Cow

Lenina, I not work on spec, price is contract up front, but I not usual get pay until job complete as contracted, which mean client has sign off and/or use up set amount of revisions. I will work on spec sometime for % of return from project or for stock option in project. But that almost always end up in no monies, although sometime is fun to gamble.

Hmm. What is "honest" sobriety. When I honest with self? With sponsor? With family? With all at once? With public? Like I say before, is like onion skins to me. Even when I think I be honest, more and more get peel away. I know right now I maybe sloppy and untoward and duplicitous, but I honest trying, and that maybe best I done in many years. Is enough that I work toward more honest honesty? Or is black and white? I asking.

What you surgery about, if I may? Yes, I also notice AO not around, and after it only takes up 4500 posts to final come to stable relationship with her!

Lenina

Cow, to me, honest sobriety means I'm honest with myself. I was always honest with my sponsor because she was helping me stay sober. I think we all have to have some lies, little lies for courtesy, sometimes that just keeping the mouth shut! It can be a tricky thing, trickier than one might think.

Surgery is on the veins in my leg. I have a varicose vein and now it's starting to hurt A Lot. I've been in compression hose for several years but now it's time to get it treated. No big deal, using a local anesthesia and outpatient clinic. I will have to be off my feet for a few days and can't fly for seven to ten days so I have to schedule my work around this. It's no big deal but still I'm nervous. And trying to tie up loose ends so I don't fret.

good news is I got a small bonus so I'll have some extra change!

Love from Lenina. and I miss AO too

courage2

I think what I was trying to say yesterday (or whenever) is that for me, anyway, I don't even really know when I'm being honest with myself. I can report some facts with accuracy, but even that's pretty blurry if I'm talking about my history, and all of my perceptions are biased, and many of them are very distorted. I don't even honestly feel things -- to the extent that I register emotions other than fear and excitement, they're usually undercut with irony.

So, Cow, I really like it that you're honestly trying. I guess I'm being self-serving, because that's the best I can say for myself as well.

AddictGuy

As far as finding ourselves goes, I am not so sure there is the standard of who we were really meant to be out there somewhere for us to discover, like some preordained thing. Some famous dead person said, "It is not a matter of finding ourselves. It is a matter of inventing ourselves." In addition I would say a poor plan is better than no plan. How about just making a little list and saying I want to do this. I want to be this. And then just go for it. If you need to re-evaluate it as time goes by, fine. There is a Bible verse: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it." I think that we can come very close to chasing our true selves by simply looking into our hearts and just going from there.

Cow

Lenina, I excellent caretaker, as is many here, so please stop by post op and we feed you okra soup and try to makes you laugh, okay?

Bunny, yes, same for me, especially as anhedonic, is not visceral emotion to tell me whether I lying or not or how I suppose to feel about disreporting of facts. I can say, I would prefer not to lie to sponsor. But that an intellectual preference.

AG, I agrees, is not like Tootsie pop where lick and lick and final get to you delicious chewy center. Human more like lollipop that you lick and lick and lick and lick and....

trachemys

Okra One checking in. Today was a good day.

A coupla weeks back I went to the doc to get my AD's re-prescribed. My blood pressure scared us both. It was ONLY 50 points higher than my historical norm. He said I needed to keep an eye on it, make some changes or more drugs were coming for treatment.

So, I made some changes. I am proudly halfway back to my norm. And probably shedding some pounds.

More Okra!

Cow

Cow to Okra1... Okra1...good job. Repeat...good job.

PS. How does turtle get fat? I mean, would not shell make that very difficult.

silentrun

Hi everyone! Glad to see you are still kicking Cow.
Courage when you said your sponsor dumped you that is not really what happened. Your friend decided she couldn't sponsor you. She told you upfront that if she felt like sponsoring you was interfering with the friendship she would stop. That is what she did. I don't have a sponsor but I can imagine that in could be an imbalance of power. Friends are supposed to equal.
Also you can dispense with trying to figure out everyone's game. Most people don't have one.

trachemys

Thanks, sweetie.

Shells grow. And turtles never stop growing.

courage2

Ah but's that what it felt like, most endurably. It was the story most consistent with my game.

Au contraire, Silent. Everyone has one, usually several. Some people don't know what games they're playing, and some play very badly.

Cow

Oh hello SR, how you going?

Bunny, I not sure that true. I think I has actual met people with no game. Not saying they not lie sometime or delude self, but in they heart, they not really looking to manipulate. Is always surprise to me and I tests them, a lot. Is rare though, I think. Maybe is come from supportive/safe upbringing or genetics or whatever.

Anyways, what you game, Bunny? Or is it different game every day? I gonna has to think about what my game. I sure I has some, but I so involve in my role playing, like Ultra Dungeon and Dragon, that I not even sure what my game is.

silentrun

I don't see it that way. Usually a game player sticks out like a sore thumb. Unless of course we are talking about some deeper mask philosophical Cow thread part 3 way. In which case I would play.
Why is that assessment the most consistent with your game? What game would need to make an act of honest friendship into an act of rejection? You omitted important parts of that story that made it seem like it was the opposite of what it really was. Why? If my BFF decided to quit drinking there is no way in hell I would act as her mentor. Did she get on your nerves and you just needed a way to distance yourself or did you really like her?

courage2

By game I meant that we have goals (mental, physical, monetary, etc, sometimes maladaptive) and we develop or move into roles that interact with other people's roles because we think the roles will help us achieve some of our goals. I play the academic game, which has very clear goals, but a lot of unwritten rules and some written ones. I play a long game with my husband that has a lot of levels & goals many of which I don't fully understand. I play the AA game which claims one goal but has other goals for some people, some of which may conflict with my goal, plus the other players are all alcoholics, so it can get kind of complicated!

And of course, most of my games are with myself.

There's a lot of what you wrote here I frankly don't understand. Everybody gets on my nerves. And I liked her, better than I like most people. It's not an either/or thing. I don't know where you get BFF. She was my sponsor, she wanted to be my friend, I don't really know what she meant by that because I don't really know what she meant by that, I asked her to be my sponsor again, she said yes for a while and then changed her mind and said she wouldn't sponsor me anymore, and now I don't know whether we have a relationship at all. Or if I care.

Who had an act of honest friendship? How do you know? How do you know it wasn't rejection? In my life, it's been a safe stance to assume that a person extending the apparent hand of friendship has a use in mind for me, and is lying about something, to me or to themselves. Sometimes I've maneuvered to fulfill that prophecy. It's one of my distinguishing games -- a maladaptive one, and very tied up in later iterations with drugs and drinking -- but it has allowed me to achieve psychological goals of emotional distance and control, among other things.

Everybody talks all honesty and love, but it hasn't been my experience of an alcoholic life or a sober one -- there's a lot that happens between trying and doing, and there are a lot of other deeply flawed human beings involved.

OK, sorry Cow, I'm seriously not trying to hijack your thread, I'm just starting to feel like an uber-freak here.

silentrun

I didn't mean she was your BFF. I just know that being in a mentoring position would not be good for my friendship with my BFF. She stated that if he came to sponsorship or friendship she would choose friendship. So it sounds like what she did. She chose friendship. If you are unclear on that ask her straight out. When my friends get on my nerves I tell them. I have been told to shut my mouth too. I feel one of those coming my way actually.
I seem to have avoided the game playing I guess because I really don't have any goals except for making sure I don't eat cat food in retirement. I don't understand what you mean by playing a long game with your husband. I married my husband because he has a nice ass and is reliable. Mostly for the hot ass though.

courage2

Silent, would you kindly define what you mean by a friend?

How do you know someone is your friend? What characterizes a friendship?

silentrun

It's always been love at first sight. Right away we have the same sense of humor (low rent potty mouth or obscure reference). A friend is someone who sees you for who you really are and likes you anyway. Just someone who "gets" me. Everyone is a type Courage, even you. It sounds like this woman was your type.

courage2

Silent, you've done it -- you've put your finger right on my paradox. I'm attracted to my type, who are shifty bastards who can't be trusted and can't trust. When we sniff each other out, we approach in fits and starts if at all, with knives behind our backs, just in case, and run away often.

Thank you. End of topic, please.

trachemys

Courage, may I suggest a different interpretation?

You two got along great. Too great. Like you both would have when drinking. She realized it.

Cow

Uber-freak, she a freak, she uber-freaky, owwwww.

Is okay, this most excitement on my thread since Sheriff D throw me in SR Jail for my, um, colorful languaging.

trachemys

Cow, I pronounce you "chipper". You are positively chipper. It's nice.