Arts, Crafts, and Memes

New meme, thanks to Brando at One Child Left Behind: Take the first sentence of the first entry of each month from the past year and stick them together--an end-of-year first-sentence summary paragraph, or in my case “just a mishmosh of words”.

Okay, so maybe last night was the cosmically couldn't-have-picked-a-worse-night night to do what I did. Never eat half a fresh pineapple in one sitting. Today is LJ's birthday, which means he gets to go out drinking with his friends and doing god-knows-what while I stay home. Last weekend, Q101--the local "alternative" station here in Chicago since 1992, which made it a major fixture in the better memories of the past 13 years--did an experimental thing called "Q101 on Shuffle". Today I found out that there's a good chance I'll be losing my job soon. Not to jinx it or anything, BUT...I had two interviews this morning. Fridays before the holiday weekends are generally ghost towns among the staff at Place Where I Work--at least, among the higher-up staff. Something I've never seen before: The drug spot in front of Chez Gladys now has its own sandwich truck. It's been a long week. Reluctantly, I've had to turn on that hateful "word-verification" feature in comments. Well, I'm back, thanks to a well-loved laptop no one at work wanted anymore. I'm not exactly dead...I've just had very little to say.

What scares me most about that paragraph is that there are places in it which actually threaten to have continuity. It makes me think about how lucky I've really been over this past year--largely in escaping the old job, which took up WAY too much of my emotional energy for the first six months of the year.

I also discovered (owing to an influx of new commentors and a spike in weekend traffic, which is notoriously low) that I've been given yet-more kudos in Eric Zorn's blog:

The most extraordinary and heartfelt site that I read regularly is "The Story of Why" by a local woman who goes by the nom de blog Gladys Cortez. Read this recent posting in which she describes her ongoing efforts to beat heroin addiction while holding down a full-time job. You've just got to root for her.

I am always amazed when I hear that people are impressed by this blog. I mean that; to me, it's just my boring life and my boring thoughts, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to read them. Especially now, when my life is not only boring, but transgressive and boring--when I've lost what was, to me, one of the few points of pride I had, my six years of clean time and my sense of being "one of the few" to move on from addiction and not look back...I'm amazed, is all, that anyone wants to read this. And I'm moved, not to mention astonished and thankful, that anyone at all would be rooting for me.

I'd like to say I've lived up to that level of support, but I haven't, completely; however, I've done substantially better this past weekend than last weekend, or the several weekends before. I'm trying. I will succeed. And I thank all of you--new readers, faithful regulars, and lurkers--for your unwavering support. I can't say I understand it, but I'm grateful for it.

I was thinking of maybe using this experience as thematic fodder for a quilt--a one-year-of-sobriety quilt. I have about a million little fabric squares, 3 x 3 in, in dozens of different colors and patterns. The way I've visualized it: each day clean gets a colored square; each day not-clean gets a plain black square. Each day I would stitch the previous day's square into the chain. I'd make it 14 blocks across (2 weeks) and 26 blocks long (total of 52 weeks). At the end of the year I'll have graphic representation of how far I've come--which will give me a strong incentive to stay clean, because I LOVE colorful things!--and I'll have a warm blanket, which I ALSO love. It's just a thought...I've been more in a craft-y state of mind when it comes to self-expression.

In fact: I'm going upstairs, take my shower, fold my laundry, and do some needlepoint before I go to sleep. Goodnight, everyone...