[honeydumplin]

Although this will be something, it is still uncertain, at least to me, exactly what it might be. I only know that some housecleaning needs to be done on my part, and that if (and we both know what a big word that is) an inventory of some kind isn't made pretty soon, something else will build up that well,
could lead to other things of which I have no idea, but am pretty positive that it would be bad.

To start off, a suggested exercise has impeccable timing. And here it is in all its here, been, there, and now. This is all the different roles we are, and hopefully an honest grade of our inventory in
such aspects. A report card.

The report card for me personally, is what kept me from "beating myself up"
so much during the steps, preventing me from wallowing in this pit of self-pity, remorse, regret, and so on. It keeps my eye on the goal, so to speak,
and allows me to see the good, with the bad, if you will.

What I am Grade
Christian F
Son D
Son-in-law C
Brother-in-law B
Husband C
Employee B-
A.A. Trusted Servant C-
Sponsee C+
Writer C-
Reader D
Movie Critic Novice A+
Artist C
United States Citizen B

Let me begin at the bottom. As the list proceeds back to the beginning, a more honest evaluation will
be revealed.

The love that I have for making art jettisons me in ways that nothing, with the exception of what is located at the top of the list and often plays off of one another, ever has. Creativity evolves, it seems,
when the two (the top and the bottom co-exist) side by side. It is also prevalent in the other extreme,
where when one suffers, the other does as well. But there again, what other category plays well with a daily walk in the spirit? All of the above. With the exclusion of the critic of course. If anything, offering a critique of a movie, especially one made in the last five years, takes away the spirit. Or should I say, it prevents me from the seeking God's will.

The defined key, or the ideal, or the enchantment of a personal report card to produce a recognizable improvement resides hand-in-hand in the progression of what the big book describes as walking with the spirit of the universe, which introspectively simply means being guided by Christ. And until my will is exercised into that direction, and I'm honest with my self, the report card does not exemplify that.

The inability, or should I say the outright refusal, to be honest with myself is what keeps me drunk.
It is what keeps me in the insanity of step two, and tells me I can still run the show. It follows me like a ball and chain into step three, reminding me ever more that if I can just turn over 99% per cent of my will instead of all of it, that I may somehow be alright. Wrong I have been to assume this. For it is in the friendly confines of my one per cent refusal that I find myself making the decision again, and again, this time with more vigor, more rigorous honesty, which also allows me to see not only how I have failed at whatever it was that I sought to find, but that the power greater than myself, as God I understand, has enough mercy to let me try to do it over.


This dishonesty within my core is the same culprit that rears its ugly head by using my own ego-driven head, to tell me everything is okay after I am in the rooms for awhile. You know after doing four and five, seeing the defects, and doing the amends, that I have got this A.A. Thing all figured out, and that with the help of offering my unique perspective, recovering drunks can more appreciate my expertise and start showing me a little respect. This is poppycock.

The only way I can get a glimpse of what Moses saw from the other side of the Jordan River, is to humble myself honestly, before God and my fellows. Period. Until then, what I have to offer is “as Kevin sees it”; a steady stream of pontification, rambling on into an eventual evaporation into a secluded desert of gradiosity, and hyperbole, surrounded by self-seeking vainglory, pity, and shame. I do not wish to encounter any of those along the road of my happy destiny. Yet I do. And it is only through an inventory, or a housecleaning, that my common romantic idol of complacency can be more clearly, held at bay.

When it comes to taking another person's, I do that instinctively. It has come from the obvious years of thinking of myself as a good judge of character. The problem is, by the time someone's character has been revealed, I've already assassinated it. This too has changed. But not nearly enough. And so more honesty is sought, and more inventory divulged, and so on.

Fearless, and searching moral inventory of myself has a categorical means of displaying before you my utmost vulnerabilities. Thus, the clearing on the happy road of destiny awaits me just ahead, and in my own foolish pride, I try to avoid it. Why? Is it because it makes me look bad? No. That's been done before and I lived through it.

Is it more along the lines of preserving my fine reputation, merely another mirage in the desert? Yes, yes. Oh now we're getting somewhere. Okay then, why don't I just come out and say it. No. Heaven forbid I say anything so preposterous. Well, is this, you know, an inventory. Well alright. I think I know a lot more about it than you do.

Ah, so there it is, you self-sponsoring jerk. You reveal yourself through your story. I can see clearer now. The rain is coming. But this is so weird. So strange opening up. Yeah, but it works every time. And so see, now I've got some faith. And yes some more courage to take that leap.

You see, I'll try to use an “artistic” analogy. Picture the inventory as a blank canvas, representing the world in which I exist. Now I can show up at meetings with my colorful blue big book, and my 12 & 12, and draw lines in there, and can and have, even share from time to time, in a somewhat guarded manner, holding my palette and brush closely to my chest. I can be a blank canvas in Alcoholics Anonymous, and somehow manage to not take a drink.

So what do I do? I read the books, make a black and white trail of activities, which by the way, I reference whenever possible. And when the black and white doesn't work anymore, and I find all too well that it doesn't, I'll simply take a broad brush, and paint the whole thing gray, That's it. That's it. I won't go to either side of any one issue, I'll exist in this misery of never taking a stand on anything and then begin to try and convince you how great it can be. A gray man with a blue big book. Yeah, now I can talk a talk of experience, strength, and hope.

But see, my buddies, they know better. They've seen the unadulterated, real me. And if I'm being honest with myself, I've seen the real me too. I'd rather take a drink than be a phony. Wow, now I'm seeing revelations. Did that for years. Actually saw myself more real, as a drunk, than I ever did sober. But then I despised what I saw, and since I was the drunk, I despised my own self.

What the third step gave to me was that blank canvas. The fourth turns and hands me the brushes. Then I realize God ain't going to do it for me, and neither is my sponsor. But when I leap out in five, both are there. And then I'm broad-sided in six and seven with something that I've yet to see. No longer is it black, or white, or even gray. There's color.

What was listed on the report card as a United States Citizen.
Grade: B

I'm proud about the fact that I'm a contributor to a variety of things. I pay my fair share of taxes. I vote. I get up and go to work. But I do complain a lot at the status of things. Off-shoring, out-sourcing, NAFTA, CAFTA, SHMAFTA. Globalism, internationalism, and a foreign policy based primarily on intervention, extortion, bribery, and generous monetary hand-outs from a country that is financially broke is about the worst thing to ever come down the pike. About twenty years ago, so-called economic experts were selling the benefits of the euro, a common currency, and touting the advantages of a European Common Market, and a New World Order. Something about this didn't smell right then, and now it appears even worse. Yet it remains a euphoric triumph, and a mantra often repeated during failure.

I want to protect our borders. When George W. Bush said that the Hispanics were here to do jobs that the American people wouldn't do, I was insulted., and also felt ashamed of the whole mentality that lower-skilled jobs should occur under the table, that everyone should go to college, and that we're all basically a bunch of spoiled rotten brats, too lazy to pick our own vegetables.

I don't hate the immigrants. It's the system that needs to change. The politicians are the ones who are too spineless to change it. They're bought off, and paid for with more money from greedy bastards, whose primary addiction to cheap labor, re-election, and endless profit margins that have resulted in illegals turning into pawns on a chess board, sacrificed, and taken advantage of for political gain, by people in Washington both out of touch, and self-absorbed. Lawmakers need to do something besides sitting on their hands, and passing a lot of bull**** legislation that the majority don't want, and can't afford, while standing idly by, watching our currency and culture become nothing more than a nostalgic remembrance of days gone by.

My civil rights should be protected. So should the articles of the Geneva Convention. The whole idea of conjuring-up a frenzy, just to to bomb whomever we please, is simply more provocation for our adversaries. Holding people regardless of who they are, for the rest of their life, under some sort of suspicion, while running around the world hypocritically spreading a facade of democracy that we ourselves fail to adhere to, is nothing more than provocation for friend and foe.
And exactly who are our adversaries anyway? People who don't agree with our way of life? And what is that? Is government subsidized illegitimacy, publicly sponsored sloth some ideal that we wish the rest of the world to emulate?

Perhaps an argument ought to be made to clean up our own back yard, before we chose to dictate the course of action for other nations. No, non-intervention does not necessarily translate into a pacifistic approach, a bit more than nation-building should be aligned with imperialism, or colonization. If we are under an attack, then we have every right to defend ourselves. But shedding the blood of our own people, and maiming them on the soil of a people with which we disagree via a nuclear stance based on mere hypothesis is just another road that Americans, as a whole, do not wish to go down again. By not interfering in the processes of other countries, we are not detached from the rest of the world, but are much more inclined to take the bull by the horns, and sit the example that we, as a people should represent.


I truly believe that the electoral college is an archaic exercise invented during a time of civil unrest. It needs to have a gigantic knife put through its heart, and abolished forever. I also think that all the primaries need to happen on, or about the same day, or the same week. To heck with a bunch of momentum. This ain't a football game. It's a presidential campaign for crying out loud, and after a few thousand empty promises, and a few thousand trips through Iowa and New Hampshire, one might see enough of all of these turkeys in one place. Wonder if those people up there are sick of looking at them yet? I know I am, and I'm not even there.

I still believe that the way things look now, most of us are in for a raw deal. It will be like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion, especially if neither side of the aisle wishes to pursue a balanced budget. Most people would be excited just to see social security preserved by some means, which is another way the government has run amok against the desires of its own people. We should also take issue with its reference to an entitlement. The only way that the media, or anyone can lay claim to it as an entitlement, is the people who draw off of it, when they haven't put forth a red cent to the fund. Those who work all of their life though, have paid into for a long time. There's literally millions of them who have to depend on that in order to live. It's theirs, not the government's to go through like a sailor on leave in Australia.

But I still believe in things like promise, and potential, free markets, and what the country used to be like. Call me old fashioned. Call me an isolationist, or a xenophobe. But time comes to pass, and I'm like a poor bastard caught behind enemy lines, listening to the birds chirp in my own head, while being bombed by friendly fire, and lead by a bunch of war-mongering Zionists, who've stolen God's will, claimed it as their own, and have done everything within their power to accelerate the apocalypse.

But as usual, I've strayed way from the point of being an American Citizen. The real reason that a grade of B has appeared, is the fact that I am proud of my country, and actually enjoy contributing both my time in helping others and what little money I can afford to worthwhile causes. With that comes a sense of responsibility not only to my fellow man, but to myself, both in a united ownership of
a nation presently, and in its results for future generations to come. It is when I'm able to open my mind up in order to see both sides of an issue, that I feel best about being a citizen.
************************************************** ********************************
Reader and Writer
Grade: D and C-, respectively

In the reading and writing department, the grades are substantially low. This is because I see myself as extremely limited in both categories. The usual reading that I do consists newspapers, quite commonly the local one, and the Washington Post. And even though the Times is great for keeping up with bite size pieces of current events, the Post never ceases to stimulate my mind in a much more objective manner. The Outlook section is first-rate in its political coverage, and the entertainment and arts sections are very interesting. Since I don't get drunk anymore, I have found that my attention span has increased a bit, but my ability to retain information after having read it still needs improvement.

The more I read, the more I want to read. When I am able to sit down with a book, fiction, generally short stories, and somewhat twisted tales are appealing. But I've still got a whole bookshelf full of stuff that I do very little but walk by every day. Thus the low grade.

I've also given a low grade to myself as a writer, because most of the time I see it as stale, and boring. My sentences are elementary. I ramble. And there's really no clear cut method to an origin, a course of what I'm saying, or a mission involved. I can spend five hours writing five paragraphs, and another fifteen minutes editing it. I do much better when I don't think about everything that I write, and just do it.

This has already been a terrific exercise. I look forward to getting into the deeper parts of myself, and discussing it openly.