Responsible

Neighbor Guy called me this morning from his neighbor's phone to say he had to go to the emergency room, could I give him a ride.
He thought he had alcohol poisoning.
He was conscious, had thrown up earlier, and described standard "I drank too much and now I feel like shit" symptoms, but his neighbor seemed to agree the ER was necessary so I put on my jacket and went to get my car.
My car started, went half a block, and stopped. Same dead transmission crap it pulled a few weeks ago. Two guys standing out in the single-digit cold were very nice and helped push my car into a mostly legal parking spot. "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses" my ass. Hair in a pony tail, glasses on, wearing a hoodie and boys still do nice things. Maybe humanity is just nicer than I used to think.
I walked back to Neighbor Guy's apartment and it was even more clear to me that he was fine, but yet another one of his neighbors popped in and said detoxing at the ER was clearly the best thing, so I figured I was wrong and called a cab while Neighbor Guy went back and forth between lying on the floor in the fetal position and walking around somewhere between anxious and annoyed.
The cab arrives and Neighbor Guy has to choose which ER. He's worked at many of the major hospitals in the area, so he names the closest one he can think of where he knows no one but it doesn't suck.
$20 cab ride later (the driver had to break his $100 bill) we walk into the ER and sit down. The admitting nurse asks what's wrong and looks at Neighbor Guy like he's crazy when he says he thinks he has alcohol poisoning.
"Alcohol what?"
"I drank too much and now I feel..."
"You want to do detox?"
"Yes"
"Are you an alcoholic?"
"Yes."
This whole ordeal is suddenly worth it if Neighbor Guy admits to his alcoholism.
The nurse still thought we were insane or using the ER to treat poor baby Neighbor Guy with his tummy ache and his psychosomatic attention-seeking phantom symptoms.
That's what I thought, too.
They put him on an IV because he wanted to be on an IV. What was in the IV? Anti-nausea drugs and anti-anxiety drugs; a very mild cocktail.

He wanted to be babied and fawned over, but the whole time I was covering just what he needed, tough love, telling him he was fine and he could do it himself. He wanted to come back to my house, I said no. He wanted to take a cab the two blocks from Walgreens to his house. He wanted all sorts of things from me and from the universe and I wasn't going to make any of this cushy for him. I feel physically crappy all the time. I complain about it a lot, but it's something I'm very familiar with. When you bring the crappy on yourself in a very avoidable way, you need to learn to take responsibility for it yourself, too.

Today tied in very closely with my feelings about my trip to New York. I felt very irresponsible on the NY trip. I kept losing papers and things in my purse, I felt frazzled and dependent on Possible Boy but at the same time responsible for him. I felt like it wasn't my trip so everything I did was pure intrusion and as soon as something was actually expected of me I should have it pop magically and perfectly out of a hat because I was responsible for so little. In essence, I was back to Vacation With My Family Mode. I even forgot to eat and got crazy hungry, which is completely Singer Family Vacation Tradition--at least half the family should be hungry and cranky and yelling at any given moment. Possible Boy called me "Sweetie" at one point and I felt so much like I deserved to be treated like a child I didn't even try to punch him.

Flash forward to today, in a cab. Now instead of people taking important documents from me so they won't get lost, I'm the one holding the papers and Neighbor Guy's wallet, all in the same purse that ate addresses and directions just a few days earlier. I direct the driver to Walgreens, give the pharmacist Neighbor Guy's information. Neighbor Guy doesn't have a phone number. Last week I was in Walgreens trying to work a way to get more of my shots to me in New York. I'd tried to get them at this Walgreens, my Chicago Walgreens, a week before my trip, but with Christmas and insurance they weren't ready in time. So I felt irresponsible in New York, a drug addict begging at the counter for vials of the only thing that seems to consistently cut through my pain, and like Neighbor Guy I'd walked right into my pain my first night in New York. I ate cookies and drank a beer. I know now that cookies and beer make my head hurt, but I did it anyway. Then I drank coffee to keep me going. Then I forgot to eat. All these things that can cause problems, and I wanted to say "To hell with it! I'm in New York! I can live life like a normal person!" But I used up my shots and there I was at Walgreens, and Walgreens told me I couldn't get more shots, so now I'd have to live with the consequences. But it wasn't just me, alone in my condo with my consequences. I had friends along for the ride. I'm used to being alone, designing my life around my solitude, my dog is my "plus one." I don't want it to be that way anymore, and it's starting to change, but I have to learn to adapt my behavior, too. "To hell with it" effects more than just me.

Back to Neighbor Guy. He's the extreme example. He wants everyone else's world to stop with his hangover. I understand the feeling of "How can life go on when I feel like death?" but that's one of those ideas you know is ridiculous.
Possible Boy just called. I totally spilled cranky all over him. My mother called moments later and got more of it. I need to eat and I need to remember that everybody is human and we're all just trying to figure out life at our own paces and flavors. Neighbor Guy's inability to see beyond himself makes me crazy, but that's just one facet a lot of people share to varying degrees. Forgive myself for seeing myself first and maybe I can be less annoyed by everybody else.

Apparently I'm going to Aural Girl's house for zucchini pancakes. Local friends are swell.