31 July 2004 ~ Remember the Alano...

My last day in town...

I smell like fire...

Downtown Olympia is on fire right now...

Not all of it, just a block. The block that happens to contain Old School Pizzeria (their pizza sucks, but it's cheap and they have a cool wall in their kitchen...), and the Alano Club, where all the ex-drunks had their AA meetings.

I loved the Alano.

I'm not a drunk, or an ex-drunk, but I loved those stupid meetings.

It was one of the only places in town where people actually knew my name.

Once, I had a spiritual awakening there...

Jake was mandated to go to AA meetings by the court after he got arrested, but I tagged along for fun. Jake never really understood the FUN of AA meetings. They WERE fun. They ARE fun. You get to hear everybody else's fucked-up stories, and think, "man, I've got it good." Then you get to have cheap coffee and smoke cigarettes with the down-and-outs, and the former down-and-outs. It's damn near as interesting as a Greyhound bus, at least as far as conversations go...

Did you know that some people drink STERNO to avoid getting the DT's?

Sterno is this toxic, flammable stuff that you use to light... like... I'm not sure what all... We used to use it at the coffeehouse to light personal-marshmallow-toasters... I'm sure it can be used for other things. Never, though, have I seen a warning on the side that says, "do not drink this, even to ward off the DT's."

The things you can learn at AA meetings...

They used to let me just sit there and smoke cigarettes, and somebody always ended up talking to me... It was like a bar, only you were far less likely to get thrown up on, and only slightly more likely to hear about somebody's journey to finding God.

I walked past the fire -- there are fire engines from at least three counties trying to put this shit out... Maybe more. A man was standing on the sidewalk with some people I knew, and they all looked very distressed. The man was saying: "It's been my home for ten years now..."

He meant it, too.

These people are really serious about their meetings, many of them. To some, it's a place you have to go in order to keep from going back to jail. But to some, it really is a "home." It really is a "fellowship." They really do mean that.

Fires make me hyper. This one makes me depressed.

Fires signal change. Something always burns right before or after a big change.

I have to go; I have a ton of shit I have to do.

REMEMBER THE ALANO.
~Helena*