The days after

The days after Christmas can be melancholy. This year, we have Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's a whole weekend. I don't feel melancholy, but I do feel restless.

Then I found a book to read. "The Road to Tender Hearts". I always know by the first chapter. After reading the first page of this book, I thought, I'm in. Plus the title. "Tender Mercies" is one of my favorite movies with Robert Duvall. Anything with a heart in the title is great too. The film "Crazy Heart" for example. And they're all about drunks.

I'm a drunk. I inherited it from my father. I was very good at it and it worked until it didn't. But I have to say, the longer I'm sober, and I'm just at 104 days, the more I see why I drank. Life is hard sober. People can be annoying or downright mean. I think I do have a tender heart in my soul. And I let people mess with it because I could drink my sorrows away.

But no more. This next phase of my life will be me. Just dealing with my shit and not taking anyone else's. That's it. I've decided. Sober JEM is gonna be a little or maybe a lot different. 

And that will be a good thing. 

Merry Christmas everybody

Yesterday was Christmas. Today is the day after. 

There is always a let down after a holiday. I'm not drinking, so I am not hung over, but I feel a bit melancholy and sad. That is, until I look at the cool black and white Fender bass guitar my hubby got me. With an amp! And then I feel excited because I'm going to teach myself to play. I can learn right?

Plus, gal bassists are bad ass. Kathy Valentine of the Go-Gos. Kim Deal of The Pixies. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. 

I wish my name began with a K, so I could fit it. Kanita. KEM. 

Cool Jerk has a cool baseline. As does Gigantic by the Pixies. Any song by Sonic Youth. Oh and Fascination Street by The Cure. 

I'm 54 years old, sober as fuck and I want to learn bass. That's an anti cliche. So let's make my new year resolution to be an anti cliche. Let's not fit the mold. I am gonna be me. 

Just me. Shih tzus and all. 

90 days and still writing

Cross posted on my substack here: https://open.substack.com/pub/lifeofjem/p/90-days-6e4?r=7cq4g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQKNjYyODU2ODM3OQABHkiF3VHw750g1WV9J42TDA3XvUcMhQqCgigSX_QC42PnU_46qV_Oaw-ecmke_aem_XRsm0MJfpdmtpcwS8p6CNQ

I never thought I would love meetings. Every day, for the last 90 days, I have done at least one.

I had to find the meeting that worked for me and I have. My meeting, in the early morning of course, is perfect. The people in my small group are supportive and wonderful people.

I always thought people in recovery would be boring, but it’s the opposite. These are all people who have lived lives of quiet desperation (paraphrasing Thoreau), including myself.

I have found some peace by my 90th day. I don’t have the same need to always be on the go.

In fact, I love staying home on the couch watching a movie with the dogs and hubby. Last night, I watched Little Women, the black & white 1930s version with Katherine Hepburn as Jo. It was so lovely. I love that movie. Although no one else in my household does. It’s a testament to the power of family and writing. Of course, it’s my jam. Jo figures out by the end to write what she knows best.

Then, I watched most of The Santa Clause with my husband. I went to bed by 9 pm. And before I fell asleep, I forgot to thank the universe for everything. So I will do that now.

90 days. I made it. A long way to go. Still writing, as always, on day 90.

The Tramp

My dog Pippin had a rectal prolapse. Was it the Christmas light he chewed on, stress from the dog hotel he stayed at with his siblings over Thanksgiving, or an intestinal issue? I don't know. But it was horrifying. His colon literally exited his butt after straining, a few days after the holiday. It happened in front of me, in our backyard. Blood was everywhere. Like in The Shining. 

It's an emergency when this happens. You must rush the dog in for an urgent procedure where they put the dog under and fix it. Which I did. I drove 80 miles an hour to an emergency vet in Grand Terrance. Poor Pippin was in shock, just whimpering, and very quiet, I kept petting him telling him it would be okay, but I didn't know. 

The doctor who did the procedure was young. But kind. She did the procedure that afternoon. We picked him up at midnight that Sunday, only to find the procedure hadn't worked. It had happened again when he woke up from anesthesia and they had to redo it. I was panicked and questioned the vet's office who said that an older vet would be taking over and redoing it for free. I called his normal vet who explained that it was more an art than a science and the first vet probably hadn't put the sutures tight enough. He needed to sleep a bit more too. 

The second procedure was a success, and I brought Pippin home on Monday. I took the day off from work. He was in pain. And I had to help him do his business with a wipe. The stress was real. I breathed through it and as my sobriety program has taught me, told myself that I couldn't control this and to just let the universe take over. 

I did cry during a meeting. It was embarrassing, but felt like a catharsis.

I came home from work a couple of days right after court to watch over Pippin. On Friday and Saturday, we stayed home and did nothing, just decompressing, and aside from a Grinch meal run, I went nowhere and I cuddled him and his siblings. I realized how very much I adore these three shih tzus.

Then, finally, Sunday, they removed the sutures. Pippin's doing great. Back to normal. Running, playing, and barking like crazy as usual. I was singing The Lady and the Tramp song to him. The one by Peggy Lee. "He's a tramp, but I love him."

Mostly, I think to myself how life is so mercurial. It can change in an instant and then just as crazy, it can change back. So here I am. It's 5 am. I got to go feed the Tramp. 

Dear blog

I know I have been neglecting you. I have a new love, a substack on recovery, but I am still hopelessly devoted to you. 

So today, I am helping my shih tzu Pippin poop after he had rectal surgery post rectal prolapse which was so horrifying that I can't even write it. And you don't want to read the details, believe me. 

Yes, it's been awful, but somehow also okay. I love him so much that I don't mind. 

Pippin was always the least baby of my three puppies. Strong and the leader of the pack. A tramp. A rascal. Not anymore. He's a meek little baby with me now and very sweet and affectionate and I picture him saying, "Hey Mom, this sure sucks, but at least I have you."

My three shih tzus are always vying for my attention, like my different writings. Merry and Princess have been overtly jealous of all the attention Pippin is getting. I can tell they feel left out. But this too shall pass, and eventually, I will get back to all of them equally. 

So that's all I have got to say today. Other than this. Be grateful for those people, pets and things you love. As Joan Didion says, it all can change in an ordinary instant.

Day 71 and KA from my new substack on sobriety

Today’s daily reflection reminds us there are no coincidences.

It reads, 

“God is no stranger to anonymity and often appears in human affairs in the guises of “luck,” “chance,” or “coincidence.” If anonymity, somewhat fortuitously, became the spiritual basis for all of our Traditions, perhaps God was acting anonymously on our behalf.”

God for me is the universe. I picture God as a punk rock warrior fairy. I call myself a lapsed Catholic, Buddhist, Wiccan believer. I truly believe in the idea of what Stephen King calls KA, or what is also known as “the force”, or what some might view as destiny. I believe it because I have seen it. Everything is connected. There is a higher plan. In my own life, I was meant to be right here, right now, in sobriety. It was time. It was my time. 

I am re-editing my memoir for a second edition with a new press, and I see the references to alcohol all over it. It was always there you see. My quest was real and my search for something was true and I found it in sobriety and the program. 

It is KA. It is destiny. I am on my path friends. Just walking. Taking in the sights. It’s a beautiful view.

(I have a new journey, sobriety. Please subscribe to my substack, just search juanita mantz)

A poem for Pippin at 453 am

Scowling, I walk downstairs

Pippin is barking again, and again 

His bark as sharp as a Ginzu knife

It pierces the ears, makes eardrums

Metaphorically bleed with annoyance

"I am getting rid of you

Then I'll only have two

A caramel colored girl 

And a snowy white boy

The brown spotted shih tzu gone"

"But where would I go?

To the cornfields? To the beach?"

"No my little pretty," I cackle with glee

"You will go to she, the mother of me

Judy. She will fix thee."