Recovery blog

Talk:The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks is my type of book. It’s based on social psychology where self-help meets linguistics. The author is a twin and she can observer a version of herself in social interactions like an avatar. Also one of the best pieces of advice is that you can not ask too many questions if you want to show your interest in another person. This is good advice to an introvert like me.

But I an also a finicky person so when I read about her discussion of NLP which she calls natural language processing, I almost dismissed her writing. I’ve read quite a bit about Neuro Linguistic Programming which analyzes how eye position can indicate what the speaker is thinking. For example if the speaker’s eyes are looking down and to the right, he is probably recalling something in the past tense. Looking up and to the right may indicate a future perspective.

But I think it is a fantastic book.

I have become a Supreme Court watcher. Barrett is a good writer. She certainly kept my interest. Her explanations of American history were more engaging than my high school history teacher P.G. Lee.

But when she delves into textualism, her arguments sound fishy and one-sided. I know some of her colleagues are all ga-ga about trying to figure out what the founders really meant when they said their words. But there are always two parts to a communication: what the speaker says and what the listener hears. Just blabbing something is not communication. I believe many lawyers are weak in their understanding of social psychology when it is studied in a scientific way.

Another weakness in this book is that the author portrays herself as too perfect. It makes me wonder if her book was written by AI. Has Amy ever made a mistake in her life? Perfect people make me uncomfortable.

Amy Coney Barrett talks a good talk. But I believe she does not walk the good walk.

Today is the Ides of March so my friend Gael has passed on an idea to flood the White House with postcards. I plan to send one but just in case Double Downer is so into squashing free speech that he’ll have the Justice Dept. track down protesters, I will only send him good wishes.

I still am amazed that some people cannot see that the Emperor has no clothes. To me he seems like the stupidest person I have ever seen. He knows nothing about history. His vocabulary is minimal. He has failed big-time in business in his casinos and thereafter lived on loans from banks never paid back. His social skills stink. He shows no empathy. He lives in a dog-eat-cat universe.

He fancies himself a builder. I picture him building a town in Gaza where he can surround himself with sycophants just like him and he could call it Hitlerville. There would be no people who are awake. There would be no diversity or equity there. The people would all be blind since the only law that applied follows the principle of an eye for an eye.

The only rationale I can see for DD’s current behavior (besides throwing a tantrum) is that the Republicans are trying to destroy everything so now they can say, “Only I can fix it.”

I talked to one of my oldest acquaintances whom I knew from high school. I had some papers I wanted to share with her from when we were about 30 years old. I also tip-toed a little down memory lane. She remembered things differently from the way I did. I’ll call her “P.”

When I was 19 years old, I was living with a black man for several years: Kel. I was working full-time for a big insurance company downtown L.A. The pay was minimum wage. When I met Kel, he was also working for minimum wage. We fell in love.

I found a better job by hooking up with a few girls who were turning tricks. I was not brave enough to go stand on a street corner. But it was easy to work by referral through other prostitutes. After awhile one of the women gave me her “book.” That was a gold mine. You wouldn’t believe the famous names that were in that book. This woman, Amber, told me not to use her real name. I just called them up and said, “Carol gave me your number.” “Oh, how is Carol?” they would say. If times were slow, a girlfriend and I would go to bars at hotels like the Beverly Wilshire (my favorite), the Beverly Hilton, the Century City Hotel. This was a better way of making money than a 9 to 5 job. Better hours and better pay.

Most of my clients were “regulars” and a few of them fell in love with me. One wanted to leave his wife and four kids. That one turned in to a lot of drama. Some wanted to rescue me. Some wanted to take care of me. And I never ran into any dangerous situations.

While talking with P, she remembered when I left Kel. I was living with Kel for about three to five years. My parents were pretty racist so they said they would send me to Paris. That sounded good because it would also keep me far away from my parents. P said that she and another friend gave me a ride to the airport. I remember going to Paris with my mother.

P could not remember Kel’s name, so she called him my “handler.” I’m pretty sure she meant pimp. Later that night I was half-listening to a TV drama like “Law and Order.” I avoid watching these types of crime shows mostly because they’re pure fiction. On the TV, the female cops were talking about getting these prostitutes away from their handlers. I had never before heard this term used in real life.

Well, here are some non-fiction facts about me and my “handler.”

-I wouldn’t call Kel a pimp.

-I was not forced to have sex with any man I didn’t want to.

-I was not brainwashed, nor indoctrinated.

-I was not stealing from anyone.

-I took a shower at least once a day.

-I was not addicted to drugs at that time. That came later when I was 32 years old.

-I was never beaten up by Kel. I don’t think he ever even lost his temper with me. It

was I myself who was more likely to lose my temper.

-I was never sexually molested by my father.

So after talking to P that day, later that night I was half-listening to the TV and a crime show like “Law and Order” was playing. The women cops were talking about getting these poor abused prostitutes away from their “handlers.” This was probably the first time I had heard this word after P used it. I was surprised at the way prostitutes were portrayed as caricatures in this made-up story on TV: a picture which had so little to do with reality and more to do with making its viewers feel “better than” or more fortunate. What a great way to get TV viewers addicted to their shows.

I suppose P believes she helped me escape a brutal situation by giving me a ride to the airport to go to France. I don’t remember it this way. My mother gave me a ride to the airport. But this could fit into a hero narrative of P’s.

I am not trying to put P down. She has many admirable qualities. She worked her way up the ladder of success. I can’t imagine she has ever made a mistake in her life. She is very put-together with every hair in place. She would never wear white after Labor Day. She is near genius IQ. I know because I gave her the Wechsler intelligence test.

Now P can point out many unattractive qualities about me when I was in my teens. And she did. She also tried to help me as a friend. At that time I did not even know the meaning of the word “friend.” But I rebelled against any gesture that had a “should” in the context.

My point is this: I am often in a state of bewilderment; when I talk to people who believe information on TV or on the internet as true. In the age of Google anyone can look up information. And you can check Wikipedia and other reputable websites. You can even (gasp!) read a book. I rarely believe something the first time I encounter it: I store the info in my short-term memory and then research it.

Yet people believe what they hear on Fox News or the internet or their neighbor without even questioning the source. They will read a book that is classified as fiction and swallow the premise. Many of these TV shows claim to be fact (“Ancient Aliens,” “Survivor,” “The Real Housewives,” conservative TV shows) but they are designed to entertain. They are edited to keep viewers involved, often by stoking anger at the “other side.” There is nothing like anger to make a person feel righteous.

Another phenomenon I run into: some people think it’s a bad trait to be open-minded. They learn one bit of data and will hang onto it forever. They cannot admit they were wrong, so they stop thinking and build a wall in their minds.

I’m not against television. I look at it as the American form of meditation. But how can you let it lull you into a state of vulnerability up to the point of brainwashing? There are only two ways you know something is true: 1) you experience it through your five senses, or 2) someone tells you (including TV, newspapers, books, another person. Then you have to figure out the veracity of the info. You can do this by trusting the source, by doing your own research, by questioning the teller with deductive logic, by questioning the motive of the teller, and many other ways I haven’t thought of. Is that so hard?

Here’s the story of Starving Students. I include this story here because I think it is an interesting origin story. This was a moving company begun in Los Angeles at a previous era when long-haired hippies roamed the earth. This fledgling business was started by two such teenagers in 1972. In typical commune fashion young dudes came together to move furniture to and fro. This company structure was not a hierarchical company. There was no top boss ordering other guys what and where to move the jobs that came in.

But who came up with the name “Starving Students?” These two teenagers were sitting around watching TV when a commercial came on advertising “Starving Artists.” Craig Ufkin turned to his friend Darryl Marshak and said, “We should start a moving company and call it “Starving Students.” Darryl’s father donated an answering machine.

Darryl’s father was a pro-semite and frowned on Darryl’s friendship with Craig. The first time Darryl introduced Craig to his father, he said, “This is my right-hand man.” Craig didn’t say anything, but he wondered why he was put in the role of right-hand man when he just considered them as equal friends. Darryl’s father was shaking his head back and forth silently to show his disapproval.

An older man named Parker Cole donated two trucks: a Willys FC-150 Jeep to Craig and a Willys FC-170 Jeep to Darryl. Parker was an early contributor to the moving company. Many of these friends would hang out at his house on Lookout Canyon. He was a navy man with a mechanical mind and was a sort of mentor. And sometimes he could be heard sulking about the lack of attention from the boys: “I take you to the movies. I take you to Pink’s for hot dogs…” Nowadays people would probably be more likely to see Parker as a predatory pedaphile. Even though the boys teased each other about Parker’s sexual interests, he was not a predator.

Darryl’s truck was capable of running from the beginning, but Craig had to use his mechanical skills on his old truck. In fact, before Craig could start, a beehive had to be removed from the driver side wheel well. Mike Bisetti, who had an extraordinary can-do attitude put on a nylon motorcycle suit, coverall, helmet and goggles and singlehandidly removed the beehive. They were not professional bee handlers but they made do. The bees were angry and it was not an easy job. Mike Bisetti split off from the company to make a name for himself producing movies. He really was and is a mechanical genius.

Darryl went to New York for the summer and when he came back he urged Craig, “We have to be productive.” They printed up flyers and set about posting them throughout Los Angeles. Darryl designed some avant-garde flyers, stickers and posters. By the time they got home the answering machine was taking messages. Soon two girls, Robin Niel and her friend Shaum, were in charge of taking phone messages. Shaum had been living with Darryl in a building they called “the log cabin.”

Other young guys came with their own vehicles: Mark James had a pickup. Steve Truvy had an enclosed moving van. Jamie Partch, Jay Sherman, Chris Collins, Danny Green, Guy Jacobs. Nobody had patented the name. Some put the name on the side of their trucks and some didn’t. It was a win-win situation.

Craig and Darryl and a girl named Cindy Muscati trekked to the nearby comedy club, the “Improv” on Melrose. They were hoping to promote their business by doing a comedy skit. The owner did not allow any skits with advertising.

One of the comics that night was Andy Kaufman who was in the TV series “Taxi.” Craig remembers the way Andy Kaufman did a spot-on Elvis impersonation. Andy Kaufman was also known for his alter-ego lounge singer Tony Clifton. Craig and Darryl were not able to think up a skit, but Cindy Muscati did do a skit with Andy Kaufman about a Johnny Carson type interview.

Darryl and Craig were taking classes at East Valley College. Ethan Margolith was also going to this college. More about Ethan later.

One of the earlier moves involved moving some small freight from San Fransisco to a Los Angeles movie studio for Steven Spielberg. When Craig and Parker arrived in San Francisco, they met Steven Spielberg at a hotel. Spielberg was gracious enough to share a joint with them. On the ride back from San Francisco Craig drove until they got to Esalan. Craig went to sneak in and soak in the baths at Esalan while Parker took a nap. Then Parker drove the rest of the way. On that last lap, they picked up two female hithhikers.

Another early job involved a man who wanted to move a water bed. Water beds were often not allowed in certain apartments and condos. This man asked Craig and Jamie to move the waterbed under the cover of night. So they waited half a day while being paid.

Jamie and Craig were close friends since they were 10 or 11 years old. Jamie was quick with a verbal retort. He once told Craig “With your looks and my brain we’ll go far.” He meant in picking up girls. They used to hitchhike everywhere. Their hair was very long like their peers. When men would make fun of their long hair calling them girls, Jamie said under his voice, “Does a little girl have one of these?” grabbing his crotch.

Some young men were not too bright. One time a young guy went on a move with Craig. This kid was the son of a famous movie producer. He was brought in by Darryl who was already consorting with movie makers. This kid ruined an antique sewing machine in a wooden cabinet because he didn’t know how to tie knots properly. They ended by doing the move no charge for the woman.

Another move by Craig and Jamie Partch involved a family with a young 10-year old son. Craig and Jamie paid a little bit of money to the kid for his help. At the end of the move, the father gave the guys a check. It was a bad check and when Craig and Jamie confronted the man, he just laughed in their face: “What are you going to do about it?” That was the last time they took a check.

I want to emphasize that Ethan Margolith was not there at the very beginning of the company, and he was not there when the name was created. But if you admire that kind of capitalism, you could say that Ethan stole the business fair and square. At some point after the business was off and running, Ethan just showed up with two large trucks with the name on the sides. Craig remembers just going in to work one day and seeing Ethan all set up at a desk with paperwork in front of him. I guess you could call him a corporate raider. One time when Craig went back to work at the company around the years 2011 to 2017, Ethan told him: “Nobody makes money here but me.”

The name Starving Students on the sides of two large trucks attracted the attention of the authorities like the Public Utilities Commission who threatened to fine the company for not having the proper licenses.

About this time Craig had an accident in a moving van. The Hollywood Independent published an article about the accident entitled: “Driver has a moving experience.” There was a photo of the van with the name Starving Students on the side, Craig broke his leg which ended his association with the company. He moved to Minnesota, got married. He did various jobs as a heavy equipment operator, running a gas station, as a bartender, parking lot manager, electrician.

Darryl had always wanted to make movies so he split off to pursue that path and did very well at it. He insists that he and Ethan started the company and when he tells the story you would think that Craig was just a figment of the imagination. Craig has never held resentment because he gives Ethan the credit for taking the company legal while the Public Utilities Company was breathing down their necks.

This name attracted business from the beginning. Just having the name on the side of the trucks was the main source of attention. Before this time moving companies were large businesses like Bekins, Allied, Atlas, Mayflower. Part of the reason for the demise of this company is the name. How many students are starving in the U.S. these days? I’ts not easy to be a student. It can be a hard road when you are studying and working at a job at the same time. I recently read about China under Mao. After their famine, most people had recovered fairly well. I remember being told by parents and teachers to eat everything on your plate–consider the starving children of China and India. In China at the same time children were being told about the starving children in imperialist countries. Callers to Starving Students would sometimes ask if the money really went to the starving students as if the company was a charity.

When Ethan took over the company he still struggled at first. Then he built it up in other states. Craig suggested they call it a “global” moving company. Craig worked there again for a couple of years, but the business was shrinking rapidly.

Darryl made his way to fame in Hollyweird. He also became an acolyte of AA. I overheard him once preaching that “AA is the only way that works in getting people sober.” He has a healthy ego and uses it to cudgel others who are not sober as long as he is. He still insists that Ethan and he started the company from the beginning. Memories are not written in stone. Drugs do not help with our memories. AA may help some people become sober although there is no evidence that AA is the best or only way.

I think a more appropriate name for the company as it is run today should be “Capitalist Roaders.” Just my personal opinion.

It has been a while since I posted.

My new counselor, Sandra, has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. I used to think people who earned a doctorate were educated. But I think I was fooling myself. With Anasa I learned the hard way that education does not mean intelligence, or even open-mindedness. I have had several counseling sessions by phone with Sandra. Is she square! She is so afraid of breaking any rules that her fear is contagious. But besides that I was astounded that she has a pretty low vocabulary. She doesn’t grasp words like “bureaucrat,” “matriarch,” or “caricature.” I’m not trying to give her an I.Q. test, but I expect more of an educated person.

Last week I met with the administrator of the program. I had asked Sandra for permission to travel, thus giving me one month of take-homes. The nurse at the dosing window acted surprised at my request. As I was leaving the clinic, the administrator, Toni, called me into her office. I listened as she tried to give me her excuses for my request. Then she said to me “All we want is to help you.” I replied, “That is the biggest lie I have ever heard.” At first I was mad and I wanted to leave before I lost my temper. By the time I got to the car I saw the humor in the situation. The next day I told Sandra I was not mad at her for messing up my travel plans. I told her I had come to see Toni as a caricature.

This morning I was surprised when Toni told me she is allowing me to get a month’s worth of take-homes from now on. I asked her why. Was it because of my charming personality. She answered that no, I was kind of feisty but it didn’t bother her. The drama continues…

I spend way too much time reading. I love books; I love the looks of them. I love the feel of them and I love the smell of them. One book I started reading is Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, by Andy Borowitz. This book is not for the light-hearted. It is deep and detailed.

It concerns the last fifty years or so of foolish politicians (Republicans and Democrats). This is too much wit and satire for one book. It starts with Nixon. I did not know a lot about politics then. Another good president is Ray-Gun. Good to make fun of, that is. (Excuse the ending in a preposition.)

I started to become interested when Double Downer became president in 2016. I walked around dumbstruck with my mouth open. Around this time, my best friend Gael (that doesn’t mean I’m her best friend) had used gentle peer pressure to get me to vote. Before that I didn’t think I knew enough about politics to cast any vote.

Before this I was so averse to history. I think I got my worst high school grade in History with P.J.: a B-. In college I thought political science was an oxymoron. But D.D. astounded me so much I started reading books about him. A few books I read to the end were: Betrayal, by Jonathan Karl, Anonymous, by Miles Taylor as well as Steven Hassan’s The Cult of Trump. When I didn’t even know the other names of politicians, my friends were nice enough not to laugh at me.

That’s why I liked reading about Nixon and Ray-Gun in the first part of this book. This was new to me. But I had to stop reading about a quarter of the way through this current book because there is just too much wit in this book. The cleverness gets diluted.

So right now I am going to move on to a couple other books from the library. This method is free and also delivered to my hot little mitts by Craig.

Well, kids, I’ve finally made up my feeble mind. I am going to direct my energies to passing the bar. I’ve heard you can now take the bar without going to law school. So I will have to give up all my free time gossiping and turn that energy into studying. Studying is second nature to me. I have always thought of myself as an academic.

But I’m too old, you might say. True. For at least fifteen years, I have felt very old. I also bumbled around like a retard. This began when I started suffering from major anxiety about the year 2015.

I had started taking the antidepressant Zoloft. After a month or two, I was in the stratosphere. I could not relax. I suffered from social anxiety and panic attacks. I dreaded leaving the house. I stopped Zoloft after two or three months, but the anxiety persisted. The only time I was not anxious was when I was sitting or lying down. Even if I got up to move around to do housework or do the dishes, the nervousness would spring out.

The anxiety was so bad that my dog Tori started having anxiety, which also added to my anxiety. Watching her quivering in her chair made me even more nervous.

Even though I changed meds to Prozac, the anxiety was still there. I pushed through it pretty well, so that other people couldn’t tell that my brain was exploding. I was even doing tutoring at the time. So it might have looked like I was keeping it together.

Then my mother died in 2007. I finished tutoring my students to the end of the school year. But to ease this horrendous anxiety, I started taking Xanax.

I took Xanax regularly for about three years. All it did was cover up the nervousness. But it also started to affect my memory. I would watch a movie or TV show and immediately forget what I saw. I drifted around in this state for about three years.

Then I decided to move. My mother had died, and the house we were living in seemed too big for one person. I was driving down the street and I saw a sign for a new building: Condos, starting price $400,000’s. I bought one, sold the house my mother and I had lived in, and moved in Christmas 2010.

A month or two later, I was driving with my friends Betsey and Mark. We were driving to the methadone clinic. And it hit me. I don’t have anxiety anymore! I feel normal. I stopped taking the Xanax with no problem, no withdrawal. The only lingering side effect was that my memory was no good anymore.

A friend I knew was keeping a diary. That sounded like a good idea. I started keeping a factual-type memory diary: what appointments I did that day, what movies I watched, notes on books I read. It was not big on writing emotions and reactions to events.

Now I feel like me memory is back. I attribute that to my diary and to stopping the regular use of Xanax. So now I feel like I’m ready for Act 3 of my life. It’s all just a journey anyway. So I’m going to dive into law.

I plan on taking the LSAT in June, and then studying for the bar via workshops.

Until next time…

I just wanted to add something to the story about Anasa. After I was reinstated to my regular take-home schedule, I thought there was no other way that she could play games. But the next time I walked up to the dosing window, the nurse said, “Just a minute. I’m going to give you a breathalyzer.” “Do I look inebriated at 6 a.m. in the morning?” I said. “Alcohol is not one of my addictions. I have never been drunk in my life. I don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

The nurse came out from behind the window to put the contraption up to my mouth. I blew in it. She showed my the reading on the gadget: 1.00. “Well, what does that mean? Do I have to go home?” I asked. “Wait here for 20 to 30 minutes and I’ll retest you,” she said. I waited in the lobby. She retested me. This time the reading was 0.00. I must have become sober pretty fast, or…maybe the nurse didn’t know how to work the breathalyzer. Cynthia, my new counselor, was convinced it was surely my fault. I must have used mouthwash or something. Cynthia was an ex-alcoholic, so she couldn’t fathom that the nurse goofed with the machine. Again, it’s something that I did wrong.

Another thing I noticed when I told the story about Anasa to other counselors or anybody who would listen was that people were hesitant to believe me. They couldn’t believe that this nice woman was either too ignorant or too mean to keep her mind closed while I was pleading with her to look at the creatinine test in a different way. I think one of the reason these counselors doubted me is because I was criticizing their tribe. One counselor said, “There are two sides to every story.” The last counselor I told said, “Maybe she just didn’t like you.” They couldn’t grasp that a college-educated person could be so stuck and ignorant.

I would like to know what became of Anasa. I’d also like to get that apology she owes me. I won’t hold my breath though. These clinic stories are so commonplace though, my friends just shrug their shoulders and say, “How could you expect anything different?’

I am entering into another clinic story with my current clinic. I will wait until the story plays out before I write about it. But I’ll give you a clue about the person who is trying to stand in my way: She should get the Bureaucrat of the Year Award.