I Can Fix That

Every now and then, I forget my utter lack of ability to assemble anything mechanical.  I have a shot if it comes with true instructions (to me, that means that it comes with words of instruction that go something like: First do A with tool B, then do C, and so on).  What I don't mean is anything that comes with "instructions" that consist entirely of a drawing.  I could look at a drawing like that for days, for weeks,  and never ever have any sense of how one begins or ends.  Never.  I know this; I long ago accepted this limitation.  I know that if I try to assemble it without help, failure is certain.  Certain and absolute.  The only question is whom to call on for help.

But every now and then, I forget.  And I buy something that promises "Simple assembly required".  Opening the box, finding only that drawing and perhaps one incomprehensible tool - I remember.  I can't do this.  Not alone.

For decades, I believed I could fix almost anything - "Some fixing required" was not the same to me as "Some assembly required".  My purpose on this earth was to fix, find a better way, see a new chance.  People, situations, work, husband, my own demon - I could fix that.  All it would take was brain power, determination, courage, skills, persistence, creativity, hard work, maybe a little luck.  But everything out there could be fixed.  I believed it - and acted like it  - for decades.

It wasn't pride.  It was merely my purpose.  I was here to fix, to change, to move to new ground.  I was certain of it.  For decade after decade.  There was success and then there were the things I hadn't yet figured out how to fix.  I didn't see any of it as failure - just 'not yet success'.  All I had to do was work harder, be smarter, more creative, braver, more daring --- and it would be fixed or surpassed.    As they say in the mother country --- Idjit.

One does not fix an alcoholic - it only took me about 7 or 8 Alanon years for that one.  And that's only the first.... now the list of what I cannot fix seems endless.  Husband, marriage, son, my demon, anyone else's demons.  I can go to Law School at 50 and learn things no 50 year old brain should even attempt to learn.  Work - yes.  People - no.  Me - no.  Endless list.  Hearts - we cannot fix hearts.

I can't fix or even really understand a buena man, I can't fix my demons, I cannot fix a heart.  I can accept an implanted defibrillator to restart a heart that quits, but that's not quite fixing it, is it?  This week, a 26 year old world champion swimmer from Norway died of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) after a workout.  A seemingly perfectly healthy world-class athlete simply laid down one moment and died.  His heart just up and stopped.  Inexplicably but inexorably.  That crap is not fixable.  95% die that day.

I have finally, after  5+ decades on this earth --- I have finally accepted that I can fix nothing.  My ability to fix any of it is exactly on par with my ability to assemble the damn bookcases I bought that came with only a diagram.  The only question is whom to ask for help.

Stuck in the Why

There are mysteries and there are puzzles and they're not the same thing.   The difference is information: with a mystery, we have all the information we need; what remains is our pondering, our musings,  analysis, effort,  passage of time, insight, but not more data.  A puzzle is different; we can't answer the question until we get some more information. With that one more bit of information, the solution is revealed. (Thank Malcolm Gladwell for the distinction).

 I remember my first significant mystery.  I didn't like it.  Or maybe it was a puzzle.  Or perhaps just an eternally unsolvable mystery.  It was grade school - the nuns presented us with the Trinity:  Father, Son, Holy Spirit (well, it was Holy Ghost back then).  I was probably around 8 years old.  I was raised in a home of "thou shalt question everything", so I said the obvious "I don't understand".   My literal nature goes back a long way, and the Trinity did not compute.  I imagine the nun probably simply repeated herself - it is  three and it is one.  I asked again and got the ultimate nun-response:  "It is a Divine Mystery".   That may have tided me over for a bit, but not long.    Divine Mystery?  I can hear even my child-self saying 'well, that covers an awful lot of ground, now doesn't it, Sister Whoever?   They used the image of a shamrock -  it's three and it's one.   As if that would make it believable.  I don't think I spent much time trying to solve that one, and I never quite accepted it as true.  The nuns see a mystery; I see myth.

 Sometimes I get stuck in "why?" and can't find my way out.   Sometimes I still can't tell if the question, the dilemma  -  is a mystery or is it a puzzle?  Do I need to get more information or just try to unravel the facts I have?  Or worse yet - is it unsolvable?

Why did my heart stop?  Why didn't yours?  If I knew the answer to that, could I tell if mine is going to stop again? Why did I get to the ER in time that day?   Will the same instinct kick in next time?  Or does Skippy the implanted defibrillator make that instinct superfluous?

Why do people do what they do?  I waste so much time acting as if the questions were puzzles.  What makes a kind person behave cruelly?  Why do I continue to care about something I should not care about?   If I can accept a heart that stops, how can you yield to a lesser fear?   Why do all of us engage in destructive behavior?  I'm close to concluding - as my 8 year old self did -- screw it.  Some things are un-knowable.  Maybe Sister Mary Whoever had it right ---- Divine Mystery indeed.

The photo is Rich's Inlet.  Mystery surrounds it.

Mistletoe

I learned a number of things from a driver, and virtually nothing about driving.  One involved cigarettes and gasoline, but the best may have been the mistletoe.  I'm not sure where I had thought mistletoe came from - I probably assumed it grew on mistletoe trees or mistletoe bulbs or mistletoe shrubs.  I have a shocking lack of curiosity about such things so am not surprised I had never asked anyone or looked it up.  And I had never noticed those odd ball-like things in winter trees - such is life among  the amazingly unobservant.

But I'm educable; I learned what mistletoe was and then more surprisingly, how people retrieve it.  At least here in the south, they shoot it down.  Seriously.  With guns.

So mistletoe is a hemi-parasite.  Our cultural icon of Christmas sweethearts - parasitic.  It lives off its host.  I was shocked to learn that those weird little balls in the trees were mistletoe; the driver was more impressed with the shooting of it.  Figures.

I still wouldn't toss a lit cigarette into a gasoline puddle, no matter what the redneck on YouTube says.  Regardless of his demonstration, or semi-scientific assurances.   Nor would I shoot at mistletoe. But it's been quite a while since I learned that's where mistletoe comes from; I long ago quit trying to understand the driver.   Hemi-parasitic bare-tree balls of Christmas kissing icons that are waiting for their end-by-firearm - they are ever so much easier to understand.


  

Wrong

Some things are simply not right.  What is right is that it’s Spring, though the weather will be on and off for a bit yet.  It’s Spring because the Phillies are playing in Clearwater and college baseball is underway.  What’s right is the ball field grass is green; it gradually becomes somehow impossibly greener under the lights; my heart is still beating and Skippy the implanted defibrillator continues to be quiet.

And then there’s what’s wrong.  Pales in comparison to the harbingers of Spring, heartbeats and Skippy, but still just wrong. 

Designated Hitters.  Pitchers should hit.  As someone said, using a DH is like sending someone else in to a basketball game to shoot free throws.  Wrong.

My thirty-something year old friend who lives with the aftermath of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and  her version of Skippy.  Too young.  Not right.  Ever.     

I get annoyed when I have to explain that I didn’t have a “Massive heart attack”.  Somehow, I prefer my reality of  the far less common and more dramatic SCA, though that is mighty small of me.  After all, before 9/5/09, I could not credibly have described the difference between a heart attack and SCA.  I’m wrong to get cranky about it, but I can’t seem to help myself.   My cholesterol was never high, thank you very much.  Small.  Small. 

Aluminum bats in college are wrong.  Actually, I think they’re wrong in high school and probably Little League as well.  The sound of a baseball bat should be a crack, not a ping. 

Mitt Romney in worn, broken-in jeans.  Very high ick factor.   And I don’t believe it.  Where is he getting them?

A favorite photo is ever so slightly out of focus.   There’s a new camera just developed (lytros) that will fix that, but too late for my shot. 

The wrong man calls.   Of course, the 'right' man is also a wrong man,  but that's just me.  I was thinking of writing a country song "He was the answer to the wrong question".   Another day.....

  

Writing a post like this after my extraordinary good fortune is wrong;  my heart stopped and I didn’t die.  This uncharacteristic whining reminds me of one of my favorite birthday cards ever created.  

- -   On the cover are two women.  One grants the other a single wish and the birthday girl says "Thinner thighs".  The wish-granter rages - really, all the problems in the world and that is what you selfishly ask for - thinner thighs??????

- -   And inside the card, the birthday girl responds.  "Okay, okay.  Thinner thighs for everyone".

And there you have it.


P. S. The photo is from jupiterimages.com;  isn't it perfect?

One Year

365 days.  One year.  Too lazy to do the math on number of minutes and seconds.  Gone. Spent. Invested or wasted.  Enjoyed or labored.  No matter how we think of it, it is one year and it is gone.

Post Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), anniversaries are different.  They are better or worse; they are frightening or boundlessly joyous;  they are never the same as before.  This one is different even here in the land of different.  I'm giving myself gifts.  Gifts of joy and peace.  Just a light touch of longing on the side.

I invited friends to dinner tonight to ward off brooding.  Now I realize, I wouldn't have brooded regardless.  I'm happy.  It took me longer than I'd like to admit to get there, but I'm happy.   I've been  aware of the approaching anniversary, sort of subterraneously; it loitered and lurked.  But it didn't haunt; I didn't brood.  I am happy.  One year ago, I'm not sure I was.  I was deluding myself, imagining depth that did not exist, not seeing how far short I was selling myself.  Aiming higher today.  We should all aim higher.

Finally, one year later.  I see that it was shadows and fog.  There is little of substance there.  Or what  might once have been there has been doused, diluted, washed away, done in by fluids, by liquids; some kind of utter submersion had gone on.  But that is not my life; it is someone else's.  It's not mine.  Me -  finally, one entire 365 days later, I can enjoy the time we spent for what it was - it was fun, it was cute, it was safe.  And just one bit more.   It entered the door at exactly the moment I needed fun, cute, safe.  I shiver to think of what I would have done - how would I have found my way through that rough, ragged patch if buena fun, cute, safe had not shown up?  I'll always be grateful for it; always feel fondness.  It will always have a home in my stops-for-no-reason heart.  I will wish nothing but the best.

I aim higher now.  I'm so delighted to be able to say that.
I heard a song today that I adore.  The singer speaks with Cupid about his directional challenges.  Cupid laughs and says "Hah! - I don't take aim.  I only go bang, bang, bang".
I just need to watch out for that aimless guy.

Farewell to that year.  A loving farewell to that which was only very remotely possible.  In the sober light of day; in the light of a sober day I hope finds him.   Stranger things have happened - after all,  my heart stopped and I didn't die.  Fare thee well.

Endings and Artists

I heard an artist speak the other day about some of her work. She pointed to a couple textiles and said something to this effect: "I realized I would probably never have that particular experience again, so I gathered up pieces of things.  I wasn't sure what I would do with them, but I knew I wanted to keep them until inspiration arrived".

I am not an artist.  My only medium is this - words.  I am horribly unobservant generally - or to put the best possible face on it, I am highly focussed.  And maybe a tad literal.  I was struck by the artist's having a sense of certainty that she would never pass that way again.  I have missed far more of those than I have caught.  I see them only in retrospect.   With people, often I didn't see it until the ending had arrived and already gone.

Would it be different if I had that artist's sensibility?  That I saw in that moment that this was an ending?  Would it change the experience? Would I behave differently?  Would I have fewer regrets, more regret?  Thinking of the endings that are losses through death or some demise:   Relationships gone.  People gone.  Would I have wanted to know that day was an ending?

My medium is words; so in considering endings, I hear the last words spoken between us.   My Dad's to me were "everything is all messed up" and my response something like - well, yeah, it probably is.  My Mom's "Can I have more stuffing?" Mine - well, sure, it's Thanksgiving.  With a cherished uncle, one of us said "See you for lunch Tuesday".  A sister who died too young, I am horrified to say I don't remember.  And with a lost relationship: "I promise we will talk about this".  Relationship lost, promise lost.
In each, I didn't know those would be our last words.  I gathered no items to mark the time and space as the artist did; I just took the fallible memory of the words.  Had I known I was sitting in an ending, I don't think I would change the parents or the sister; those days had come.  With the uncle, I would say - no wait, Tuesday is too late, let's make it Sunday.  Silly, but true.  He would be just as gone, the hole he left just as big.  But I would have tried to change that ending.  Somehow.  Make it bigger, make it last longer.  Something.
And that lost relationship?  Had I known that was our last day, I would have tried something.  Probably the ending was as certain as the others, but the ensuing edges were more jagged than they needed to be.  Or so I think.  A little more thoughtful observation here, a little more sober courage there.

Final acts are on the mind these days.  Endings looked different to the artist, perhaps they can sound different to me next time.

With thanks to Fritzi Huber, the artist.

Religion and Me - Lost in Translation

Religion is a tortured subject for this raised-Catholic.  I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with the Church. (Yes, if you are raised Catholic, Church gets a capital c).  At best, and I mean at very, very best, I could be described as a cafeteria Catholic - take what you like and leave the rest.

As an adult, I have had decades with zero Mass attendance and then bursts when I was a regular.  I resigned from one parish in the aftermath of a pedophilia episode.  And now I have joined another.  This one is on the beach, and the beach environment and population seem to invade the church.  Or at least I hope so.

It is an understatement to say I have struggled with faith and religious practice, but I have comfort with core spirituality.  I grapple with the meaning of faith, the concept of sin; I battle with rules, with Church as authority rather than conduit and community.
(At one point, I decided only to say the parts of the Nicene Creed at Mass that I 'believed in', and had a crisis when I got down to saying only one sentence.  Seriously.  Not joking.  One sentence.  That precipitated another spell of absence from church and Church.)

Since the SCA and a couple other life events, I have accepted that "faith" is not ever going to be that absolute certainty for me that I once wished it would be.  And I have accepted that it is fine to carry my tortured version of faith and spirituality into any old church I choose.  Including a Catholic one on the beach.

Example of newfound approach to faith: I was talking with a friend a few months back - a friend who shares some of the questions. (But he may be worse - he blurted out at Christmas to his very, very Southern mother - "my Jesus is brown".  Caused a family ruckus.)
We talked about the Virgin Birth as an example - no way do I believe that.  Sorry.  And even worse (or better), I honestly don't understand why anyone cares.  My friend said he had long ago written that one off to a translation problem.  That in the ancient days of either the Old Testament and/or the New one - someone wrote "virgin" instead of "young unmarried girl".
I decided why the F not. This could be the true explanation.  My newfound approach to faith --- "could be true" is enough.  Close enough.
Life should be this simple.  Of course, if my priest reads this, I am doomed.  Literally.

Extra Drinks

The Nail

In the last year of his life, someone was asked "Do you have any regrets?";  to which he responded:   "I regret the extra drinks".  Said he and his deeply troubled liver..............

I hate alcohol.  Today anyway.   I hate it.  I drink it now and then, but I can't stand what it does to people I love.  And by extension, what it does to me.  So screw it - I just hate the stuff.  If there were a Temperance League out there today, I'd probably be a card-carrying member.
As a friend says:  "There you have it".  Truth be told.

Since I will get an "F" in Alanon today, I should apologize or moderate the statements, or talk about detachment, or it's a disease, or there's a genetic predisposition, or they each find their own way to sobriety (or not), or we need to support them, or how to set boundaries while still loving them, or I tend to overreact, or leave room for the exceptions to the rule  -  all that annoying, mature, compassionate crap.  But not today;  today I just hate alcohol.   We all have moments when we simply don't feel like being politically correct or thoughtful or moderate or even knowledgeable.  But now, sometimes, it seems the SCA survival gives me permission to give in to those days - to go ahead and have a little old rant like this one.   In other words - screw it.  I don't feel like being sensible or gentle or mature - I just hate the stuff.

In my early days in Alanon, an experienced friend was talking with a very distraught newcomer.  The newbie was worrying herself sick over future romantic possibilities after she divorced her active alcoholic husband. She said: "I am so worried I will fall for another one - how will I be able to tell if a man is an alcoholic?"
And my friend responded:
"Oh, that is very, very easy for me.  If I am in any way attracted to him, he is an alcoholic."

So there you have it.  Even I get tired of myself from time to time.  So I know how you feel.

Courage Can Be Optional

Courage is a big word; cowardice is a big word – we normally think of them in terms of grand, public, physical and/or moral acts.  But for me – I am not a soldier, not a fireman – my courage and cowardice play out in the small private choices of my life.  

Courage, cowardice, recklessness  - how we choose to respond to the inevitable fears in life.  Fear can be helpful; it keeps me from ever seriously considering bungee jumping or playing with a snake.  
The choices are personal - to bungee jump seems reckless - the risk of harm outweighed the benefit.  But I love scuba diving – an activity others might call reckless. Each of us finds our faint and fuzzy lines among the three choices - but, there are some acts in our relationships where the choices are clear.  Women remember Carrie Bradshaw  - someone broke up with her on a post-it.  No question – cowardly.  There is no scenario where the post-it-wielding guy is not a coward.
We all act bravely at times and cowardly at others, and probably all try to avoid whatever we define as reckless.  It seems some people tend more towards cowardice, I think because they cannot bear the feeling of being afraid, they cannot bear to be uncomfortable – they will avoid it at almost any cost.  They will run for cover.  They might be bungee-jumpers, but in moral choices – they run for the hills. 

Most of us admire courage.  We respect courage. We seek to emulate courage.  As an adult, in my range of relationships, I don’t think I have often been a coward.  But sometimes playing with one who leans towards cowardice can be an act of great recklessness.   Very very risky.  Right up there with bungee jumping.

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Give as Good as We Get

In a cherished friendship, I fear I got so much more than I gave.  I got boats, a teacher, spectacular afternoons, Leonard Cohen, a basin shaped like a lollipop.  I got weird, off-the-beaten-path books I had never heard of - I got a feast of snakes.  Joyous admiration for a very quirky humor.  I got a hummingbird, an egret and a painted bunting.  Saw craters on the moon.  Jurgensen field.  Swimming in the ocean off an undeveloped island.  Riding waves with someone who can do it better than I can.  Learned to like beer.  I got the certainty of loving and being loved.  I got all this.  I swiped a nautical chart.

I worry that the value of what I gave falls short.  Note to self - be a better friend.

Oh, I forgot the best - I got a pipe that glows in the dark.  Takes you back.

Photo courtesy of an un-friend.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and Our Ledgers

Large pieces of life gradually become ledger books.  I often thought marriage became an enormous ledger (you know - I cleaned the kitchen last time...I get to be a bitch today because you were a toad yesterday...).

SCA fouls up the ledgers.  It knocks our routine relationships out of balance.  The level we care about different parts of our lives shifts,  sometimes in small ways and other times closer to volcanically.  Eruptions.  Sometimes it seems like a total disorientation.  Upside down.  Planet gone wobbly.

Pre-SCA, when we had a spat (I was mocked for using that word, but I like it - it's a wonderful word) - in a spat or argument or real fight, we measured our next action, at least in part, with one eye on that mental ledger. I apologized first last time.... OR....he was more wrong than I was here, so he has to apologize first. ...OR he was really wrong this time - nothing short of flowers will work.

Since the SCA, at least the major spat/argument/disruptions are very different.  Where harmony in an important relationship is at stake  - I sometimes am almost oblivious to maintaining the ledger balance.  It doesn't matter to me who was more wrong.  It doesn't matter to me if I over-apologize or meet more than halfway.  Doesn't even matter if I risk going where I am not welcome.  The chance at preserving or improving an important relationship trumps book-balancing.  Post SCA, my tolerance for regrets has sunk to near zero; if I can avoid regretting an action or inaction, I am going to.  And really - making the first step towards reconciliation or taking the larger step - these are rarely the sources of our regrets.

We all know life is short.  We SCA survivors know it can be starkly, coldly short.  Blink of an eye short.  May not wake up tomorrow short. That next electrical disruption can happen in the next 5 minutes.  Or in 20 years.  One thing is certain; regrets are not how we want to spend our time.  If I embarrass myself - who gives a damn.

Photo courtesy of an un-friend.

Platonic Relationships Fail

Genies do not go back into bottles.   If you want to ruin a platonic friendship, try stepping away from the platonic.  Genie comes flying out.  Soaring, racing out.  Jet propelled out.

Throughout our friendship, there were barriers, impediments to a "normal" relationship - insurmountable issues and obstacles. Well, it's one very large one, I guess.  Maybe one and a half. Well, probably two. There is no question about our caring for one another, but these barriers are large.  Large as in --- I would have a better shot at pole-vaulting 15 feet than we would have getting past these issues.  We both knew it then and know it now.

Then the genie flew out - we ruined this friendship that meant so much to me.   At first, I thought we could talk our way back into the platonic state.  But first he and then I came to understand that we had reached the land of "No Exit".  Genies don't go back into bottles, we cannot deny what happened,  talking about it doesn't vaporize it, and of course, we have to accept why it happened.  There are hard, unwelcome facts here. So no going back.  

And those earlier barriers and impediments?  They are as real and as high as they ever were.

No way forward to a relationship; no way backwards to Plato.  The only thing left was the door.  Our friendship ended.  It is overwhelmingly sad and utterly inevitable.  Heartbreak.

Sometimes I hate being an adult.
Maybe I'll rethink it.

Drinkers - Perhaps a Tattoo Warning

I am thinking of getting a tattoo.  Really.  I mean, I have an implanted defibrillator for shocks if the heart goes south, but somehow, I need another device to remind me not to have heavy drinkers in my life.  Perhaps a companion defibrillator?  Something that would deliver a shock if I find myself in their presence?

I stink at any type of relationship with heavy drinkers, and it is not for lack of experience or effort.  In our lives, we have elective people and non-elective people.  The non-elective ones are blood relatives; we have permanent relationships with them, regardless. Maybe clients and coworkers are non-elective people as well.  But geez - the elective people are everyone else - friends, lovers, acquaintances. All of them.  I had thought it was just an issue with lovers; but it's not - it is every single elective person.  I need a tattoo - no elective heavy drinkers.

I am reminded of a quote:  "Turning to a heavy drinker for emotional support is like going to a hardware store for bread.  It doesn't make much sense to get mad at the store; the question is why do I go there."  And the answer of course - these people (yes, particularly the men), are charming, engaging, charismatic and then I am an idiot.

And how do we define heavy drinkers?:

•  I think the government says more that 14 drinks per week. And I can hear all my  drinking pals ask: "But how many ounces in a drink?" OR "Per week - you mean without the weekends, right?".
• And how does the Rowan clan define a heavy drinker? : "Someone who drinks more than I do".
• And me - how do I tell if someone is a heavy drinker? How the hell do I know? If I were good at this, I would not be in this mess.

Tatoo coming.

Boats as Prism

All through the fall and early winter, I rented boats.  I have not gone out alone yet - my skills are not at that level.  Each of my companions had more experience than I do, but only one is expert in the local waters,  And the local waters here, as in many places, are tricky. Sandbars lurk.

The boat owners provide a briefing on the basics and finer points of the boat and some insight into the local waters.  My companions hear the briefing in remarkably different ways.  And I have learned how I will hear the briefing when my turn comes.

The least experienced of the bunch had the least patience for the briefing.  She thinks you  need to know  only on/off, forward/reverse, anchor and depth finder.  Navigational markers are superfluous.

Then the men.  One responded with visible signs of irritation; no overt brusqueness, but non-verbally communicating that he had a great deal of boating experience and did not need the information on the boat.  Had little interest in the local water information as well. Outwardly polite, but point made clearly and sharply - not a newbie.

Then the next verbalized in a blustery, I-blew-by-the-Jones's sort of way.  You know how this goes: he had owned boats far bigger than this one, grew up on the water,  navigated far trickier seas, caught bigger and better fish -  he knew all he wanted to know.

And then there is the class act who will be my role model when my time finally comes to receive my very own briefing. This friend has been out on the rental boat with me several times; he has heard the entire briefing more than once; he grew up here and has been boating these waters for 40+ years.  But he was silent, smiling, gracious and attentive - even the second or third time through.  The first time, he turned to me after we had gotten underway to explain why he had let the briefing run through even though there was no new information for him --- but an explanation was not necessary.  It was already clear.

This is one of the kindest people I have ever known; he will grant each person time, patience and respect for their expertise; what he already knows is just not the point.

Boat as prism - kindness trumps.

Good Days But I Am An Ass - The Cleat Board

Until today, it's been a good week - played hooky one day last week for a long, long outstanding boating day. Loved it. And I passed some exams; actually both Skippy and I did.

And the good days continued. The other day, a friend made me a "cleat board" - yes, in the photo, that is a "cleat board". I suppose it might be hard for some to understand how touched I was - seriously. I adore this friend and the fact that he understood and wanted to help with my deep dread of having to learn knots. (That part of my brain just isn't there. Or if it is there, it doesn't work.   And I can't blame the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) - it's been going on for years.)

So I have to learn knots, and I have a friend who made me a cleat board. THAT, in my book, is an excellent day.

And then I became an ass. This may sound odd for a grown up adult, but I do not understand the rules of social drinking. Haven't been one, don't know many - most of the drinkers I have known have been problem drinkers, not social ones. I so like this person, he is important to me; I want him to like me. Simple, we learned this in what - 4th grade? But I f'd up. I fear that in my feeble attempts to 'fit in' I committed "social-drinker-violations"; I just don't know the rules.

I fear I made him feel lousy; I didn't understand that it was NOT OK to rib about forgetting details of things that occurred while over-drinking. I didn't get that it is NOT OK to rib about his apparently making a choice to limit what he drank yesterday. But I should know. I am an adult. AND I object when people rib me about drinking too little. I should have known.

All that adds up to - I am an idiot. I was an ass. I probably succeeding in both making him feel lousy and making myself less likable. And I don't know how to fix it.

I'm hoping it comes to me.