Susceptible to Alcoholic Stories

I'm reading Kristi Coulter's book of personal essays Nothing Good Can Come From This and I recommend it with only one caveat.

First the recommendation. Coulter is a good writer who can make serious and humorous work within the same essay, often within the same paragraph, sometimes she pulls it off in the same sentence. Her voice is honest and strong. She does not preach. If anything, she might be a bit too self-deprecating but uses it to good humorous effect. The pieces are of varying lengths and that turns out to be one of my favorite attributes of a good book of essays. David Sedaris's Calypso had some of that, but I'm especially fond of Coulter's use of the short essay within this book. Her pacing and storytelling are spot on. It's a good, good read that she has crafted.

Now the caveat: you may come to think you're an alcoholic. Or maybe that's just me. Often when reading stories of alcoholics — and for all sorts of reasons I love to read stories of alcoholics — I become convinced that I am one of them and consider getting myself to a meeting. Then I come to the conclusion that I'm not an alcoholic and that mostly I want to observe an AA meeting because they fascinate me. Using imagined alcoholism to get into a meeting sounds even more pathetic than I'm usually willing to be so I dismiss the idea.

Dismissing it gets me thinking that I'm probably just rationalizing my own alcoholism or trying to imagine it away. Then I think that's ridiculous and I'm fine, but there's no way to say "I don't have a drinking problem" that doesn't lead everyone to scrunch up their faces and say, "yeah, you do." This gets me wanting to go into excruciating detail about my drinking and explain every bit of it. Not that that sounds defensive. No, not at all. Don't worry, I'll spare you all that.

I suppose just thinking about this is good for me in the same way that I think about depression while still believing that if I suffer from real depression it is of the mildest kind. Writing about whether I may or may not be alcoholic here in public feels like a mistake, but as Neko Case sings, "I do my best, but I'm made of mistakes." Besides, much of the appeal of Coulter's book (and most any good memoir) is reading about someone's mistakes. It makes me feel as though I'm in a bigger club than the one I often feel I'm in and which has only a single member.

Nothing Good Can From This applies to me trying to explain how I do or don't suffer from alcoholic tendencies, but it might be a misnomer for the book from which flows a fountain of good things. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to reading it and drinking a cup of black coffee. I may wonder if the coffee is so I can feel like I'm at a meeting, but that will only last a few moments into the reading because, like I said, this book is good.

Go to your local bookstore right now and buy it.

80th Birthday

It is my father's eightieth birthday though he's no longer here to celebrate. He died in 2015, so we won't have cake, the girls won't make cards, and we've bought no present. Yesterday Mom said, "tomorrow will be a hard day. It's the thirteenth." Dad's birthday, as if I could forget. Dates matter to me. There was no way I wouldn't remember his birthday. I've been thinking about it for weeks, but I've been looking forward to it.

The day will be difficult for Mom as are the anniversary of his death, their wedding anniversary, and even her birthday, the milestones of him being gone from her. I think of him on the anniversary of buying his business and at the start of Syracuse Women's Basketball season. For Mom these days are filled with sadness. They play out differently within me.

I'm grateful today. As the years pass Dad's memory takes up less and less space. This sad fact is inescapable: the dead pass away. All the calendar days still occupied by my memories of him, these are chances to come back to Dad, to have him come back to me. I'll spend much of today thinking of my kids and wife, the weather, my job, my brother and mother, and whatever is in the news, but I'll have Dad with me and smile because there's one thing about his death that comforts me.

Dad forever remains for me as he was. Aside from the heart attack that felled him, he was healthy and whole. His eyesight was being restored. He got around well and could drive. He was strong and able if not so much as he once had been. He took care of himself and others. All of which is to say that he never suffered a decline, something he would have hated. Dad was able and capable for all his life. Were he here now to reflect on things he would nod and call his a good ending.

Still, I miss him and wish he was here to celebrate, but my wish is mostly selfish. I want him to behold my daughters and hear the sweet voice of his beloved daughter in law. I want him to have a few more hours at the garage with my brother and their cars. I want him at home with Mom doing the simple, routine things of their lives, the ordinary magic of life together. And I want to take him to a basketball game, sit beside him, and not need to say a damn thing, just cheer and be together.

These are my greedy dreams. They fall apart when I consider having to again say goodbye to him. Instead, today, his birthday, I say hey, Dad. He doesn't need to say anything back. He never had to. Though often enough the words he said to me sounded exactly like, I love you, son and they still do.

A Little Easier

Sat last night with four guys sipping whiskey late into the night talking politics. We're mystified how anyone could vote for the awful orange liar, but mostly discussed how Democrats should support a simple proposition: It should be just a little easier for all Americans to realize economic security. We weren't talking about wealth. Every one of us has kids who are about to go to college. We just want to be able to make that happen without burdening them with crushing debt. None of us feel like we can make that happen. This is a huge part of what's wrong with our country.

One guy referred to an Aaron Sorkin West Wing episode in which a character suggests things should be a little easier:

I never imagined at $55,000 a year, I'd have trouble making ends meet. And my wife brings in another 25. My son's in public school. It's no good. I mean, there's 37 kids in the class, uh, no art and music, no advanced placement classes. Other kids, their mother has to make them practice the piano. You can't pull my son away from the piano. He needs teachers. I spend half the day thinking about what happens if I slip and fall down on my own front porch, you know? It should be hard. I like that it's hard. Putting your daughter through college, that's-that's a man's job. A man's accomplishment. But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. 'Cause in that difference is... everything. I'm sorry. I'm, uh, I-I'm Matt Kelley.

Matt apologizes because it's unseemly to complain in America. If you're not succeeding, you haven't worked hard enough. That's the National Anthem of our economic country.

Hogwash.

The Democrats' message must be relentlessly positive and absolve Matt Kelley, my friends, and me of guilt. The message must be that if we work hard and save honestly, the game will be made more fair for us and, more importantly, for our children. Every human being in this country deserves a fair chance of reaching for the American dream, no apologies necessary.

Democrats don't need to oppose the tribe of liars across the aisle. They need only work toward restoring fairness, demanding equity, and helping us provide for our own. The United States has sheltered the wealthy for so many years, it is time to take care of those on whom the wealth has been built.

I'll keep thinking about this.

A Cabin In My Mind

Lit a candle Saturday morning in the office nook to imagine I was in a cabin far from everything and most everyone. I have that whole thing imagined: a one-room cabin near water, a wood burning stove with kettle boiling for coffee, and no one around for miles. Lighting the candle in my nook, I was almost there.

The night before a friend asked how I've been doing. I said, I'm worn out and depressed. I wonder how bad I sounded and hope I wasn't too depressing. I can feel trapped in my life. My job isn't great and there seem few alternatives to it. Family life has been too busy. It can all be more than I want to deal with, but Saturday was an empty page on which to write a whole day, so I:

• Shaved my head and face to find myself in the mirror
• Did laundry to clear some dirt and clutter
• Raked and cut the lawn before the snow buries us
• Took down the front-door screen and put up the storm to keep warm
• Visited Mom to deliver a present and connect
• Wrapped a birthday present and smiled at fifty years of deep friendship
• Posted about depression wondering if it interests anyone at all

The good day was brought to me by good sleep. Even my jaw, clenched throughout the week at school, has relaxed and stopped aching.

I did not begin the day out in the middle of nowhere, but I didn't need to. My mind is a quiet, dark, and cold wilderness. I start a fire in there and let the kettle come to a boil. With my pen I light candles in the shapes of letters and words hoping they will provide light enough to see me through the darkness and into some new day.