And there's this recurring memory of once driving on The Island, so drunk that I had to close one eye to see the line in the middle of the road, when I swerved and jolted onto the grass verge. I managed regain control of the car and carried on driving but this muscle memory - of literally going off the rails - keeps jolting though my mind and body. Dropping off to sleep JOLT I'm awake again. Freewheeling on my bike in the sun JOLT I could have crashed.
I want to delete the memories of moments like this, to erase all the mistakes and addictions and hurts, so I am a fresh page. I've tried to do this - mainly with (clever, this one) more booze - but I now know this isn't possible and I'm going to have to find ways to manage the past. To Deal With It.
Despite all this, I've had a good day today. I'm drinking litres of coke, smoking fistfuls of cigarettes and thinking about drinking - but I'm fairly happy and clear-minded. After an encouraging AA meeting - where someone told me about the possibility of a flat (I'm facing the reality that I have to move house urgently) and I identified a woman who could be a potential sponsor, I went for a swim in the outdoor lido. Twenty lengths (one kilometre), clean and pure, of breast-stroke and backstroke (looking up through blue-tinted goggles at an even bluer sky). A week off the booze, that toxic taste is beginning to leave my skin and I'm sure all the baths and swimming are helping. I have always loved to be submerged.

So, rehab proper starts tomorrow and I'm weirdly excited about the people I will meet, the things we will do and how I will change. I don't want to be jolting along forever.
INFINITE JEST UPDATE: Pages 60-65 read in the park in the sun. This is not a lot but included an eight-page (in tiny print) endnote (I was wrong yesterday to call them footnotes) that I considered skipping but was glad I didn't cuz it's the funniest maddest bit yet: The fictional and increasingly-psychotic filmography of James O. Incandenza, contains film synopsis such as "Sadistic penal authorities place a blind convict and a deaf-mute convict together in 'solitary confinement' and the two men attempt to devise ways of communicating with each other."
Also, with reference to my dreams above, a nightmare sequence describes "the sudden intra-dream realization that the nightmares' very essence and center has been with you all along, even awake, it's just been... overlooked."
Plus more tennis.
No comments:
Post a Comment