Wha? Huh? Fuh??

Read this article and tell me if you think it's even remotely plausible.

A freaky Friday accident left Lindsay Lohan in stitches.

The Mean Girls star was rushed to a London hospital last week after she sliced her leg open while breakfasting at the home of Bryan Adams, according to published reports.

Lohan had reportedly just stepped out of the shower Friday afternoon, when she lost her grip on a teacup, which smashed to the ground. A shard of the broken cup connected with the actress' shin, leaving a gash that required 10 stitches to close.

"She and her friends were preparing breakfast, with eggs and everything, and Lindsay was going up the stairs, carrying a ceramic teacup," Lohan's mother, Dina, told Star magazine. "She had just come out of the shower so she was still wet and had some lotion on, and she completely flipped on the stairs since it was slippery."

According to Lohan's rep, the actress is doing fine and her work schedule will not be affected.

Okay. First of all: What is Lindsay Lohan doing eating breakfast at Bryan Adams' house? Isn't he like, 50?? And she's walking around first thing in the morning all wet and lotion-y?? Does this make anyone besides me go "eeeeewwwwwww"?

Secondly: Go into your kitchen and drop a teacup. I would imagine that you'd have a very hard time finding a piece that could leave a gash that would require TEN stitches. Two or three, tops. And you'd probably have to pick it up, hold it firmly, and gouge it into your leg to make it happen. I have a hard time imagining a teacup falling to the floor with enough force to shatter, causing a chunk to bounce up and leave a gaping slash in someone's shin. The physics just don't work out.

Third: "...and she completely flipped on the stairs since it was slippery." Since what was slippery?? Ma Lohan, watch your pronouns, please.

Fourth:She "completely flipped" on the stairs? And a teacup gash is the worst injury that came of it? Does La Lindsay have a background in gymnastics or something??? I mean, Kerri Strug could stick the landing on one foot, but I wouldn't have figured Lindsay for being Olympic-caliber...

Fifth: "...preparing breakfast, with eggs and everything..." Okay, this phrase just made me giggle. Sounds like someone's taken to heart Granddad's admonition that "it's just not breakfast without eggs".

Seriously, though, this so-called "explanation" makes about as much sense as Dubya's infamous "I choked on a pretzel." Any alternate stories will be welcomed in comments....

:::inarticulate gurgling noise:::

Okay, you guys. I know it's been a week since I last posted, but seriously? It seems like hours. This week has gone by in a blur...a blur with column headings and row numbers, brought to you by Microsoft. That's right--I have spent the week in a hell of Excel.

From Monday through today, all I have done at work is to work on a grossly complicated system of Excel spreadsheets, which was left to me by someone who didn't know what it did, nor did the person before him. Between my boss, my uber-boss, one of the programmers, and myself, we managed to figure out today that we've been sending out inaccurate data on this spreadsheet for at least a year or more. Yet no one has noticed or corrected it, til it came to my realm of influence, whereupon the recipients have started to scrutinize every last little cell, every last formula.

I don't know how this thing works. I could figure it out, given peace and time; but every time I come near figuring it out, someone finds something else that needs to be changed, which upscuttles my understanding and forces me to start over. Seriously: NO ONE IN THE COMPANY has the knowledge of what, exactly, this thing is supposed to do, and how. There are six or seven people who each have pieces of what it ought to do, or where it ought to be getting its data from--but some of them are wrong, and some people's information contradicts other people's info, and all of it confuses me.

What's worst: I was told today that this is entirely my responsibility, even the things I don't know, and that I SHOULD know them, and that my NOT knowing them is a disappointment. In essentially those exact words, was I told this. So now I'm worrying that my job is in jeopardy, and let's just forget the fact that NO ONE TRAINED ME when I started this job, and even the person before me who did this same report for OVER A YEAR had any idea of how it worked. Somehow all that is to be overlooked, and I am suddenly expected to do what two people before me and five people around me don't seem capable of doing, regardless of the fact that they have been here MUCH longer than I have and know MUCH more about the workings of the business than I do.

I stayed past 6 two days this week, and didn't leave before 5:30 except for once. I went to lunch yesterday, too--otherwise, no. So it's not for lack of trying. And I will be working on it from home this weekend, at the request of the boss.

I am SO TIRED of this spreadsheet. I am seeing cell references in my sleep.

My brain has turned to oatmeal. RUNNY oatmeal.

I think I need a nap.

Random

Make of THIS what you will, but it just can't be good:

Today I got Chinese food for lunch. And my fortune cookie?

Was empty.

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Am I the only one who wishes that the Internet would get rid of that picture of the poor one-eyed kitten??? That's one of the saddest, most pitiful things I've seen in a long while, and not only that, but if you read the story, it turns out that the poor kitty died. Any mention of dead kitties makes me need to hug the felines, which in turn makes my eyes all itchy and causes me to start sneezing. Repeatedly.

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In other cat-related news: the interlopers have been downright rotten lately, and may be exempted from the above-mentioned hugging. Seriously, y'all, we're coming up on 18 months with these little crap-factories, and they're now so attached to me that I can't even pee without a cat bursting into the bathroom and head-butting me in the knees. There are certain things a woman wants to do in peace, you know??

Really, though, they're the ones who'll suffer for their chronic underfoot-ness; I've stepped on more paws and tails than I can possibly count. I'd feel bad about it, but every morning and night, they run down the stairs in front of me and nearly send me flying, so...maybe I don't feel so bad after all.

************
Hey, remember that "rule" that says the gas company can't cut off your service for non-payment between November 1 and April 1?? Well, guess what? It's not a rule, after all. Apparently it's a "courtesy" that People's Energy, in their infinite benevolence, extends to their customers. Only not this year, it seems...because today at work I got a call telling me that unless I pay a goodly chunk of my (now 15-days-past-due) bill, I will apparently be cut off. It's worth mentioning here that I made a partial payment; I paid $150 of the $340 charge from the previous month, planning to pay the winter bill down through the spring, as I usually do. But that's not an option this year; apparently, the best way to deal with consumers affected by astronomical gas prices is to squeeze them as hard as possible, as soon as possible, and threaten them to boot. So tomorrow I will pay $200, which will cover the remaining past due balance...which only leaves me $393 in the hole, since December's bill got mailed yesterday.

Does anyone else see something really, profoundly wrong here??? I have a job--what do people do who are on fixed incomes, or unemployed, or have five kids to feed??? How is a utility licensed by the government allowed to put consumers in a position where they might very well have to choose between heat or food??? (Don't answer that--I already know the answer. But it's unconscionable, and I hope there's a circle of hell prepared for the people who benefit from it. That's blood-money, if you ask me.)

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Methdone update: I'm now at twelve days clean, and I feel fine. All my needle-bruises are pretty well healed, though there are a couple of spots I can still see. I'd forgotten one of the unpleasant things about methadone, though: at doses this high, it makes you sweat. I'm constantly wiping my face and lifting my hair off the back of my neck, trying in vain to cool off. I've moved a fan into my office, and I keep it blowing on me all the time, but even that's not too helpful, and I'm constantly cajoling the other people on my floor to admit that it's hot, so I can call maintenance and have them turn down the heat. It never works, though--"Hot? Are you CRAZY? I'm FREEZING!" is generally the response I get--and I've taken to wearing t-shirts to work, just to keep cool. Even with that drawback, though, I'm thrilled to be stable on my methadone and NOT having cravings.

The only time of day that I don't like being on methadone is the two minutes it takes to swallow my dose. I'm on 130 milligrams, which the nurses have to split into two cups for me, because 130 mgs is thick and lumpy and impossible to swallow all at once. Methadone is one of the most wholeheartedly vile-tasting substances you can imagine--it's like gulping down a big handful of half-dissolved aspirin, and it coats the inside of your mouth and sticks there, clingy and bitter, til it's washed down with something sweet. Right next to the medication window, the clinic has one of those big Igloo jugs full of double-strength red Kool-Aid, which tastes like heaven after slugging down a few tablespoons of sludgy orange goo. But if it keeps me away from heroin, I'll drink orange sludge every day for the rest of my life, if I have to.

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And speaking of withdrawal: I can't believe there's still five weeks left til NASCAR season starts back up. It seems like FOREVER!

Poor Oprah

In the comments section of the last post, Barb said "And I hope Oprah feels like an idiot."

No such luck. Some choice snippets from this article, since it's probably going to try to force you to register before you can read...

"What is relevant is that he was a drug addict ... and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves," Winfrey said Wednesday night in a surprise phone call to CNN's Larry King, who was interviewing Frey on his live television program.

And yet, one of the hallmarks of addiction--of any kind!--is dishonesty. So how far out of that history has Frey really stepped?

"Oh, but he did it for a good cause..." Even if he did fabricate for noble reasons--and I'm very skeptical of that premise--that doesn't make it right.

Frey, in his first interview since The Smoking Gun story came out, acknowledged he had embellished parts of the book but said that was common for memoirs and defended "the essential truth" of "A Million Little Pieces." "The book is about drug addiction and alcoholism," he said. "The emotional truth is there."

Now, quotes like this are almost enough to make me understand conservatives. Is Frey claiming that as long as some "emotional truth" is there, the factual truth doesn't have to be observed? And even if "embellishment" (and isn't that a nice euphemism?) is common practice among writers of memoirs, since when does that make it okay? That's the ultimate twelve-year-old's argument: "Everybody ELSE is doing it...." Again: that doesn't make it right.

Furthermore: there's a big difference between tweaking some minor details to add dramatic effect, and playing fast and loose with enormous chunks of reality. He fabricated most of his arrest record. How does that enhance the "emotional truth"? But it DID lend him an air of street cred, which the real facts would not have enhanced in the slightest; somehow there's not so much of the outlaw about five hours in a jail and a case of the chicken-pox, you know? The fabrication enhances an emotional LIE, not an emotional TRUTH; the reader is led to believe that Frey is tough, a criminal, incorrigible--when the facts are much less glamorously evil. He's not 50 Cent; he's Vanilla Ice.

And then there's his whole "paying tribute to people who died" allegation. How is it a "tribute" if you're using the deaths of two young girls, in which you weren't even tangentially involved if the evidence is to be believed, to build up your aura of "I'm a baad, baaaad man!"? The word for that is "exploitation", not "tribute". The family of this girl is far more patient than I would have been; had it been my daughter whose death was exploited in such a way, I would have been screaming for James Frey's blood.

I stand by my opinion of this whole situation. If you're an author or a publisher, and you're calling something "non-fiction", then it had better be NON-fiction--not "sorta-fiction" or "only-fiction-where-I-needed-some-drama". All the alleged good intentions in the world--saving drug addicts, memorializing the dead--don't make up for the fictions and the sins of omission. This book was framed as an autobiography, with all the tacit agreements between author and reader that the genre implies. When you read an autobiography, you expect the substantial truth; if the substantial part of the story is not true, what you have is a work of fiction. All the semantic niceties in the world don't change that, and I think Oprah would serve herself much better if she stopped trying to defend what James Frey did, and started a discussion of ethics instead.

A Million Little Pieces Of Crap

Well, rats. There goes my big chance to get "elevenevele" adopted by Oprah's Book Club.

Stupid Frey...screwed it up for everyone.

The fact of the fabrication itself (assuming it really IS a fabrication) is a hell of a story, though. I mean, anybody can write shocking fiction, but for someone to invent something like that and then claim it was their own life story...it's like masochism at arm's length, taking the aura of glamorous debasement without ever having to experience the actual degradation involved. (I haven't read the book--I make it a point not to read competitors--but the excerpts I've seen have been typically junkie-graphic. I have stories I could tell which are just as gross--and mine are real!)

Seriously, what a fraud. And the thing that kills me about people like this is: they are just as content with infamy as with fame. Frey has the recognition he was craving, and if his name goes down in history next to Jayson Blair and Mitch Albom instead of John Steinbeck, it's all the same to him. Attention is attention, as any hyperactive five-year-old can tell you.

The most grievous punishment that the public could inflict upon Frey is a very simple one: stop talking about him. Stop talking about his book, about his fabrication, about the experiences he claimed to have had and the life he claimed to have led. Curtail his fifteen minutes about twelve minutes early--that would be the harshest thing we could do to him.

Of course, that's not going to happen. Hell, I'm talking about it here, and if this story has made it down this low on the totem-pole of bloggery, I can only imagine the feeding frenzy this story will have incited further up the new-media food chain. But you can be sure I won't be listing either of his works on my top-ten list, if and when I create one--and that's even taking into account my notorious soft-spot for junkies, outlaws, and outcasts. Even if half of what he claims to have lived through is the truth, that still leaves the other 50% as lies (or whatever you care to call them: "embellishment", "exaggeration", "bovine excreta"...take your pick). And frankly, I like my outlaws and outcasts to be REAL. It's one of the few restrictions I put on them....be evil, be low-down, be seedy, but DON'T be a poser. That's one of the cardinal sins to a child of the 90's like myself, and not likely to be forgiven.

(The other cardinal sin, of course, is selling out--which begs a disclaimer: I wouldn't WANT anything I wrote to be an Oprah's Book Club selection. I'm gonna go with Jonathan Franzen, on this one.)

The Reason It's So Quiet...

...is that absolutely nothing is happening.

And it's wonderful!

LJ is out of town, since Friday, and so I have spent the intervening days doing just exactly what I wanted to do, nothing more. Mostly this has involved the damn word game, watching TV, doing needlepoint, and chasing cats out of my bed. I had my second session of therapy last night, which went well, and I came home and ate ice-cream for dinner and was very happy. And when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, I laid in bed and watched "Little House on the Prairie".

I like this life. I like solitude, probably more than I ought to. I miss LJ when he's not around, but I'm also more relaxed, and spend more time doing things I enjoy--even if those things are just puttering around and wasting time. I know I should be more productive, but I figure that will come with time; right now I'm working on just being kind to myself.

Which is kinda fun, really.

Out of the Woods

I hereby declare myself officially Out Of The Woods as regards the possibility of dopesickness. For the first time all week, my appetite is back and my stomach is not upset; in short, I feel very very normal. Better than normal, actually, because it's devoid of the nervousness and fear that has characterized the past few days. I didn't ask them to increase my methadone dose today, also for the first time since this all started, and I was a bit apprehensive, but apparently I'm going to be all right (although I don't plan to push it by sleeping late--I'll be at the clinic promptly at 8 tomorrow, same as every other day.)

And, as I've said repeatedly throughout this whole experience: I'm done with heroin. This past few weeks have been really hard for me--more physically than mentally. I have almost zero tolerance for discomfort, when it comes down to it; I'm the sort of person who yelps when she stubs her toe, or cusses up a storm when she gets a paper cut. I'm an absolute infant when I get a cold or the flu; I'll hole up on the sofa with a blanket and a box of kleenex, looking pitiful, at the first sign of a sniffle. Maybe I see it as compensation for my mental strength--like if I have to be so emotionally strong, I can be a wuss about physical pain, or something. And dopesickness is the worst--because it's both physical and mental, and because it can so easily be postponed. I don't ever want to go through that again.

It's more than that, though. I can't entirely explain what the rest of it is; I'm only now beginning to understand it myself--but I know I want to leave it behind.

I am thrilled just to feel hungry again; thrilled not to worry about whether or not I'm going to be sick. It's nice to have my brain free for other things--even if it's just watching "Annie" on TV and playing that damn word game.

I'm happy. That's the long and short of it--I'm happy.

Hanging In

Day 5: still not sick. Last night wasn't too great, but I think that's got more to do with what I'm eating. After a full day of snacking on sweets yesterday at work, I felt like crap--well, no wonder! And combine a belly-full of junk food with the slight dizziness of methadone and a long-acknlowledged propensity to car-sickness--yeah, it makes sense that when I walked in the door last night I thought for a few moments that I was in trouble. But after a while my stomach settled, and even though I still don't feel 100%, it's so much better than, say, last weekend.

I'm going to eat a reasonable meal, take a shower, and relax for the rest of the night. (Okay--I'm probably going to play a few dozen rounds of that damn word game. But that's relaxing--isn't it????)

I'm entering the home-stretch here. I'm going to be okay, I think.

Speaking of Addictions

This is the most addictive game I have ever come across. Now granted, I am a word nerd, but I don't think it's healthy that I should be seeing letter combinations in my sleep. That's just not right, is it?

Optimism, Somewhat Less Cautious

I am still nervous as hell, but :::crosses all appendages::: still not sick.

If I can make it to the weekend without symptoms, I'm going to relax. Seven days is long enough for anything to leave my system completely, and last time I was sick as hell by day 3. Today is Day 3, and I'm in good shape. Not perfect--but okay.

Those of you who have been asking about LJ and whether or not I should tell him: My therapist was the one who brought up the possibility of telling him. I told her I didn't think that was such a good idea; when I explained my reasons to her, she summed it up like this: "So you don't trust how important you are to him." Which is an accurate summary, if I've ever heard one. That's been my problem since day one; he's not the sort of person who does the sort of things that make me (or anyone else) feel important, and I'm insecure about my own importance to begin with. I don't think that means I'm NOT important to him; it's just a combination of circumstances that make it more difficult for me to do things which might test that importance...like tell him about this relapse.

After I agreed with her view of the LJ question, she said "We can work later, maybe, on whatever it is that makes you willing to settle for being with someone when you don't know if you're important to him..." Which, yeah--needs to be addressed, definitely. But there's a lot I can't explain; like I KNOW I'm important to him, it's just hard to see in any of the tangible ways people expect. I think this is how he was raised--men don't show emotion, but they prove their love by taking care of a certain subset of "man things". And I think he has a very strict sense of duty, as far as that goes; when there's something he needs to do, something on the car that needs to be fixed or a payment that needs to be made on something I don't have the money for, it weighs on him, and he'll mention it repeatedly. I think he's a little uptight about those "man things"--I'm a little more flexible. Of course, the existence of that set of "man things" also posits the existence of "women things", which I disagree with completely--but again: this is how he was raised. He's a grown man, and a hard-headed one to boot; I don't expect to change his fundamental way of looking at the world, especially since there's nothing wrong with it--it's just different from mine.

So I know I'm important to him; every time I've questioned him about it, however obliquely, he's seemed honestly surprised, like "why on earth is that even a question?" I think the problem here may be more with my perception, rather than anything he's doing, and the objective will be to make it easier for me to ask for the attention I want, instead of living without it.

Mostly I'm glad to have brain cells available to worry about relationship questions, rather than where I'm going to get my next fix. It's strange, the way my brain has shifted into a different mode now that I've decided to be done with heroin for good. For example, tonight when I went to pick up the food we'd ordered for dinner, I had to go past about four of the spots where I bought heroin--like, within 50 feet of one of them. And it didn't even register, really, til I was driving away from the restaurant--like a few days ago I would have turned there, and... There was no draw to it at all--I know that's going to be hard to believe, but it's the same feeling I've had for all the rest of the time I've lived here before the relapse--like it was just a part of a different life, nothing that interested me in the slightest. It's a very difficult thing to explain, because I know it sounds like a cop-out or some level of denial--but it's not. I'm not saying I'll NEVER think of it again--but I didn't think of it TONIGHT, and in terms of how long I've been clean (or how briefly, to be more accurate), that's highly encouraging. As my therapist said, "With substance abuse, it's generally not that you stop and then never never do it again--it's generally more that the intervals between relapses get longer and longer each time. And if you made six years just this last time..." I know I can do it again. And if I can make it to Saturday without getting sick, I'm going to do something to celebrate. I don't know what--and it will probably involve buying myself something fun--but if I make it to that point, I'm going to be relieved enough to celebrate. I already feel like celebrating, really...it feels so good just to not be thinking about getting high. A normal life is really underrated.

Cautious Optimism

I'm not sick. I'm nervous as hell, but not sick.

It's the last day of my vacation, which I totally wasted and which I never want to repeat again, as long as I live. I feel like I've seen the light, so to speak, and if I can just stay not-sick, I will never touch heroin again. It has no allure for me now; the only hold it's got is physical, and if I can break that bond I feel like I can put heroin out of my life forever.

I nearly told LJ today that I'd relapsed. My therapist asked me if LJ knew that I was using again, and I told her no. She said "Why don't you bring him into your little network of support, someone to lean on who can stop you from using?" I told her why: "I'm afraid he'd leave if he knew," I said. He's got friends whose girlfriends have drug problems--crack, heroin, pills, the works--and he has very little respect for them. I don't want him to lose respect for me like that, for one thing, and I don't want to lose him. I don't know for sure that he'd leave, but I don't want to misjudge and lose him forever. It's certainly not the most traditional relationship in the world, but I do know he loves me and wants to do right by me; I just don't know what his limit would be, what would be the dealbreaker. I know he's proud of me--I'm different than his friends' girls, and he tells me often how his friends comment about it--and I don't want to lose that.

The strange thing is, I feel so normal sometimes. If I'm not thinking about my problem, I feel like a normal person with normal concerns. That's the thing I look forward to most of all--having my old life back. Except it won't be my old life--it will be my old life plus an understanding of how valuable that "normal" life is. I will be grateful for that undetstanding. No matter how depressed I was, no matter how sad or lonely or bored, I would rather be depressed, sad, lonely or bored and SOBER than be an addict again. And if I can just break through the physical part of this addiction, I will remind myself of that every single day.

I can't wait until I'm sure I'm free of the threat of withdrawal. I have learned so much from this stupid mistake, and I know it's made me stronger. I'm ready to move on with my life, and once I know for sure that I'm not going to be sick, I'm ready to get started.

I'm glad this vacation is over...but I'm going to miss sitting at home and watching PBS kids' cartoons all day. They make me happy. I don't think it's a longing for a simpler time or anything like that; I actually think there's a piece of me which has never progressed far beyond the age of ten. And honestly, I like it that way. It beats the latest plot twists on "Days of Our Lives", I'm sure; my mom got me hooked on that show at one point, back when I was living at home, and it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever encountered. Exorcisms? Evil twins? People who age from infancy to child-bearing age within six years??? Yeah, I'll take "Arthur" and "Between the Lions" any day!!

But tomorrow: back to work. Urgh.

Happy New Year

I had my first session of therapy yesterday. I like my therapist quite a lot (and I totally covet her house--she works out of her home and the place just KILLS me.)

As I feared it would, the substance-abuse part of the equation took over most of the conversation; there was good reason for it, though, because I was sick, sick, sick.

Backtracking slightly: I have NEVER had this much trouble getting my dose of methadone adjusted before. What I thought was too much methadone now turns out to have been too little, which I discovered yesterday when I woke up dopesick. I went to the clinic, where my counselor confirmed: "If you're puking," she said, "your methadone is gone, gone, gone." She raised my dose twice--once for yesterday, and once for Monday since they're closed for the holiday. She told me if I could keep my dose down for 20 minutes, it would be in my system and I should be fine. Well, I hung around the clinic for 20 minutes (she said if I puked at the clinic, they could re-dose me) and thinking I was okay, went home. The minute I walked in the door, up came the whole dose. And it was absolutely NOT "in my system"--I was every bit as miserable as before.

I went to my appointment and minutes after I got there, had to excuse myself to throw up...again. Not exactly the way to make a good first impression. Despite my stomach, though, we had a very good conversation and I think this will be a positive thing for me. And as I told my new therapist: once I get my methdone dose adjusted, I am absolutely never going to use heroin again. I want to be DONE with heroin. I can't change what I've done in the past, but I can control what I do in the future. I will be glad when this phase of my life is over; I want a normal life, with normal problems and normal plans. I want to start my business; I want to take classes and volunteer and do NORMAL things. I want to stop defining myself by "former heroin addict" or "recovering heroin addict" or "broken-hearted long-suffering Gladys". I just want to be a person again--a person who does normal things.

One of the questions my therapist asked me was, "Who knows about your relapse?" And I said, "Nobody but me, really...my best friend out in California, she knows...but nobody else..." I didn't explain to her about the blog, though I'm sure it will come up soon. It's strange, how a group of people I've never met can become part of my support system...Have I mentioned that I'm grateful for that? I know this is becoming a one-track blog lately, and for that I apologize--but then again, this has taken over my life, again, and it's the main thing I'm dealing with right now. I can't wait til it's different--when I can rant and rave about popular culture (okay, I've got a post like that in the hopper, but it's not quite right yet); or talk about the classes I'll be taking, or how successful the business has been. I can't wait to get to that point.

I will be glad when they get my dose adjusted. I will be glad to put this chapter of my life behind me and start working on the things that brought me down this path in the first place. I want to be okay again. And I know I CAN--once I'm not sick. It's so frustrating that--unlike EVERY OTHER MEDICATION--there are restrictions on how much a dose of methadone can be changed at any one time. Even if it's in the patient's best interest to give them a 50-mg increase, state law says they can only have 10 mg added per day. Even if that 50-mg increase would stop them from getting sick and keep them from going out to get high--they only get 10 mg...unless they find a sympathetic clinic doctor, which is clearly not the case here.

I'm just scared, is all, and I wish it were otherwise; I can honestly say I wish I'd never tried that "just once" back in October. And that I never want to do it again.

So: I hereby put 2005 behind me, and plan for better things in 2006. I hope for the best for all of you, as well. Happy New Year, everyone!