The Wrath Of The Red Head

During the course of the eleven months of Steve being my roommate, I discovered that Steve was afraid of many things- bees, spiders, work, a shower- but the thing that Steve was most afraid of was my friend and landlord's wife, Lucy. Steve was susceptible to the power of suggestion and a mutual friend of ours convinced Steve that Lucy had a red head's temper and would fly off the handle at the drop of the hat. They even went so far as to tell him that her wrath had been directed at Steve a couple of times for things he had done. Steve was bound and determined that he was going to stay on Lucy's good side. I knew that the story of Lucy's temper to not be true but I played along because the story helped keep Steve somewhat in line.

Oliver and Lucy paid us a visit one weekend and Steve was paranoid the entire time Oliver and his family were here. They arrived late one Friday night and one of Oliver's children needed to use the bathroom and Steve came running down the driveway, threw open the door and said, "I have to clean the bathroom!" I did not know what was going on because I had never seen Steve clean anything much less the bathroom. I watched in amusement as Steve cleaned his bathroom as well as anyone could in two minutes.

Steve spent the entire weekend avoiding Lucy and Oliver (also to my amusement) and I am reminded of the song by the Kinks, "Destroyer." There is a line in the song that says "Paranoia, the destroyer." I could not even begin to make a list of all of the things he was paranoid about.

Life Interrupted

There are certain times that occur during life where your life is interrupted for a while. Most of the time, it is just for a short period of time. There are others when it is for a much longer frame of time. There is nothing that you can do about these interruptions. You just have to adapt to the changes and move forward.

I am getting ready to face one of those "life interrupted" events. I know what it will be like going in but I do not know what it is going to be like coming out the other side. It is the not knowing the bothers me the most. That and having to put my complete trust in someone that I do not really know. The surgery I am facing is very extensive with multiple facets and it can best be compared to lining up dominos. They all have to be lined up just right in order for the "trick" to work. It may be up to a year before I know if the trick worked like it was supposed to. The pain will have to be navigated like a riverboat going down the Mississippi but pain is something I have dealt with.

When I have one of these "life interrupted" events, I always have these plans to write the next great American novel but all seem to be able to do is write in my journal that no one gets to read or bang out a few blogs that no one reads anyway. This time around I have to do things differently. This may be a life altering event that completely changes my life and I have to be prepared for that. I also have to look at this as an opportunity to do things I have always wanted to do. This is my opportunity to right years worth of wrongs. It is up to me to make the best of this opportunity.

Steve The Hunter

Steve always had a variety of weapons lying around the house and with Steve being an alcoholic, I was never quite comfortable with this. He kept a loaded pistol in the desk drawer, a loaded 12 gauge shotgun behind his bedroom door, and his crossbow with a sight on it was always ready to be fired. I felt like I had a liquored up version of Elmer Fudd as my roommate.

I came home one day and Steve was sitting out on front porch smoking a cigarette and he had the crossbow leaned up against the door. I looked at him and I asked "Well, is it duck season or rabbit season?" He didn't catch the Looney Tunes reference. His answer was "I am going to shoot that dog that has been getting into the garbage." One of the neighbor's dog's was raiding the garbage on a nightly basis.

When Steve drank, he was annoying as hell but he usually kept the stupidity to a minimum. I said "Steve, you are not going to shoot the dog. It is not the dog's fault the owner is an inconsiderate idiot." He ended up putting the crossbow up. I don't think Elmer Fudd ever needed a babysitter.

The Great Explorer

There were times when Steve worried me and aggravated the hell out of me at the same time. He went through this outdoorsman phase that really aggravated me. One of the things I did to help myself relax after a stressful day on the job was to come home and take Molly for a long walk through the woods and down to the creek. It was also a quite, peaceful walk and one that Molly and I looked forward to.

One day I came home and leashed Molly up and headed down the trail through the woods and I had almost made it to the creek when I happened to turn around and there stands Steve with his dog Mandy on a leash. He had staggered down the trail and was standing there huffing and puffing like he was drawing his last breath. Drinking 16 hours a day did not exactly put you in good physical condition.

He looks at me with his bloodshot eyes and said "We thought we would join you." Mandy was looking at me with such a look of hope on her face, I could not be mad at her. My first thought was, "That's great. Who the hell is going to help him back up the hill?" I already knew that answer and the largest part of me wanted to leave his ass down there.

Molly and I finished our walk and headed back up the hill. I told Steve I would be back in a few minutes to check on him. I took Molly back to the house and against my better judgement, I went back and checked on Steve. He had made it about ten feet further up the hill in 15 minutes before he had to stop and smoke another cigarette. If it wasn't for the fact I thought he might burn the woods down, I would have left him. I took Mandy from him and at least took her back to the house.

I went back down there for the third damn time and I had visions of me kicking Steve in the ass every time we took a step up the hill. "What" kick in the ass, "did you think", another kick in the ass, "you were doing?" and another kick in the ass. Dare to dream.

Lectoris Cave

Lectoris Cave is Latin for "reader's beware" and yes I had to look that one up. I write many blogs. Most of them I try to make funny because I love to make people laugh (I have found out if is much harder to do with the written word), and my sports blogs are more serious but I am working on making them better and more analytical rather than just a regurgitation of last night's action. I am working on developing a writing style and cultivating an audience. Cultivating an audience has been a very long and slow process.

Not everyone is going to like everything I write. I am open to constructive criticism but I guess it is up to me to decide what is constructive and what is not and what is downright mean and what is not. Some bloggers are successful but I am not. I have always taken the approach that I write for myself because I enjoy doing it. That being said, I do get a charge out of people reading my blogs and any comments they may happen to make. Just like a baseball player, I check my stats everyday. I am about to take it national and we'll see how I do.

I am definitely not in it for the money because I really haven't made a penny yet. I have sat down and written a children's book. I was shocked because it actually has potential. I even have an illustrator lined up. I am applying for a copyright now. Who would have thought that?

Road Trippin' With Steve

A friend of mine and Steve's, Oliver, decided to take Steve on a road trip to try to dry him out. This trip was all at Oliver's expense. The deal was that Oliver would foot the bill for the trip but Steve could not have one sip of alcohol the entire time. Oliver's theory was that if he would get him away from his natural surroundings for a long weekend, he could monitor his alcohol intake and this would help prove to Steve that he could make it without alcohol.

What Oliver had not planned on was Steve drinking a whole weekend's worth of alcohol in the six hours it took for him to get to Steve's house. Oliver told me that Steve had consumed, guzzled, thrown back, and slammed down 32 beers in those six hours. Oliver told me when he arrived at Steve's house, Steve was sitting in the driveway in a sea of empty beer cans with an overnight bag ready to go. Steve's motto was "no beer left behind" and although he had tried his best to drink all 48 beers from the two cases he had bought, he could not finish them before Oliver got there. He thought he should be allowed to take those on the road trip with him. Oliver denied Steve's request and he had to leave them behind. Oliver let Steve pick the destination and after being denied California, Steve ultimately settled on Memphis. He thought it would be cool to go hang out with the ghost of Elvis at Graceland.

Steve had the ability to be obnoxious when he had that much to drink and I cannot imagine a nine hour road trip in a car with him. I would have stopped at a rest area in the middle of Tennessee under the pretense of using the bathroom and I would have burned the tires off of the car heading back home. Oliver said that Steve did stay sober all weekend long but he drove him bat shit crazy. When I think of Oliver trying to help Steve out like this, I think of the quote attributed to Clare Booth Luce "No good deed goes unpunished." Steve promptly "rescued" those 16 beers he deserted upon his arrival back home. Oliver had a great theory but it was a failed experiment.

Steve's Twelve Pack Plan To Sobriety

I only knew Steve for about a year but within that year, several people tried to help him become sober so he could realize his potential as a human being and to live a few more years. Steve got together with a friend of ours who had counseling experience and they developed steps that Steve could follow and become sober. They decided that the best way for Steve to become sober was to slowly wean himself off of alcohol by slowly decreasing his alcohol intake.

It was a good idea but Steve decide it would be a better idea for him to decrease his alcohol intake very slowly. We are talking snails pace slow. This is what I call "Steve's Twelve Pack Plan To Sobriety." Steve estimated that he drank about 24 beers a day. He believed that if he decreased his beer intake by a beer a day for that month then at the end of two years, he would be completely sober.

When Steve first told me his plan, my initial reaction was "you cannot be serious." Oh, but he was. It was sheer genius on his part but I am thinking that Alcoholics Anonymous would not endorse this program for anyone. Ever. Needless to say it really didn't work for him and it definitely did not work for his "sponsors", namely those of us that was putting up with him.