So Jenny gave me a little tag project to think about in my spare time.

Here are the rules:
1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who tagged you.
4. Tag 5 more blogs.

Since I can't use "And Now, For Something Completely Different," I'll go with another movie quote.

"Why Is All the Rum Gone?"

I can't wait to find out what Jill's memoir will be titled.

No Wisdom Here, Only Pain

Lately I have had the strongest urge to go out to a bar and drink. I desperately miss the camaraderie, the joy of meeting strangers and old acquaintances, the easy-flowing conversations, the lack of inhibition, and, most of all, the feeling of belonging, of being home. Without that refuge, I feel lonely and bored. I feel like I am a boring person when the most interesting thing that happens in my day is getting access to Excel 2007 at work, or making progress on Daryl's afghan.

I shared this feeling with my therapist, and he reminded me that it is natural for me to grieve for the loss of my relationship with alcohol -- that it is no less intense than losing a loved one.

I think it's like a woman who has been in an abusive relationship and finally breaks it off because she realizes that the violence is escalating and is afraid for her life. But after she leaves, she misses the good times she used to have with her lover when he wasn't hitting her, and all the reasons that she loved him in the first place flood her memory. When he calls and asks her to go out, promising that it will be better this time, that he's learned to control his anger, she yearns to see him. She feels lost without him. Being with him was her main identity, and she doesn't know what to do with herself now. She knows with her head that he is poison to her and that it won't be better, it will only get worse until he actually kills her. But there is a gaping hole in her life that only he can fill, and it makes her feel like risking her life is worth it, since she is so miserable without him.

We Should Never Have Come

Warning: Unpopular political opinions ahead.

I've just finished reading The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley. Hartley is a white journalist who grew up in Central Africa, and, after being sent to school in England, returned to Africa as a war correspondent for Reuters. He was in Somalia during the civil war and famine, and in Rwanda during the genocide. His story is interwoven with the story of Peter Davey, a friend of his father's who lived and died in Yemen, in defence of the British empire. I highly recommend the book, but you need a strong stomach to read the second half.

The theme of the book is summed up by something Hartley's father said to him shortly before dying: "We should never have come. But when we did come, we should have stayed."

Hartley reminded his father that they had, indeed, stayed. But it makes me think about the presidential election, and my dilemma over the candidates' foreign policy stances.

If Obama wins (as I know most of my family dearly desires), and he makes good on his promise to evacuate our troops from Iraq within months, will we someday be telling our grandchildren that, having come to Iraq wrongfully, we should have stayed? Are we really willing to destroy a country's stability and infrastructure and then just walk away because we're getting hurt? And won't pulling out make the world hate and despise us even more (if that's possible)?

But looking slightly further abroad, the most disturbing thing about all the candidates (as far as I can tell, except the Green Party platform) is the abject kowtowing they are all doing to AIPAC. I realize that a person can't get elected in this country without getting into bed with AIPAC. But is anyone else as terrified as I am that unconditional support for Israel will lead us to an even worse mistake than invading Iraq? Will we be saying in 4 years, "We should never have invaded Iran"?

Such is the stuff of nightmares.