’ve been on vacation and upon returning I’m astounded at the disorder and complacency that have been occurring this whole time.  I’m happiest when my life is in a state of constant motion directed at accomplishing a goal.  The last time I felt this way, I was in college working to complete my undergraduate degree.  That was almost six years ago.

Since then, I’ve had the same job that will likely go nowhere for me because (surprise) a few of us got busted drinking on the job a few years ago.  I still have my job, which I’m grateful for but I cant help but wonder where I would be if I got fired instead.  I’m just so fucking angry at myself for letting my life get to this state.  I just wandered along reacting to things instead of seizing opportunities.  I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.  In order to be happy, I’ve gotta change some things in my life other than just remaining sober.  But change is hard.  I know that when I was drinking, I’d just whine and complain instead of actively trying to change anything.  The only instant gratification I had in life was my next drink.  God, what a way to live.

Give me the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I realize there are a lot of things I can’t change but I can start somewhere.  I used to hate that question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”  I realize I hated that question because I didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I wanted other than to get drunk.  I had no goals, I was just treading water.  This weekend, I have no plans other than to figure out where in the fuck do I want to be in the next five years and drinking has no place in that discussion whatsoever.

On to bigger things, or at least planning them.  Happy Friday, y’all.

 

Perspective

Perspective.  It’s that thing that can turn something mundane or unpleasant into an exercise in gratitude.  My mother always used to tell me: “Don’t bitch about having to do dishes or laundry.  It means you have food on your table and clothes on your back.”  I always hated this statement because it seemed forced and preachy, but now I realize that it is an excellent exercise in changing your perspective, thus changing your attitude.

This weekend, I had a shift in perspective.  I was in Boise having dinner and it seemed so fucking unfair that I couldn’t have one goddamned glass of wine with dinner.  This is the rest of my life…lame and drinking Perrier while everyone else gets to ‘elevate’ their dining experience with wine.  I started getting bitter and angry thinking about it.  I went to bed pissy (and sober) that night.  The next morning I woke early and started thinking.  In broad daylight, that whole line of reasoning seemed so silly.  Since when have I EVER been okay with just one glass of wine?  It would have been an all day drinking session followed by lots of wine at dinner and a postprandial cocktail (or three).  I likely would have blacked out when we hit the bar afterward and had to have been carried back to the hotel à la Weekend at Bernie’s style. The next morning would be based solely on how soon we could procure our first drink and we’d likely stay in Boise till late and fight over who had to drive home.  Instead, we left Boise relatively early and rolled into a local joint to catch some football before heading home.

I made it.  Those whiny little feelings of unfairness come and go from time to time.  I just have to remember that I am NEVER upset the next day when I get through an evening sober.  When I drank, I’d spend so much time anxiously replaying the bits of the night I remembered and oftentimes I’m horrified/mortified at my behavior.  It took me years to become an alcoholic, its going to take a fair amount of time to un-fuck myself and reverse years of reliance.  I just cant keep caving to that shitty little voice that tells me I will never be cool again because I don’t drink anymore.  In fact, that’s a great way to weed out people I don’t need in my life anymore anyway.  If that is the only barometer by which you judge me, I don’t want you around.  My perspective involving alcohol has been the same most of my life and has only recently begun to evolve.  I no longer see alcohol as this harmless diversion.  It’s an insidious poison that I cannot use responsibly.  This weekend was an excellent exercise in sobriety.  I figure the more I work that muscle, the stronger it will get.  Even relapses have their lessons.  Its like that old AA saying, I’ve needed every drink I’ve ever taken….its gotten me to where I am today.

So today, my perspective is focused on day to day sobriety.  Just for today, I wont drink.  I’ll tell myself the same tomorrow morning before my feet even hit the floor.  The anxious uncertainty that large chunks of my future entail are simply too much for me to take all at once.  All I know is that I’ve tried living life drinking and it didn’t work for me.  I’ve never given myself more than a few months of being sober.  I’m trying something new and so far I really love what I’m seeing.  I can feel hope again.  This time last year, I had no hope.

 

 

 

Playing the tape forward

 

Ah, Wednesday.  The week is half over and I’m already dreaming of the weekend.  Some weeks ago, I booked a hotel room in Boise.  I had planned to stay right downtown within walking distance from all the bars, get rip-roaring drunk, and have myself a good old debaucherous time far away from the cares of this claustrophobic town. What a nice little time I had planned for myself.  Except it wont be.  Not if I’m hammered and hungover for the duration of my time there.  Truth is, I cannot moderate.  I’d likely get too drunk and open the door for all kinds of shitty things to happen.  Instead, I am going to go and not drink.  I’m going to get dinner somewhere really nice, watch the Boise State game with a fellow sober friend of mine, and enjoy the town unimpaired.

Love this town.

Playing the tape forward is what people tell you to do early in conquering addiction.  You visualize what will actually happen if you go out and use.  Will be as grand as I’ve imagined it to be in my head?  To me, this is one of the most powerful tools.  Its never as grand as I’ve built it up to be in my head.  It almost always ends with me being a drunken mess.  I stay longer than I’d planned, spend more than I’d wanted to, and act in ways that I regret.

But what about the effects on the long suffering people in my life?  I always tried to mitigate the effects of my drinking to others by isolating myself when I drank.  But the mere act of isolating myself is hurtful to my friends, family, and boyfriend.  One day I’m there, the next I’m MIA.   They only get a half-assed version of me that’s just hell-bent on drinking.  Me during a bender is not a pretty sight.  I check out completely.  Imagine being in a relationship with someone who periodically does that, its between you and the booze.  The booze almost always wins.  I’m still shocked that there are quite a few people that have stuck by me through all of this bullshit.  I’m immensely grateful for these people because they loved me when I couldn’t or wouldn’t love myself.

I can’t get or stay sober alone.  I need support.  I need to know that I can be myself–raw, messy, and unsure.  That’s why I chose to tell those close to me about this.  I won’t hide my journey or mitigate it’s importance.  Running off to Boise and getting drunk just isn’t in the cards for me.  I want to be honest and accountable.  My boyfriend is going with me.  Even more than my family, he knows the struggle of these last two years.  He’s carried my drunk ass out of more bars than both of us care to admit.  When we decided to tentatively re-kindle our relationship, I told him that it was no big deal that I was drinking a couple times a week again.  Predictably, there was a falling out because I chose to ignore him and drink.  We had a huge talk and I told him that I can’t drink again.  He agrees but ultimately it’s up to me.  I’m tired of throwing away happiness with both hands by drinking.  I’m so fucking sick of breaking promises and ending up miserable.

I’m planning ahead on having a (first ever) sober weekend in one of my favorite towns.  There’s a first time for everything!  For once, I’m not looking at this like a prison sentence–I’m looking forward to experiences that I can remember and be proud of.  Playing that tape forward and I’m liking what I see.  Oh, and go Broncos!

 

Unintended consequences

Monday!  I’m actually excited about this one.  I made it through the weekend without drinking.  I didn’t get near enough things crossed off my to do list, but I didn’t drink and that’s a win in my book.  I relaxed, watched some football, made cookies, and spent time with my boyfriend.  I also spent a lot of time thinking.  I thought a lot about sobriety and what I want from it.  I’ve got goals, but for now I am happy to get through each day sober.  I was talking with a friend of mine this weekend over lunch and he asked me “When did you know you were an alcoholic?”

Now there’s a question I had to mull over.  For me it wasn’t a sudden epiphany or revelation.  It was a gradual awakening and an increase in self awareness that brought on the nagging thought that maybe I dont drink like other people.  I knew that once I started drinking, I would more often than not get hammered.  This was a huge point of contention in my marriage.  I would go to an event and before I knew it, I was drunk and embarrassing my ex-husband.  I never planned on it, its like I just kept screwing up and getting hammered.  It was a continual cycle of trying to moderate and failing spectacularly.  There was my clue, I should have known then that me + alcohol = undesired consequences.  Since the first uncomfortable thoughts that I might be an alcoholic, ten years have passed and here I am–many undesired consequences down the road of my life.

Since then, many alcohol-related disasters have happened in my life.  There are the ones that make me cringe and then there are the ones like my divorce that left me rudderless and devastated.  I’ve been examining my life and the influence my alcohol consumption has had over time.  On paper, I remain relatively stable.  You couldn’t tell me apart from most other working 34 year old women.  I’ve accrued a bit of debt, but no DUIs or prison time.  Emotionally, now there’s a different story.  So many of my relationships have suffered and my growth has been stunted–emotionally, professionally, etc.  I have to re-learn how to react to life and just be able to deal.  Instead of reaching for a drink, I have to find a way to deal with the difficulties that arise.  Its all about just staying when things make you want to run and hide.  Its about facing the music.  Getting sober isn’t this magic life-hack that will solve your problems immediately…but it gives you an advantage.

Sobriety is about rigorous honesty.  You cannot fall comfortably back into your bed of lies when you have nothing to blunt the sharp truths that befall you day after day.  The truth is that I’ve become reliant on not facing things head on.  At first it was large things like not being happy in my marriage, but then it became small things such as dodging an uncomfortable work problem.  I used alcohol to blot out all of the difficult situations in my life.  They grew on their own and became monsters.  I need to get my house in order.  I’m afraid.  I’m so scared of facing the rest of my life this way, but I dont have a choice.  Courage is somewhere in my fearful heart and I’m going to try my best to dig it out every day and confront my demons.  Tonight, I am going to another meeting.  I am thinking of looking for a sponsor and working the steps.  The major unintended consequence of living my life using alcohol as a coping mechanism is that it became the very solution to and reason for many of my problems.  Happy Monday, and here’s to the beginning of getting my house in order.

Another thirsty Thursday

Another weekend looms ahead and the weather is looking unfavorable for outdoor activities.  Idaho in November is a fickle place.  Weekends like this scare me.  Lots of alone time indoors.  I’m going to carefully plan this one out.  I have cleaning and organizing to keep me busy along with a few AA meetings.

I had previously said that I don’t like AA, but after a monumental slip-up last week I have changed my approach and perspective.  I cannot do this alone.  I need person to person in real life support.  I have a problem and its one that insidiously fucks with so many different parts of my life.  I’m desperate to be done with it.  I begrudgingly went to a meeting on Monday.  This meeting turned out to be one of the best I had ever been to.  I went in defeated, anxious, and afraid of what people would think when they saw my face again after three months.  I was greeted by a few people warmly, it felt like I had come home in a weird way.  The sharing was powerful.  I left knowing I’d made the right choice.  AA cannot hurt.  In fact, I think it will fill a huge social void that opens up in early sobriety.  Sometimes, I just need to get my ass out of the house at night and be around people.  I had 3/4 of a bottle of wine left from the previous weekend sitting on my counter.  Tuesday, I poured it down the sink.  Like Red says in Shawshank Redemption, Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.

Back to the business of livin’.  I introduced crazy bitch Darlene yesterday.  I’m effectively locking that bitch up and tossing the key.  I’m going to starve her of the very thing that makes her strong.  No booze for you bitch.  When she’s out, the subtle parts of me are completely obscured by this booze-crazed demon that only cares about where her next drink is coming from.  Fear is mentioned over and over again in the Big Book.  What am I scared of having to deal with when Darlene isnt around?  A question that I’m likely going to have an answer to in the coming weeks.

No-drink November is upon me and the first big obstacle is this weekend.  Its snowing in the higher elevations all around us.  Teton pass will be a nasty mess and down here in the plain, we’re going to get some snow as well.  In a week or two, it’ll be go time for cross-country skiing.  Meanwhile, I’m going to be a good friend to future me and clean my place, grocery shop, and rest up for the coming week.  No-drink November, here we go!