diary 5: twitter nemesis origin story, and 9 years no booze

it's a juicy one this week

1.

Mountain weather report: temperatures have been going down into the forties and thirties regularly. Strangely, though, because of the way our A-frame is situated, the house also has massive amounts of sun pouring in for the better part of the afternoon, and by 3 or 4pm, you end up having to open a window. We haven’t had any fires in our wood stove for the last few weekends, but I’ll almost certainly be relying on them later this week when we’re set to get our first snow. Earlier, I went down the mountain to stock up on food, although honestly I have a slight food hoarding issue (what can I say? I love grocery stores. I always think I’m going to discover some perfect new fruit) and the house is already full of beans. So many beans. My safe word is beans.

But I will happily buy more beans. Just to be sure I have enough.

Yama hama, it’s fright night! // pinnacles trail

2.

Come Wednesday, I will have been sober for 9 years. For the first few years, this date felt more important than my birthday. It felt like the most important thing about me, and I could not imagine how that would ever change. I even considered getting some tasteful Roman numeral tattoo: XI.II.MMXIII (aka November 2, 2013).

People in AA sometimes do this fucked-up thing to newcomers where they’ll say, “Hey, don’t you have an anniversary coming up?” and you’ll go, “Actually, yeah! It’ll be one year tomorrow.” But before you can really feel pleased that somebody remembered your important day, as if they were proudly keeping track of your accomplishments, they’ll say, “Hope ya make it! Haw haw haw.” The implication being that who knows, you might crack in the wee hours of the night. The lesson being that you’re not allowed to celebrate your time until the very day of the anniversary, because that would somehow violate the sense of humility and gratitude you’re supposed to feel.

This year it feels strange, though, because I find myself slowly peeling back the slogans I’ve heard people say thousands of times, and which I’ve probably said thousands of times myself.