delicioustacos

Reminder that all my new shit is on Substack. 

**

Every day I walk my pug in the park. Throw her a tennis ball small enough for her little jaws. I look at birds. I meet people, middle aged women. We talk about our dogs. How old is yours blah blah blah. The dog loves them. She’s thrilled to see her friends. The women are thrilled to get the love they can’t get from their inferior dogs. My dog was bred over thousands of years to be a loving companion. Theirs were meant to hunt rats or pull sleds or what have you, and are only nice as a side gig.

Women and one guy walking his schnauzers every day. A kind man who shook my hand when I moved to the neighborhood. Takes care to make small talk. And I stopped seeing him. It was weeks. I didn’t notice till I saw him again. He was fucked up. His face was swollen and he was walking with a cane. How are you doing man I say. And he says not good bro I just got out of the hospital. And I say what happened and he says alcohol, I have a problem with alcohol.

I go four months and then I take one drink it’s and it’s months fucked up and I wake up in the hospital. This is the fourth time man. And he shows me his belly covered in bruises. He’s worried about his liver. And I say you know I turned twelve years sober yesterday.

Oh no shit

You ever been to AA? Continue reading →

I used to drink every day by myself. I’ve been sober ten years. I did it by going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Helping others stay sober. Working the 12 steps with my sponsor. It’s the best thing I ever did. You should do it too. God is real.

What else. I don’t think about sobriety anymore. It’s not a struggle. I like being sober.

But I gotta write something for it. Like I had to put on the same gay outfit as my brothers and pose for my stepmom’s Christmas card. A special occasion. Gotta go take cakes at meetings per my sponsor’s direction. Tell other alcoholics how I did it. Continue reading →

I feel connected, at peace, unafraid of the future, of death, of whatever might happen. I feel relieved of guilt and anxiety. I feel like I’m an organism in nature just playing my role. A creature putting my song into the world, like the birds. Helping people when I can. Forgiven for my sins. I feel like I’m the way God made me and that’s enough.

I feel like I’m doing OK. Ways I fucked up were just part of the process. I’m part of the machine of creation. Just an atom. No better or worse than other atoms. Not a uniquely fucked up or malicious atom. I’m not bad at being a person any more than a mockingbird can be bad at being a mockingbird. It just is what it is, does what it does, according to how it was made. I feel like I’m part of something.

After I moved into my place in Echo Park, back when I was getting wasted every day, I got license plates in the mail. They belonged to the guy who’d moved out. I knew my landlady would know where he went. And I should say something. But I didn’t. I kept them. Because what if I need these plates. If I get in trouble for my crimes, I can put them on my 1979 Mercedes S Class. Leave town. They’ll think it’s another guy driving Idi Amin’s car. Continue reading →

Sure. But that’s not what I worry about. I felt like an old loser at 22. Of course I look back now, see a picture of myself– I look like a baby. I feel like an old loser now. When I look back at 65 I’ll laugh at how stupid I was. I know this. Knowing this does nothing. It doesn’t help at all. But then hearing it from you doesn’t hurt. It does nothing. I hope it helps you. But you’ll wake up tomorrow needing to leave mean comments. I’ll wake up feeling like an old loser. It’s just genetic. Continue reading →