I am not as bad as last night's post sounded!!

Today there was laughter and love and I might have adopted myself a little sister. I am hopeful for the future, but as an assist to myself and my recovery and by extension Sam's I have made another decision.

I am taking a hiatus from the blog. I will check back in two months from now around my birthday. I just need to focus on me and keep my writing a little closer to the hip and to my heart and on paper that I haven't published into the universe yet.

There is a possibility that this hiatus will mean the end of this blog as it stands now. I don't think it will be the end of my blogging. It is possible that the hiatus from this blog will result in a less personal blog that gets worked on going forward or just in the meantime. If that is the case, I will link to it here. But in order to recover myself, I think it is in my best interests to keep off of here because I am not capable of keeping the recovery thoughts out of my confessional thoughts here or keeping this non-confessional enough to do that.

I got here and it is kicking my ass

12 hour days, three of them in a row, sitting a lot in weird chairs and I haven't cried this much since I was in a workshop with Kelly Q. In fact even then I don't think the whole workshop cried as much as I have all by my lonesome at the two day point!

That is all I am going to say about recovery as the first rule of recovery is you don't talk about recovery (not really, that was a bad fight club joke, the real thing is that it is anonymous so you shouldn't advertise you inclusion in it or anyone else's).

I am still both scared and hopeful, but I have seen Sam and he looks well and seems committed.

We also decided that in the service of repairing our life and pursuing our mutual and individual recovery, we are not going to be setting a wedding date until this time next year and we will do NO wedding planning until then either. It will be stressful enough to get through year one of his sobriety, and choosing to add wedding planning stress voluntarily on top of that seems STUPID. We are still 100% planning to get married, so don't get worked up or start rumors.

Now I am exhausted and will watch a little tv and fall fast and hard asleep.

Very nervous

Tomorrow I drive to Minnesota to start four days of 'the family program' at Sam's rehab facility. I get back sometime on Monday, and then Sam comes home on Wednesday.

And all of that has me scared. I am scared of the program at rehab. Scared that it might be unbearable or preachy or that I have no idea what I will uncover or that I will be asked to do something as support to Sam that I would be unwilling or unable to do (Ok so I have no idea what I mean by that but that no idea is the problem). I am scared that the hard part is about to start because let's face it, this next part will be harder than the part I am in now.

Next week Sam comes home, and I don't know what that means. Obviously I don't think he will be magically ok and we will all be happy and light and perfection. It would be naive to think it would be that easy. Not only is it likely to be difficult for Sam to get back into his life while also staying sober, but it our relationship had suffered due to the alcoholism, and I imagine it will go through a bit of a reinvention as a result of sobriety. Now I am super hopeful that it will be an all positive reinvention that fixes some of the most troubling bits (as they were troubled directly by the alcohol abuse), but I don't think that will be easy or very much fun even if Sam and I are committed and flexible people.

These last few weeks have been like a vacation within my own life and Thursday when the class starts, my vacation comes to an end. And I am worried.

Yesterday started out crappy in an amusing way

And I intend to write it all down here, but I haven't yet. Because I am a lazypants. Maybe tonight after work (which has been crazy busy with what I have called archive-a-palooza) and after the play reading I am staging for the theatre company I am in. I also need to upload the quilt pictures from two months ago. Ugh. Better yet I need to figure out how to post those from my phone. That would be awesome.

Although I finished my sister's quilt yesterday, well not finished-finished. Finished the first portion. I got the quilt top and quilt back pieced and ready to go. I did not take a picture because I dropped it off within a very short time of finishing it. In a month and a half or so I should get it back. Then I have to bind it, and THEN it will be finished.

Passion and Motivation

I have totally scuked at motivating myself lately. To do anything. I haven't sewn my sister's quilt top together. I haven't worked on the pieces that Tim Miller's workshop inspired me to follow through on. I haven't attempted to create anything for a storytelling program that would help nurture my writing for performance (and you have to have work for the application). I haven't really exercised. I haven't been eating better. I haven't been writing in my 'artist pages.' I haven't done anything to look into auditioning.

I just haven't felt like it, or if I have felt like it, I let myself talk myself out of it or I procrastinated my way away from it. Instead I have watched 2 and a half seasons of Bones on Netflix on demand since Sam left. Well, and I went to an al-anon meeting and am going to one tonight again.

I am going to respect the structure and anonymity of al-anon and not talk about it here any further than the two things I just said. I just feel this isn't the right forum for it, especially knowing my penchant for anecdotes.

I am also going to take that same tack on Sam's recovery and keep it off here. It just doesn't seem like it will be helpful to him to know that I might be writing about it here. I won't be quite so circumspect about it as I will be about al-anon simply because this blog keeps me in contact with the Bitch Barn crew, so I will continue to reach out to them using this forum.

But as to motivation again, I just don't feel as passionate about things as I used to. Or I do, but I don't know how to parlay that into motivation for the things I feel passionate about. Now that I write that, I am not sure that is true. Maybe I just mean that I have higher personal standards for what should come from my passions, like I expect instant wow factor from them. Or something. Or that my passions are kind of varied and then dillute themselves and make all of my motivations less successful. Or something?

I don't really know what I mean.

Anyone have advice or tips or tricks on how they motivate themselves? About anything? Or tips about following your passions? Why do I feel like an Oprah show or a self-help discussion group?

Good news!

I just spoke with Sam on the phone, and he knows what his ongoing treatment reccomendation will be and it is an outpatient treatment a few blocks from our house that he needs to attend three to four times a week for a few hours in the evening.

So, as of sometime on April 27th, Sam will be home. Come over and help me drink all the liquor up before then. Or wait until closer to then and come and collect what is left.

I am a crazy fool--for haircuts

So a gabillion years ago it seems, my old college roomie Laura (who is a curly headed girl just like me) sent me some links on going shampoo free and how to take care of curly locks. These links led to a deal of trial and error with products and styling ways but led me to where I am today mostly. I have a good way to get easy, wearable, nice, even curls that are relatively tamed (in the good not frizzy way not in the bad ironed into submission way).

But in all these links and research there was one name hanging above them all. Ouidad. Ouidad is the guru of curly hair. She invented a supposedly brilliant way to cut curly hair that eliminated the triangle head while still letting the curls show. Of course this haircut was expensive. Of course you could only get it in like New York, LA, San Francisco and like a handful of places that I never lived. She also had expensive product that you could get shipped to you and a fancy method of applying product called 'rake & shake' but I was too poor to risk ordering a bottle of something expensive that I had never touched and was not sure that I would even know how to use.

Then I moved to Chicago and was certain that I could find the products or the haircuts (even if I might still be too poor to get either). But nope. There was one salon out in a burb that could give a Ouidad cut. The products were available still on line. The magical Ouidad was still elusive!

Last week I went to Sephora and oh look you can buy Ouidad stuff there, nice, maybe I will try that. Then yesterday while in a fit of lull at work, I googled Ouidad, went to the main site and used the salon locator 'just in case' and lo and behold, what popped up alongside the suburb salon? A salon on the North side of Chicago, off the brown line and a stylist named Jenny who was Ouidad certified.

I was intrigued. I clicked to see how much it would cost and OH MY GOD that is a lot of monies. But not techinically more monies than I could afford, and this kind of cut was supposed to change my life and rock my world and my curls would never be the same again say the Gods of gorgeous curls. So, should I?

Hmmmmm, it is a lots of money. If I go for this, this haircut better be freaking fantastoriffic amazing, and seriously I mean A-mazing!.

So I called.

I was looking for an appointment in a few weeks, but there was an opening that very night, and I wasn't busy, and I need something to fill my time other than watching episode after episode after episode of Bones on Netflix on demand. Okay, yes sure I will be there tonight.

And I spent the afternoon wondering if all this money for 'beauty' would be worth it.

It took two hours of salon time (because I added a deep conditioning treatment) for a wash, a deep treatment time under dryer, a rinse, the cut, applying all the product, pinning things away from my head to sit me under the dryer some more AND then (finally) diffusing and adding a tiny bit of pomade to finish off.

And the verdict, the final moment: Possibly the best my hair has ever looked my entire life. I looked like a freaking salon commercial with bouncy, well-defined, smooth, shiny locks that sat up and away from my head and seemed full of life!

Then I walked out into the night which was one of those Chicago nights we get in the spring and the fall where we have a light fog that is almost more of a pervasive mist than anything else. So of course it frizzed up a bit and fell down a bit, but it still looked pretty good at home in the bathroom when I took
this picture (the face look is because I was having a real time getting things to focus and get my whole head in the picture).

So far, success I think. I mean the real test will be later this week when I do my hair myself with my own product and an air dry instead of salon grade everything. I mean it was by far the best head of hair I have ever had, now whether is was a really spendy 20 minutes of great hair or a whole new way of my head living, is still to be seen.

This has been my day

Usually I have Wednesday off, but this week it is Tuesday because of a big fancy meeting at work. So today I was home and left to my own devices.

First thing in the AM I called maintenance to check out an odd sweet smell that I thought might be coolant leaking in the fridge and freezer and poisoning Steve and I. Two guys come up with equipment to tell me that the fridge is fine and I should look for something rotting. So, yup, I felt quite stupid. And when I got around to looking the smell seemed to be originating from a liquid oozing from a very old and open container of heavy cream.

So I clean out the refrigerator and go to take out the trash, and as the door slams shut behind me, I realize that I had not unlocked it and I did not have the keys. I was locked out. And I was barefoot, and I was wearing grubby covered in cat hair workout pants/jammy pants. And a grubby tshirt with no bra. And horrific hair that hadn't planned on ever leaving the apartment. And BO that hadn't planned on leaving either. But there I was in the hallway, locked out.

Which meant I had to go downstairs (again I was barefoot) and ask the doorman to let me in, but because it was during office hours, he sent me to the main office. Where I arrived a few minutes later to announce that I had locked myself out. The office woman found it pretty hilarious, especially that I was wearing no shoes. I got the key and the reassurance that I was not the only one to have done this.

My day was clearly awesome.

What do I do with my time?

Since I am solo. Although I have been solo for just a few fleeting moments (basically yesterday) as I was lucky enough to have my dear sweet Chrissy with me until yesterday morning.

I had sort of decided that Netflix and quilting and I would get real up close and personal. Basically I would use the lack of Sam and his complete and utter boredom with most movies and many of the TV shows I enjoy (basically Sam oddly dislikes procedurals--which you would think the lack of a thru-line would make him like them--although the violence and gore related to them are probably why). He doesn't like anything British (goodbye Coupling and BBC America). He doesn't like SciFi (Doctor Who--which I tried to compare to Back to the Future to get him to watch because it is gore free, Caprica, BSG--which I would like to start, Firefly). He doesn't like gore or cops (CSI, Bones, House, Cold Case, Criminal Minds--suck it Sallyacious I like it and I don't care, Laws & Order, Castle, Human Target).

I had recently become a fan of Bones thanks to Hulu and my old roomie Renee. However Hulu only has season one and the most recent episodes (Season 5). I thought they might show season 2 after they finished season 1 and like cycle through the older shows that way, but no! Hulu has season 1 on a permanent repeat loop. Which is total crap. So I put Season 2 in my netflix queue. But it had stayed down near the bottom for a month or so as I tried to figure out when I could fit it in. Then this weekend, actually I think Sunday as I watched some other shows on Hulu, all of a sudden all the earlier seasons of Bones were available on demand!!! At my house that means on TV. And in fact in the living room that means in a higher quality than they would be available to me on DVD as we just have a regular schmegular DVD player and it was streaming in HD!

I have watched 6 episodes since midafternoon yesterday. I will watch more. I might try to power through seasons 2-4 whilst Sam is away.

I also found out from him that most of the people there are not reccommended to cycle from treatment straight back into their old life. Which I guess is actually reassuring since it is a much better idea than just plopping them back in to where the problem was. It is possible that he will be reccomended a stay in some sort of sober residence in Chicago for actually I have no idea how long. I am hoping just a few weeks or not at all (for my own selfish missing him reasons and how much worse will it be to have him away but so close come May), but I do also want the best for him, so I will try to sort of adjust myself to the idea of that in advance.

Rehab (but he said yes yes yes)

So, pre-rehab I had to have an intake interview with a case manager to make sure that Sam was an actual candidate for their program. And that took like an hour.

Then today, a counselor (or member of the team of staff that are tending to him but not a med staff or a psych staff) called me to speak some more about his situation and progression and get more info about his problem. And I would gladly give that all, so I did. In detail (because obviously the more detail the more helpful). And because I am an actor and study motivation and look for hints about those things, I suggested what I thought may be coming in to play and detailed my evidence for it. I spoke of the times he had tried to cure himself and how that succeeded and failed. I spoke of the fact that I ended up calling his parents and going this route once it became apparent that he was not doing fine even when it seemed like it, but that he was kind of hanging on to mildly, nightly drunkeness by a thread and that that was not ok. I tried also to limit it to helpful info and not ramble and stay on track and cut out the convo when I got repetitive and to time date things where possible.

The counselor was floored. Not because Sam's problem was so awful or so unique (it really isn't either of those things), but because I was so thorough and grounded and insightful about it. I mean I didn't cry, I reported what happened, and I tried to hit the important points. I guess the other people he speaks to must be weeping masses of jello or deep in denial of reality or worse. Or incapable of setting up background facts and info. He said I was the best one he had ever talked too. Well, either that is true or I was his first.

Living Alone

It occurred to me this morning that for the first time in like five years I will be living alone, even if it is temporary. It is kind of strange, and it is oddly nice (not that I wouldn't obviously pick Sam being back over this but still and who knows what tune I will be singing in two or three weeks).

However, the cat seems to be much nicer when no one else is around. Apparently he only likes humans in individual doses.