Category Archives: addiction

EUPHORIC Recall.

May 15, 2023addiction, drama, healing, human behavior, love, psychology, relationships, sociology, Uncategorizedcodependents and alcoholics, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, euphoric recallruth ann scanzillo

Last night, CNN aired a special on legendary Hollywood icon, Elizabeth Taylor. Along with references to her many films and philanthropic efforts, she was encouraged to recollect, and comment upon, the numerous men with whom she’d had affairs and had married.

When she reached Richard Burton, the nature of Ms. Taylor’s narrative changed. She could not stop favoring him and their time together with every conceivable compliment. Though they’d notoriously fought throughout both their marriages he’d been, hands down, the love of her life.

Euphoric Recall.

The last point, on the list of symptoms in codependent “relationships” with addicts.

To my mind and heart, it’s the killer.

The biggest stone in the road. The greatest force of resistance.
The devil’s favorite device.

Driving home from Ohio this afternoon, encountering construction and being forced to submit to reduced speed single lane, I had plenty of time to allow this phenomenon to percolate.

So much about failed attempts to establish mutual trust and nurture between myself and the afflicted had been relatively easy to discard: the brutal verbal abuse; the erratic mood ambiance; the gaslighting..; but, walking away from the precious moments – quiet, contemplative evenings; ravenously satisfying gourmet meals; gifts of warm clothing; and, sharing the love of an adorable dog….even the occasional, fruitful conversation, and memories of a physical passion that had always smoothed over everything else in its path…..all this brought the heartache.

Mathematicians are sometimes reviled for their lack of emotionality; but, tonight, I’m betting they have a much easier time compartmentalizing their feelings of longing up against the multiple factors working against what should otherwise nourish and sustain.

One gifted in the numbers might design a pie chart. You know, cutting the diagram of the proverbial dessert into various sized pieces, tabulating and then establishing percentage values for every offense – how many times hurtful words were weaponized; how many hours between good moods and tantrums; how many binges displaced intimacy; how many instances wherein memories of what actually happened were questioned, challenged, or reconstituted until reality warped…..and, lastly, assigning a small sliver of pie to complete the circle, representing euphoric recall.

For those of us not so blessed in the numerical equivalent department, the emotionally hopeful component balloons in our consciousness. Looming lasciviously, licking its lips lying in wait for us, euphoric recall lures us back into the lion’s den. And, no; the Biblical prophet Daniel is most definitely not going to appear to calm the beasts, though we are so SURE we think we see him…..

In one big gulp, euphoric recall swallows up every negative second of however many months or years we’ve devoted to exhaustive misery, leaving us bereft, devoid of any resolve to remain free. This not so little demon convinces us that the addict is truly worthy, a classically good person who wants desperately to both care and be loved. The translation is complete.

The only way we reach any realization to the contrary is to do the very thing we are convinced must be done: return. We cave. We go back, for more.

And, that’s exactly what we get.

I don’t know how Elizabeth Taylor felt the day Richard Burton passed. I wasn’t there. I never knew her, and she never told me. I do suspect that she felt a whole pie chart of emotions, from rage to devastation to grief to relief.

I said relief. I said it, because I meant it.

Years later, reflecting on the whole of their life together, she remembered only what she loved about him, about being with him, about their life as man and wife. To the interviewer, she insisted; they’d had a world of fun, and she’d do it all again.

I’m not at all sure how I’ll feel, in my own retrospect. Perhaps I’ll pass before he does, and he’ll have the story to tell. I do know that, tonight, I’m no Elizabeth Taylor and he’s no Richard Burton. Strip away the glamour, the glistening, and the guise; we’re just two crippled people, addict and codependent, and if there is anything at all to remember about us I hope our feeble memories can retain something good.

The love of my life?

At this point, I just cannot recall.

Copyright 5/15/23 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line. No copying, in part or whole or by translation; sharing by blog link, exclusively. No AI lifting of contents. Thank you for respecting original works by humans.

littlebarefeetblog.com

The Martian on the Attic Loft Floor.

April 26, 2023addiction, contemplation, creative writing, drama, grief, human behavior, love, psychology, relationships, short stories, social behavior, sociology, truth, UncategorizedApril 26 1957, attic finds, Carol Burnett, Channing Tatum, cheaters, classical musicians, favorite frock, ideopathic scoliosis, infidelity, Martians, Melania, Scoliosis Specialists, sleeveless top stitched denim dresses, the dressruth ann scanzillo

[ formerly titled: The Top Stitched Blue Denim Dress. ]

The old, bright red stuffed Martian doll with its assortment of Velcroed noses, mouths, and googly eyes stared up at me from its cast off pose on the attic floor, resembling a mutated flounder soaked in Red Dye #4.

This attic treasure, unearthed alongside equally ancient, Spanky and Our Gang hand lettered school musical posters, cheap heeled shoes, the chunks, pieces, and too-skinny stems of a long discarded Shark vacuum, seemed to taunt me. I, on my birthday no less, had trudged up the too-steep stairs to tackle my loft’s hoard with only one, elusive find in mind: my precious sleeveless, top stitched denim dress.

Mum had made all our clothes, growing up. A master tailor and expert dressmaker, she’d created pleated cuffed slacks, purses, hats, fully lined three piece suits, wedding and ball gowns, drapes, sofa slip covers, and bedspreads. When I moved out at the tender age of nearly 26, most of my wearables came off the rack and not without accompanying angst; diagnosed with adolescent ideopathic thoracic scoliosis at age 13, I would forever be forced to buy ready made clothes that never quite fit.

Never, that is, with one exception: my favorite denim dress.

Mail order catalogs populating my PO Box for so many decades, this garment had likely originated at Newport News or some similar bargain outlet. But, the fabric was solid, hardy, stretch denim; the dress wore well and, most importantly, it seemed designed with my warped body in mind. Boat neck, vertical top stitching slenderizing the line and belted with a slim, faux alligator belt at waist, the dress hugged my wide hips only to flare out toward the hem in a flirty skirt just meeting midway through my knobby knees.

But, because my hips were wider than my compressed, crooked upper back, the excess fabric above the waist served to blouse out over the shoulder blades, masking their uneven protrusion to the right of my spinal curve. So few pieces of clothing – be they sweaters, blazers, or vests – so effectively concealed the deformity I grew to favor this frock, appearing in it everywhere all summer.

In recent years, and largely due to the pandemic, most of my clothes had hung unworn. Now, I’d been sorting through by color and cut, and noticed that my favorite denim wasn’t on any rack. Neither could it be found folded among the rest of the jean jackets and pants. And, this being the one outfit I always chose first, its absence was baffling.

Until today.

Let fate on the day of birth remind an aging woman of her mortality. Add to that one orphaned at the vulnerable age of menopause, celebrating alone after yet another fractured, intractable disagreement with the man who couldn’t love her, I had plenty of time to contemplate and reflect. This dress, its absence looming with prescience, filled the firmament with telling import; I could trace back one wearing, to Miami, in 2015 and there’d been no man in my life since until he who had sent me tearing home from his place twenty odd minutes south, aborting our plans for the day. I calculated, realizing that dress had been in my possession from 2015 through til 2017 until now. From whose house had it disappeared?

We’d spent the past six years breaking up, reuniting, wrenching free again, meeting to eat. His mother ailed; his mother passed; he returned, this time to stick. Over all those years, more than one strange article of clothing had tempted question – tossed casually on an unmade bed, folded in clean laundry, or stuffed under a sofa cushion during a drunk. Had my best dress been flat out stolen, or just relegated to the suspected cheat heap?

Seven hours remained, of this solitary birthday. Carol Burnett was turning 90, and the world of celebrity had a big TV party planned for the evening. Carol was my kindred; she’d famously declared, on The Tonight Show, that yes, she’d be more than happy to get married again – as long as he lived in his house, next door.

I’ll crawl back up to the attic, then back down through the bedroom for one, last meticulous treasure hunt before curtain time. If the missing denim does turn up, he’s off the hook; if it doesn’t, I’ll finally have all the proof I’ve been seeking for so long that the truly loving man I deserve is somebody else, out there, dressed and ready.

The Martian on the attic floor won’t have to say a word.

p.s. but if, this summer, you see a sleeveless denim with flirty skirt and a sq………. call me.

(I think it’s an Allegra K.)

UPDATE: Pulled out the last plastic bin, known to contain only dad’s old things. Hanging behind it – in the dark – was the denim dress.

Thanks, Mum. You’ve done it, again.

littlebarefeetblog.com

There Is Fire In Our Crowded Theater, by Adam Gaertner.

February 18, 2023addiction, arts education, CANCER TREATMENTS AND CURES, civic commentary, coronavirus, education, Good Food, grief, healing, health and wellness, medicine, notice, political commentary, psychology, public education, scientific theory, social commentary, sociology, the power grid, thoughts, travelogues, truth, Uncategorized, vacation destinationscontrolled burn in Ohio train derailment, ohio chemical spill, Ohio train derailment toxic spill, phosgene, vinyl chlorideruth ann scanzillo

EXCERPTED from his substack article:

The primary concern is unburned vinyl chloride. The uncontrolled, open-air fire is very highly unlikely to have burned even a majority of it: whilst it is flammable, like any other fire it requires oxygen, and there were no accelerants in the crash. The cars leaked for days before they were set on fire, and holes were made in the tankers: that is plenty of time for vast quantities to have seeped into the ground and surrounding water, which has been confirmed thus far to have contaminated the Ohio River, and will very likely be confirmed to have entered the Mississippi. The intense heat and lack of oxygen at ground zero means that the majority of the vinyl chloride, which boils at 8°F, is highly likely to have been lofted into the air unburned, and is currently being rained down again everywhere from Canada to NY to Kentucky.

It’s Not Just The Wind

The fact that acid rain has been reported as far north as Ontario, and as far south as Kentucky, constitutes something of a confirmation of another worst-case scenario: the chemical, which was leached into soil, rivers and groundwater, is evaporating and raining down again, far outside the area which could have possibly been reached by the winds, which are blowing east-northeast. Vinyl chloride takes months to denature when dissolved into water or leached into soil.

Paulsboro train derailment, chemical spill caused health problems in half of residents, DOH reports - nj.com

A much smaller spill in 2012 in NJ. They managed to avoid setting that one on fire.

The Ohio and Mississippi River basins permeate most of the eastern side of the country. There is a smaller area covered by the Tennessee River basin around Georgia; while the contaminated water may or may not directly reach those areas, the prevailing winds are still likely to push the chemical to the east, even that far south. Southern FL might be lucky enough to escape the devastation, but I would not be waiting around to see.

Vinyl chloride is toxic in extremely tiny amounts. Specifically, the metabolite chloroethylene oxide binds to guanine in our DNA, completely and thoroughly destroying any affected DNA. It only takes the tiniest of exposures to be practically guaranteed severe cancers, particularly sarcoma of the liver, which is where that most toxic metabolite is first produced. Untold quantities of dioxin have also been produced: if vinyl chloride is the silver medalist of carcinogenicity, dioxin is the gold, and it is far more persistent in the environment than even the vinyl chloride.

A gigantic bonfire of millions of gallons of vinyl chloride is the single worst chemical and environmental disaster imaginable. If the entirety of Lake Michigan had magically turned into VX gas – a rapidly lethal World War II nerve agent – it still wouldn’t be anywhere near this bad.

Furthermore, there is mounting, albeit strongly circumstantial evidence, that this may have been a deliberate attack after all.

A Deliberate Chemical Weapons Attack?

Video on Twitter

Green water has been reported in East Palestine. Let’s review the chemicals released and produced by burning, and the colors they will turn water upon mixing:

Vinyl Chloride (VC): Colorless water (primary product) and colorless to light yellow water (combustion product – hydrogen chloride)
Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether (EGMBE): Colorless water (primary product) and clear to pale yellow water (combustion product – acrolein)
Ethylhexyl Acrylate (EHAA): Colorless water (primary product) and clear, colorless to cloudy water (combustion product – formaldehyde)
Isobutylene (i-C4H8): Colorless water (primary product) and clear, colorless water (combustion product – formaldehyde)
Butyl Acrylates: Colorless water (primary product) and clear, colorless to cloudy water (combustion product – formaldehyde)

None of these products produce bright green water. How could bright green water possibly have been formed?

3082 is the label for nickel oxide. Fifteen tanker trucks labelled 3082 were seen heading to East Palestine on the 15th of February, and the next day, there was reporting on residents’ bright green tap water. Nickel oxide – up to 150,000 gallons of it, given the capacities of the tanker trucks – produces nickel chloride when it is mixed with vinyl chloride, at atmospheric temperature and pressure, which certainly does turn water green. Nickel chloride is also extremely toxic and carcinogenic, and dissolves in water much more readily than vinyl chloride: if that is indeed what took place, which is not yet confirmed, but seems likely, then it’s that much worse.

Why, for the love of God, would anybody mix fifteen tanker trucks of nickel oxide into the spill? It is not a fire suppressant or dry powder agent like sodium bicarbonate. It is used as a flame retardant in small amounts for plastic mixtures (of which vinyl chloride is a precursor, to PVC), but absolutely not for anything approaching this scale.

Poisoning half the country and destroying a majority of America’s farmland would be a great reason.

Netflix released a movie in December (“White Noise”), playing out precisely what’s taken place here, down to being filmed in the very same town, East Palestine, in which it occurred.

The CDC also “updated” the data on vinyl chloride in late January, before the crash, and after 17 years untouched.

The EPA has also been very obviously falsifying air and water tests, and let’s not forget the reporter that was arrested for trying to investigate.

The conspiracy theorists are 60-nil these days, so I think Hanlon’s Razor is inverted until further notice. There’s no coincidences anymore.

Also notable is Deagel’s 100 million population prediction. This is the first event that could conceivably reach that number in the allotted time, by 2025; with 250 million people east of the Mississippi River, and the untold devastation knocking on to affect the rest of the country, this could easily do that.