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.)
Friday, November 25, 2005
Thursday, November 24, 2005
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....
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....
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Okay, Now THIS Is Just Wrong
Somehow I always saw Amsterdam as being LESS of a nexus of evil...Italics mine.
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.
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.
Monday, November 14, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
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?"
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?"
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
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 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.
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.
Saturday, November 5, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, November 3, 2005
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.
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.
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