Choo Woo - Train of Thought

I took a couple of days away from blogging cuz my mind has been off the rails lately and I simply didn't feel like writing. There had been no news on the work front and there didn't seem to be much point in revisiting that whole situation if there was nothing new to say. My time has been full working around the house, applying for jobs, checking postings online and running around and between towns. I've been fortunate in that some blogmates have reached out with direct messages of hope and encouragement. Many thanks - I appreciate your care and will reply later tonight or tomorrow. Actually, if the time signatures are to be believed, my email accounts received 8 messages within a half hour from bloggers, my workmates and a couple of AA friends. Reading through them made my day. One of them was a reply from my former asst manager who was let go last week. We're keeping our eyes open for positions that might be of interest to one another.

I never did find any 'day' work last week; even registering with these temp agencies isn't straightforward anymore. On Saturday afternoon I went to a job fair for a major U.S. retailer that is expanding here - it was a cattle call; crowded beyond belief. (No Robin - not the Evil Empire.) There was a brief 'pre'interview where a guy reviewed my application. 'Hmmm.... You've been working at a treatment facility. THAT must be interesting.' I think he wanted to be the fly on the wall here for a few hours just to see. I'm supposed to get a call within a week and be told if there will be a call back for another interview.

Had a talk with daughter Sarah one night there and her crew is doing well. Zeph got through some major teething and has a mouthful of teeth to show for his discomfort. 6 new ones? Maybe 8. He looks too little to have so many anyway. He was out for his first Halloween as a spotted puppy dog - cute!

Driving in to work tonight the DJ on the radio was doing a themed show and tonight's first hour happened to be music to do with 'happiness'. As he was wrapping up some thoughts on the subject he mentioned as an afterthought that 'we all have a choice regarding whether we will be happy,.... or not.' Well, after having spent the better part of a week in a funk, happy sounded pretty damned good. I should resist the urge but what the hell.... 'Don't worry... be happy....'

I took in a couple of extra meetings last week - one Thursday night and another Saturday night - and I heard and saw a couple of things that I needed to. The speaker at the first one had some things to say about money - being rich and poor in recovery. Hmmm... timely. Personally I would automatically choose rich but that could also be dangerous, I suppose. At Saturday's meeting, just before it started, a guy I've known since I came to AA sat down beside me. He preceded me to 'the rooms' by a number of months and I run into him occasionally around town either at meetings, in coffee shops or while shopping. Good guy. At the end of the meeting when they present chips for varying lengths of sobriety he shocked me by getting up to receive a 'desire' chip. He had relapsed and it was his first meeting coming back from a 6 week binge. We got talking outside and he said it was the same old story - stop doing the 'do' things like talking with program people, stop attending meetings, let your program lapse, the tools get rusty, you start thinking you can manage one drink, and you get drunk. Thanks John. Your experience might save me from that same thing down the road somewhere.

Time for a break and a walkabout.