Tag Archives: recovery

Good Boy

VINCE

After having written nothing by hand since my release from prison, I’m back to it with this journal I received for my birthday from Ms. Toaster. I think it will help because I can write a little here and there and maybe not feel so rushed sitting in front of the computer screen trying to think of something to write. It was a very thoughtful gift from a very thoughtful woman.

Today, my friends Curt, Sara, Seth, And Seth’s daughter Audrey came for a visit from down in Fillmore County. They brought my dog Willie who I had not seen in two years. I was so excited when I saw him and all my friends. Unfortunately, only four out of the five recognized me. Willie didn’t seem to have a clue who I was. It was the exact opposite of what I pictured our reunion being. I felt terrible. I knew it was my fault because I had left him so long ago. I pet him, and scratched him, and hugged him. But he didn’t show any sign of affection that I thought he would have. I had him for about 10 years before I left for drugs, and I hoped he would pick up on a scent or the familiar face, but nothing. I was heartbroken, but I didn’t want to admit that so we continued on with the plan for the day.

We packed in the car and drove to Woodbury which will be his home until I can move out on my own. My aunt has a nice back yard and a playful dog for him to hang out with. He moped around and peed and pooped. Good boy. I will be able to visit him once a week for now as my restrictions allow, and as transportation is available. I am going to have to start from scratch with him. Get to know each other all over again. I’m sure there’s something inside his little dog brain that will be triggered at some point that will make him know who I am again. And if that doesn’t happen, at least I will know who he is, and I will love him for as long as he lives. And that will make me feel better about it all.

We left Woodbury and headed to Afton State Park on recommendation from my aunt. I wanted to look for agates along the shore of the St. Croix river and hike around with my friends. We paid five dollars to get in and started the walk down. The place was beautiful. I don’t often care about the colors of leaves, but they really stood out there. As far as the eye could see in any direction were rolling hills, babbling brooks, and multiple colors of leaves of so many trees. The downward path was mostly wooden stairs. We heard many languages as we made our descent into the colorful valley. I felt quite like a tourist, and my friends probably felt like the minority for the first time in a while. When we got to the beach it took me about 12 seconds to find my first agate. It wasn’t big, but it’s always a good feeling to find the first one: you know they’re there. I found a few small keepers and proceeded to a bench where I just sat and enjoyed the view. Children were everywhere and I was happy to see that a few of them were looking for rocks too. We decided to make the journey back up because I’m on a schedule, of course, but not before Curt took a dreidel out of his pocket and suggested we do a little gambling at a picnic table. It’s a tradition with us four. We gamble for quarters, and I lost a dollar. Not a bad day.

The walk up was much more difficult than the walk down as you may have guessed. I did pretty well with my new shoes that I received for my birthday. Man did I need them. We had a very nice, small gathering for me yesterday. Overall, it has been a great weekend. There are many more to come as long as I keep doing what I have been doing. Good boy.

A Break from Breaking Free

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ANNE

Vince says he’s hit a wall with the blogging, and I need more than 10 minutes notice to come up with new material. After over a year of blogging and nearly 200 posts, I’d say we’ve earned a break.

We’ll be back. If you haven’t yet binge read the thing from the beginning, start here and click on the right-pointing arrow at the bottom of each post to proceed. Feel free to share with others, and thanks for reading.

My Day With a Dentist and Thoughts About A Lawyer (Almost)

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VINCE

I have been waiting for this day for about five years. I was working in a Mexican restaurant, eating a delicious burrito when I crunched down on something very hard. It was a fork. I felt kind of like an idiot because I’d been eating food by myself for roughly 30 years at that point and thought myself quite capable of using a wide variety of utensils without any trouble. Well at that time I felt my teeth with my tongue and discovered that my number nine top left front tooth had broken off. Shit. I was already self conscious about my smile although my teeth aren’t too terribly bad, and this just made things worse. I had no insurance and all of my money at that point went to drinking, smoking weed, and gambling, and nothing would change that for quite some time as you may have read.

Flash forward to the future! A.K.A. now. Ugh. This computer keeps freezing up. Anyhow, I took the morning train to Minneapolis to the U of M School of Dentistry where I laid back in the hydraulic chair and let my student dentist practice making a plastic tooth in my mouth for about two hours. I felt pretty cool because she let me be in control of the suction wand thing but I still ended up drooling on myself quite a bit, not uncommon to any other day, right? I asked, I believe more than once, if we could make teeth other places like on my forehead or in my armpits. We laughed at that and a few other ideas I had like sticking the suction wand in my nose. Actually, that may have been in my head. In the end, she did a great job and I give her complete credit for my new smile which I plan to show as much as possible. I love to laugh and smile but for five years, I simply wouldn’t open my mouth to do either. I was embarrassed, and I thought about my appearance constantly. I’m happy. Thank you, Lauren. Someday when you’re a REAL dentist, you can help me put gold teeth on cats. Gangster kittens!

I had discussed my blog and my history with her on previous visits and again today and I decided to let her read one of my posts, Camp Heartland. It is, in my mind, a very moving post, and I could see her reacting to it as she read. The first time I had seen that first hand. As far as reacting to me telling her about my history with drugs and alcohol, she acted as professionally as I could have hoped for. She was inquisitive and sympathetic. It was a good day at the dentist.

I also told her about Chelsie Toaster, who I will now call by her real name, Mollie. If you haven’t read the post The Toaster Situation, Mollie is the girl I met and have been doing my best under my restrictions to see as much as possible. We have been limited to seeing each other on our way to and from and at meetings because all of my visitors need to be approved and that takes some time. Well today at work my agent, whom I had asked on every visit previous about the status of her approval, walked in and said, “Mollie is approved, Dude!” I threw my arms up in victory.

Mollie is sweet. As I’ve said before, she is the first female that spoke to me at a meeting, and I hoped she would talk to me every time after, and she did. She’s smart. She’s a graduate of Wm. Mitchell School of Law and takes her Bar exam in February. We joke about me needing legal advice in the future. I hope I don’t… She’s from Tennessee, and you can tell because of her ridiculous accent. And, she is beautiful. I haven’t been in a relationship for years. Too many years. I don’t want to push things or move too quickly, but I know that I like her, and I will do what it takes to keep her in my life.

Also, she’s a ginger.

Another Bad Night

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VINCE

The following story is about me, from the perspective of a friend of mine that has a much better memory than I do. I knew that this story existed, and I knew when I heard it the other day that I was in one of those blackouts where somehow you can still walk and talk or, in my case stumble and mumble. I asked my friend, we’ll call him Kenny, to write it out for me so I could put it on the blog. If I had actually remembered that night, it may have beat out my arson night for my worst 24. So, here goes….

I (Kenny) had just gotten off work and was probably texting everyone to see if there was anything going on that night. Vince, one of our friends, told me they were all out drinking at our mutual acquaintance’s private campground. I grabbed a few beers knowing they would have more there if I ran out, or, god forbid, we’d start on the whiskey. I arrived there shortly after the call and we promptly began drinking and bullshitting.

As the night progressed, all but three of us had gone home or to sleep. Vince, Brad (a coworker at the time) and myself. I had been texting a girl I knew from Rochester, and she invited us to her friend’s house to hang out and drink. Brad’s car was the only one with enough gas, so after convincing him to let me drive us all there, we were on our way.

We were all drinking on the way. Vince would occasionally ask me if one of the girls would have sex with him, and Brad would remind me that he has an open warrant. We finally arrived at this trailer park (which was half of the town) and got to the address. Nobody home. We waited, and I tried to keep Vince “calm.” He would all of a sudden walk around the trailer and pull on the window frames.

We sat in the car and gave the girls ten minutes to get there before we took off. Just in time, they showed up. The two of them brought us inside and we start handing beers out trying to figure out how to have any fun. The one that I didn’t know went into another room and my friend [not Vince] followed. 10-15 minutes went by. Us boys were sitting and staring at each other when I finally wen to see what the girls were doing. I opened the bedroom door and both girls were taking turns inhaling Dusters [the canned air used to clean computer keyboards]. Vince popped up behind me, made a comment on how it had been a while since he had done it. They offered him a can and he took a lung full. I had never seen people do this before so it made me worried and uncomfortable.

One girl passed out and began shaking in the corner of a bathroom. After a while I made an excuse so we could leave soon. Vince was in one of their rooms going in and out of a drunken/duster stupor on her bed. He kept telling me we needed to stay because the girl was going to fuck him, but she was in another room doing more duster.

I managed to get Vince to the door. Before I left though I went into the room with the girls and took the can of Duster. They made a fuss and tried to get it back. Vince pretty aggressively pushed me and took the can. He gave it back to them and tried once more to stay with them and failed.

We left and wound up at Denny’s restaurant in Rochester. I’m sure Vince verbally assaulted the waiter after he brought him multiple shots of syrup. He got up a few times with a steak knife and followed the waiter back to the kitchen. Fortunately, the waiter never saw it. We finally made our way back to Fountain. End of story….

VINCE here. I have no idea why I had shots of syrup. My guess is that I tried aggressively to order booze which they do not have at Denny’s. Also I had never tried Duster before or after that night. I am grateful to Kenny for putting up with me that night. Who knows how many stories are out there that I will never remember. Stories I hope to never have to hear.

The Toaster Situation

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VINCE

I met a girl. I actually saw her at the very first AA meeting I went to a few weeks ago ( For that reason and the fact that we already have an inside joke, I will from this point on refer to her as Chelsey Toaster. (Her pseudonym). I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. Somewhat unprofessional in a meeting, but what could I do, I’d been away at camp for a long time. I couldn’t be certain, but she seemed to either catch me a couple of times looking at her, or she was checking me out too. (Very unprofessional, Ms. Toaster.) I shared about my recent release from boot camp, and my struggles with anxiety and how everything seemed to be moving so much faster out here. When the meeting was over, she came up to me and said that she had also just been released from prison. I said, “Really?” And she replied, “No, I wasn’t. I just wanted to make you feel better.” Hmm. A jokester, I think I like that. And that was all. Well not quite but the rest was recovery related so I don’t talk about it because it was at a meeting. Very professional, Vince.
So I kept seeing her at meetings, and I kept my eyes on her. She is beautiful, smart, funny, charismatic, and I kept thinking about her, and she kept letting me talk to her after meetings, which was great because I was having issues with socialization when I first got back to reality. I have never pursued or dated anybody in recovery. It’s not that it’s a bad idea, it’s just that it never happened. So I asked her for her phone number, which she gave me. And ever since, we’ve been talking, and seeing each other whenever possible on my limited time out of the house. We went for a walk yesterday after I got off of work and it was really nice to walk hand in hand with somebody. And today she accompanied me while I ran my errands. It’s been a very long time since I have had the company of a woman who wasn’t strung out or drinking heavily. So that’s my introduction of the lovely and brave Ms. Toaster. I don’t want to rush into anything on many levels, but I have a feeling that many future posts will involve her.

I haven’t had any kind of a relationship in years. Even before prison. It’s not that I didn’t want one, it’s that I was a huge piece of shit for so long and I knew it and I knew that any real attempt at securing a girlfriend would probably have meant that I would have to curtail my alcoholism and addictions, something I was not willing to set aside for anything. And although I’m fresh out of the clink, I believe I’m in the best position in a very long time to, at the very least, see if I’m capable of starting and maintaining a healthy connection to another human being. So, I have that going for me, which is nice. 🙂
In other news, I went in for an eye exam today. Thank you Lisa! You know who you are. The optometrist told me that my eyes are more football shaped than globe, which she could have just called astigmatism, and I wouldn’t now feel self-conscious about. I mean, what gives her the right to tell me my eyes aren’t normal other than her being an eye Doctor? What are her qualifications? I bet she doesn’t even have her G.E.D. Well, anyhow, I have contacts now but I still keep pushing on the place where I used to have glasses sliding down. Now it just looks like I’m pointing at my head. I’m sure that will go away in time.
And finally, I got to see my uncle and his family today. He and his wife brought their two incredible children whom I had never met due to my substantial absence. My mother baked a chicken, and I made roasted garlic and squash soup and a chocolate cake with caramel-butter frosting. And we sat around the table and caught up. I’m really starting to like this family thing. I still feel guilty sometimes, but I know I’m forgiven for my absence.

Next up on the blog: Camp Heartland– An eye opening experience.

Until then…..

The Job

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Vince

Three weeks and a day after my release from incarceration I got a job. I’ve filled out applications and applied online to a number of establishments and businesses, but today I was hired by the first place at which I inquired of employment. Actually, I had stopped in there a couple times and called a few more, and was about to give up completely when I received a message from my friend that works there saying somebody had just quit. Then he called me and said I could start tomorrow, which I couldn’t do, but I will on Thursday. Yay! Thank you Mr. D. You know who you are.

Last night my agents paid me a visit around 11pm in which they were finally giving me a little bit of a hard time about not yet finding employment. They said they weren’t really worried yet, but if I didn’t have some form of employment within two weeks, we would be having a conversation. Then they asked if I had tried a temp agency, to which I said I thought we weren’t allowed to do that, which is what I remember from orientation, or something, I don’t know. I have on more than one occasion called into the voicemail system with a relevant question and received no response. Again, I say, this is the common frustration among us newly released. It’s all very confusing and sometimes I feel as if things I hear are contradictory. That’s the way it was in boot camp but I think it was more to see if they could get a reaction out of us there. Out here it wouldn’t really make sense to tell us anything that wouldn’t put us on the right track, so I think maybe I’m imagining a few things because they don’t make sense. Does that make sense? I could also be losing my mind. I do think I should write things down more often.

I had a really bad dream again last night in which I hooked back up with my old drug dealer (who, in real life, is in a Federal prison in California for 15 years) and was holed up in a hotel room with a huge bag of meth. I don’t know what kind of hotel it was but it was odd. I remember a knock at the door, and when I opened it up there were a bunch of high school kids who looked at me as if they were very disappointed in me and then left. When I turned around I saw the huge bag of meth just sitting on the nightstand under a brightly lit lamp, but I didn’t seem to care. I noticed that in general, I don’t ever have conversations in dreams. Or, at the very least I don’t think I ever say anything. Well, that was the end of the dream, and in real life it was morning time, and I got up. I can’t wait for my meeting tonight.

Tomorrow I will be spending the day doing some manual labor and general maintenance for my dear aunt Connie. That I have scheduled from 9AM until 7PM and with a morning run and an evening meeting I wont hardly be home at all, which is something I’m looking forward to. Connie is a survivor of cancer and a hero to me since childhood. I have a lot of making up to do in our relationship since I took a vacation for so many years. She was one of those people that tried to help me out when she found out I had relapsed oh so many years ago. So, she didn’t make the friends list. I will work hard tomorrow digging out a tree stump, trimming some trees, and what-not. But what I really want is the opportunity to talk with her one-on-one, an opportunity I have not had as of yet. An opportunity for me to apologize, make amends, and move on. And if you’re reading this, Connie, pretend you haven’t when I see you please. 🙂

Coming up on the blog: First day on the job! Please share this blog with your friends. The goal as always is to help the still suffering addict, and make me a famous writer in the process!

Dreams and Dentistry

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VINCE

I woke up this morning to my cell phone ringing. The number was restricted which means that it’s one of my I.S.R. agents calling. Most likely, as it was in this case, they are at the front door needing to be let in. For only a brief moment, I was terrified. I had a dream in which I went on the run because I was scheduled to go to court for violating the conditions of my release. I’m not sure what for, but it wasn’t a using dream, which can be so real that they often carry over into reality for some terrifying moments of confusion upon being awoken.

In the dream I was just about to call an old using friend from Rochester to come get me. I knew that I was going back to prison so I wanted to go get high for as long as I could before going back. Even in the dream I knew it sounded bad, but I made the call anyhow. That’s when I woke up to my cell phone. When I opened the door up to the agent I saw the sealed plastic bag with a piss test cup in it. If I was nervous I didn’t show it. I knew I was clean, but the dream was still running through my mind.

When I went into county jail after my sentencing, I had some crazy dreams. Vivid. Colorful. And absolutely wild. This is fairly common when quitting meth. I had a recurring dream in which I was in a different jail, and friends of mine were on work release and would bring in drugs, cigarettes, and paraphernalia and I would think that I was sneaking them back into my cell. When I woke up, I believed that I had actually been successful and was shocked to check my pockets and find them empty, no matter how many times I had the hallucination. And everything, like the air, the background, was always green. It’s really hard to explain dreams most of the time, but these never went away. For about two weeks I had a hard time distinguishing reality from psychotic dream. And then they were gone. Last night’s dream had a real feel to it, but nothing like those when coming off of drugs. In the end, which was this morning, I passed my drug test. Doing drugs in a dream has never yielded a positive result, just the fear of one.

On another note, yesterday I went to the U of M School of Dentistry Clinic to become a Dentist. But, they said they “weren’t hiring” and that I had no qualifications and that I had no business wearing a smock and scrubs and what was I doing with a drill. No, no, no, none of that happened. I was there for my first dental exam in a decade. A scary thing for an ex meth user, and former prisoner where they don’t let you see a dentist unless you’ve been in for three years, Ugh. Anywho, after enduring an hour of a new x-ray “technology”, I found out that not only do I have really long roots, I have zero cavities! After all of that abuse, nothing. Since I don’t know how to upload photos from my phone to this blog, I will let you find them for yourself on my Facebook page. Well, I don’t know how to add a link either, so if you don’t already know, my name is Vincent Maertz, and I’m an addict. I hope you enjoy my pictures, and my daily response to life via social media. I know I do. My student dentist was awesome. She put up with me and my jokes, and didn’t cringe when I opened my mouth. My teeth really aren’t too bad, but I have a broken front tooth, and I haven’t smiled fully for years. I get that fixed in three weeks. I can’t wait.

Forty words left. hmm. Well, I’ve got the house to myself tonight, and other than writing this, I’ve been watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and am going to watch a movie on Net-Flix tonight. I’ll tell you about it next time!

Uncomfortably numb

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VINCE

Sorry for the delay in posting this. I planned on writing it after my meeting last night and, well, I failed. It was a great meeting. Only the second I have been able to attend since my release because of scheduling difficulties and a complete inability to communicate with my I.S.R. agents. We are supposed to call a voicemail number anytime we deviate even slightly from our schedule that we submit every week. I should back up and say that every morning before 10 AM I have to call the voicemail with my schedule for the day, which I basically just read off of the written schedule I have already submitted. Sound redundant yet? Anywho, for the first week, I had the times for all of my meetings incorrect, and I had not left myself nearly enough time for transportation so I called every day I had a meeting to ask permission to alter and nobody ever called me back. EVER! So I stayed at home which is the protocol for when there’s any confusion. We do not have a number that we can call to communicate with a person. I have spoken with many of my fellow ex-offenders and they say they are experiencing the same frustrations. But hey, what a luxury to not be behind bars, right?

St. Paul is what I consider to be my hometown. I haven’t lived here in a decade, but there are still some familiarities about it. In the nearly two weeks since my release from C.I.P., I have progressed from complete confusion and overload, to confusion and overload. I’ve gone out grocery shopping a few times and always I have trouble. Here are some examples of what makes me want to run….. Did you know that at Aldi (kind of like a grocery store) they don’t have bags to put your groceries in? True story. So after I take a quick tour around the store looking for anything at all in a size larger than individual, and canned fake duck meat, per special request from mom, I realize I need to go somewhere I can stretch out my very limited funds. There were only two people in line until I decided I wanted to check out what I had, then everybody seemed to sense that I was on a tight two-hour leave from house arrest and they all fell into line before me. Move forward ten minutes– So the clerk asks me if I want to buy bags and I just stare, as if I don’t understand the question, because I don’t. So she asks me again and I say no and she just puts my stuff back in the cart. Fortunately for me, I had been sent along my way with a number of tasks to complete along with all my shopping for the week so I had a bag of bags that I think I was supposed to bring to a store, or maybe throw in a river. I don’t know. And then I went to Cub Foods where everything went much smoother.

I think the term anxiety would suffice. I’ve never been diagnosed but it seems like that’s what I’m dealing with. Wherever I am, I want to leave. I blame others for being the cause but it is probably me. For six months we were not allowed to speak or even look at people without permission, we were told what to do, never having to ask questions. Now out here I am left to my own devices. I don’t know how to talk to people. I can’t sit still. I bummed a cigarette from somebody after the meeting last night just so I could talk to them. Then I left and drove straight home with 45 minutes of free time left, and I don’t get any free time. What do people do? O.K. I give up. Mother is hammering…. next time. Bye.

My worst 24 hours

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VINCE

I’ve been free for a week now, and I have written very little. I decided to take a look in my treatment folder for some inspiration, and I found it right in front. This was written by me early on in treatment nearly six months ago. It’s a story from a long time ago, when I lived in Richfield. It is true to the best of my knowledge. My memories aren’t always clear, and the incident occurred while I was very near a blackout. I’m not proud of this particular incident, but I wrote about it because it had a substantial impact on my life, and the treatment assignments required an honest look back on the terrible times I put myself through. I will type it as it is. Here goes….
The worst 24 hours of my life occurred all the way back in the year 2000. 15 years ago I was in the worst alcoholic stage of my life. Drinking all day every day when I wasn’t working. My habit was supported by my girlfriend who worked as the manager at a liquor store and could steal anything I needed, which was a lot.
Cupboards well stocked that same girlfriend of two years left me because, well, I was a horrible drunk piece of shit boyfriend. She packed up while I was in jail for a D.U.I. warrant, fortunately for me, she left all of the alcohol. It took me three minutes to assess the situation and then I began drinking. Oh, I was also in the process of being evicted from our apartment. Based on those two things, I went into destruction mode. Something I am well known for is doing really dumb stuff when drunk….
I started by going into the laundry/storage room, looking for something I could use to make a mess of things. I saw some ceiling paint and the ideas started forming. I saw a few things I wanted to bring back across the hallway into my apartment for decoration. A huge drill, a fire extinguisher (I’ve never seen one work), and the paint. Before I left that room, however, I decided to fuck up the washing machines and dryers. I put a gallon of paint, equally into the two dryers and started them on high heat. I decided not to waste any more paint so the washing machines were spared. I know I can’t remember everything from that long ago, but I think I left the room at that point.
Back in the apartment I fixed myself a classy drink. What that means is I didn’t use a glass or a mixer. Straight vodka. I had finished half of a 1.75 litre bottle. I found out what fire extinguishers do. They make a lot of noise and fill the room with a cloud of powder. I opened up a window, then realized people driving by might mistake the escaping cloud for a fire. I closed the window.
I assume this is where most writers would transition. Not me. I got the idea to start a little fire of my own so I went into the stairwell and lit the cord for the sliding drapes that must have been 15 feet tall. It really didn’t do too much but after some waiting, the individual sections of the plastic curtain began falling down. Cool! The fire never got big or at all out of hand, but the falling curtains did make a lot of noise and there was some smoke and a tenant came out into the hallway to check it out. Mind you this was pretty early A.M. She saw me and I mumbled something and ran back to my apartment. In less than five minutes I started hearing the sirens. Shit, two fire trucks and an ambulance and of course, a police car.
I knew I was fucked so I really started hitting the bottle. I’m talkin bout hammered drunk. Things are starting to get blurry, both back then, and now as I try to look back.
After who knows how long, there was a knock at the door. I opened the door for the officer and gestured for him to come in. He knew that I knew why he was there. We sat in the living room where I had not yet done any damage. I don’t remember how the conversation went and I got up maybe five or six times to have another swig while he was asking questions and I think at some point I said I lit the fire.
In my mind I formulated a plan of escape. On my next trip to the freezer for a drink, I zigged instead of zagged and left through the front door and up a short flight of stairs to the rear entrance to the building. With no shoes or socks on I ran like hell. For about ten feet. On my third or fourth step, I shattered my left ankle and immediately went down. I crawled around to the side of the garage and around the back and hid under a car to wait out the cop. I never know if he actually looked for me, or just left
After a bit I started walking down to a gas station through the back side of houses and apartment complexes. The plan was to call for a ride. Somewhere along the way I met a nice man that gave me a pair of boots. I must have looked like a lunatic. I got to the station and used the phone then went into the public restroom to wait.
After 15 minutes I decided to bring the bathroom key back inside. Coming back to the side of the building, I heard tires screech. The cop pulled right up to me and got out. I tried to run but couldn’t. I made it two steps when I was tackled to the ground by the huge police officer. He punched me in the ribs and yelled, “Nobody runs from me!” And that is when somebody pissed in my pants. And off to jail I went.
In the end I was charged and convicted of 3rd degree arson. Sentenced to five years’ probation, and sat in the lockup for 60 days. I was never charged or even asked about the destruction in the apartment other than the fire. It was a horrible day in my life. I’ve had many bad days, but that was my worst.

BeFUDdled

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ANNE

I am writing this on Sunday to post on Monday, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I will go to early services, then spend much of the day outside. I love the High Holidays because, for one thing, the weather is always beautiful—crisp and cool, with the leaves starting to change colors and the sky intensely blue. Even though I no longer believe in god, I feel it’s important to participate in community, so I go to services. Now there’s a new prayer book for my stream of Judaism, Reform Judaism, that acknowledges many people’s disbelief. I don’t know if the synagogue I’m going to has it yet, but I look forward to buying a copy. I think that’ll make me feel more “legitimate” walking in the door.

In the evening some friends will come over for dinner. Vince is looking forward to making a real hearty, holiday meal.

—

Vince has been home for five days. There was so little information available ahead of time that I didn’t clock on to the fact that he’s on house arrest. I don’t know the difference between probation and parole but I thought he’d be on one or the other and would be able to come and go as he pleased, as long as he was doing constructive things like job hunting or going to AA meetings.

But no, he is confined to the house 24/7 except for job hunting from 9-2 Monday through Friday and other things he has to clear with the agents. So for instance he proposed an AA meeting on Saturday night and that was approved but he hadn’t researched how far away the meeting would be or, more important, that there was a meeting at that time—which there isn’t. So he’s looking forward to fine-tuning his schedule.

Yesterday he had a two-hour window approved to go shopping. I thought he would enjoy the farmers market, with all the colors, choices, and people watching. Not to mention, it’s cheap. I dropped him off with some reusable shopping bags and went to park the car. These are the bags.

A few minutes later I got a text from him:

I don’t like it here. There are no instructions. And I’m the only one with purses.

These are the “purses,” aka shopping bags. Do they look gay?

He was overwhelmed. I joined him and explained that everything was “two dallah.” We consulted our list for the holiday dinner and he seemed to relax into the experience. Then we went into the adjacent Asian market, which was even more crowded and full of the smells of live fish. He got a kick out of some of the items:

Last stop, Aldi, also crowded. I am normally a very slow and deliberate shopper but even I was sick of the shopping crowds, so we threw a bunch of stuff in the cart and got back to the house with time to spare.

—

It is definitely a big adjustment for me to live with someone. The condo is 825 square feet, not large by American standards.

This morning we both got up and out of the house at 7:30 am for exercise. He ran, I walked. I stopped in at the nearby YWCA to get membership info and picked up a scholarship form for Vince. I gave it to him when I got home and won’t ask him every day, “Did you fill out that form?” It’s none of my business.

On the other hand, when I walked into the bathroom and saw some clothing tags next to the wastebasket instead of inside it, that was my business.

“Vince, what would they have done at boot camp if you’d thrown trash on the floor next to the wastebasket?”

“Ah, someone would have picked up after me,” he joked. I think he was joking. Anyway, the tags were gone next time I looked. No drama.

So that’s all I have to do for a year—know when to say something and when to bite my tongue. So far there has been no yelling, eye rolling, sighing, or crying.