I woke up in the middle of the night again. I’m used to that.

There is a funeral in eight hours for a guy from the fellowship who killed himself. I should go but I don’t want to go. I just want to stay home. I told my friend H I was ambivalent about going. He understands.

I chaired a meeting last night on the First Step, “we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.” Sobriety gives me the chance to do the next right thing.

Right now I’m watching a Popeye cartoon, For Better Or Worser. Popeye is dealing with the unmanageability in his life by getting a wife, who turns out to be Olive Oyl. As luck would have it, Bluto is also interested in Olive as a potential marital partner. Chaos follows. So the little drama plays out in the whimsical, wacky cartoon world with a musical score in perfect harmony with the relentless craziness. The moral “Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

I guess I feel ambivalent about seeing my former sister-in-law again, who, at one time, was friends with the dead guy.

Feelings of worthlessness are coming up because of my failed marriage with her sister. The last time I saw Sal was at my ex-wife’s funeral, four years ago.

I don’t want to revisit that pain again.

The voice of Popeye was Billy Costello, “Red Pepper Sam” in the early cartoons before Jack Mercer took over doing the voice.

Now comes King Of The Mardi Gras, Mercer’s first turn as Popeye. Bluto was voiced by Gus Wickie, the most famous of the Bluto voices. Olive Oyl was Mae Questel, the one and only voice of Olive. To put a face with a name Mae played Aunt Bethany, in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Now you know the rest of the story