Red Like Tango

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  • Invierno

    This is the first day of December, and today, for the first time, it snowed. Agreeable symmetry, if you ask me.

    I shouldn’t have slept as long as I did today. There’s something in my bones that can tell when it’s snowing or raining – a barometer, say – and today, my bones communicated with my subconscious like this:

    “Hey Subconscious. Um. You wanted us to tell you when it was snowing. Um. It’s snowing.”
    “Thank you, The Bones. That’ll be all.”

    Then, my snooty, suit-and-tie-wearing subconscious, who had rolled from the computer over to the phone in his too-expensive rolling leather chair, rolled back to the computer and sent an e-mail to my concious:

    “ATTN: Conscious

    Problem: The Bones informed me it is snowing currently.
    Consideration: The Boss likes to sleep when it is snowing.
    Submission: When the alarm sounds, signal The Hands to shut it off quickly, and I shall take him back under for another hour.

    Efficiently yours,
    Subconscious

    sc

    P.S. Absolutely loved that sweet-potato casserole. Send the recipe?”

    My conscious found this submission consonant with his lethargic leanings, and I got up an hour late. I made up for it, though, by working until seven this evening. Of course, you are probably thinking Ian! here you are, writing trite, inconsequential things instead of sleeping so you can be up early tomorrow! Actions! not words.

    Loud and clear. Here I go.

    (He didn’t send the recipe because my subconscious said “shall” instead of “will,” and he felt that needed punishing. Also, the lethargy.)

  • November

    i keep forgetting to carry notecards around with me on which to write my incredible ideas.

    this is a major problem i have: poor memory. a friend told me a few days ago about a conversation i had with her. i stared at her blankly while i desperately searched the reaches of my memory. no dice. maybe it wasn’t an important conversation, but it sure sounded like one. i want to start remembering things again. i was good until the drugs broke me. it’s a horrible thing to have the presence of mind to see memories slip away, to be unable to choose which to keep. but that’s progress in itself, right? seeing it? before, i didn’t realize i didn’t remember. well, i did, but i was too high to care. i guess i do remember more now than nine months ago. i’m just impatient.

    in other news, november was a really good month, and some congrats are in order:

    congrats to my new brother-in-law, for gaining an incredible partner. also for being a bigger nerd than jonathan (earnest basilisk soliloquy).
    congrats to my sister, for taking a name of equal caliber to nix.
    congrats to me, for not getting high in missouri for the first time in several years.
    congrats to nicky and angela, for being the best people with whom to take a road-trip and, duh, be friends.
    congrats to mr and mrs pope, for world’s most outrageous bonfire and world’s most thankful thanksgiving, respectively. we didn’t burn down the neighbors’!

    here’s to the gradual healing of all wounds, by the goodness and power of my Lord Jesus.

  • and just clap your hands

    either i’m feeling a little ee cummings or i’m feeling small, but i just went through and decapitalized my blog titles. maybe it’s an aesthetic thing. maybe i wanted an excuse to use the word aesthetic in this blog because i love a chance to put a and e next to each other. maybe it’s nothing. what i do know is i didn’t have the patience to go through the content and decapitalize. in my more obsessive days, i would have done just that, would not have been able to sleep otherwise. but, thank God, i have some peace again.

    i know what you’re thinking: mm, let’s take a look at your last few posts there, ian.

    point taken.

    now hear this: airing angst, for me, is better than not airing angst, and gives me peace.
    unless of course my motives are wrong. if my motive is shining Light in dark places, good. i’d rather be able to see it than to keep mulling it over without identifying it. i’d rather have it out there than up here. (i pointed to my brain.) but from time to time, i have other motives, not as pure. motives i’m too tired to explore at the moment.

    i’ve been emotional recently. a wreck in the mood for a wreck.

  • farewell, october

    Dear October,

    You suck and I won’t miss you.

    Bitterly yours,
    Ian

  • drain

    I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’ve been off-kilter for the last two days. Thursday was a good day. Friday was not. Today was not. I’m supposed to come up with songs to sing tomorrow morning for church and I can’t. I don’t even know if I should be writing this because I’m supposed to have it all together. But no. That’s a lie. Someone who means a lot to me helped me figure that out. I don’t have to have it all together. But then I think of all those guidelines in Paul’s letters concerning leaders in the church and I have to remember that “avoiding the appearance of evil” is different from “never having struggles and always being happy.” Those were the people I couldn’t stand in church. I understand them, now. I judged them for a while, but this didn’t make me happier or better or anything, so I’m trying to stop. We all have reasons for doing things and often they don’t make rational sense. I don’t make sense.
    I feel like I’m living the seventh chapter of Romans constantly. How far along was Paul into his ministry when he wrote that? That should be an encouragement to me, right? Here’s one of the most influential people of all time, and watch as he pens this chapter of brokenness. Wretched man that I am!
    Ok.
    I know what I have to do. My stomach churns to repeat platitudes, but I just have to do the next right thing. My dad and I had a discussion a few weeks ago in which he told me of this person who decided that every five minutes or so, he was going to ask himself the question, “Am I doing what is pleasing to God right now?” or some variation. I always know the answer to this question, and asking it as often as I do has been changing me.
    But then there are days when I totally forget about all of it, when I start looking at the world longingly – the world in the Biblical sense – and when I come to I’m just so disgusted with myself. How can these things still be in my heart? WHY are they still in my heart? Yes, yes I know I’m still sinful and I won’t be perfect until That Day.
    O Lord, hasten.
    But that doesn’t change David’s sentiment that I resonate with so deeply: my sin is ever before me. And I know it’s not before God – Well may the accuser roar of wrongs that I have done / I know them all and thousands more, JEHOVAH FINDETH NONE. Ian, you’re forgiven. Ian, you’re forgiven. Ian, relax. Take the advice you so willingly give to everyone else. Take the next right step.
    I’m keeping myself from including swear words in this post, and I’m not sure why. I’m starting to think they’re a bit… stumbly? is that the word? unnecessary? But they convey such emotion, and emotion is what I’m feeling right now. But I’ve gotten careless over the years and overused them, so I’m taking a break. I just don’t know why they’re called “swear” words. They aren’t swears. It’s not what the Bible is talking about when it says don’t swear. I mean, there are a few of them that can be classified as unwholesome talk, I think, but only when they’re actually taken literally, or used literally, and you know of which I speak…
    Deep breath.
    I also don’t know how great an idea it is to be airing all this online.
    And here’s the other thing. I’m really tired of trying to sound smart all the time. I mean, some of what I write is written the way I actually speak, but other times – this is embarrassing – other times I’m getting on thesaurus.com and looking up words that sound smarter. I should be fair to myself: sometimes I’m also on thesaurus.com looking up words that make more sense than the ones I’ve used. I just mean that I read over what I’ve written from time to time and it sounds like I’m trying too hard. So, from time to time, I write things like this, where I don’t let my fingers stop moving across the keys. I write and write and write and let it come because I’m tired of trying to sound smart. I’m tired of trying to BE smart.
    Why do I want so badly to be smart? to be intellectual? I don’t know! I really don’t. Most likely it’s an identity thing. Ian has to be this, this, and this, or Ian isn’t ok. And one of those thises is brilliant. But here it is, folks: most of the time, I’m not. I’m not smart at all. Believe me, I understand the difference between wisdom and intellect. And as far as intellect goes, I think I’m average. There it is. I’m average. I’m not that great. (I’m saying this for my benefit. I know you don’t need convincing.) I do things like spell out “et cetera” because… just because. Actually, no. I’m going to tell you why I spell out “et cetera.” It’s because I’m tired of hearing people pronounce it incorrectly – ecksetera. Just like Nick hates it when people say things like, “went missing.” Well, it’s not just like that, because “went missing” is nonsensical and “ecksetera” is just wrong.
    And wisdom… let’s not go there, except to say that I desire wisdom these days far more than I desire intellect.
    You can get wit dis, or you can get wit dat. I love that commercial.
    Ok. I’m done.

    P.S. That last bit was not a plea for affirmation, and if you comment on this with statements like “Oh Ian, but you are smart,” I’ll probably feel sick. Sorry if that’s rude. This funk I’m in will probably last until tomorrow morning, and then I’ll look back on this and think, “Wow, Ian. Get a grip.” So, apologies, et cetera.

    (Boosh.)

  • Why am I crying in the middle of Starbucks?

    This is why.

  • MAN this hurts

    Does anyone else feel drawn to wallowing in despair?
    I do.
    In fact, it’s more difficult for me to choose happiness a lot of times, which is ridiculous when I look at it on paper. I would rather sit in the muck, and I don’t know why. I mean, let’s be logical for a little bit: I prefer the feeling of being happy/content so I should do things that make me happy/content. And I mean really, deeply happy, not temporal fixes like drugs, alcohol abuse, et cetera. So why don’t I do those things that contribute to lasting joy? Why does it sometimes feel like I’m drawn to pain in the same way I was drawn to heroin – with what seems to be no choice in the matter?
    Sometimes I just want to be done, to go home. I look at kids and I understand what all the adults used to say to me when I was a kid – You’re gonna miss it! Enjoy your youth now! – because I don’t want responsibility most of the time.
    But now is where it really matters. Now the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Three jobs, a leadership position at my church, rent, a cell phone bill I’m paying myself for the first time (man I’m a spoiled brat), saving money for a car. And on top of that weight, there were certain things I thought I’d have or get back at this point that I don’t have and haven’t gotten back.
    Welcome to life, huh?
    I’m getting there.
    Here’s what I think is going on: When I was first getting sober, everything hurt. I couldn’t cope with anything, because my coping mechanism was drugs. Period. But things gradually got more bearable, felt less like my whole being was an open and bleeding wound. And just so – slowly but surely and by God’s grace alone – I made it through the program at Wayside. Now, I have a new set of issues – that list from before about rent, etc. – and if I’m smart, I’ll look back on how I got through eight weeks at Teen Challenge Chicago and then six months at Wayside, and I’ll trust my Jesus whose strength is made perfect in my weakness, and I’ll keep limping after him.
    It’s just that the first few weeks getting into the swing of things is so hard. That’s always been my problem. Take school for instance: Before the semester started, I’d be all pumped, and then a few weeks later, reality would set in, and I’d freeze up and fail all my classes.
    I’m at that freezing point right now, and, knowing me, it’ll last for the next few weeks at least. Then, the wounds will begin to heal and the lies I kinda believe right now about how I can’t really do this will no longer have ground to stand on, and, always looking to Christ, I’ll start to feel okay about life.

  • graduation

    I’m done.

    Kind of.
    And all the things I can think to say are really corny. But I feel corny. I haven’t been in the habit of finishing things, but here I am, finished. I feel like saying things such as, “I made it!” and “The sky’s the limit!” ad nauseam. Most addicts will tell you that, in their addiction, they never finished anything, but this was my modus operandi long before addiction. I used to get so overwhelmed, so anxious I’d just shut down. That became a familiar path for me. The foray along a new one has been very painful and uncomfortable. But I’ve made the first step. Well, the first big step, made up of a bunch of smaller steps fraught with missteps.
    And the thing I’m taking away (even though I’m not leaving) is this: It’s so simple. It’s SO SIMPLE. I’ve been making it difficult. One of the best things I know is that life is better if you relax. It applies to everything, but especially to music. When someone starts on a new instrument, they’re all tense and uncertain, whereas the poise of a pro is ease. 
    What I don’t mean is that you should sit there on your computer and not do anything, or that you shouldn’t practice your instrument. Instead, when you sit down to do your scales, don’t worry about it so much. You can let worry drive you, and you, like me, will go crazy. Conversely, you can let the desire for the thing itself drive you, e.g. I want to be good at piano, so I’m going to do my scales. Worry sounds like this: dammitI’mbehindandthatguyIhateiswaybetterthanmeso IHAVETODOTHESESCALES!
    So, if I could say one thing to you, it’s this:
    relax
    Stop trying to keep all your plates spinning, because you can’t and because it hasn’t been you keeping the plates spinning in the first place and because it’s freeing.
    It’s hard to live like this at every moment. Most of us are wired to do the opposite – control, control, control – and it happens in little ways. Here’s an example:
    I was walking the streets of Chicago today, and I came upon a young couple sitting on the sidewalk. Sitting this way cannot have been comfortable, especially for the boy. He was sitting up against a wrought-iron fence, ass-to-concrete. The girl looked more relaxed, laying on him a little bit, but that poor boy looked so tense. I could tell he was doing everything he could to hold the position in which he sat because the moment was so perfect and her being so close was setting him on fire. I laughed to myself because I remember being his age with a girl, how it felt as though if I made one wrong move, if I adjusted my position too much, I was going to spoil everything. My heart would beat so fast at the tiniest things – shit. is she upset? she hasn’t moved or spoken in a way that would signify she’s upset. she’s not upset. is she? – my hands sweaty and trembling, my breathing shallow.
    It was awful! and it’s how trying to keep the plates spinning feels: sitting in uncomfortable positions on concrete.
    So. Take a deep breath,

    and let go

  • something i’ve learned about ian

    If I drink more than one normal-sized cup of coffee – or if I drink that normal-sized cup too quickly – my heart beats fast and my lungs decide they haven’t had enough oxygen, which revives a long-held suspicion that, should I err in the slightest, my world will spiral irrevocably into chaos.

  • bored…

    Just so the two of you who read this (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) know, I’m considering changing the name of this blog. If you’ve read Donald Miller, you’ll have realized Red Like Tango is a parody of Blue Like Jazz. I thought it clever at the time – and still kind of do – but I’m in a different place in life, nowadays, and have decided on a new direction for this blog, namely, a journal of a recovering addict. Not sure how many blogs out there cover the topic (haven’t looked), but I figure I’ll add my voice to the list. Haven’t decided on a name, yet. Suggestions?