Did you guys know you can feed the fish? They'll eat every last little bit. It's a genius who came up with that program. How do they do it? More as soon as I get an hour to spare.

The Brains of Musicians and Mine

I think that people who can write and play music must have brains that work very differently from mine. Unless it's very obvious I can't tell whether notes are going up or down and I can't keep a beat with anything but my right foot. I asked my musician friend Erik one time what it was like for him to listen to a song. Did he just automatically know the key signature? Was he always thinking about what the song would look like written out? Could he usually find things that he would have done differently if he had been the one writing it? He said yes to all of those questions and it amazed me. I love music, I love it a lot and I've always wanted to be the kind of person who could write it and play it but I'm not, and it's something that can't be taught. I was in band for a few years and I made it through but only because I understood the mechanics of playing my flute, not because I had any innate sense of what playing music should be like. Any deviation from the written notes and I would have been totally lost, forget "jamming."

It's been so nice out in Arkansas lately. People are starting to go to parks and go hiking and canoeing and do those things that you would imagine people who live in a state whose motto is "The Natural State" would naturally do. As I drove by a baseball field the other day I saw two people standing in the parking lot. The girl was wearing some kind of athletic clothes, which made sense, but the guy was just in jeans and a t-shirt. There were two cars there and they were standing outside of one of them talking. I was watching them and wondering what they were talking about. Why are they in two cars, and why does she look like she's ready to go jogging while he's just wearing street clothes? What business do they have having a conversation in this empty parking lot by a baseball field? Then I thought about Erik. Could he drive by this scene and not wonder at all what brought these two people together on this day at this time, in those clothes? Or would he just be worrying about the key signature of the song playing in the background on the radio? It's interesting how people's brains must work so differently.

Day One

Despite my resolve to change my attitude and look at new experiences as something exciting, I quickly reverted to my comfort zone of discomfort and self-consciousness complete with my goofy "nice-to-meet-you-too" smile as I walked in to work this morning. Trish is the woman who hired me and the person whose bitch I will be. That sounds worse than it is, although I was introduced by her as "my new helper" all day. I didn't mind, I like the work just fine and I like Trish too. She's the kind of woman who fits in an auto parts store. Has anyone seen "Uncle Buck?" Remember his girlfriend? I don't remember much about her but for some reason she came to mind when I met Trish. She loves Pink Floyd. We listened to "Wish You Were Here" on the satellite radio in her office, she told me how "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is actually about Syd Barrett, and we spent our time between phone calls looking at old pictures of David Gilmour on the internet. He was a pretty good looking guy. Trish also likes bikes, you know, BIKES. When I told Justin about her he asked if she rode a Harley. I said I only knew that she went to Daytona Bike Week and wore a bikini top with a leather vest. "Oh yeah, if she's going there and wearing that, she's not riding a Honda." Probably not.

As far as the actual work goes, I seem to just work on accounts receivable and send faxes and try the best I can to figure out how the money flows through our little office. There is a stack of hand-written notes on different colors, sizes, and ages of paper compiled from the notes of helpers-past to guide me through steps in various operations, some of which read exactly like this: "Load the checks into the check scannin thing. Make sure the lite is blinking on the scannin thing to be sure its ready..." Despite my initial revulsion to the obvious mistakes, I found that the notes were surprisingly clear and accurate, and very helpful. I know exactly what the "check scannin thing" is, and you do have to wait for the "lite" to blink before you start sending the checks through otherwise it just won't ever work.

It was a good first day, and I did learn that Napa is NAPA and that's not just a style choice it's an acronym for National Auto Parts Association, but you probably already knew that.

Day Zero

Easter is one of my favorite holidays, I like it even more than Christmas. It's like the shy but cute younger brother if Christmas, who can be pretentious and dramatic. I used to like it because I got to wake up to find my basket full of candy (which was a big deal when I was little) and toys and bunnies and eggs, without all the stress of unwrapping and praying that that one thing wanted the whole year would be revealed under the paper, my one chance to get that thing free and clear. Now I like it because I like walking into Story's room and finding him half-naked covered with stickers and sticky jelly-bean residue. I like the shows on the History Channel about Jesus and the Shroud of Turin and the end of time. I like the spirit of new beginnings and resurrection, of going to the grave and rising again.

There's always been controversy about the resurrection and about the Jesus story as a whole and I imagine there always will be. I don't know where you all stand religiously and, at least right now, I don't feel like it's my job to convince anyone of what to believe or how to live, just simply to live and believe myself, the best I can - it's okay, this is not a persuasive essay. In church they say Jesus is all God and all man. The focus often seems to be on his "all God" part and I find that it is the man that I'm drawn to. He was just a guy, who felt all the things we feel, who had the same weaknesses, the difference is he made every right decision in love, which is a capability that I think we all have, as we are made in His image, he's just the only man who's ever actually done it. Then he died, then he rose after three days and told his disciples that yes, it was indeed him, and that he was hungry, he needed something to eat.

The resurrection was a miracle, and here's the thing about miracles: They're hard to believe, they are forever being debated and proven this way and that. The thing is, without that skepticism "miracles" are just "things that happened." It's the doubt that gives us the opportunity for faith. I mentioned earlier the Shroud of Turin, which in my mind is the most compelling evidence in favor of the resurrection, you know, aside from the God-breathed Biblical account of course. Science gets a bad wrap, religiously, for explaining everything, but I think just because you can explain HOW something happened, you can't explain WHY. Explaining how just makes the why all the more interesting. Anyway, nobody can explain how the image got on to the Shroud, it wasn't painted or burned on and the blood was there before the image. Physicists say that if something were to change from matter to energy an image like the one on the Shroud is what would remain, like the shadows on the walls at Hiroshima. I don't know why I'm telling you this except that I think it's so interesting and I get bored thinking about interesting things and not having anyone to tell them to.

I think about the resurrection and I think how I don't like to get out of bed in the morning. I don't know how cold it gets at night in Jerusalem, but here in Arkansas it gets quite cold this time of year and I hate walking out into a cold morning, much less before the sun is up. That's one of the things that makes Jesus all God, I think, not just the whole resurrection thing but having the initiative to do it so early and in the cold. It's the small simple things, I guess. I'd like to, in the spirit of the holiday, start new on Easter, to die to the old things I don't like about myself, to rise into a new attitude, to look at the world with fresh eyes. Tomorrow I start my new job, and it's a good time to start. He is risen, and for the moment at least, so am I.
Happy Easter everyone.

Baby Steps

After a stressful month without taking a breath, I finally found a job. It doesn't pay $11.25/hour, nor do I get to drive around all day and sing really loud in my car, but there will be money coming in to pay the bills and I get my own desk where I can display pictures of my family and leave half-empty tea cups sitting there and know they'll still be there for me to clean up in the morning. I don't have to talk to customers or wait on people or take care of anyone and it sounds like I can pretty much keep to myself and do my work and get discounted auto parts. Yes, I'm the, well I don't know what the title is, I don't think I get business cards to clarify that either, but I'm the person who scans invoices into the company interface and sends out bills and makes sure the money is straight and things like that at the Napa Auto Parts store here in Russellville. My transformation into a working-class Southern wife and mother is nearly complete, now I just have to learn how to cook hamburgers that don't turn out like little crispy meat-coins and start drinking way more milk in a day than I do.

Hard work pays off in the end right? That's what they say? I believe it, I have to, but sometimes the end seems so far away so, in the interest of faith, where I used to give up I now just keep working hard trusting that if I keep my head down, keep moving forward, and taking "baby steps" I'll finally get where I'm going. I think we all know that I've not worked very hard at life until a few years ago, so I certainly can't expect the same results as people who have had a whole lifetime of practice at working hard. While my job at the auto parts store is not nearly the Middle Eastern archaeologist or the history professor or even the unpaid intern at McSweeney's position that I aspire to, it is a means to get there and I'm thankful to have it especially when so many people are struggling these days. Baby steps. Little tiny baby steps.

Karen: Another from the "Streets"

I think people tend to either see themselves the way other people see them, or they seek out people who see them the way they see themselves. I've always done the latter because of my problem with impossibly high self-esteem, masquerading as low self esteem. It's hard to tell the difference. Some people may not do their hair or wear makeup, they may do drugs, sleep all day, and say that nobody loves them because they have low self-esteem. Or, like me, they may not feel that they need makeup or styled hair. They may do drugs because they're isolated in their little tower of greatness, and they're lonely, and they sleep all day for the same reason. As far as nobody loving them, well, they know that's not true but making that up frees them to do whatever they want and not have to think about hurting people. It's a fine line. It occurs to me that I was not ever as great as I thought I was but I made every effort to find people to whom I could be great. That's why I befriended Karen. Some of you reading this may remember her.

Karen was a drug dealer, and I use that term loosely. She was more of a drug connector really. She never had any money and we were forever having to travel all over the city to meet this person or that person and sometimes she couldn't get anything at all. She was an old black woman, I say old but she could have been anything from 40-60, probably in her 50's. You can never really tell, heroin keeps you looking young, until you don't have any of course. I spent a lot of time at her apartment, usually just waiting for something to happen. She could smoke an entire cigarette and only ash it twice. She could have been a surgeon with those steady hands. I liked her because she liked me. She was always impressed with how I kept up with my bills and always paid people on time and how I held a job and went to school. Finally the recognition I deserved.

I've always liked being around black women because, in my experience, they assume a type of authority that I've never had myself. Karen was like that, she always spoke her mind and although she was a drug addict and connector she had morals, she was polite and demanded that others be polite too. She used to get so offended when people would walk in to her apartment and not say hello to me (or anyone who happened to be there). If someone came in and started talking to her she would lean back, her eyes would get all wide and she'd snap "how you gonna walk in here and not say hello to my guest?!" It always embarrassed me.

I dealt with her for years and they say that nobody in the drug world is really your friend and for the most part that's true. I don't know that I have any friends who I met doing drugs who I still keep in touch with or worry about or even think about. Karen is the exception. She always kind of took care of me, I felt. She would never let anyone particularly unsavory talk to me or be around me. I guess that would seem odd reading this, not ever having experienced the drug world, but some people are worse than others. Most are just people who get sad and sit around and talk about how much they love their parents, some are really bad, scary. To quote a preacher I heard one time, who was referring to the same type of people, "they've gone too far and stayed too long." Those are the ones you want to steer clear of. When you don't know how to spot them, it's good have a Karen.

One time she and I were at a house, a house that should have been condemned. I don't know if the people "living" there were squatting or what. There were a lot of people there though and it was obviously not a good place to be. A guy walked in whom everyone seemed to know but Karen told me to go, to get in my car and get out of there. She, of course, stayed behind. So I left and called her later. She said that after I left he tried to rob everyone and one of the guys there shot him, killed him.

This was the first time I had ever heard of anything like this happening in real life. I was fascinated. I asked Karen non-stop what would happen now. Would there be some sort of gang war? In the movies there are always gang wars. She thought this was hilarious. Well, would the police catch the guy who shot him? That was just as funny. Well what then? What happens now? "Nothing happens now," she said.

When I moved away she called me a few times and I would call her to tell her Merry Christmas and stuff like that, then we just lost touch with each other. Last I heard she had gotten clean. I hope that that's true. Like me, I always thought that she was way too great to live the way she lived.

People I've Known

Most of you know that I've had a drug problem; for those of you who don't, I did. That was years ago now and I think a lot about why I've made it through while so many others haven't. The conclusion I've come to is this: I always saw my addiction as something separate from me, something temporary. Of course it's something I have to always be aware of, but I'm Annie and I'm many things, not just an addict. Some people give up on those other things and become just an addict and they aren't lucky enough to have people who love them around to remind them. I know that there are a lot of people out there who will disagree with me on this but I think that the drug abuse causes the alleged "addictive personality," and not the other way around. I never planned on being a drug addict, never really even saw it coming. Drugs took me places I never thought I'd go and introduced me to a lot of people I never thought I'd know. Not all of them were bad, some of them were. I'd like to introduce you to some of them.

When I finally landed in rehab it was a place called "New Hope" which was tucked into a little locked hallway in Lincoln Park Hospital. A man named Jake ran it. Jake was tall and skinny, he wore designer suits and shiny, pointy shoes that looked so soft they could have been made of discarded foreskin. He also slicked his hair back. We kind of suspected that he sold drugs on the side just to keep his hallway well-stocked with suffering children and his back account well-stocked by blindsided parents. Most of the people who worked at New Hope were barely qualified for the job. My councilor was named Edna, she was an Asian college student who never understood a word I said, not because English was a second language but because she didn't understand addiction as a whole or how all of her hard work had landed her in a chair across from someone like me. Other employees there were just recovering addicts themselves which qualified them to guide others into sobriety. The doctor was Jake's best find though. His name was Randy, a former heart surgeon and crack addict.

Randy was in his 40's, a short and round man with a kind of "chin strap" goatee (as one of the other girls called it). He could have been a heart surgeon, he could also have been a failed rapper. He was always wearing baggy jeans and heavily logo-ed sweatshirts and gold chains. When I first met him it was when I got out of detox and I had to tell him my medical history. He acted like it was the most interesting information he'd ever gathered. For some reason he was always seeking me out and sitting next to me at meetings, during which he would talk non-stop and show me all the crap in his wallet. Sometimes he was in charge of watching the ward and would always let me into the staff area to play on the computers in sit in the comfortable chairs.

When I got out I figured that was the last I'd see of Randy, but he really took me under his Sean John-clad wing then. He was always showing up and taking me to museums and meetings and out to eat with lots of people who couldn't seem to remember who they were before they were addicts, and instead decided to settle on just staying addicts, but sober ones. Randy was a kind of guru to them because, well, he used to be a heart surgeon and had lost a lot more than the rest of us by far and because he insisted that he was "recovered," which anyone in the recovery community knows is heresy. We'll NEVER recover, we're in perpetual "recovery." It's bleak. But Randy had broken that cycle and had a message for all of us: "It's horrible, everything is horrible." He said it constantly, but in a cheerful way.

At a certain point, probably after my relapse and subsequent ICU stay, Randy decided that I had not yet hit rock bottom and the only way to make sure I stayed sober was to have my dad pay him to stay with me round-the-clock, which, as my dad later pointed out, he would have done for free if we had allowed it. When I asked him where I was supposed to sleep he said I could stay with his sister. His sister looked exactly like him, was just as weird, and didn't even try to tell people she used to be anything like a heart surgeon. I don't know what she did, or did before that and I was not going to sleep in her apartment or his, which, incidentally was the men's halfway house which Jake (remember Jake?) also owned.

I think that was about it for Randy, I don't remember exactly what happened with that whole situation, I think that the whole "pay-me-to-stalk-your-daughter" proposition pretty much ended it for my parents and once they were sufficiently creeped out I was ready to be done too. I do know that I left my entire CD collection in his car, an event from which I've never really recovered. I can't walk into a music store without seeing a CD I used to own and imagining Randy driving around with his gold chains and puffy coats looking for people to look up to him so he could tell them that "it's horrible, everything is horrible." What in the world could have ever happened to that guy? He's probably in prison, and if he's not he probably should be.