The Daily Durvy

I was biking to my AA meeting on Friday (another perk of moving in with Alex – the apartment is much closer to my meetings, my sponsor, and the parts of campus that I actually have classes in) and I fell off my bike.

While this is not a rare occurrence, this one was because of a real estate sign. I recently got contact lenses, which is more like saying I recently got in a war with my eyes and I feel that by poking them on a regular basis I let them know who’s boss. While it is extremely liberating to not have to wear glasses or more accurately have to remember where I put my glasses down, oh shit they’re in the restaurant, we have to go back, thank you so much, OH LOOK THEY’RE ON MY HEAD. AGAIN.

Anyway, getting used to my contacts is an… ongoing process and as such I often get slightly disoriented. So I was on my bike, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. Off in the distance, I see Dr. Phil’s face on a real estate sign. As I got closer, I was sure that it was Dr. Phil but all I could think was WHAT THE FUCK IS DR. PHIL DOING ON A REAL ESTATE SIGN? He does not sell houses. I mean, I’m sure he could, however I feel like he’s a little busy filming his awesome talk show and generally NOT being in Davis. But you never know.

When I got right up on the sign, I turned my head, still sure that it was Dr. Phil on that sign. I turned my head all the way around, Rosemary’s Baby style until I realized that I was riding directly into the bushes. They just snuck up on me like BAM bushes and then it was BAM pain and then BAM huge scratch on my shin and then BAM fuck my life. I hopped off my bike and swore profusely for a few minutes, all the while examining Dr. Phil’s real estate sign.

It turns out that it wasn’t Dr. Phil after all. But DAMN it sure looked like him.

I’ve only been in the AA Program for about a month and a half, and my meetings have almost exclusively been in Davis at the local Lutheran church. (A fact that almost turned me off of the whole Program… a topic for another time.)

Alex and I flew down to LA to spend some time with our families before school starts up again, and I decided to go to a meeting while in my beloved hometown. I not only wanted to continue my program while on vacation, but also seeing the different types of meetings that take place in a major metropolitan area, versus THE COW TOWN THAT I LIVE IN.

So a few days ago, I went to a meeting at a meeting hall- a building used for nothing but AA meetings. Not only was this most certainly NOT a church but is was also NOT in Davis. Both were awesome.

The Hall was in Hollywood, it it was filled with Hollywood types: older men with long grey hair, young men and women in 5-inch stilettos and everyone with more hair care products in their hair than I have in my bathroom. I have never felt so at home.

This hall was simply a large, square room with mildly uncomfortable chairs and exposed bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The walls were unpainted brick and pleasantly unspectacular. The coffee was more horrible than anything I had ever ingested, and that includes the time I ate spoiled chili and pooped liquid for 3 days.

And as I sat in this large hall in my expensive shoes I felt at peace. I felt understood. But really, more than anything, I felt at home.