Day 6, Meeting 6: Too cool for school

This blog shit is high maintenance! I always find myself writing as the last thing before I go to bed. Need to start earlier. I've had a semi-rough day. Worked this morning. Before heading to Chinatown, my coworker and I got a coffee at this very cool cafe in the Mission. I hadn't heard of it and I'm sure it's been around for a little while. It had a DJ on turntables. I shit you not. Okay so I've been around the way and consider myself fairly hip to what's going on if I'm not living it (as you get older, you live it less and hear about it less too so I try to just keep an ear to the ground so I don't sound like a jackass around my 23 yr old colleagues) and I've never seen a DJ at a coffee shop at 9 in the morning on a Saturday. I just haven't seen it. I don't spend much time in the Mission because I just don't feel cool enough to be there. Also, I don't find people that friendly. I'm not into the hipster scene and most of the time I can't help but laugh at a lot of these people.

So I finished working and then had been invited to join some new girlfriends at a meeting at noon in the Mission. I had been told this meeting was a bit of a scene and it totally was. Wall to wall tattoos and skinny jeans, thick-rimmed glasses and plaid. Jeezus. I saw my friend at the door talking to a girl with bright pink lipstick, I stopped and somehow we got on the topic of the song "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger and I laughed and pointed at this guy I had met at another meeting and laughed that he kind of reminded me of the lead singer from Night Ranger. Bright Pink Lipstick says, "Who? Him? That's my boyfriend. I won't tell him you said that because isn't Night Ranger kind of a pussy-band?" Insert foot in mouth. I laughed and said, "No shit. Well, let's just start over and pretend this didn't happen and I'm just gonna go now," laughing nervously and scooting inside. And I don't know much about Night Ranger or music or rock bands for that matter, but I do not that Night Ranger would probably be deemed a pussy band by some hard as nails rocker in the Mission.

Ugh I felt like such a jackass. What a way to meet people. And at the same time, with these punk rockers you can't tell the difference between the fake ones and the hard core ones which often times are sweet. I was totally on the defensive. I didn't mean to rag on this woman's boyfriend, but the whole situation was pretty funny and I guess I thought she would have been a bit more easy going and less sensitive. She sounded pretty easy-going I guess given that I didn't get decked I suppose.

My friend said it was fine and I proceeded to sit in the back of this massive meeting with my two girlfriends, chatting and being silly and commenting on the people who would walk by us to get coffee or go to the bathroom. I was not being productive with my sobriety but this is what fellowship was all about, right? It was a big book meeting and they had just finished reading the book and had started at the beginning again I suppose because we read the prefaces. Boooo-ring. I found that the only people engaged or who were raising their hands were in the first 4 rows. The other 7 rows of people were following along but not raising their hands. There was a microphone but it didn't make it past the 4th row. Weird. I've actually read the prefaces fairly recently and I do have to say while it's a bit boring for a meeting, the history to this program is fascinating and their were some other self-proclaimed program geeks which was kinda cute. I am most recently amazed at the range of people this program works for, it's truly impactful in a phenomenal way. There was an intense "burning desire" share about how this guy had last seen his son and a drug counselor dead together on the pavement by his car from doing crack and how important this program is to pass down to the generations. That was pretty intense.

I'm meeting with my sponsor tomorrow morning and I haven't done my homework for my sponsor. I'm supposed to have read a bunch. While I'm eager to get moving on to Step 2 and 3, I'm not doing the work. I'm not sure when I would have had the time.

This week my recovery put a strain on my relationship too. It's been tough because I have little time for him even though now he just moved closer. I found myself trying to get him to understand how exhausted I was while not equally recognizing how challenging his situation must be of being unemployed. I find myself analyzing so much of what I do know from the perspective of the program. I can feel that I'm acting out as the big book dictates but haven't read enough to know exactly how I'm doing so. I'm finding that as I struggle with my own selfishness, it clashes with what I've learned about taking care of myself and doing what I need for me (like getting out of a room where people are drinking).