(500) Days of... Recovery...

Ya like my artwork?!? I thought it was pretty damn clever. I thought about cutting a little picture of my face and putting it over Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's head, so maybe it would look like me... but, honestly, that took too much effort. So you get the idea! :-)

Anyways, I'm 500 days sober as of today! It's MORE than a year, but not quite to that 18 month milestone. I tried to look back on what was going on in my world on March 28th, 2017 and this is what I can gather so far...

I think it was about this time last year that I truly hit that groove at Firstep. I posted something on "Candid Thoughts" on March 10th about losing fellow Firstepper Ben and my good friend Jerry from LLL. After that, there isn't another blog post until MAY. I totally dropped the ball on that one... but it was for good reason! I became REALLY busy in life at Firstep. I didn't feel the need to hide behind my journal anymore, nor did I really have any time for it. The darkness and uncertainty that surrounded my life and my alcoholism was getting replaced by light and faith that things were going to turn out okay! There was still plenty of uncertainty, I couldn't help but look ahead at the coming months and what I was going to do with myself. I would be graduating from the Firstep program in exactly two more months and I was pretty certain that I was going to stay on board with OKC Metro Alliance as a residential adviser. Life was simple back then, REALLY simple. We all know (or do we?) what happens next. Over the next several months, I've worked for an awesome non-profit agency, put myself through school. stayed sober and lived a pretty great life.

Oddly enough, today is another milestone. Today is my last day at my current job. I've enjoyed working at Specialized Outpatient Services for just short of nine months. I definitely could've seen myself staying there longer, if only things had worked out differently. BUT God obviously had some other plans in store for me, and being made part-time was a gentle nudge in the right direction to where I need to be going. Starting Monday, I'll be a state employee once again. Going into the second 500 days and starting a new adventure! I look forward to what exciting stuff lies ahead in my (sometimes) exciting life.

Metaphorical Movies...

Considering I own such intellectual masterpieces such as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Jerk and at least one Transformers movie, I doubt I'll be able to pass myself off as some sort of sophisticated movie buff anytime soon. There are PLENTY of times that I love laying out and enjoying a movie for face value. It is what it is and nothing more. There is no better way to end a rough day than to escape with some totally unrealistic sci-fi or fantasy, laugh your ass off to some horrible toilet humor or watch as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson tries to save the world from destruction again. It doesn't have to be some sort of sophisticated cinematic treasure full of depth and meaning to make it into my massive movie collection.

That being said... I DO love a good movie that makes you think, one that I walk away thinking "ya know, I'm not actually SURE if I liked that movie or not..." One that you might have to see two or more times before you decide on whether it was any good. For example, Megan and I went and saw Jordan Peele's new movie Us. It almost immediately was being hailed as one of the best original horror films since the Shining. After his success with his first hit Get Out, Peele is being touted as this generation's Stephen King. Those are DEFINITELY big shoes to fill and I'm not quite sure Peele fills them... yet. But, with that being said, I do think I enjoyed the movie. As we were walking through the parking garage and she asked what I thought. I had to pause. I wasn't sure I agreed with what the initial reviews. It was either amazing... or it was absolute garbage. Almost a week later and I am definitely leaning more towards pretty amazing.

What helped tip me over was reading article after article on what the film actually represented. I suppose you could definitely take the movie at face value. How a family handles the sudden attack from a family of doppelgängers, followed shortly by learning that there were actually thousands of these doppelgängers that were coming from a network of tunnels and underground passages and were going to take over the above world. However, the movie gained a lot more depth and awesome-ness when you started to think about "well, what do these doppelgängers represent?"

There have been plenty of other movies that are like this. It made me think of watching the movie Mother! with Megan several months ago. In this movie, the metaphors were basically necessary. Without figuring out what certain things represented, the movie made ABSOLUTELY no sense whatsoever. One of my FAVORITE examples of metaphors used in movies is the all-important ZOMBIE movie. I actually managed to write a paper about it in one of my college classes! A simple zombie flick is totally fun to watch, but it adds a certain layer of depth and interest when you see that the zombies represent (amongst dozens of other things) the mindless consumerism of the 1980's.

Movies  can definitely be used to stir up meaningful and debate-provoking conversations. Or, you can have nights like tonight... where I'm just laying in bed watching Jackass: The Movie. There is absolutely NOTHING metaphorical about watching a man shove a toy car up his ass...

A Movie Review For You! "The Crow"

"The Crow," starring Brandon Lee, was released in theaters nearly 25 years ago!!! Now I TOTALLY feel old. I believe that this movie could totally stand alone based on the acting talent, the amazing storyline and the dark and gritty cinematography. Add in the memories that this movie invokes as well as the rockin' grungy soundtrack, and that EASILY puts The Crow in my top five favorite movies... ever. That's saying a lot! So, when a local movie club known as "VHS and Chill" was doing a special showing at a little independent theater... I KNEW I had to get a ticket. I loved the fact that they didn't show some digitalized HD version. Nope! They showed the original VHS version, complete with super cheesy trailers for movies like "Halloween 6" and "Mother's Boys." They also included the last recorded interview with Brandon Lee, filmed shortly before the accident that took his life. I managed to convince Megan and Michael Massey (BOTH who had never seen the movie before!) to come along with me... I am pretty sure both of them loved it. Well, at least Megan did.

The plot for the Crow is fairly simple, a man and his fiancee are brutally murdered. The weight of the sorrow makes it impossible for Brandon Lee's character, Eric Draven, to move on. He is brought back to life and, using the powers of the crow, seeks out revenge for their deaths. He then goes on to find each person responsible and (brutally) brings them to justice. I'll leave it at that, in case someone decides to read this that HASN'T seen it or isn't sure on how the film ends...

I was probably in the third grade or so when I first saw this movie. One of the perks of my brother Matt dating this girl who worked at the video rental place that was inside the GFF grocery store was that he got free rentals ALL of the time. I remember snooping in their room at various times and finding random cassette tapes that I had never even HEARD of in those big bulky boxes that you would get when you rented them from rental stores like Blockbuster, Hollywood, etc. Sometimes I was lucky (or unlucky... not all of the movies we watched were as awesome as this one) enough to be around when Matt would pop it into our massive VCR. Matt and Adam must've been watching this movie at a point when Mom was on a date or something, because there is NO way that I would've been allowed to watch it. Mom was usually pretty progressive and open and let me watch a lot of stuff, but damn... this would've been a bit much. It gathered the attention of my little third or fourth grade mind because it was the first "dark" film that I had ever seen. The super gritty and mature content matter grabbed my attention, not for the standard reasons (gasp! They said the "F" word!) that it would've gotten an eight year olds attention. It was more of the thoughts along the lines that "there are people out there that live in these dark seedy places and do these incredibly illegal things... and some of these people are little kids just like me. Not EVERYONE lives in a squeaky clean suburban setting." Thoughts like these developed an interest in certain types of films for me, movies like "Requiem For A Dream" that have characters who start off in bad situations and they don't really ever get better. There aren't always necessarily happy endings.

I remember the soundtrack that came along this movie was full of grungy awesome rock from Alice in Chains, The Cure and more. It was definitely one of the first group of CD's I ever bought. If I remember correctly, it actually came as a two-pack and included an "inspired by" CD. This CD, along with the soundtrack from the movie "Hackers" was frequently found in the CD player in my 1997 Honda Accord. I guess I thought I was pretty cool as I was blaring this, windows down and sunroof open going to school or driving to work at Mardel Christian Bookstore (yeah, I know) or Boomerang Grill (mm... chicken tenders). Lots of fun memories.

Needless to say this movie ranks high in my book. Like I said, it is EASILY in my top five. It's not necessarily JUST because it's an awesome movie... but it definitely helps. I totally give it a 10 out of 10.

"A building gets torched. All that is left is ashes. I used to think that was true about everything: family, friends, feelings. But now I know that sometimes, if love proves real and two people are meant to be together, nothing can keep them apart."

A New Chapter...

I feel like I say it a lot, and if I don't, it definitely deserves to be said more often... God has an interesting sense of humor. It was exactly eight years ago Monday that I was let go from my position with the State of Oklahoma. It was my first "big boy" job right out of high school and something that I took great pride in. Over the course of seven years, I worked myself up from the bottom of the barrel within the agency to being management and having seniority over most of the other people that worked there. I guess you could say I was "kind of a big deal."

But, just like everything at that time, the love for my job and my professionalism in general took a backseat to my alcoholism. While I wasn't directly fired because of alcoholism, it did cause the poor behavior, lack of caring or drive and bad attitude that led to me getting let go from that position.

So, here we are, eight years later to the DAY... and I have officially accepted a position working for the state again. I'll be a consumer recovery specialist with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services..It'll be my first BIG, big boy job (my first position after graduating from OU) and I'm SUPER excited! It will be a more "hands on" position than I've ever really had in the past. I'll be a part of the daily lives of adults as they are in the critical first few days of their recovery. I'm not quite a recovery support specialist, so I won't do any "one on one" time with clients, but I will get to interact with them on a daily basis, socialize, lead various groups and so on. It'll be a challenge, but I think I'm ready!

Unfortunately, that did mean that I had to turn in my notice of resignation at SOS. I'm very grateful for the experiences that I've gained working with them and I'm SUPER grateful for all of the friendships that I've gained while there. I'm hopeful that those will continue on long after I leave and start my new adventure.

Tales From A Lyft Driver, Vol. 2: Money Does NOT Buy Happiness...

According to my handy-dandy LYFT app, I've been driving part-time for about two-ish (maybe three?) weeks now. And out of those two (or so) weeks, I was down for a good portion of last week due to school AND down a good portion of THIS week due to having tires that refused to stay inflated. Still, with aaaalllll that down time, I've managed to make some fairly decent money.

Over that time period, I've had at least 38 complete and total strangers in my vehicle with me. Sometimes it was quite dark outside and other times I have been in fairly unsavory parts of Oklahoma City. Oddly enough, though, I've never been afraid. Oddly enough, I've been more concerned that the passengers (a large number of them young and female) would be afraid of me. Don't worry passengers, I may be a large guy, but I'm just a big teddy bear. :-) As I mentioned in volume one, it has been a pretty interesting spectrum of passengers that get in and out of my car. While I am no sociology expert, I DID stay at a Holiday Inn Express last nigh...wait, no I didn't. lol. I like to think of myself as a somewhat-seasoned veteran of human observation (a fancy way of saying that I like to people-watch). My sense of empathy and compassion makes it really easy to relate to people and see/feel where they are. I'd also like to think that I'm pretty good at reading people.

One of the biggest impressions that I have been getting from my passengers (if you couldn't tell by the title) is that money does not necessarily make you happy. I have picked up some shabbier dressed individuals from some really questionable apartment complexes, but they are just as happy as can be. Other times, I pick up people that (I know I'm judging a book by its cover) that seem to be fairly well off and are choosing to Lyft PROBABLY because they plan to drink... but those people that are more well dressed, from nicer areas of town and all those other things that would make you stop and think "hey, this person has money," so far have been the less friendly of the bunch. They don't really care to talk much, and if they do, they tend to be in sour moods. The times that there have been more than one of them in the car, they tend to be fighting or bickering with each other.

I know that a lot of other circumstances could play into the moods, attitudes and behavior of people more than just their socioeconomic background... but, just in general, those have been my observations. Just because you don't live in the posh part of town, wearing the best clothes and you (apparently) don't have a vehicle of your own... doesn't mean that your life can't still be friggin' fantastic. This is more of a reminder to myself more than anything. Just because something isn't working out the way society tells you it should, doesn't mean you can't still be happy and grateful for life. I know my life has taken some weird twisties and turnies throughout my 33 years, but I'm grateful. I may not be living that ideal, picture-perfect life, but it's mine. And I wouldn't change ANY of it for the world...

Patience... It's A Virtue...

Would you believe that, with as much as I struggle with it on a daily basis, that I have never written a blog entry regarding the topic of PATIENCE?! Yeah. I know. I'm super surprised, too. I have had the idea, but I didn't want to be repetitive, so I did the search... and NOTHING! Yeah. It seems like a pretty pertinent topic nowadays, definitely worthy of discussing. Sometimes my patience is tested on a super small level, something like the guy in front of me is driving ridiculously slow or the internet is craaaawwling and Facebook won't load fast enough. Other times, my patience is tested at some grand existential level, where I find it difficult to stay patient and calm because things aren't happening on my timeline. It happens when dealing with those BIG life issues: money, love, life, school, work, living situation, etc. Anyway you look at it, impatience is DEFINITELY still a character defect that continues to cause me issues.

A perfect example of impatience happened to me a few weeks ago. After the recent shake-up at work (see the post "Bad News Bears" for further info...), I started to throw my name (and my resume) out into the job market. Fairly quickly, a VERY promising job prospect appeared on the horizon. It was one that I had honestly never really considered (for myself) before. It was definitely a little more "corporate" than I'm used to, definitely further away than I'm used to looking and not necessarily up my alley or area of expertise... but I was thinking that I could've made it work. Plus, when I found out about the potential money that I could be making, I was TOTALLY on board. I went from being all social work-y and working in a service field to being Mr. Corporate Cloud... ready to make the big bucks. In talking with the recruiter, I was led to believe that it wasn't IF I was going to get hired, it was more like "WHEN you get hired, which position will they place you in?" The job was almost certainly mine, and so I became increasingly impatient while waiting for the results of my TWO interviews. The corporate recruiter who had stayed in touch with me during the beginning of the process all of a sudden went AWOL. No phone call and no e-mail. After waiting for almost a week, I found out that the answer was sadly (or maybe not-so-sadly) a big fat NO. I've been turned down for PLENTY of jobs before, but something about this was especially devastating. Looking back at it now, I realize that it's because I had started to make assumptions that the job was mine, quickly followed by making plans on what I was going to do with all of that money. I feel like I was kind of playing God, assuming that things were going to go MY way instead of sitting back and listening to what my Higher Power might have to say about the ordeal.

God: "Eh, John, do you really think you'll be happy doing this?
Me: "Shut up. Money."
God: "Now John, listen, it is really far away. How can you make that logistically work?"
Me: "Shut up. Money."
God: "Ok, I hate to have to do this..."

That news definitely pushed my impatience-o-meter off the charts, and it definitely didn't take long for that to start trickling into all the other areas of my life. I have definitely been short with friends, family, coworkers and everybody in between. STAYING positive has been a real struggle. After a few weeks, I think that things have definitely leveled back out now. With my school FINALLY over, that is one less thing that I have to worry about. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep doing the next right thing. If I can just NOT act like a super-impatient dick, I'm fairly certain good things will continue to happen to me. Despite the series of setbacks, I do have an overall optimistic outlook into my future. I can't quite put a finger on it, but I think I'm due for some good news sometime (hopefully) soon!

In other news, I unintentionally celebrated 16 months of sustained sobriety today. I say "unintentionally" due to the fact that I didn't even really think about it until after Megan sent me a "Happy Sober-versary" text. I think I'm getting to that point where it IS just a normal, every day thing. I don't find myself white-knuckling it near as much. Even when I took the big hit to the pocketbook because of the job situation and then followed by this big hit to the ego when I got turned down for the corporate position, alcohol didn't even cross my mind. Now, thinking about what kind of tasty food I was going to have for dinner sure did... but we'll work on that diet soon enough. 

A Movie Review For YOU! "Captain Marvel"

So, Megs and I saw "Captain Marvel" last night and after a brief attempt at writing some sort of plot synopsis that could explain this interesting movie, I threw in the towel and decided to steal someone else's description to get this blog entry going...

"Captain Marvel is an extraterrestrial Kree warrior who finds herself caught in the middle of an intergalactic battle between her people and the Skrulls. Living on Earth in 1995, she keeps having recurring memories of another life as US Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. With help from Nick Fury, Captain Marvel tries to uncover the secrets of her past while harnessing her special superpowers to end the war with the evil Skrulls."

Spaceships, Jude Law and bad ass warrior chicks. Combine that with an awesome 90's-centric soundtrack and you get a pretty fantastic movie. The first hour or so really left me scratching my head. I think they spent too much time keeping you confused on the "is she?" or "isn't she?" The way they laid out the story, they left it fairly vague on the possibility of "well, was she actually a pilot at one point or is this some sort of Skrull plot twist?" Without giving too much away, they DO eventually untangle everything and make it into a really cool story and fun movie to follow along with. In the end, you can focus on some intricate fight scenes and not have to sit there and think "wait a minute..."

Things I liked: The soundtrack. LOVED the soundtrack. I loved the various 90's pop culture references. I loved seeing Fury and Coulson as young agents at the (supposed) beginning of SHIELD.  I did enjoy that this was enough of a stand-alone movie that you could see it without seeing a single other Marvel film and you can still enjoy it. But, you definitely get more out of it if you are caught up with the timeline. I, for one, am NOT caught up on the timeline. I haven't seen the last two (I think?) Avengers movies, so I definitely need to watch those. Then maybe I'll go see Captain Marvel again.

Part of me wanted to initially shake my head in confusion/disappointment at the blatant "girl power" or "yeah! Women can do it all" in the plot. I think in an attempt to capture that attention from the female target audience, they potentially gave Captain Marvel TOO much power. Like NO one can beat her. But, after I thought about it, I thought to myself "so what?" It doesn't really matter how obviously they geared this movie towards girls. Instead, I thought... girls deserve bad ass heroes like this too!

Of course, they set it up for a potential "Captain Marvel 2" and they definitely tie it into the "Avengers" series... especially with that post-credits scene.

Other than the fuzzy, somewhat difficult to follow beginning, "Captain Marvel" was thoroughly enjoyable. That perfect mix of awesome action, super funny, fun pop culture references, a bad ass soundtrack, a cool plot and a great super heroine... I give it a 9 out of 10.

Tales From A Lyft Driver, Vol. 1: The Adventure Begins...

Many moons ago, I decided I was going to try and be a driver for Lyft, for a little extra cash. My intentions were honestly pure, but much like everything else in my life, it took a backseat to my addiction. I would SAY that I was off "Lyfting," but I definitely wasn't. I had even managed to convince myself that this wasn't a financially viable solution, so I abandoned it all together. That makes as much sense as NOT showing up for work and then being confused as to why you never got a paycheck. But, then again, a lot of the things that I thought about back then didn't make a whole lot of sense...

So, when the job situation took a hit a few weeks ago, Lyft was one of the first ideas that popped into my little noggin on how to resolve the problems at hand. The parents, however, were very skeptical. They were still under the impression that I had been legitimately trying to Lyft and just wasn't getting any business. Oops. I obviously told them the truth about what had been happening. The little lightbulbs of understanding lit up above their heads as they said "aaaaahhhh!!!!" and nodded their heads.

Despite not having to work until the afternoon on Tuesday, I took Mom into work, and clicked the Lyft button to the "on" position and hoped for the best. Tuesday was kinda slow, but I didn't do it non-stop like I should've. I was nervous and unsure about how it would go. I didn't log back in again until Thursday morning, and it was a LOT busier... but again, I felt like I got distracted by a few outside sources. I still made fairly decent money.  I accepted a few rides on Thursday evening, but crashed and burned (not literally) from exhaustion.

TODAY (Friday) was really the first day that has me pretty excited about the prospect of being able to make some legit money through Lyft. I started in the morning, with a pre-scheduled pick-up with a VERY talkative girl who proved that she was apparently quite comfortable with me. That was evident in the fact that she shared a LOT of information with me regarding her and her family's health history. Like... stuff you wouldn't (and/or shouldn't) share with a total stranger. The rides continued, and seem to alternate between VERY talkative and the awkwardly quiet.

I think the financial portion of Lyft is (obviously) appealing, but I think the personal aspect of it is even more attractive. In the three short "shifts" that I've worked Lyfting, I've had legitimately every type of person across the spectrum. Black, white, gay, straight, redneck, frat boys, blue collar workers, Nichols Hills socialites, and everything in between. I think my favorites are those people who are just simply wanting to get home after a long day at work or just need a ride to get to the grocery store. These are people that are just living their lives, they just are in a spot where they don't have access to their own vehicle. Even while I'm trying to wade through my own drama and difficulties in life right now, I can't help but feel incredibly blessed to be in the position that I am in today. Hopefully I can make the day a little bit brighter for these people, whether they want to talk or just want a quiet ride home from Wal-Mart, I'll do my best.