Welcome to my blog.

I don't know who originally wrote, "It's always darkest before the dawn.", but in my case they should have added, "...but there's gonna be a whole lotta grey days before the sun comes out." I feel as though I haven't really felt the warming rays of our beautiful sun in a long, long time. It's been at least two years since I quit drinking, and probably a couple of more before that since I thought I was seeing radiant sunshine in my life. Lately I get glimpses of blue sky, and bits of rays shooting through the clouds to give me a little hope and the will to keep moving forward. You see, I am a man in the midst of great change. I am a man on a mission. Brutal and honest reality has a way of focusing you like a laser beam. The reality of age, mortality, and physical pain as well. I am working towards the goal of repairing my credit to the point of being able to get a loan so that I may replace my ruined teeth. This blog will chronicle my journey toward that goal, with the intent of moving me forward, and providing you the reader with an upbeat and humorous tale of woe and redemption.
     At this point you might be asking yourself, "Who is this nutjob that's exposing his flaws and foibles to the world at large, and what does he hope to accomplish?" Well, I'm just a regular Joe who's led a self destructive life of neglect and abuse who believes it's never too late to change your circumstances and habits, and turn your life around. If writing this blog can get me to that goal a little quicker and perhaps exorcise some demons along the way, I'm all for it. At the least it's an incredibly cathartic exercise that will help me move forward and achieve my goals. Plus, maybe I can help someone else out there who may be going through something similar.You may also be asking, "Well aren't you ashamed and embarrassed?" Maybe a little, but when you're as old as I am,(42), and you've done the stupid and crazy shit that I have in my life, you naturally tend to move beyond vanity and feeding the ego and start to face the reality at hand, and working toward making that reality a happier and manageable place to live. I just don't have time to worry about what others think anymore. No more lying to myself. It's not healthy or productive. You'll be getting nothing but the truth from me. Of course names will be changed, and I probably won't tell you everything, but what I do tell you will be the truth.
     Starting this blog was spurred on by an old friend of mine whom I got back in contact with on Facebook last year. I'm sure like many of you out there, as soon as I got on FB I started to get back in touch with a multitude of friends from the past, one of whom was Serena, who to me is akin to a big sister. She has been my personal cheerleader helping to keep me moving forward. I originally knew her through my big brother who she dated for a short time, and coincidentally her little sister who I dated for a short time as well. Small world huh? We became fast friends and had many a good time in her second floor apartment in an historic home just a block away from where I was living with my parents at the time.
     Getting my life on track and getting my shit together was spurred on by the untimely passing of my father at the age of 71. That happened back in December of 2008, caused by a massive heart attack brought on by bicycling home from work. The slight grade he was climbing was just too much for his old ticker to take. It took a couple of months, but on February 1st of 2009 I drank my last drink. Two days earlier I had gone into work 2 sheets to the wind, and not even close to being fit for a Friday night shift on the saute' station at the local restaurant I worked at. That's right, I'm a cook in the food service industry. A profession and field that historically has been disproportionately plagued by alcoholism and just about any other drug addiction you can think of. It's a lot of fun! While in the store room looking for something, and trying to sober up mentally, my chef came in and asked if I was drunk, to which I replied no. He said, "You sure?". I said "No, I'm fine.". He said "Maybe just a little?". I paused and said, "Well....maybe a little.", to which he replied, "Well maybe you should punch out and go home. Work the rest of the weekend, and we'll talk about this on Monday."  I said OK, punched out and went home, to continue getting plastered for the rest of the evening, until I passed out real good. The rest of the weekend was an embarrassing hungover nightmare of explaining to the all Mexican kitchen staff in my broken kitchen-Spanish that the rumors of me being drunk on Friday night were true. Whether or not I still had a job come Monday morning was still up for debate. Luckily I had an old school boss with a forgiving nature who let me keep my job. He's also a savvy pragmatist who knows that replacing a good cook who can think for himself and on his feet is a pain in the ass to replace. Replaceable sure, but if you don't have to go through all the rigarmoral of hiring and training someone new, why bother. The only people at the restaurant who knew about it were him and the Mexicans. The owners didn't know, and that's the way it stayed.
     Two years later I'm still sober, and I even quit smoking four months ago. Which was a helluva lot tougher to do than the booze. While looking for distractions to keep me from smoking, I started journal writing and doing some drawing and sketching. It helped quite a bit and was very spiritually fulfilling. What follows now is a small sampling of the writing I began four months ago.        

 It had been a good morning, starting out with a banana, some yogurt and  crunchy organic cereal that must be soaked for not less than eight minutes, for tenderizing, so that your craggy wasteland of a neglected craw might gum away at the softened gruel, for nourishment and omega-3.

It’s a bitch facing mortality as a seasoned lush and physically negligent person. You’re always in some kind of pain,either physical, mental, or spiritual. When a piece of tooth breaks off as you’re attempting to chew on something, I am always reminded of the more recent version of the motion picture, “The Fly”, (starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis), As Jeff Goldblums’ character begins falling apart as he changes into..., the Creature! Quite gruesome indeed.
“As you sow... “
Now is the time of the great change. The snail like transformation of yourself is a slow and steady ride towards your peace and love. It’s there, just waiting for ya. It’s easy to lose sight of that light.  “Dear Jesus, May I see the Light?!”
     It’s really not as glamorous a lifestyle as you might think. Drinking daily that is. Which leads to the glorious pain of every atom in your body violently shaking the life out of you, whilst you ride the waves of nausea until you drift up to the porcelain beach. Mornings in Paradise! Putter about the apartment looking for clean work clothes, taking the occasional slug off the remains of last nights bottle just to take the edge off the morning. Perhaps watching part of a movie, maybe even do the dishes. Maybe not.
Look out! That wasn’t a fart! How long’s it been since you last had a firm and solid stool? Months at least. Fortunately  I cook for a living, so I get at least one full meal a day. Otherwise I’d probably starve. Don’t really care to eat when I’m drinking anyway. Cuts into my drinkin’ time.
The first time I really shit my pants, I knew I had a serious drinking problem. Through the spinning drunken haze of your mind, a clear and searing beacon of shame and embarrassment cuts through the morass of your inebriation as the evacuation of your bowels commences forthwith, despite your mental and guttural pleadings to cease this egregious breach of contract between the all-controlling mind over the body. The body ain’t havin’ none of it. The ego has crossed the line this time. Tonight, you pass out on the floor of your VW style van, warmed by the fresh load in your drawers, to awaken hours later with a great pressure in your bladder. Luckily you find that at some point in the evenings black slumber, you managed to free yourself of the aforementioned encumbered undergarment, and get your pants back on. Will wonders never cease? Find a place to pee and regroup, then go home

There you have it. I've got about 6 or 7 more pages of run on sentences and stream of consciousness ramblings to submit for your perusal in future postings. Should be fun.


Well, that's it for my very first posting. I hope y'all liked it. Next time I'll be discussing how to get your credit rating from the big three credit rating companies, and the breakdown and dissemination of all of my debts. Maybe not all of my debts. That would take up at least 3 more posts. I'll keep it down to just the most interesting ones. Plus, hilarious non incriminating stories from my past, and the debut of, "Your banker, your friend."
Thanks for your time, and to prove that I'm not too proud for much of anything, I'll be putting up a Paypal button for donations to get me closer to my goal of a head full of new teeth. I appreciate whatever support you can give me; monetary, spiritual, or grammatical.
In closing, "Brush your teeth, and pay your bills on time!"