David wrote to ask how my sobriety is going. Hah. Does a week even count? Almost a full week. I feel no different, really. The therapy has opened my mind up in someways that I might have credited to sobriety, except that I was still drinking as usual when such clarity transpired. I am waking up around 9am, but I’d been doing that anyway. Most days have been normal enough but I had a weird night on… I guess it was Wednesday night. I have to blame this on eating a giant and disgusting pizza too soon before going to bed. Soon after lying down my blood pressure blasted off to unimaginable levels and it felt like I was whale-watching waiting for my heart to come leaping out of my chest. A couple of anxiety pills put all that to rest but it took time. I don’t think I got to sleep until past 4. I woke up after noon feeling like I’d consumed 6 bottles of wine but I had consumed no booze for days. The anxiety pills are not exactly intended for this sort of episode but they were there and they worked. I guess “anxiety” covers a lot of ground.
I remember a road trip maybe 12 years ago when I had to stay in the town of Washington, North Carolina, for a couple of nights. I stayed longer than intended because of a “Check Engine” light in dad’s old car. The mechanics in town thought I’d stolen the car, and only let up on their suspicions when I told them the circumstances of my inheritance of this handsome Florida-plated vehicle.
Anyway, while staying an extra night in Washington, NC, (it was a Sunday, so all decent food establishments closed earlier than i expected) I ordered a slab of pizza from Papa John’s. I vividly remember a similar if not identical night feeling like I was having a mild if rambunctious heart attack. Then, as happened this week, any moment at which I neared unconsciousness of sleep I was jolted awake by some clap of internal rudeness.
I don’t drink much while I am driving. Hah, let me clarify. I do not drink at all when I am actually driving a car. What I mean is when I am on a road trip or doing more driving then usual I stay away from too much booze. It just seems smart to avoid not only driving hung over but also to avoid the unfortunate reality of waking up still drunk and feeling forced to hit the road when the motel/hotel personnel kick me out at theunspeakable hour of 11-fucking-A.M.
My point being that then, as now, I think it was the pizza, and not the booze (or lack thereof, i.e. withdrawal) against which my innards rebelled. Other then that I’ve had no weirdness to speak of, although come to think of it I guess that’s a possible cop out: I’ve been taking one anxiety pill every night since the whale-watching incident, just to be safe, and because those pills are about to expire anyway so I might as well use them. These are the pills I got after the hospital emergency room adventure, which was almost a year ago. Whoosh.
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M. called today. The word on Gary is better than it was a couple of years ago, when first I heard that he’d flipped out and had become full-bore homeless, living in boxes and sleeping on subways.
M. saw him on the subway last week and described the encounter in typically hilarious M. fashion. She pretended not to recognize him as they both boarded the same N train subway car at 49th Street. She sat down, he remained standing. From this vantage point he had his crotch in her face. He repeatedly started yelling “HEY!” She stood up and somehow got past him, sneaking into the next car. He followed her. He asked something like “Were you pretending you didn’t recognize me back there?” She said something exculpatory, asking how else was she supposed to react to someone shoving their crotch into her face and yelling “HEY!” Then she feigned sudden recognition. “Hi, Gary!” She said they talked for a while, and it was cool. He sounded like his old self. He said he was working in Times Square, dressing up as Spider Man and other comic book characters, and that he found a place in Flushing for $600/month. M. said she couldn’t distinguish for sure if everything he was saying was in the now or if he was summarizing an ongoing continuum of the last couple of years. She told him Sandra died. He had no idea. She told him Tiff had the baby. He asked if she used artificial insemination. M. said yes. Gary said something like “You know I never really liked her like that…” which sounds like something selfish and weasely he would say. He says he hangs out at a bar in Astoria. It is a bar we all know well, owned by and eponymously named for a woman whose name starts with V. Gary says he does not drink any more but he goes to that bar to shoot pool and pick up hookers.
All in all it sounded like healthy conversation. Gary may not be on a road to prosperity but at least he is back to being Gary.
I felt sad and sympathetic for him when I heard the news that such a vulnerable soul as he had become homeless. It happened to be a dangerously stormy, raining night after I heard about him. I had a hard time processing how someone as hapless as that would know where to go or what to do with himself in such conditions.
Now I can put those feelings away and revert to remembering him as the annoying, self-centered twad who I gave up on being friends with a few years before I heard that news.
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Friend and I are planning a small day trip for tomorrow. We planned it for Friday but the weather was butt, while the weather for tomorrow looks exquisite. I guess it still counts as a day trip if it is within the 5 boroughs but involves a commuter train.
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Ice cream was free today. After a harrowing one-minute decision making process concerning where to get a tub of ice cream I settled on Walgreen’s. No joy. They had no chocolate/chocolate-chip ice cream. So I went to Mi Tierra. For some reason the cashier did not charge me the $5 for the ice cream. Happy Mother’s Day from the ghetto coffee shop!
