Diversions

Finally, I have decided to take advantage of my new scanner to scan some of my old artwork into electronic form. Rather than clutter up the whole blog with pictures (I have mercy on those of you with dial-up connections) I uploaded them to my Comcast site, and here are the links instead.

This picture was painted in 1994, while JP and I were living together. In fact, there is a subset of these pictures which were painted on the same night, the night before New Years' Eve, when JP and his friend Justin and I sat at the kitchen table all night, painting and talking and making plans.

These three were painted by JP on that same night.
One
Two
Three

Here's another one of mine from that night. I couldn't begin to explain it.

I like spirals. Can you tell?

A few months later, I painted this and this. We had a collection of heroin-themed artwork; these were part of it. A year or so later, when I'd learned a little (both about addiction and Illustrator) I created this, which would have fit in nicely with that collection.

I think I must have been really, really bored when I did this one. It's not as impressive when it's scanned, but each of those shapes is cut from construction paper and glued to the background. (I think a few pieces may have been lost in the intervening years.) This came from North Carolina, while I was staying with Firefly.

This came from another bout of boredom, this time at work. I was just learning to play with Illustrator, and I was amazed at how it came out.

And finally, a few more random contributions:
eyeball
drown
heart

Once I can get my dratted evil digital camera working, I'll post pictures of my non-paper-based artwork too.

When the Party's Over

One of the hardest parts of addiction--and I had forgotten this from my last go-around, six years ago--is cleaning up afterwards. It's hard enough to close your eyes and grit your teeth and say "Okay, I'm DONE with this now,"--but it's a lot harder, while your teeth are still gritted and your knuckles are still white, to look around and say "...and I messed up THIS and THIS and THIS..." Because the easiest way to forget about all the things you messed up while you were getting high? Is by getting high again.

Well, that's not an option for me, in more ways than one.

After one last use, I threw out all my needles yesterday; buried them at the bottom of a bag of trash and walked it out to the alley myself. And normally, grand-sweeping-gesture-of-it-all aside, that would present only a very minor and easily-surmounted obstacle to getting high; after all, I know most of the places where the harm-reduction van stops, and they're very lenient about giving you supplies even if you're not "exchanging" needles as such. (They didn't used to be that way. It used to be, if you didn't have needles to dump, you couldn't get any fresh ones. Not sure when that changed.) And I've made this gesture before; the only outcome would be that a few days later I'd drive to the van and pick up a new batch of needles, and drive home feeling more defeated than before.

Except I can't do that now. The harm-reduction van is on vacation, til after New Year's Day. I think they come back on the 3rd, but I'm not sure, and either way I don't care. I have thrown away all my needles and I am not going back to get more. I have over a week to get my head together, a week during which I absolutely cannot get high. I have put an insurmountable obstacle in between myself and my addiction.

Well, not "insurmountable"--I'm sure if I was feeling ingenious enough, I could manage to scrounge up a needle somewhere. But I am in no way prepared to WORK at getting high. I am prepared to work AGAINST getting high, as a matter of fact. I am tired of feeling defeated, tired of muttering under my breath "I am NOT a bad person" and not being quite sure I believe it. I know what I want out of life and this isn't it. So I made it so that I CAN'T get high, at least for a week--and if I want to get high THEN, I'm going to have to take a concrete, thought-out action by going to the needle-exchange. There are about a million points in that process where I can stop myself and say "This is not what I want from my life." I'm not saying it's 100% guaranteed to work, but I'm giving myself a better chance, at least.

And it's a good thing, too, because now comes the hard part.

The wreckage is not so bad, I don't think. I should be grateful the relapse was only two months--a couple more months and there would have been a lot more mess to clean up. There were a couple of bills that didn't get paid, I know, and I spent a lot of money I could have used more productively; but all in all it could have been much worse. I can catch up on bills, and my tax refund will be here by early March (I always file as soon as I have my last check stubs for the year), so I can patch up any financial leaks when that check comes. But it's still scary. I've avoided opening bills for a month or more--as if they'd go away if I didn't open them! That's the sort of thing I used to do when I was really, REALLY in debt. It didn't work then, and it's not going to work now. (Don't you wish things DID work like that, though? Where if you didn't open a bill, you wouldn't have to pay it?)

I think I'm worrying needlessly, exaggerating the amount of damage I've done to my life because I feel guilty for relapsing in the first place...and THAT is a perfect example of the sort of thought process that's characterized my latest depression. I question EVERYTHING about myself--I don't trust even my own good intentions. For months now I've felt as though I've completely lost faith in myself; I've felt like a fraud, like all the things people admire about me are just an elaborate facade, hiding someone that NOBODY could admire. And it's horrible to feel that way. It's hard to describe what it's like...like not only am I questioning what I believe, but I'm questioning the whole concept of "belief", and even the existence of the words I would use to discuss that concept...or the letters in the words, or the pixels that make up the letters....I feel like the core of my world is completely unstable, but in a very narrow way. Everything else goes on as usual, but everything I believe is shaken all the way down. I wish I could articulate it better, because I know this doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either; I just know I want it to go away.

My first appointment with my therapist is on New Years' Eve. She sounds very strait-laced and serious--but then again, I only spoke to her for a few minutes, so it's early to draw any conclusions. I'm nervous, I'll admit, but more than that I'm hopeful. I'm starting to visualize the kind of life I want, and I know I have to take some big steps before I can get there.

So here I am: Day One, And I Mean It This Time.

Damn!

Well, I missed my big milestone: At 6:59 PM on December 26th, The Story of Why received its 20.000th hit. It came from Arlington Heights, IL and they didn't seem to do anything interesting--dropped by, read something, and dropped out. And I am amazed that, on 20,000 separate occasions, someone thought "Hm, that sounds interesting" or "Gee, I wonder what Gladys is up to" or even "Holy God I'm bored--here, lemme kill another three minutes with this dreck."

So, anonymous non-message-leaving Arlington-Heights-dwelling reader: thank you. And thank you to the other 19,999 of you, as well. As I've said before, I don't know what keeps you coming back, but I'm glad you do.

Merry Christmas

I log in from my old room at Mom's (OS 9 Mac, dial-up connection, slower than the slowest thing ever) to wish you all a happy holiday and to thank you all for being a part of my life. I hope you're surrounded by the people you love, all your wishes come true, and all your holiday desserts are magically stripped of calories.

I'll be back on Sunday night or Monday. Take care, everyone.

Tipping Point

Today at lunch I got into the car and discovered that Q101, the local alternative station, is trying to kill me.

Their latest "gimmick" is: 13 Years in 13 Days. They're playing back the top 101 songs of each year they've existed in their current format: 1993-2005. Today was 1993.

Hearing those songs did something to me. I have often hypothesized a point at which I just wasn't going to be able to stand it anymore; where all the pain of losing JP would crash in on me and I would be completely helpless, completely wrecked beneath the weight. I have lived pretty much in fear of that moment, especially the part where I didn't know what would bring it about.

I think I ran headlong into that moment today. I can't even describe how lost I felt, how lonely those songs made me feel--and even more, how shaken I was to realize that of those thirteen years, only three of them ever really happened. There was 1993, when I wasn't speaking to JP; there was 1994, when we got back together; and 1995, when we were perfectly happy together until he died. After that everything is a blur, insignificant--as though it happened to someone else.

I do not want the rest of my life to happen to someone else.

I called the hotline number for the company's mental-health benefits provider, and I got a referral. I went through the whole rigamarole: I need a referral for depression, yes there's substance abuse, then answer everything about substance abuse and very little about the depression itself--oh, I know this game, and I think I managed to cover up the fact that I was crying through most of the conversation. "What do you think triggered this depression?" she finally asked, this nice lady, and I took a deep breath and said "I don't exactly know." Which was a lie, but not exactly a lie; more a case of How long have you got?

And I got my referral, and a number to call tomorrow--which I will do, even though today's call was about as much strength as I care to summon for a while. At least I did something, even if it took all my energy to do it.

I don't know what happens next. I know that I'm already tired of crying, and I'm not even an hour into this process yet.

And oh, god, how I miss him....

Arts, Crafts, and Memes

New meme, thanks to Brando at One Child Left Behind: Take the first sentence of the first entry of each month from the past year and stick them together--an end-of-year first-sentence summary paragraph, or in my case “just a mishmosh of words”.

Okay, so maybe last night was the cosmically couldn't-have-picked-a-worse-night night to do what I did. Never eat half a fresh pineapple in one sitting. Today is LJ's birthday, which means he gets to go out drinking with his friends and doing god-knows-what while I stay home. Last weekend, Q101--the local "alternative" station here in Chicago since 1992, which made it a major fixture in the better memories of the past 13 years--did an experimental thing called "Q101 on Shuffle". Today I found out that there's a good chance I'll be losing my job soon. Not to jinx it or anything, BUT...I had two interviews this morning. Fridays before the holiday weekends are generally ghost towns among the staff at Place Where I Work--at least, among the higher-up staff. Something I've never seen before: The drug spot in front of Chez Gladys now has its own sandwich truck. It's been a long week. Reluctantly, I've had to turn on that hateful "word-verification" feature in comments. Well, I'm back, thanks to a well-loved laptop no one at work wanted anymore. I'm not exactly dead...I've just had very little to say.

What scares me most about that paragraph is that there are places in it which actually threaten to have continuity. It makes me think about how lucky I've really been over this past year--largely in escaping the old job, which took up WAY too much of my emotional energy for the first six months of the year.

I also discovered (owing to an influx of new commentors and a spike in weekend traffic, which is notoriously low) that I've been given yet-more kudos in Eric Zorn's blog:

The most extraordinary and heartfelt site that I read regularly is "The Story of Why" by a local woman who goes by the nom de blog Gladys Cortez. Read this recent posting in which she describes her ongoing efforts to beat heroin addiction while holding down a full-time job. You've just got to root for her.

I am always amazed when I hear that people are impressed by this blog. I mean that; to me, it's just my boring life and my boring thoughts, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to read them. Especially now, when my life is not only boring, but transgressive and boring--when I've lost what was, to me, one of the few points of pride I had, my six years of clean time and my sense of being "one of the few" to move on from addiction and not look back...I'm amazed, is all, that anyone wants to read this. And I'm moved, not to mention astonished and thankful, that anyone at all would be rooting for me.

I'd like to say I've lived up to that level of support, but I haven't, completely; however, I've done substantially better this past weekend than last weekend, or the several weekends before. I'm trying. I will succeed. And I thank all of you--new readers, faithful regulars, and lurkers--for your unwavering support. I can't say I understand it, but I'm grateful for it.

I was thinking of maybe using this experience as thematic fodder for a quilt--a one-year-of-sobriety quilt. I have about a million little fabric squares, 3 x 3 in, in dozens of different colors and patterns. The way I've visualized it: each day clean gets a colored square; each day not-clean gets a plain black square. Each day I would stitch the previous day's square into the chain. I'd make it 14 blocks across (2 weeks) and 26 blocks long (total of 52 weeks). At the end of the year I'll have graphic representation of how far I've come--which will give me a strong incentive to stay clean, because I LOVE colorful things!--and I'll have a warm blanket, which I ALSO love. It's just a thought...I've been more in a craft-y state of mind when it comes to self-expression.

In fact: I'm going upstairs, take my shower, fold my laundry, and do some needlepoint before I go to sleep. Goodnight, everyone...

Urgh.

The nice thing about having one's work computer fuck completely up, so that one is completely unable to access any personal files: no work.

Of course, today was the Non-Denominational Holiday Event and Raffle (I paid $5 for tickets and won....nothin') so not much work was going to get done today anyway. Everyone milled around and ate chips.

(An aside: Could someone please explain to me the mindset which, faced with a holiday potluck, believes that "a bag of Tostitos and a jar of Old El Paso" constitutes an acceptable offering? At every company I've ever worked for, there has been at least one of these people--often more than one. And I certainly don't expect everyone to be a maniac in the kitchen and whip up a quick Chicken Tetrazzini or pan of raspberry cheesecake brownies--but seriously. Show some damn effort, you know?? If you HAVE to bring something purchased--if you're that pressed for time or talent--at least buy something GOOD. A bag of chips and a jar of salsa is like the lowest common denominator of "bring something" foods.)

Personally, I did very little milling OR eating. Our department had its own little holiday potluck yesterday (complete with two chips-and-salsa bringers) and I completely, entirely overdid it. When I went home last night (via Mom's house, where she contributed to the problem by throwing pizza at it) I was as sick as a dog, and I have not been able to eat more than a couple of bites since then. I'm not sure whether it's the result of overeating yesterday; or if something I ate disagreed with me; or if this is from the methadone, which has always been kinda rough on my stomach. I'm leaning toward the methadone.

I finally got to a dose where I'm not sick at night (not DOPEsick, anyway!) and so I've been a very good girl for most of this week. It's much easier now, which is a great relief. I'm still mad as hell about that doctor fiasco--being the wife of the clinic's owner is NOT a qualification to counsel those in crisis, nor is sanctimony and a holier-than-thou attitude. It saddens me that in this day and age, there are still people who think that way. I've never asked for anyone's pity--I'm aware I've made many poor choices in my life--but since everyone makes poor choices at some point, I would hope for at least COMPASSION, especially from an alleged member of the medical profession. And while I am certainly not going to let her lack of compassion interfere with my plans, I wonder how many people HAVE been badly affected by her perception of moral superiority, how many people have taken her words to heart. THAT'S the thing that makes me mad. I'm lucky enough to be able to see through the bullshit--but not everyone is.

I was supposed to go out for Margarita Night with the Girlies tonight, but my stomach just isn't having it; instead I'm going home, taking my shower, and nestling down among my eleven blankets and comforters to watch whatever Netflix sent me. (Netflix should really accept that a two-disc set is ONE title, and send both disks at once....it's maddening to have half a documentary at a time. I think I'm going to upgrade my account to thw two-disks-at-a-time option, which is probably the nefarious plan behind splitting up sets in the first place. But still, as a documentary geek, I adore Netflix.)

One more hour left....

Obstacle Course

Man oh man oh man.

You know, it's been a very long time since I've had a real good reason to get pissed off about anything. Maybe that's what's been missing in my life; I don't know. I know I do well when I've got something to crusade against. And man, have I got one now.

So to recap: I have gone back to the methadone clinic and gotten back on the program. However, at the same time, I was ALSO doing heroin, to the point that the amount of methadone I was taking (40 mg) wasn't keeping me from getting sick anymore.

I decided I wanted to stop heroin. That was always the plan, and so I've had several long conversations with myself, building my emotional strength up, telling myself that this is not a moral failing, that I'm still a good person, but that I need to get myself back on track and get back to doing the things that are important to me, personally. And I had myself pretty comfortable in that belief. But I knew that if I were to go into withdrawal, that my resolve would crumble and that would be that. I know my own ability to withstand withdrawal, and it is not strong. Anyone who has experienced opiate withdrawal can understand without me saying another word; to anyone who hasn't, I couldn't explain it if I wrote for days. It is a unique misery and defies description.

I also knew that the only thing that would stop that misery before it started was methadone, and that I had put myself in a position where I would need a serious increase in dosage before I could stop heroin. And here is where the clinic system comes into play. State regulations say that the maximum increase in dosage that can be given by a staff member (other than a doctor) is 10 mg at a time. I was at 40 mg and knew that I would need at least 80 mg, probably 90, before I could quit heroin without getting sick. (I discovered this on Sunday, when I tried to quit. It took my whole dose, the half-dose I had hoarded, and the last two methadone tablets from my old hoard for me to make it through the night.) So the counselor gave me a 10-mg increase yesterday, and told me that since I was scheduled to see the clinic's doctor today (a formality for all new intakes), there should be no trouble getting the other 30 mg increase--for an increase that big, only the doctor could sign off on it.

The doctor is only in on Tuesdays between 10:30 and noon. I took an early lunch and went in to the clinic for my appointment. She was a small, late-middle-aged Indian woman, with gray hair, glasses, and a dot on her forehead. She asked me about my history with heroin.

"Well," I told her, "I had six years clean, nearly, and a couple of months ago I experienced a major depression and went back to heroin." I told her I'd been battling depression for a long time.

And here's where I should have known things were gonna go south: "Yes," she said. "Many times, depression in drug users is caused by the fact of being on drugs."

"No," I said, "I don't think that's it. I mean, I was depressed long before I ever tried drugs—I was depressed way back in CHILDHOOD, really, when I look back."

She dismissed that and went back to filling out her forms. "So you were clean for six years...without methadone?"

"No," I told her. "I was on methadone for about eight years. I was clean for nearly six of those years."

"And how long were you without any opiates of any kind?" she asked.

"I was off the methadone for....about eight months, I guess, before this relapse."

Under "Clean Time" she wrote "8 mo." And I thought, WTF??? Are you saying that even though i wasn't doing any non-prescribed opiates, that still doesn't count for you as "clean"? That's pretty much contrary to the whole point of methadone treatment--in fact, it plays right into the hands of the worst of the recovery movement, the ones who say you shouldn't be allowed to share at an NA meeting if you're in methadone treatment because "you're not really clean".

I let it go, though, and answered all her questions. She peppered them with observations about this culture, and how everyone wanted instant gratification, and how the younger generation has no concept of sacrificing their immediate pleasure for long-term good. Which I don't disagree with, entirely--but there was an undertone there of "aren't you weak-willed addicts lucky you have someone as wise as I am to tell you all these things?" And since I've spent the last week or so trying to convince myself that I'm not a bad person, that I have nothing to be ashamed of, it wasn't really the lecture I needed to hear.

And then... I told her that I had been using heroin along with the methadone, but that I wanted to stop heroin and would need an increase in my methadone dose so that I wouldn't get sick and go back to it. I told her I was currently at 50 mgs but needed to be at 80 or 90.

"Well," she said, "I can't just raise you up to that dosage...I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you ten mgs." Spoken in a tone of utmost benificence, the goddess bestowing her gift from on high.

"But...that's not going to keep me from getting sick," I said.

"Then you need to fight these cravings," she told me. "Think about what I said--about sacrifice, about strength of will...you need to fight through the discomfort..."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Have you ever experienced it?" Meaning withdrawal, and knowing the answer already.

She, of course, chose to interpret the question to mean "any sort of struggle". "More than you know," she said. "Not with the drug use, of course, but..." She rambled on for another five minutes or so about "personal strength" and "will power" and "sacrifice for the long term", and then she let me go out to the window and receive my splendid, generous 10-mg increase.

As the doctor gave the new orders to the dispensing nurse, my counselor walked by. When she heard "ten milligram increase", she looked startled, then shot me a sympathetic glance.

The doctor went back into her office with a new patient, and my counselor walked over. "Only ten milligrams?" she said.

"And a lecture about 'personal strength' and 'will power'," I added. "But..whatever."

"Come see me tomorrow, if it doesn't hold you," she said, "and I'll give you another ten." She looked sad, as though she felt like she'd failed me or something.

So, let's review. You're a doctor in a program which is supposed to make it possible for opiate addicts to stop doing their drug of choice, by substituting a long-acting version of that drug which does not get the user "high" but which, at the proper dosage, will keep them from experiencing withdrawal symptoms and cravings for the other drug. (Most users, by the time they enter this program, are only using their original drug to avoid the withdrawal symptoms anyway; any enjoyment heroin gave them has long ago disappeared.) The ultimate goal of this treatment is recovery from opiate addiction, either with the continuing aid of methadone or without it, and the resumption of a healthy lifestyle and mental well-being.

So someone please tell me, in the name of all that is holy:

WHY would you, as the doctor, refuse the patient's request for an increase in dosage which will keep them from having to pursue other drugs? Even though, since methadone does not get the patient high, there would be no harm in granting them this increase?

WHY would you imply that the ability to ignore the PHYSICAL pain of withdrawal is a measure of their "strength of character"? Especially when it's been shown that addiction is a medical problem, NOT a character flaw?

And WHY, particularly, would you convey this message to an already-vulnerable population, individuals who are trying to overcome habits which are oftentimes WORSENED by their feelings of shame and guilt, especially as it relates to their own perceived "weakness"?

It was only after I'd gotten in the car and was driving back toward work that I started getting really angry. I tell her "I went back to heroin because I was depressed" and she tells me "of course you were depressed; heroin MADE you depressed!" What the hell kind of circular thought process is that? I've been depressed since I was NINE, for god's sake; would she like to argue that maybe my childhood depression was caused by my parents slipping laudanum into my Ovaltine???

And where the hell does she get off telling me about my character? She knows exactly one thing about me: that I'm addicted to heroin. Obviously she feels that this knowledge is all she needs to judge me as “weak”. By extension, addiction equals weakness in her world-view, and if there's anyone LESS-qualified to minister to addicts than a person who holds that belief, I can't think of them off-hand. Seriously. And what's worse--this is coming from a DOCTOR, a specialist, who supposedly has access to all the best information and research about the causes and effects of addiction--yet she chooses to believe that all an addict needs to get through withdrawal is "will-power". I'm hazarding a guess here that her M.D is NOT in chemical dependency!!! Nor psychology, nor biochemistry...Autoproctology, perhaps.

I would love to see this woman's reaction if she went to the dentist to get a tooth drilled, and he told her: “I see this a lot in people of your generation. Tooth decay is a result of not flossing, which shows a weakness of character. You can overcome this weakness by refusing your urge to ask for Novocain—you can just hang on through the pain. But you can take a baby aspirin a couple of hours before you come to the office...”

I am going to get my 10-milligram increase tomorrow, and I am going to see tomorrow night whether or not it will be sufficient. I WANT to quit—I am ready to quit—but I have to be able to keep up my normal life and activities as I do it. Which means I can’t be too sick to go to work, or sick enough to be noticed by anyone else. I have to be taking a dose of methadone large enough to make me feel physically normal. I hope I’ll reach that dose tomorrow or Thursday at the latest; my counselor, at least, seems sympathetic and willing to help. There's a grievance procedure at this clinic, and I'm thinking I may file one against the doctor. But once I get stabilized, I am going to start lobbying for laws that will allow methadone to be prescribed like any other drug--by a doctor, dispensed by a pharmacist--just like any other kind of MEDICINE, without stigma. The existing system is just ridiculous. If an addict comes to a medical facility and says “I am ready to quit—I want very much to quit, and I believe I can do it--but there is one last obstacle in my way which you can remove by giving me a higher dose of a medication I’m already taking”—how is it beneficial for ANYONE, in ANY way, for that addict to be told “no”? But it happens every day.

There’s more to my anti-clinic-system rant; I’ll spare you for now, but I think I’ve found my cause.

I'm Not Exactly Dead...

...I've just had very little to say.

I'd like to say that none of the silence had anything to do with drugs, but...yeah, it sorta did. And it sorta had to do with work, and sorta had to do with way too much good reality TV. The one thing it DIDN'T have anything to do with was "getting something accomplished", which is, of course, the important thing.

I'm being pulled in two directions--the good and the not-so-good. (I'd call it "evil" but I've been trying so very hard to tell myself that I'm NOT a bad person, that this doesn't make me evil, and I don't want to undo what little progress I've made in that regard. Because somewhere, somehow, I don't believe myself when I say it.) I have a million things I want to do, and one that I wish I didn't want to do. And the "one" is winning out over the "million".

I went back to the methadone clinic and got on the program there. Methadone is the only thing I've ever found that has kept me clean for an extended period of time. I also had my caseworker at the clinic get me some referrals for counselling, which I have yet to call. I'm pretty sure what I'm doing with the heroin is self-medicating for depression, and even when I get clean that's still going to be there. So I have to do something about that.

But there's nothing much to talk about otherwise. Work is crazy, and I can't deal with my immediate boss's flakiness, but it's such an improvement over my last job that I can't even begin to complain. The house is the house, although it's cleaner than it's been in a long while; the cats are still cats, and LJ is still LJ. (In answer to a question Flash asked several posts ago: No, he does not know what I've been doing. He is not around enough to know. It's amazing to me that he doesn't know, but I'm glad he doesn't, since I'm fairly sure he'd leave if he knew.)

So--I'm okay. Not great, and not necessarily improving at quite the rate I'd like; but I'm okay. And I will be better.

But I'm really, really bored.

Verdict: "Blogs Are Bad"

My bad haircut and I spent Thanksgiving at Mom's house. Since the family really only consists of the two of us, it's very easy to plan for holidays. (Christmas is the exception; we see people from my dad's side, at Christmas, which is one of my favorite things.) And since I still have no kitchen to speak of, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion as to who's doing the cooking.

My mom is a wonderful cook. She taught me everything I know, and while in some ways I prefer my own interpretations of some of her recipes, there's nothing like a meal your mother cooks for you. So even if the gravy came from a packet and if maybe I would have done something different with the stuffing, I don't care because it's my mother's cooking and as such, it is above all critiques.

So as we sat down to our turkey breast and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and green beans and cranberry and sweet potatoes, we said the blessing and dug in. And I do mean "dug in"; I'd foregone breakfast and lunch with the anticipation of this feast.

We were watching the news as we ate. I know, I know; television during Thanksgiving dinner?? But yeah--somehow the tv is always on when we eat, Thanksgiving or otherwise. And I don't remember what, exactly, the topic was when I mentioned "something I read on the internet."

"What, in the newspaper?" my mother asked.

"No," I said. "On someone's website." In response to her quizzical look, I said "There are a lot of people who have websites where they write their opinions and their thoughts, about any topic that interests them...kinda like a journal."

"Oh, are these those 'blog' things I heard about?" she asked.

"Yeah!" I replied, a little surprised to hear an Internet term coming from my mom. "And anyway, I was reading one of the ones I read all the time, and..." I finished my point, whatever it was (the tryptophan has wiped my memory clean) and went back to eating.

But a few bites later my curiosity got the better of me. "So where did you hear about blogs, anyway?" I asked.

"There was an article about them in the Tribune," she said.

"What did it say?"

"That they're bad! That people spill their guts on the Internet and anyone can read it..." She paused. "You don't have anything like that, do you?" she asked.

My mother is largely responsible for my lifelong success at IQ tests. And I don't mean in the usual ways--genetics, or reading to me from a young age, or watching my development closely. No, there was something else: My mother, almost from the time I was old enough to recognize and answer a question, taught me to recognize the "correct" answer to any question. Just through her phrasing, her intonation, her choice of words; almost every question came with its own built-in correct answer, obligingly telegraphed to me.

And this one was no exception. It was very clear that the correct answer to the question was "No, I do not have one of those shameful, exhibitionistic 'blogs' and I would never think of disclosing the sordid details of my life to total strangers, all of whom want nothing more than to tell all your siblings about everything you've asked me to keep hidden from them for fifteen years."

"No," I said, and took another forkful of potatoes. "Though I think you've got the wrong idea about them...most of the people I read, for example, don't use their real names, and..." I continued my defense of blogging, but it was clear she'd already made up her mind based on the article she'd read. (Which, incidentally, I had also read; and if anyone can find "blogs are bad", even in this heavy-handed piece of alarmism, please let me know, because I don't see it.)

And yes, I know; I lied to my mother, and on Thanksgiving too, and aren't I ashamed of myself? Except...no, I'm sorta not. Because as much as I love my mother--and I do--but no matter how many times I've tried to admit her into my adult life, she has never earned that kind of trust from me. We are two very different people, and unfortunately she has never stopped seeing me as needing her guidance. I would be more accepting if she only tried to steer me in the right direction when I was making a mistake--but she's constantly steering, even when I'm not making a mistake.

We finished our dinner, and she packed up the leftovers for me while I brought the Christmas tree up out of the basement and put it together for her, and we had hot tea and apple pie with ice cream, and talked about other things.

My mom is in her late 70's now, and as she said, "Every holiday I think, 'this could be the last one'." And she's right, though I don't like to think about that. One of these Thanksgivings WILL be the last; the day will come, and sooner rather than later, when I'll have no family left. And when that day comes, I know I'll have a lot of regrets. In some ways I already do, but they're not really regrets about things I've done or things I haven't done.

Really, my main regret is this: through no fault of either one of us, my mother and I don't know anything real about each other; and when she dies--even though she gave birth to me and raised me and I talk to her every single day--on some fundamental level we will still be strangers. I accept my share of the responsibility for that, and I would love for there to be some magic happy-Hollywood ending--you know, the kind where she accepts me for who I am, and I recognize that the wisdom of her life actually DOES apply to my life as well. But I'm realistic enough to see that there's only so much I can do on my own, and that no matter how much I can change myself, she's part of this equation too, and I can't change her, nor is it my place to even want to. She's my mother, after all.

So all I can do, I guess, is to call her every day and talk about my day at work; to listen to what she did that day, who she saw at church and what they said; and to keep to myself the "scary" pieces of my life to myself, as much as possible--even if that means the only place I have to talk about them is my blog (which, according to the Tribune, is a bad thing.)

Big Turkey

Normally I would use this day to post a list of things I'm thankful for. I mean, that's the proper thing to do, and I try to be grateful and all, but...

Let's just say a recent event has momentarily crippled my sense of gratitude. And it's not what you think, either. If I COULD blame it on drugs I might feel better.

No, the big black cloud currently overhanging my life is much simpler and far more long-term...

I got my hair cut yesterday.

I have had, for most of my adult life, long hair. At its shortest--which was this past summer, while I was staying at my mom's recuperating and she finally won the scissor fight--it was chin-length. At its longest, which was the way I liked it, it was halfway down my back.

What, exactly, I was thinking on Wednesday is a question for the ages. I can only say that we'd been let out of work early on Wednesday because the heat was stuck on "HIGH" and the offices were over 90 degrees; perhaps my brain was cooked. I don't know. But at some point after I sat down in the stylist's chair, the fateful words issued from my mouth, words I would now give anything at all to be able to take back.

"Let's go a little shorter this time," I said. (And where, EXACTLY, were all you sensible people who have my back in these things??? Because I did NOT hear a scream of outrage, and frankly I'm disappointed.)

I had many, many bad haircuts in my early life. In fact, my school pictures are most notable as a chronology of bad hair. It was the 1970's, granted, and many of my friends have one or two similar bad-hair pictures--one or two. I have many. Many, many, many. And all but one or two of them are the result of trying, against all rules of face shape and common sense, to wear my hair short. I KNEW this. It's why I've been so dead-set against having my hair cut for most of the past ten or so years. I LIKE my hair long; the longer the better. So I cannot account for my actions on Wednesday, except as the aftermath of a moderate case of heatstroke.

My hair now touches the bottom of my earlobes. But just barely. It's actually SHAVED in the back, because my natural hairline is lower than the length of the cut. This is SHORT short. BAD short. Horrible, awful short. And where it used to at least be wavy when it was short?? It's now bone-straight. And no amount of parting or scrunching or anything will make it do anything but HANG.

Even my mother, the one so crazy-mad for me having my hair cut in the first place, when she saw this abomination for the first time today, could only utter the immortal words:

"Well....It'll grow."

Yes. Yes it will. Which is, I suppose, something to be thankful for.

But all the same, I think I'm going to cover all the mirrors in the house. It'll just be for a few months.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, even those of you with hair....

The News

So yeah. I’m still alive.

I’m not going to pretend that everything is fine; that would be a fairly-big lie. I can’t say I’ve been as successful as I’ve hoped in terms of staying away from a certain corner I remembered from years ago; that would also be a fairly-big lie. For the most part I can’t even say I was trying.

This is what I can say.

I don’t want to go back to the sort of life I had back when I was a full-time addict. I don’t want to feel like I felt last night, when I was shivering and sweating at the same time and wondering how I was going to hide this from….anyone. There’s nothing quite as bleak as that feeling; hearing the world going on outside your window and realizing that no matter how many people love you, you are completely alone in this moment; that no one’s love or good wishes or hopes for you can make this go away. That there is only you, alone with the consequences of your actions, and that even though those actions were themselves the consequences of something else, something you can’t do anything about because you would, if you knew how—-even though you did the best you could for as long as you could manage, the dam has finally broken, and this is the water rising around you.

So I took the last of my hoarded methadone, and it got me through the night, but just barely; when I woke up this morning I felt pretty awful. But there’s work to go to, and life to live; so I called the methadone clinic and asked if I could be reinstated. And so, one year to the day from the last time I went to the clinic, I found myself there again.

I don’t feel as bad about that as you might imagine. It worked, after all, for five out of my nearly-six clean years. Methadone has antidepressant properties, as well, and in hindsight I think that was maybe a big part of what helped me keep my pieces together for as long as I did.

There were two reasons I got off methadone in the first place: because it cost $50 a week, and because my mother wanted me to. That second one is a bit reductive, I’ll admit; I felt like I “should” get off, but a large part of that “should” was my mother’s voice. And this morning I realized that maaaaybe it’s not the best idea to make decisions about my physical and mental well-being based on the fact that my mommy doesn’t like the thing that works. I would RATHER not pay $50 a week, of course, and it galls me to no end that if methadone could legally be prescribed by a doctor, my 30 milligrams per day would probably cost about seven bucks a week at the nearest Walgreens; but that’s the system we’ve got, and maybe that’s something to agitate for. But until I’m ready to pick up my protest signs and start chanting slogans, fifty bucks a week is a small price to pay if it keeps me from getting high.

And it seems to. I don’t have any cravings, as such; if I think about getting high it’s more of an abstract concept, rather than a visceral impulse that demands to be obeyed. I can manage that. I can tell that abstract concept to screw off; that I’m too busy, that I’ve got too much else going on, too much to live for. I feel normal, is what I’m saying here. I don’t know why I need medication to feel normal; I don’t know a lot of things, really. But I am not willing to trade this normal feeling for a sense of parental approval, or for fifty bucks a week, or really for much of anything.

I am not going to make this a recovery blog, or an addiction blog, or anything other than what it’s been so far (whatever that is!) I know I have work to do—but I’ll be doing most of it in the background. The foreground will still be the antics of my cats, and the progress of the bakery, and the catastrophe that is my house, and whatever this thing is that I’ve got with LJ. (Whose mother, incidentally, told him to tell me “hi” yesterday—an unprecedented gesture of acceptance!)

What I am saying here: I’m going to be fine. I refuse to be otherwise.

We now return to our regularly scheduled blog.

Okay, Now THIS Is Just Wrong

Somehow I always saw Amsterdam as being LESS of a nexus of evil...Italics mine.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world record attempt before it was shot to death Monday, the state news agency reported.

The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden where employees of television company Endemol NV have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night.

Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, "Domino Day" organizers were quoted as saying by the NOS news agency.

The bird was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle while cowering in a corner.

The organizers are out to break their own record of 3,992,397 dominoes set last year with a new record of 4,321,000.

Now seriously. The little birdie, having no knowledge of Guinness, world records, Endemol, or dominoes, flies into the window. (And if you're SOOOO protective of your precious dominoes anyway, why on earth would you leave a window open? Don't you people have wind gusts??)

Little birdie, predictably, freaks out. Knocks down some dominoes. And sets off a big hooraw, with enraged Dutch TV producers stampeding around trying, I would assume, to catch the birdie.

Here's where the problem comes in.

Birdie, in full freakout, is now cowering in the corner, safely away from your precious dominoes. So what are the options? Maybe CATCH the freaked-out birdie and give him a little pat on the head as you set him free??

Guess not.

Endemol, incidentally, is the same company that graces us with "Big Brother" and "Fear Factor". You can make of THAT what you will.

The Mind Of A Cat

Would someone please answer the following?

How, exactly, does placing the tattered Beanie-Baby rhinoceros in the food bowl translate into a comprehensible expression of "we're hungry"?

Your explanations are appreciated.

Slow Time In Gladystopia

I'm still here and still okay, in case anyone's wondering. I tend not to post when I don't have anything interesting to say (at least, nothing interesting to me!) and it's been one of those weeks. Just work and sleep and the odd phone conversation, laundry and feeding the cats and trying to figure out why Illustrator suddenly stopped working. It's really BORING right now, is what I'm saying, and I can't quite wrestle a blog post out of the REALLY mundane details.

I mean, I could try to work up something about how there was a big honkin' millipede in the bedroom and LJ wasn't around and the cats wanted nothing to do with it, so I took the vacuum and put the hose attachment on and chased the millipede up and down the wall for five minutes til it finally got sucked into the hose, and that solved the problem except now I'm afraid to empty the dirt cup for fear it's set up a colony in there....

(Yes, I really did kill a millipede with the vacuum. Death By Hoover. Stop giggling. Those things are scary.)

And I do have a couple of posts I'm working on, but I have to be in a certain state of mind to write them. The only states of mind I've dealt with lately have been "boredom/dissatisfaction", "panic at the amount of stuff I could/should be doing", and "holy crap, this house needs work".

This boredom is clearly MY problem, though. It's like someone said on another blog--this kind of boredom comes from the same place, emotionally, that leads people to open the fridge, look at all the food--sandwich fixings, leftovers, cake, soda, fruit, pickles, the whole works--and announce "There's nothing to eat." I have dozens of things I could be doing, and none of them appeals to me.

I am in a big, ugly rut.

In researching counselors--and before anyone says anything positive about that, I want to make it clear that the scope of that "research" has involved twenty minutes, the Yellow Pages, and an increasing sense of overwhelmed cluelessness--but anyway, in my research I found this:

"Emotions Anonymous".

Now granted, I am a bit of a reductionist thinker; but follow along with me, won't you?

If Alcoholics Anonymous exists to help people stop consuming alcohol, and Narcotics Anonymous exists to help people stop taking narcotics...Emotions Anonymous would exist to help people stop having emotions???

And is it wrong that my first reaction to that was "hey, where do I sign up?"

Fuck You, Kirstie Alley

This is a quote from an interview with Kirstie Alley about her recent weight loss and what caused her to gain weight in the first place.

The good part of it was, `I'm going to spend more time with my kids, I'm going to cook.' The bad decision was and this is the dumbest decision I've ever made in my life it went like this: If a man really loves me, he will not have to love me for my body. He will really love me just for me. ... When did I decide I was a big fat girl?"

The absolute and blinding hatred I am feeling right now cannot be accurately described. I am so glad she was a lousy actress to begin with, so I don't have to boycott any of her crap because I never watched any of it anyway.

I'm gonna lay down now.

Margarita Night, Extreme Version

First of all, let me say it again: Thanks, all of you. Your support is much appreciated. I’m doing fine, at the moment, with the aid of a very small dose of methadone to quiet the weirdness. I won’t say I haven’t thought about doing heroin at all, but I haven’t done it, which is what matters. I’m sitting here bundled up, eating a leftover pork chop and watching _The Thorn Birds_ , and everything is pretty much normal, or what passes for normal  around here. In other words: I’m fine. Wiser, but fine. So, now that we’ve got the Big Awful Confessions overwith, on to more interesting and fruitful stuff.

Last night was Margarita Night with the Girlies. I think I’ve mentioned this particular little ritual before; I’m a relative newcomer, but most of the parties involved have been my friends since childhood.  Until last night, the core group has been Debbi, Cowgirl, Rita, and me.

I’ve known Debbi since she was four and I was five and her grandparents lived across the street from us. She lived down the block and so we walked to school together, slept over at each other’s houses, etc. I think because she was a year younger, I never really considered her as my “best friend” but really, looking back, she sorta was.  We spent a lot of time together, but there was a lot we didn’t know about each other—we were a pair of little stoics, and so it wasn’t til we were much older that we could piece together the stories of each other’s lives.  

Cowgirl—so nicknamed for her love of all things cow-themed—I’ve known since we were ten. We met at a summer day camp run by—get this—Opus Dei. My mom had just become active in the local Opus Dei group, and they ran a day camp for young girls where they taught us home economics, all the Martha-Stewart-ish skills a moral young woman would need. I didn’t know then what I know now about Opus Dei, of course; I remember being miffed by all that prayer and confession, and I was grossly creeped-out by the priest they had us confessing to, but I did enjoy the field trips and the cooking lessons, and there were a lot of fun people in my group. One of them was my “best friend” at the time, who I’d roped into attending with me; one of the others was Cowgirl.  After day camp was over, we fell out of touch, until she and Debbi became friends in high school. Weird, how small the world is.

Debbi and I stayed in touch through high school; it would have been stranger if we didn’t, since she lived just down the street. She was popular, really, maybe not in the traditional sense, but she had a lot of friends—her group from her high school, and the group she was part of from my high school. Her next-door neighbor, Don, was in school with me, and we travelled together on the train. And pretty soon there was Stephanie, who was dating Don and who Debbi hated; there was Gino and Darius and Zara, who formed a core group with Debbi and I during senior year which we called the Vampires. And after we’d gone off to college and the Vampires had gone their separate ways, in a breakup fueled by the constant sexual tension and flirtation between various group members, we still kept in touch, but not nearly as much.  

Then Darius introduced me to JP, and after a pleasant autumn full of more sexual tension, things went really wrong really fast. JP and I had become friends, but I wanted more and he wanted my roommate. We were both strong personalities and had a facility with words, which on one February night led to an argument for the ages. Afterwards, factions were formed—JP on one side, me on the other—and everyone picked their allies, and the parties at JP’s house went on without me. And among the people who went to those parties was Debbi. I saw this as tantamount to treason, and we stopped talking. She sent me a card about a year later, when she heard I’d gotten married, but I never acknowledged it.

And then JP died. She came to the funeral, and we reconnected, and a few days later I called her. For the rest of that winter, and the spring that followed, she and Cowgirl became my constant companions, and I will never forget them for that. They kept me sane through the worst days of my life. We would go out for dinner, or hang out at my mother’s house or at Debbi’s parents’ house; we did craft projects and watched movies and laughed like idiots, and I honestly think in some ways they saved my life. Afterwards I would go home and drink myself to sleep, but I wasn’t getting high and I wasn’t killing myself, and in the winter of 1995, that was an accomplishment.

I went off to North Carolina that following summer, and then I came back and got into my old ways, and then CR came along, and Debbi and I talked occasionally. Even after I cleaned up and got my shit together, we didn’t really hang out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her, but Debbi lived on one end of the world, in a little apartment in the suburbs where the buses didn’t run, and I lived at the opposite end of the city and had no car. We’d see each other about once a year, maybe, and have long phone calls every month or so to catch up.

And a few months back, she invited me to Margarita Night for Cowgirl’s birthday. It was like old times—me and Debbi and Cowgirl and their friend Rita, and we ate and drank and laughed like loons and wrote down our most profound observations for posterity, just the way we used to. It was so much fun that we did it again the next month, and the next. At the last one we decided to make it an official monthly event.

We’re quite a crew, we are. Two pagans/Wiccans, a Roman Catholic, and a skeptic; one married, two dating basically useless men, three  with non-hetero tendencies and one of whom hasn’t had sex since she was in her early 20’s. One with a house, two with apartments, one living at home with her parents. Two radicals, a Republican, and one politically apathetic. A travel agent, an occupational therapist, a tech geek, and a bookkeeper, bonding over alcohol and delicious food. How could we NOT have fun??

Well, last night was a little different. I really didn’t want to go; I was feeling kinda low, and tired from staying up too late the night before, and I really just wanted to go home and flop in front of the TV and relax (since LJ is out of town this weekend.) But I’ve learned that sometimes when I have to force myself to go someplace, that’s when I have the most fun.

I got to the restaurant and it was a mob scene, and when I found parking I glanced at my cell phone and found a text message from Debbi telling me that the restaurant had lost our reservations and there was a 20-minute wait. I met them in the line, and Debbi told me that Rita wasn’t coming. And not only that, the other girl who WAS coming, Mara, was bringing her husband. “To GIRLS’ Night!” Debbi said, outraged at this breach of decorum.

Best breach of decorum EVER. And no, it’s not what you’re thinking; but this guy may be inadvertantly responsible for making Debbi and Cowgirl and I very, very rich.

I was prepared to dismiss him as a bit of a jerk, especially when he stopped the waiter in the midst of our usual pitcher-of-margaritas order to nitpick about the quality of the tequila. To me, tequila is tequila and furthermore, those pitchers are plenty expensive already, without anyone getting uptight about good vs. better. But I wasn’t going to argue the point, and anyway I’d just met this guy and it didn’t seem prudent to make a judgement yet.

So we drank for a while, and nibbled on chips, and ordered our food. And as usually happens, we referred a lot to history. “Remember the runes?” I asked Debbi and Cowgirl at one point. (One year, Debbi and Cowgirl and I had conspired to make a set of homemade, woodburned runes for Debbi’s boyfriend at the time. Despite our best efforts, they actually turned out well, but the making of them was a source of much hilarity, involving tools and a lack of both knowledge and coordination. It was quite a scene, is what I’m saying.)

“Runes?” said Mr. Husband, with a perplexed look. “I don’t know much about…I mean, what are runes?”

And so Debbi explained that they’re a fortune-telling tool, generally made out of wood or clay or some such, with symbols on them, and…

“Oh,” said Mr. Husband. “So you can’t eat them, huh.”

“No,” Debbi said. “Unless you made rune cookies, or…”

I looked at Debbi and Debbi looked at me, and we both got that “holy shit, that’s an amazing idea” face. And out of my wallet I grabbed my business card, the one I got for the bakery, and passed it around the table to much admiration.  From there the plan just blossomed….and so I now have two partners and a new focus for the bakery--(removing name here for security purposes. Paranoia can be fun) We started with rune cookies and went off into breads and desserts and all sorts of ideas. Debbi’s got all sorts of knowledge of herbs and the like, and I can bake almost anything, and Cowgirl’s got the business sense—and there’s nothing like it out there.

And then Mr. Husband paid the whole tab, thus cementing his standing as an Honorary Chick, so all in all it was a productive night. And also free, which is a good thing.

Firefly, You Might Wanna Skip This Post.

Well, I'm back, thanks to a well-loved laptop no one at work wanted anymore. Which was still better than my 1998-era Sony VAIO desktop. It took a while to get it where I wanted to get it.

During which time...

Look. I am anonymous on this blog so I can be honest, right? But I was really conflicted about reporting this. Still am, I guess, but if I've learned nothing in 35 years I've learned: when you don't know if what you're doing is the right thing, charge blindly ahead anyway. And I'm taking a page from Ka here, and losing the drama and evaluating the true gravity of the situation as objectively as I can.

I had a minor lapse in judgement this past week. Two of them, as a matter of fact. Those of you who know this story can probably already intuit what's coming; those of you who don't...well, I wish you did, because writing this is turning out to be a little harder for me than I thought it would.

I did some heroin this week.

If you're clutching your pearls and exclaiming "oh no!", please stop. If you're not, please don't start. I am being as objective as it is possible to be about this; I have looked at what set me off, at how bad it was really, and how hard it's going to be to not do it again.

I am not sorry, exactly. I think I needed a refresher in what I hated about it, instead of the warm fuzzy memory aspects of it which never seem to leave. It's very easy to forget the bad. I needed to drive around and avoid what seemed like a million cop cars. I needed to get taken for $20 by jackass little boys selling fakes, again. I needed to feel the raw edges of panic as it wore off and everything that happened, no matter how insignificant, became part of the worst of all possible worlds. I needed to remember the bad, and so this was not an entirely wasted endeavor.

I also needed to remember something else: once is not ever going to be enough. I realized it after the first hit. I really realized it when I found myself driving around the next day, looking for more.

Facing facts here: I like heroin. I like the way it makes me feel. I like not feeling scared of not being able to hide every single flaw I have; I like feeling comfortable in my own skin for a change. But I also know those feelings are fleeting, and that afterwards there are consequences. And I also realized something else: wanting it is one thing. Acting on it is where the problem comes in. I was beating up on myself so hard for just wanting it that I think on some level I figured "well screw it, might as well just go on ahead." Wanting it is fine; doing it is not. Important lesson learned.

So I stopped, and I plan to stay stopped, and to be grateful that I CAN stop. I am not going to wring my hands over this mistake and let myself become so overwhelmed with shame that I feel there's no reason not to do it again, and again, and again. I was strong enough not to do it for nearly six years; I can pick up where I left off and be grateful for the lessons.

Among those lessons: sometime soon, I really have to start dealing with my grief. It was ten years Sunday since JP's death, and somewhere between that milestone and doing heroin again and the emotional rainstorms coming a lot more often lately (I found myself last night crying over a stupid BANK commercial)--somewhere along the line I realized that I am hurting a lot more than it's easy for me to admit. I've based so much of my self-worth these past ten years on being "strong", and these past few days have taught me that denying my pain like this is not "strength". It's damn near killing me, is the long and short of it, and what's more, it's drawing my life into a tighter and tighter circle around me, narrowing every chance and life decision into a simple equation: possible pain?=hell no. I am avoiding a larger and larger subset of life, just so I don't have to deal with this big internal owwie, and I can foresee a point at which I will have avoided everything for so long that I'll have no choice but to keep doing it til I die. And that's no sort of life at all.

I don't know what I'm going to do about it, but I do know that something needs to be done. And "something" is not heroin.

I wasn't going to write this, because I was afraid of letting everybody down. I know exactly one of you in real life, and yet your opinions mean a lot to me. Enough, anyway, that I worried about whether you might think less of me if I admitted that I got high again. But I promised myself back when I started this blog that I would be completely honest, and I like to think I've lived up to that so far. I've been merciless in my characterizations of some people in my life; you've seen the warts-and-all side of LJ, and my mother, and just about everybody else I know. It would be dishonest of me to keep MY warts hidden, after all that.

I will get past this, and I will be fine. Maybe even better.

Technical Difficulties

In an effort to clear some hard-drive space on my "real" computer, I managed to delete an important system file (oh, how I loathe Microsoft. A Mac would NEVER uninstall a crucial file while doing a basic uninstall of an unrelated program.) And though I went to work this morning and borrowed some CDs to repair it, the CD drive is ALSO jacked-up and I can't reinstall Windows.

I'm writing this on my "other" computer, a teeny-tiny laptop with keys the size of Chiclets. As near as I can figure out, I'm going to have to take my PC to work, install a working CD drive, and go from there. If I lose all my data, I am going to be PISSED.

Blogging will be sporadic til I get this whole mess straightened out.

Two Words: 1. Woo; 2. HOO!!

I am so not a baseball fan. And the denizens of my neighborhood are not so very much renowned for their love of the game either.

But we live in Chicago, home of a century-and-a-half of aggregat baseball futility. And tonight, that combined century-and-a-half?

Has ENDED!!!!!

You can hear the shouts and the hoots and the hollers and the popping of firecrackers (I HOPE) all up and down my block. Sometimes people just need an excuse to yell WOOHOO, but somehow I don't think that's what's driving this merriment.

All of you Sox who are reading this??? You RULE, guys. Absofreakinlutely RULE.

The city of Chicago thanks you.
(Except maybe the Cubs fans.)

New Game!

I gotta thank Spins for this one, because...best new meme idea I've encountered in a WHILE.

The rules of the game are simple: when you leave a comment, include the following:
--the word-verification word provided in your comment window;
--a definition of that word, invented by you, and
--a sentence using that word.

For example--from the last comment I posted here:
tzehwdbs: the specific variety of goosebumps caused by discovering a crawling insect in the tub just as you step into the shower. That millipede really gave me a bad case of the tzehwdbs.)

Best definition wins.....um, something. The right to choose the subject of a future blog post, how 'bout that?

News Nerd Blogs From Work--Sports Update

Apparently the Astros are not pleased with Major League Baseball’s plans to have the dome open during World Series Game 3 tonight.

(Full disclosure: GO SOX ! WOOHOO!)

Anyhow…The Astros feel that having the dome closed, which concentrates the crowd noise, gives them a home-field advantage. Which is possible, sure. But here’s what one of the Astros players said:

"I don't think they should step in and tell us what to do in our field, because it's our home-field advantage now," Game 3 starter Roy Oswalt said. "I think Chicago had their advantage there -- cold, windy. They've been playing in it all year; we haven't. So let's bring it back home and give the advantage to us now."

Italics mine.

Apparently Mr. Oswalt hasn’t spent much time here in Chicago this past season—one of the hottest and driest summers on record. How cold and windy weather, in such circumstances, constituted an “advantage” to the Sox players...Yeah, I’m thinking "not so much".

Personally, I think the Sox ought to INSIST that Houston management has its way in the Great Dome Controversy. That will make it so much sweeter when we spank them yet AGAIN.

Did I mention GO SOX!!!!?

(Further evidence that the Sox rule WAY more than the Astros—my spellchecker gladly accepts “Sox” as a valid word, yet balks at “Astros”. That, to me, says it all.)

News Nerd Blogs From Work, Part One

MIAMI -- A United Airlines pilot was removed from the cockpit and questioned by police after security screeners at Miami International Airport reported smelling alcohol, police said.

Later in the same story…

The flight had been scheduled to leave at 9 a.m. with 76 passengers. According to United's Web site, it took of at 3:40 p.m. after a crew change.

Okay. So let’s say I’m one of the 76 passengers on this flight.

9 AM to 3:40 PM…that’s nearly a seven-hour wait. I can think of a lot of things that I could accomplish in seven hours. I could do ALL my laundry; I could vacuum my house top to bottom; I could blog my fool head off, generating pointless ranting about almost any topic known to man. I could bake bread in seven hours and have time to stir up some garlic butter for it, to go with the pot of spaghetti I could ALSO whip up in seven hours.

That’s a lot of time, is my point. And I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather NOT spend it than at the airport.

But the story doesn’t say anything about how the passengers were compensated. It’s not possible, is it, that United management just decided that being given the courtesy of an unimpaired pilot was compensation enough??

Anyway. If I was a passenger in this story, I’d be howling like a Tasmanian Devil right about now.

(oh, and Pisser? OOKLABOOCHA!)

Why The Internet Sucks

I don't know if I'm more pissed that this HAPPENED, or more pissed that I CARE.

I spend a fair amount of time over at Television Without Pity--I'd link to it, but...um, no, not anymore--reading, posting, generally trying to be a decent participant. I've read the rules and tried to follow them. I had only one "warning"--they have a graduated warning system for minor offenses--from nearly a year ago, and that's it.

Along with the moderators, they count on other readers to report posts that go against their policies--you know, "don't post off-topic", "don't be a troll", etc. So yesterday, seeing two questionable posts, I reported them. And, in my usual way, tried to be funny/colorful/interesting.

I checked back later and discovered that one of the issues had been dealt with and the other was no big deal. Okay. But then why was my warning level 40% instead of 20%??

So I clicked on the warning link, to find out what I'd been warned for. Editorializing when reporting posts. Hm. Okay...I didn't realize there was a rule against that. Better reread the FAQ to find out if there's anything else I'm missing.

So I go back and re-read the FAQ, and I don't see anything about editorializing when reporting posts. Hmmm. Well damn...how am I supposed to avoid mistakes if I can't find out where I'm told not to make them?

So I go to their "Forum Issues And Questions" area.

What do you think would be contained in such a forum? Maybe a place where, if you had QUESTIONS about a FORUM, it might be considered safe to ask them?

Apparently not at TWOP.

Here's my question--paraphrased, but closely: "I was recently warned for editorializing when reporting a post in Forum Traffic Court. I re-read the FAQ and didn't see anything against it; could you point me to the right place? (Please note--I'm not complaining about the warn; I'd just like to know which mistakes not to make BEFORE I make them, next time.)"

I went back to check the status of the question and it was gone. And when I saw it was gone, I was sure I knew what was next.

I clicked to check my warning level: sure enough--60%. And the note from the mod was pretty snippy: "You need to read your warning. Not everything is in the FAQ and if you're told not to editorialize, then don't editorialize. That's it."

Okay, in order of Pissing Me Off:
1. Those warnings don't expire. It says so in the FAQ. So it seems unfair to ding someone for something and not have it go away...
2. ...particularly if you haven't told them not to do it in the first place.
3. Obviously I read the warning. If I hadn't read the warning, how could I refer to it in asking a question?
4. I didn't say "I want to know why I was warned"--I said "I want to know where it says not to do that, because I haven't read that area and there are probably other things there I need to read." Maybe YOU need to read the question.
5. Has it occurred to you that I made this mistake as I was trying to HELP? as I was trying to IMPROVE the experience for all the participants? How willing do you think I'm going to be to help in the future, if this is the outcome?

It's not like there's any penalty attached to each individual warning--though I think if you reach 100% you get banned from the forums. It's the principle of the thing. I did something that I didn't know not to do, for the very good reason that there's nothing that says "don't do it"; then, when I asked how I could avoid making similar mistakes in the future, I was reprimanded for asking the question.

That little warning icon comes up whenever you're on the boards; you see the little scale with your percentage of warning marked on it everytime you go to write something. And I was already tired of seeing that 20% from almost a year ago, and of thinking "These really should expire"--I'm certainly not in the mood to see a 60% forever, and be reminded of what happens when you ask the wrong question.

So I'm going to exercise a very simple solution: not posting there anymore. And not participating, and not recommending them to others anymore, and not buying any more stuff from their site (which is sad, because I like their stuff). I'm not going to do the whole taking-my-toys-and-going-home thing of cancelling my account--that doesn't hurt them, it just lets them know they pissed me off, about which they care not at all. But they've lost a pretty decent forum member.

Then again, I've gained back a large chunk of time.

I normally hate this sort of blog entry--the Airing of the Grievances, Insignificant-Internet-Forum Edition--but I was pissed enough that I had to say SOMETHING. And after all, it's my blog--I can still say whatever I want, HERE.

But I don't know which one pisses me off more: that it happened, or that I care.

Deep Sigh

Okay: work.

Holy cow. I know new experiences are supposed to be good for me, and I know it's hard to learn new stuff, and all that. Intellectually, I know that.

But emotionally, I feel like an idiot--and if I see another spreadsheet, my brain is going to crawl out one ear, steal my car keys, and take itself out drinking. Heavily.

One of the guys on the team moved on to another job a few weeks ago. He had the second- or third-highest seniority of anyone on the team--five years, I think it was--and as such, he was one of the higher-level repositories of knowledge about what, exactly, we do. He was in charge of a number of reports, and when he gave his notice, responsibility for the reports was parcelled out among the other members of the team.

I'm not sure whether it was the luck of the draw, or they saw that I had very little else to be doing, or whether they maybe gave me a little more credit than I deserved; at any rate, I inherited a whopper of a report. It involved three different interfaces, five workbooks, eleven worksheets, a bunch of vertical lookups, and more shit I don't yet get. It goes to the Chief Financial Officer once a month, via one of the other higher-ups, who acts as a liaison.

On his very last day, at 3:45 PM, the guy whose job it was to do this fool thing before me took me into his office and attempted to train me on how to do it. By 4:45 when he left--they were going out for drinks--I had three pages of handwritten instructions and absolutely ZERO idea as to how it worked. And a week later, up comes Liaison-Guy, asking for his report.

I did my damndest, really I did. But...people, this thing...I have no possible way to convey the godawfuliciousness of this process. I did it once and he brought it back--there were problems. I did it again, fixed those problems, sent it back--nope. On the third run, I spent four hours just zeroing out bad formulas at the end. By HAND. Tab-zero-tab-zero-tab-tab-zero-enter. Tab-zero-tab-zero-tab-tab-zero-enter. I had a nice little rhythm going, by the time I'd gone through all eleven sheets.

Before I sent it back the third time, my uber-boss--Best Boss Ever, about whom I've said nothing so far but damn, this guy is a GREAT manager--told me that if I was still having trouble after that, he'd help me. And when it came back the THIRD time, still with some problems, I waved the white flag and went in to see Uber-Boss.

I spent, in the following three days, probably eleven hours sitting with the Uber-Boss and about three with Liaison Guy, walking step-by-step through the previous guy's process for running this report. The Uber-Boss is like, amazing. He cut whole chunks out of this process; reduced it from five workbooks to one, from eleven worksheets to six, and totally eliminated one of the interfaces entirely; then he went through and automated all the crappy, stupid stuff like zeroing out the bad results, and changing all the dates. What was taking me an entire day to get wrong, which would have taken me about four hours once I knew what I was doing, will now take me maybe half an hour to do. I am THRILLED, needless to say, and absolutely impressed by my Uber-Boss. He then went on to spend about four MORE hours with me, working on a different spreadsheet problem, which even he couldn't solve and which hangs over our collective heads for Monday, but whatever. He's a total opposite of Beverly, from Place Where I Used To Work; you couldn't have PAID her to actually get down in the trenches with HER workers.

But all is not well.

I have never worked in a manufacturing environment before. I have no idea about business concepts--purchasing, inventory control, formulation, etc. I don't know the first thing about "safety stock" or "shop packets" or the difference between finished goods vs. manufactured goods. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me yet, because no one has really taken the time to orient me to the language or the concepts; the guy whose job it is to do so is my immediate boss, and after three months I've concluded: he's a bit of a flake.

But all these are concepts I need to understand in order to do the documentation, which is one of the main parts of my job; and so I sit in on these long, contentious meetings with various departments and Immediate-Boss says I should be "documenting" these things, which I don't understand. So during these contentious meetings (made more contentious, and much much longer, by the fact that Immediate-Boss has not bothered to check the recently-imported data before coming into the meeting, necessitating forty minutes of correction by the departmental staff who already think the I.T. department is a bunch of idiots. Immediate-Boss reminds me, to a small extent, of Database Guy from the last job--he jumps into implementing shit and doesn't necessarily consider the implications. Uber-Boss reins him in, sometimes, but Uber-Boss doesn't always get accurate info about what's going on, I think) Anyway, during these contentious meetings, Immediate-Boss turns to me and asks me if I understand what's being discussed. To which I reply, quite honestly, that no, I do not. And he then tells me "Well, you have to ask me questions, then."

The problem here--and I've conveyed it to him as well--is that I am so far over my head that I can't even FORMULATE questions. I would ask, if I knew what to ask, but I don't. I need to be started waaaay back at the beginning, with definitions and terminology, which I should have been oriented to in my first days. And when I tell Immediate-Boss that I can't even figure out what I need to know, he tells me "well, then you have to meet with me."

Which would be grand, if it were even remotely possible. He is absolutely inaccessible. That was the problem during my first weeks there, and it continues to be a problem, and while I'm trying to glean information from my colleagues, there are some things that are his domain specifically, and most of them are the ones I need to do this documentation.

So as you can imagine, I'm pretty well frustrated with that part of my job. I think this is a good place to be, though--there's the opportunity to learn a lot, and my lessons with the Uber-Boss kinda convinced me that, if I wanted to, I could have a future in programming. I don't know if I want to, though...in fact, I sorta know I DON'T want that. My future isn't going to involve tech support, I don't think, or programming or any of that. I don't want to do that for the rest of my life.

In other news, though, I got my business cards for my bakery yesterday. I love VistaPrint....free stuff is good.

But First...

...a public-service whine:

You people who read blogs only at work, and then never check in on the weekends?

You're screwing up my stats!!!

That is all.

Exploding Things: Home Edition

It's been a rocky week here at Chez Gladys.

I'm going through some shit of my own, but LJ: not helping. And it all came to a head yesterday morning, when I left him an (admittedly) nasty note which contained the phrase "Really, I just don't care anymore."

I'd say "subtleties of the written word really ain't his thing, apparently" except if I'm being honest with myself, there was damn little subtlety to be had; at the time I wrote it, I meant it all the way down. And that's exactly how he took it. He called his sister and made arrangements for her to come pick up his stereo; in his mind, at least, he was moving out. He sent me a text message (which I didn't see til this morning, though he repeated the salient points in a phone conversation last evening) telling me that I'd been "acting like a bitch lately" and that if I didn't care anymore, then "fuck it."

When he said that, about me acting like a bitch, I was fairly pissed; then I thought about it for a while, and...yeah, a little. (Though he was a total hypocrite when I asked him why he hadn't said something before now--he's always telling me that if something's bothering me, I need to say something; then when he has a problem with how I'm acting, he says nothing. But that's a slightly less-important point.) I was being a bitch because I felt like I was repeating the same points over and over and he wasn't listening. It was making me mad, and that was becoming increasingly obvious.

He said "we'll talk about it when I come home." Then he stayed out til after 3--that was when I gave up waiting for him--and when I woke up at 6, he was asleep in the spare room. I thought about it for a minute, and then I went in and woke him up. Fuck it, I thought; if he's mad enough to leave I'm not going to worry about making him madder by waking him up; and if there's something we can salvage here, then it's important enough to wake up for.

So he woke up, and got into bed with me, and we talked for a while. And despite my best efforts and all my resolve, there was crying; I think I'm one of those people who cries when she's mad, too. But I think I finally might have gotten through to him. I told him, "One of the things I know about you is, you do exactly what you want to do, and nothing else. And since you spend all your time outside, and none with me, I see that as 'if you wanted to spend time with me, you would, but you don't, so obviously it's not something you want to do.' And after a while, I don't make that into 'What's wrong with HIM, that he doesn't want to spend time with me'; I make that into 'What's wrong with ME, that he doesn't want to spend time with me.'"

He was very quiet for a minute, and when he spoke he sounded really shocked. "Naw," he said. "It's not like that. It's not like THAT at ALL."

He wasn't very talkative--to be fair, I'd woken him out of a dead sleep, so...yeah--but what little he said made me feel somewhat better, anyway. And after a while, as he was falling back to sleep and I said "love you, baby," he actually said it back. Like, as the actual phrase, not couched in some complicated story--just flat-out, for the first time.

Which doesn't solve anything, really--he's still gotta spend a lot more time with me, and treat me more like a girlfriend, less like a roomie--but it patched things up between us. And I'm sure this is going to seem like more cannon-fodder for the "you're too good for him/kick the boy out" crowd--but it shouldn't be, so much, because I'm willing to admit that I've been a little weird lately.

For one thing: next weekend will be ten years since JP died. I'm not even going there yet, at least not in writing; my mind, on the other hand, doesn't seem to want to go anywhere else. It's...not easy. That's all I'm gonna say for the moment.

And then there's work. And that's the next post, because if I put this all in one post, nobody will ever wanna read it, because it's HUGE.

About That Question

Okay, so now that I have a collection of answers to the "do I seem sad to you?" question (which came to a consensus of "no--not really SAD, not as such"), I promised some background.

I've been talking for a while to another blogger. Without going into too much detail--for one thing, he reads this blog--he has a really bad situation going on. I'm amazed at the fact that he's handling it at all, let alone how well he's handling it; we talk on IM, when I'm online, and trade e-mails. Anyway, after reading one of my latest e-mails, he came back with an apology--he was sorry, he said, for being so self-absorbed and forgetting MY sorrow.

I was touched, for one thing, but mostly I was astonished--how could someone dealing with the stuff he's dealing with feel like he has to apologize to ME for being self-absorbed? And then I started to wonder: do I REALLY come off that sad?? I read back for a while, but it's hard to be objective about your own writings. So I figured I'd see what my readers thought.

I don't think I'm THAT unhappy. I mean, I'm not pleased with where my life is right now, in terms of job, living situation, and relationship; but that's circumstance, easily corrected. Well, fairly easily.

I just don't want to be one of those SAD people--people for whom nothing is ever right, people who are always miserable no matter how normal their life is. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't ALREADY that person, and who better to ask than the people who get all the piddly little details of my life??

Me Me Me Me Me Me Meme...

I found this meme over at Reflective Musings. I did it just because I was curious; I was sure the results would be something dull and I wouldn't bother posting it. Hehehe...I was very wrong.

Here's the meme:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

Here's the result:

T-shirts that read "I (heart) NU VAGINAS" will be on sale for just $10.

Hee! (This meme also made me recognize how VERY slowly this blog started out--I started on September 23rd 2003, but my 23rd post didn't come til February 13th 2004. How times have changed!)

I'm not gonna tag anyone--but run with it if you're interested!

Question for You

I have a question for you, loyal readers:

Do I seem unhappy to you?

I'll explain the background of the question later; I'm trying to get a feel for how people see me.

Two New Additions

I just added two newbies to my blogroll--go and visit them, whydontcha.

Alecya G's Plastic Castle--about to become one of my must-reads...

...along with Sexy In Milwaukee.

Both of these ladies are either new readers, or lurkers who've just commented for the first time. Welcome, to both of you! And if anyone here is reading and NOT on my blogroll, please leave a comment. I'd hate to slight anyone!

What You Need

I got this from Pisser and while normally I'm not a big meme person, this one just made me giggle...as you shall see.

EVERYBODY NEEDS
Here's what you do: go to google.com and type "(your name) needs" Then pick the 5 funniest ones there.

Here's my outcome (as stolen back from Pisser's comment screen):

Gladys needs the Windsor Fire Department. (As long as the WFD is tall, well-endowed, and preferably has dreads, I'm all on THAT fire-engine.)

Gladys needs help to obtain and better manage her medicines so she can feel better. (HELL yeah. Truer words never spoken.)

Gladys needs the fairys she jammed under her toenails removed. (Um...Okay.)

Gladys apparently does NOT need any stern lectures from anyone on pre-marital sex. (Though I could certainly use more sex.)

Gladys needs improvement in learning to express her anger without insult. (That's just what I'd expect a stanky biatch to say. And furthermore, nanny nanny boo boo.)

Gladys needs to reserve a tiller. (Well, if the Windsor Fire Department is otherwise occupied, I guess that would be fine.)

Feel free--in fact, feel personally obligated--to put your results in a comment below!

Things That Happened This Week

The Week In Review, Gladys-Style: A random list of observations and events with no cohesive theme.

--I've discovered those Warm Delights microwave desserts. As long as you don't try to think of them as "cake", which they supposedly are but nothing that comes out of a microwave qualifies as "cake" in the traditional sense; anyway, as long as you just accept them as a Branded Amorphous Dessert Experience, they're remarkably not-awful. Especially if you blob a big scoop of French Vanilla on 'em.

--I think I'm going to sell Chez Gladys. I have a couple more alternatives to try first, but if neither HUD nor the original mortgagor will come up off some SERIOUS cash for repairs, there's a better-than-75%-chance that I'm going to unload it. I've got one of those "we buy ugly houses" people coming by next week, just to see what he'll offer.

--If there is a God, I don't think he cares too much about what us puny humans think of him.

--Microsoft blows. I was SO not made to work in a non-Mac environment.

--In fact, I'm not sure I was made to work in ANY sort of environment. I've begun to consider a career as a long-haul trucker. And I am absolutely, without question, going to take The Road Trip before I die--hopefully before I reach 40.

--Some of you, in the comments from the last post, asked about elevenevele. I'm still working on it, yes...if by "working on" you mean "thinking about, but steadfastly not completing". I am hugely intimidated by this book and the response I've received to it, in ways I can't even begin to explain....it's very hard for me to accept praise and still keep going. I'm not used to praise, and it rattles me. Not that I don't appreciate it; I'm just not used to it. I often wonder idly about what I would be like if I became famous as a writer; I already know I have a hard time not taking criticism personally, but I'm learning that I'm also not so good with praise. This leads me to conclude that I'm actually just not good with human interactions of any kind. Anyway--I haven't forgotten about the book, or given up on it, but I haven't been writing much lately either. My self-imposed deadline is approaching, and there's literally zero chance that I will make it. If I knew why I was so consistent and accurate in setting myself up for failure, my life would probably be much different; I'm pretty sure I'm one of those folks who's scared of success. And I don't know how I came to be that way, or why, or how to be different.

--I need a girlfriend. Whether it's the long drought (I seriously don't remember the last time I got laid) or boredom or what, my not-entirely-hetero tendencies are more on my mind than usual.

--If I was going to make a big change in my style of dress and try to be more "girly", I think I'd go all the way with it and go very Little-House-On-the-Prairie, with flowy calico dresses. I love calico; in fact, that's going to be my next quilt project, after the flannel-shirt quilt--an old-fashioned calico quilt of some sort.

--It's a lot easier to love LJ when he's not around. Not that I dislike his company; but my life is much more placid when he goes on his long road-trips. The house is cleaner, there are fewer things to do, and I can eat popcorn for dinner and watch reality TV and go to bed with the fan off and no earplugs. When he's around--and this is my problem, not his--but when he's around I feel like I have to be "on" all the time--ready to be Girlfriend Gladys instead of Slacker Gladys. And yet...when he's here I feel more peaceful, more secure. I can crawl under his blanket and cuddle up next to him. He's been so sweet to me lately--calling me at work, sending me text messages, being way better about letting me know what's happening and what his plans are, both short-term and long-term. He's a great guy and I love him dearly--I just wish I was more comfortable with him. And again--this is MY problem, not his. I am becoming more and more of a hermit as time passes, and I can see there's no possible good end to the way I'm going; someday I'm going to be old and I won't be able to do everything for myself anymore, and there won't be anyone around because I will have entirely withdrawn from everyone else. That's a scary thought, you know? But right now people take up way more energy than I've got, and it's getting worse instead of better. I haven't even been blogging as much as I used to, and that's about as far as you can be from actual humans while still retaining some semblance of interaction. Firefly has been sending me worried e-mails, and I know I've been a lousy correspondent; there are people who I know I should write to, who I haven't, just because it takes too much energy and I feel like I have nothing to say anyway. (I'm thinking I'm providing compelling evidence in favor of Getting Some Help here, which is becoming obvious even to me.) And it's not as though I'm lonely; I just recognize that this level of isolation, even if it's not bothering me, is still not a good way to be. It's not new; I've lost many friends to this kind of inertia, but at least this time I recognize that it's happening and that I don't want it to. TO a certain extent I think it's because I'm in this rut, and that I need to break out of the rut and everything else will follow. But the bills still have to be paid, and it's that getting up in the morning and going somewhere I dislike that's the main tire-track, so to speak, in this lovely rut of mine.

--The Chicago White Sox rule. And I am not a baseball fan, normally, but they're WINNING and when you live in Chicago and a baseball team starts WINNING, that's not something you ignore, largely because it's not necessarily going to happen again in anyone's given lifetime. So, for the duration, I am a Sox fan. (Note to any REAL Sox fans reading this: I am not the evil kind of bandwagon-jumper. If I was a baseball fan of any sort, I would be a Sox fan; I'm not one of those Cubs-fans-who-becomes-a-Sox-fan-when-it's-convenient types. So I am forgiveable, barely. And plus my grandma was a lifelong Sox fan--isn't there some sort of clause that makes me a fan by osmosis?)

More soon. It's bedtime, and there's a Branded Amorphous Dessert Experience with my name on it.

Well, Now You've Gone And Screwed It Up For Everyone

Reluctantly, I've had to turn on that hateful "word-verification" feature in comments. I think I'm the last one on the block to do it, but this is too much comment-spam for one day.

Buncha jerks...

Month In Review

I've been asked--as I mentioned about a month ago--to contribute to the Month in Review panel at Change of Subject, the blog of Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. He provides the categories, we provide the examples; there's a largely Chicago/Illinois focus, but that's not necessarily written in stone (and I would imagine the focus will be wider this month than in many others.) Anyway: here goes...

MOST SIGNIFICANT STORY OF THE MONTH: “Public Official A” and the teachers’ pension scandal. No matter whether or not “A” equals Blagojevich, our “reform” governor’s image has taken a huge bullet—and I don’t think the damage can be repaired.

WINNER OF THE MONTH: Traditional media, both national and local, who regained some of their lost credibility by asking the right questions about the response after Hurricane Katrina. It was good to see journalists doing something to the administration other than tossing softballs and kissing butts. (Present company excepted, EZ...)

LOSER OF THE MONTH —The Hispanic Democratic Organization. Every teflon politician needs their scapegoats; Daley has just found another. (Runners-up: the present and future taxpayers of Chicago (gee, thanks for settling that Ryan Harris case, alderpeople...) and our (ahem) esteemed governor.)

MOST UNDER-REPORTED STORY --WTTW, Chicago’s largest so-called “public” television station, has hooked up with the WNBA’s new Chicago Sky team. Under the terms of this deal, the PBS station will produce, sell ads for, and broadcast all the team’s home games starting in May. How is this “television in the public interest”? Aren’t there FCC regulations about public-television stations accepting the sort of advertising professional sports will attract? Why isn’t anyone talking about this? (Runner-up: None. Reluctantly, I concede that “Marty Casey getting totally robbed by losing to J.D. on Rock Star: INXS”—as wrong as that was!—is not technically “news”. Unless you’re Channel 2, that is; then it’s among your top stories.)

MOST OVER REPORTED STORY—-From New Orleans, the stories of violence. Most particularly, the story about “people shooting at helicopters”. Sorry, there’s no local angle to this one—but every time I hear this reference it makes my blood boil. If you look closely at the initial reports—the source data, as it were—they use similar phrasing. I understand that most news is sourced through national bureaus, hence the similarities—but in the early days of the Katrina disaster, so many unsubstantiated urban legends popped up about what happened in New Orleans, particularly the Superdome and the Convention Center. Time, reflection, and proper investigation have shown:

--By and large, the “looters” were not crazed junkies searching for drugs, as Mayor Nagin said.

--The incident involving a group of survivors turned back while attempting to cross into nearby Gretna was not entirely a case of “rich white people turn away poor black people”. (link)

--There was not a wave of babies and children being raped in either the Superdome or the Convention Center-- one case has been substantiated, but no confirmation can be found of the “stories of a 14-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy reportedly raped to death in the New Orleans Superdome” (as reported by Reuters, according to this link.)

The “people shooting at helicopters” story was given as an excuse for rescues and food drops to cease, for trucks and buses to be turned back from New Orleans—and my suspicion is that this was one incident, one expression of EXTREMELY poor judgement on the part of a frightened and frustrated individual, which has been reported as an indictment of an entire class of people who managed to survive under conditions none of the rest of us can comprehend. And it’s a reminder that there’s no substitute for responsible journalism, either in the “mainstream” or the “new” media.

STORY TO WATCH IN THE UPCOMING MONTH: The Ryan trial.