Policy of Truth

OK it has been a crazy day at work which kind of sucks for a Friday as I tend to like to ease into my weekend. I apologize in advance to anyone actually reading this entry as my thoughts are all over the place plus combined with the fact that I am also working I suspect that this entry will have absolutely no flow. That being the case,  for some reason there are a few things kind of bothering me today that I need to vent about and this, I guess, is the place that I can do it.

Went to my girlfriend’s before work today cause I owed her a little bit of money and I wanted to get that out of the way. Not only is she a good friend but she is also one of my dealers, one that I am ever slowly fazing out because it is getting harder and harder for her to separate work and business and as a result I am now having difficulty also so…Slightly veering off topic now. Told you there would be flow issues. I was a late bloomer so to speak as far as drugs are concerned. I never actually tried any until a few months before my twenty first birthday when I smoked my first joint. Now I am fairly confident that I have made up for lost time. And except for a six year period about a decade and a half ago when I didn’t use or abuse anything except for cigarettes and alcohol I have pretty much used some sort of drug every day since my first joint.

This being the case, I also want to state that I think that the reason(s) I still use and abuse and don’t seem to have this overwhelming guilt about my usage is that I really haven’t had any dignity stealing experiences relating to my use. By this I mean that I have never had to use my body in any shape or form to acquire whatever happened to be my poison du jour. I know alot of female addicts who suffer terrible self-esteem issues because of some of the things that they may have done to get that much needed fix. I am not judging. I know how lucky I am to be in the position that I am in. I was lucky. I have never stolen to feed my addiction – well, I didn’t return all of my father’s painkillers to the pharmacy after he had passed away but I rationalized that one away. And I did bring back the majority of the stuff that my Mom had given me to return so…

Now I know that this seems to be going nowhere but trust me I have a point. OK so I have never had to sell my body or my firstborn or my husband but over the past year I have been loaning my vehicle to my friend to use while I am at work and for the use of it I usually get some sort of tip. Call this a rental charge. Now as we are first and foremost friends she tends to take a lot more liberties with me than I suspect she would with someone else. I know she does. She has become sloppy in what I think her responsibilities should be when she has my truck. Like I will ask it back at a certain time and she will show up three or four hours later or she won’t be here to pick me up when I am done work or even better she will end up giving some lowlife creep a ride in it and then suddenly $750 worth of my husband’s tools are missing. And she tells me that she only left it unlocked for about five minutes while she ran into her house to get this guy looked after. Yeah well that is all his friend, who was literally waiting in the bushes, needed to grap everything that was in our backseat. Then she says that this could have happened to anyone. Well, no that is not true because scum like him would never have been in my truck so he would have no idea what goodies I had stored there. Plus she doesn’t think that she should be held financially responsible for these items yet the outstanding bill of $385 that I have with her has to be paid immediately or else.

Or else what? I won’t get any more of your crap dope? I won’t be left standing outside for an hour and a half at night in a rainstorm waiting to be picked up by my vehicle? I won’t have stuff that my husband, not even me, uses to make a living stolen from my truck while you are looking after it and then don’t do crap about it? I won’t have to put another $1200 in repairs into the truck a day after you have had it for a three day period in which you towed a trailer that I specifically told you not to tow? I have put $5200 in repairs into the truck since Christmas plus have also paid the $440 a month we have to pay to get the stupid thing insured.

Anyway it is times like this that I end up getting kind of depressed about my habit. I feel dirty or compromised or something that I can not quite articulate. I resent my usage I guess. Like I said I think for the most part I have been really lucky. I have never had to pawn all of my worldly possessions. In fact I have only been to a pawn shop maybe twice in my life and the visits were totally not related to dope. I have never been homeless or even jobless. I have never been really hungry. Like there have been lots of times that I haven’t wanted to eat but I pretty much have always been able to eat.  I sometimes shudder when I stop to think about the shear amount of money that I have probably spent over the last twenty years but it is not as if I can take that money with me either so I can usually shake that thought pretty fast.

Again I am not entirely sure what I wanted to really express today. I was just mad and what actually set me off is that when I went to pay part of my debt she of course was out of pills – so, yes I am actually at work having not gotten anything prior which is a minor miracle in its own right – so I said that I would grab a bit of speed instead. I just wanted a quarter so I gave her another $30. She said that she didn’t have any broken out that I would have to take a half but that I could use this as a down payment towards the next time she needs the truck. So I look at it just as she is hustling me out the door and I say to her that there is no way that this is a half and she said that I would have to weigh it at home. Now she knew that I was on my way to work and that I did not have any scales at home so I don’t know what game she was trying to play. I said no that it was a quarter and that she in no way was going to get the truck and say that she had already given me something. Yuck, feel gross just writing/typing this out. 

She Works Hard for the Money

While I was a student at university I waitressed and then finally graduated to bartending. I absolutely loved working in the service industry. Never in my life have I made as much money as I did then. The mid to late 80’s were still the golden age of the service industry. Expense accounts still existed for businessmen and women and the GST had yet to rear its ugly head. I was fortunate that I got into one of the more upscale establishments that my city had to offer because there was a small fortune to be made. I remember going to school full time for my third and fourth year at uni plus working at least 30 hours a week serving. I was taking home a minimum of $600 to $700 each week which was a small fortune to a 21 year old. After graduating university I found it very difficult to give up.

By then I had become so accustomed to the tips always having money available to me rather than waiting a fortnight for a pay cheque – which we actually also got but that was just gravy – that it took me a year to finally leave the industry. I had made a lot of great friends my four years serving. Some of them were like me, students, but many were “career” people, this is all that they would end up doing. Unfortunately serving is looked down upon in the frightfully white collar city that I reside in that had I stayed in service, I would have been perceived as a failure. Back then that apparently mattered to me although I have long since gotten over that mentality. I was dragging my feet though in making my exit. Not only would it be difficult to get used to the substantial reduction in earnings but suddenly I would be expected to be part of the land of the living. Part of the allure of bartending was that you didn’t start work until dark and the people that you encountered were by far much more interesting than their daytime counterparts.

As luck would have it, the decision was taken out of my hands when I had a bad fall the week before Christmas and broke my kneecap. After crutches, a cane, physio and not driving for five months I knew that it would be tough to go back to bartending or waitressing anytime soon but I now desperately needed an income of any sort. Plus my confidence had taken quite a beating. Getting my strength back in my leg and as a result my back, et al was slow going plus when I did make an early attempt at returning to bartending I had forgotten how messy we could be and those we floors behind the bar were just another accident waiting to happen.

My immediate loss of income right after the accident also made things tough going. But you gotta take the good with the bad and as the majority of tips are never declared by servers, they end up never paying tax on this income. As a result they are then denied the benefit of collecting any type of Employment Insurance as you can only end up collecting what you contribute and if you contribute a big fat zero then you are not entitled to any thing more. So hah on me. After about three months sitting at home with my dog I started to get a little restless and started to look for a “real” job. I found one and I went to work for what turned out to be a pretty darn nice company. For nine years they treated me well and in return I think that I was a definite asset for them but I always remembered my serving days with fondness. I was starting to get itchy feet. I wanted something a little less ordinary than going to work Monday to Friday from 9am until 5pm with three weeks vacation each year and some time off at Christmas and blah, blah, blah.

I was bored and I was getting bored with myself. Surprisingly enough I even managed to spend seven of those years pretty darn squeaky clean. For shame, for shame…to be continued…

HIGH PRIESTESS OF PUNK returns in high style next!!!

gRRRR

Well here I am almost through my first afternoon of my weeks vacation. Always find that these kind of days go by pretty quickly. Haven’t done all that much although I feel as if I did. Again, it is this awful heat. I find it so draining at times. Coincidently my first day of vacation corresponded to the day that I was cashing in one of my savings bonds so I have a wee bit of money in my pocket. I started the day with $2877 but now have no where near that. You say bad girl don’t you? I know what you are thinking and you are almost completely correct.

Well, I owed $1820 in back rent because I overspent in other areas these past couple of months so that debt is now out of the way. I also purchased some new furniture and I owe the balance on the three items that I purchased. I have had these items on hold for about 10 days now from a store called EQ3.  You must go check it out as it has some awesome stuff. My living room when finished will then be done in red, black and silver as the main colours. I am quite excited.

UPDATE!
OK…so my day certainly did not go quite the way that I had planned/hoped. It is as if my vehicle knows when I have extra money in my bank account. Every time I have a couple of extra bucks it has to go and break down. Without fail. So I have my shower to rinse off my new hair colour, get myself all pretty so that I can make a quick run to Fabricland and the dollar store before Jim heads out cause he wants to buy a dvd burner for his computer. Get in the truck and as I am reversing from our parking spot, the truck is making a funny noise and seems to be offering some resistance. I shift into forward and the same thing. At first I think that it is a flat tire cause that is what it feels like but when I get out to check all of the tires are fine. I try again to reverse and go forward and still I am met with resistance so I just throw the truck into park and go back upstairs to tell Jim what is going on. He comes down with me and looks underneath the truck and all I hear is some mumbling but I know that this is not good mumbling. It turns out that it the tire rod end on the driver’s side is broken, snapped off or something.

I guess that this is not a good thing although Jim said that I was very lucky that this didn’t snap while I was driving around all day doing my errands. Yes, I guess that this is a good thing but it doesn’t reallyl matter when it happened cause it happened and I know that this repair is not going to be a cheap one. They never are. Oh well. Jim was able to rig it up so that it wasn’t dragging along the ground and as we live beside a Ford dealership he drove the truck over there to leave it so that they can look at it first thing in the morning. The Sales Department was still there so Jim was able to fill out some service request form and to leave the keys with them. We ended taking a cab over to Ron’s place, one of the guys that I usually get my dilaudid off of and picked up ten pills cause he usually gives me a pretty good deal – 10 for $100. Took a cab back also so I guess technically I can add $34 to our bill which still ends up being $66 cheaper than the other person that I also go to, mind you I usually only go to her when Ron is out as she is literally double the price for the exact same thing. Go figure.

Now before I had to go earlier I wanted to talk about or express my feelings about the relative cost of being an addict and address how people who have no jobs are able to afford to be daily users and how we never seem to have any money although we both work full time and with our combined income each month, take home on average about $3600/month. Plus I just realized that I didn’t get a chance to get my furniture before the truck broke. Boo Hoo…I still wish to discuss this but now it is later than I wanted it to be, I am hot and sweaty again and Jim and I just split a ridiculously large hit – mixed five dilaudid #8s together between two needles – that I think that I am off the lala land. Feeling warm and fuzzy in that opiate cocoon I love so much. Take care and have a good night one and all…

Shake The Disease

Here we are right smack in the middle of another oppressively hot day. There was so much that I wanted to do today but just don’t have the energy so I am sitting at my computer. My poor boyfriend has his all torn apart because of something that happened yesterday. He was surfing the net and he noticed that his start menu had actually gotten smaller i.e. less items in its list. Then he noticed that one of his hard drives suddenly had no info on it. This was one of his 40GB drives and the info seemed to disappear within a matter of seconds. Very strange indeed. I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was actually going on so I don’t know if this was a virus or if one of his drives or even his board failed. Heard a bit of grumbling through the night and he is currently reading while his computer lies in bits on the floor beside me so…

Got a new website which uses WordPress which I have no idea how to customize yet. I have to go into the office on Monday and Tuesday but I then have a weeks vacation so I plan on educating myself during my time off of work. I actually hadn’t requested any time off of work but through a series of serenipitous events I find myself with a bit of vacation. My GM emailed my boss that I had requested the week of July 20 to July 24th off so Rob left me off the schedule for those days. I had in fact requested June 20 to June 24th off of work and actually took that weeks vacation last month. I can see how Jamie made this mistake and as I have more than enough time banked I decided to just go ahead and take these days off. Normally requesting time off is like pulling teeth especially as I am the only one in my department so I figured I better take this while I can.

What I really want to do today is sew but again, it is just too darned hot. I may just wait until it gets dark as it tends to get a little bit cooler then. I am absolutely mad about sewing and this is a relatively new passion for me as I just learned to sew four summers ago. Funny thing is I am kind of really good at it which is rather humerous if you knew anything at all about me. I am the least “crafty” person that you could possibley know. I am literally the antithesis of Martha Stewart. I rarely venture into my kitchen except to get a glass of Kool-Aid! At least I know where it is this time. We lived in a huge Victorian a number of years back and the kitchen was at the very back of the house and I don’t think that I ever entered it unless I had to come in the side door for some reason. No, really this is almost the absolute truth. Jim used to make fun of me. We actually had two kitchens in this house as there was also one upstairs cause we had duplexed it previously. I definitely never went into the kitchen upstairs!

Anyway back to my sewing. It was actually while we were living in the Victorian that I decided that I wanted to start sewing. I wanted to put curtains up in our bedroom over top of the blinds that were there. The room was really large and I wanted to add a bit of colour so I measured the windows and then started to shop around for curtains. I almost had a heart attack when I saw what the cost was to be to purchase ready made curtains for these windows – two nine foot long by two and a half foot wide windows and one nine foot long by twelve foot window. The cheapest that I could find was well over two hundred dollars which I thought was insane for some sheer fabric as at that price you certainly were not going to get anything ornate. I decided to look in Fabricland and discovered that the cost of material to cover the windows could be had for about $60. What a difference. Now you don’t actually even need to know how to sew to make curtains. You can make them with that doublesided sticky stuff that you iron into the seams so I bought myself some lovely material and that tape and away I went. They actually turned out OK. I then realized that you could also use this tape to make covers for pillows and cushions so I recovered some of our tired looking throw pillows to match the curtains.

By this time I was hooked on buying fabric. I get an insane high when I go into Fabricland. I literally can get lost for hours amongst all the beautiful fabrics. Even after my curtains and pillows were complete, I kept going back. I used my sticky tape ironing technique to make a duvet cover for our bed also but after that I was pretty much out of options. How could I get my fabric fix? The only thing that I could think of was learning to actually sew. HMMMM…My boyfriend found an old sewing machine in his parent’s basement and when I say old, I mean old. When I took it in to get a “tune-up”, the guy oiling the machine said that it was made about 1952 which seems about correct as it was a Kenmore when Kenmore was owned by the Hudson Bay Company! So it was on this archaic machine that I learned to sew and for whatever reason, I took to sewing like a duck to water.

Now I have a brand new Kenmore and not only sew but design my own clothes. I still get a thrill whenever I enter Fabricland and I almost always have to be dragged out of there kicking and screaming. I sew almost everyday.It helps me relax and also helps me not obsess on other less healthy pursuits. Today I am having a hard day. I can not be distracted and even though I have two dilaudid 8mg stashed away I am convinced that this is not near enough to get me through until the morning. I call days like today my griever days where no quantity seems to be enough. The longer I sit here and type, the longer it keeps me away from my bathroom so…

But I don’t really have anything to say today. Night is still a long time away and it is at night that I am my happiest. I feel too restless during the day and this heat is not helping any. Maybe a shower or swim or whirlpool would help. Yes, I think I might try all three of those. If nothing my aching body will feel some relief. Until next time…

Station to Station

Well I sure as heck felt that last one. Had my boyfriend do me this time as any of the hits that I had done on myself today seemed really lameass. Well that solves that mystery or something…I’ve done enough shit today that I should by really flying but this will certainly suffice. No question about the dope’s quality as we have only been doing dilaudid – ok mixed here and there with a wee bit of speed – since Thursday. One thing that you gotta luv and respect about pharmaceuticals is their consistency. Nobody can go mess with my Lady Di nowhere, no how…OK nodding now…

Needle Park…

I should really know better especially after the long post I just left in ’s journal about not being able to find a vein to hit in…..but no I have to go and do speed today and yesterday and go and completely mess up my arms. Well, not completely but enough to be inconvenienced and irritated by my actions. It has to be the bloody cut cause I can not associate anything else with the troubles I have shooting sometimes. It is almost always right after I have done a hit of speed that I start to have problems. At least I was more careful than I had been since my previous negligence caused me substantial pain and suffering. Last time that I wasn’t careful or aware I ended up with my right forearm painfully tender and swollen yet almost rock hard at the same time. I had to give it a good two weeks rest before I would even pretend to venture near it. The rest was worth it in that it is now completely healed but I am still having issues successfully shooting where I used to go with absolutely no problems. Oh well I still have other “favourite” spots though they are not the same. For whatever reason, I used to always feel the dope a little more intensely when I went there now I feel as if I am being ripped off. Boo hoo.

On a brighter non drug related note, I made a blind for the spare bedroom’s window to go with the current curtains that are in that room. I got a major deal on some beautiful raw silk in this dark mossy green colour. The blind looks awesome underneath the floor length sheers that I had on the window already. They are white sheers with pale green leaves. A few weeks ago I made a bed skirt from the most amazing taffeta material. It is striped with three different darker shades of green. I love the way taffeta shines and especially love the crinkley noise that this material makes. It is my absolute fave material and I would decorate my whole apartment in it if I could – no wait I have already done that!!!

The Return of the Thin White Duke…

I am taking a bit of a break from my sewing which is going well. My back is starting to ache so I needed a change of position. Got one camisole all finished and it looks sweet. Wish my digital camera was working cause then I could show it off but no………Anyway, just did a nice hit of dilaudid and am starting to feel no pain. Still have a bit of speed left from earlier tonight but I think that I might hold onto it until tomorrow cause I don’t really feel as if I need it right now. We grabbed 10 #8s tonight cause it was a payday so Richey and I have been having a really sweet night. Watched Revenge of the Sith for the zillionth time while I was sewing. So far my favourite movie of the year although Batman Begins is a close second. Love Ewan so am downloading A Life Less Ordinary and Shallow Grave cause I haven’t seen either one of them in a long time and for some reason don’t have them. Lost my copy of Velvet Goldmine and my boyfriend will not get me another one cause he likes to bug me. Makes fun of that movie and Party Monster all the time. He can bite me – well maybe later. OK want to go on the nod for a little bit so I am out of here. My kitty wants someone to snuggle with also.  

Feeling Kind of Creative

Going to take a break from my computer tonight as I feel like sewing. I want to make some tank tops/camisoles that I can wear to work under sweaters or suit jackets or to wear out for an evening with jeans. I am making them kind of dressy casual. It has been so hot recently and I don’t really have enough suitable tops for this kind of weather. I found some fabric that will be perfect. The only problem is it is such a pain to work with cause it is so slippery. It is a beautiful crinkley blue that will hang really nicely. Reminds me of the kind of fabric that the ladies wore in those old 1930’s and 40’s films, like Jean Harlow. Problem is that this fabric tends to have a mind of its own. Keeps wanting to run away on me. Oh well. It will make for an interesting evening to say the least!!! 

Can You Say Doormat???

Well most of my mood is my own fault but still…My head is just aching and I am really hot and sweaty right now plus I didn’t plan well enough that we have nothing for tonight. We just split an oxy 80 but until the morning, that’s all she wrote folks. Grrr. Plus I had to walk almost all of the way home after work – well, not to my home. I had to walk to my dealer’s house cause she was using my car while I was at work. So I am waiting after work for her to come pick me up and after about 25 minutes I am starting to get really pissed as this is bull. If you have someone’s vehicle, the least that you could do was to show up on time!!! I kept ringing her house and her cell but no answer so I call the cell phone of the person that she was with today when I got dropped off to work and he informs me that she is dead asleep and that he was going to go over to wake her up. Beautiful. I told him to tell her that I had started walking and to look out for me if she managed to get in the car. Of course, I see her when I am two blocks away from her house. I even was pretty restrained. I didn’t yell or even bitch. Just got in the truck. When we get to her place there are two people heading towards her house and she says to the other person to let them know that she has nothing. After they are gone I ask her if she has a half or any pills and she is like, no, I just told them I didn’t. I take a shot this time and said that I thought that she just might have put something aside for the people whose vehicle she was using. I mean, she had the car since midnight on Tuesday and we got nothing for its “rental”. I got a half earlier today and gave her $20 for it and now I have no intention of giving her the other $30.

She has been borrowing it on a regular basis for the last six months cause it is just sitting there doing nothing while I am at work so she might as well use it but lately she has become extremely presumptious with its availability and the way she treats us and it. She rarely brings it back to us at the requested time and we hardly get anything for its use. She used to at least give us a quarter or two pills each time she used it but now I have to say something each time and her weird rule is that if you ask for something then you have to pay for it. If she offers it to you that’s another story. I could really care less if she even gave us anything for it half the time either but what I really would like is to be able to run a bill until pay day. The most it ever is when we can do this is about $145 plus it is not as if she really has to track us down but she is even making a deal of this. Every time I see her when I do have an outstanding amount she asks when I plan on paying it. It’s damn right insulting. I don’t need to be reminded each and every time who has the “power”. Believe you me, I know.

So after tonight’s performance, I have decided that I am never going to loan the car again to her. It is so not worth it. If I screw up my budget and am short money then I will just have to suck it up and go a day without dope cause in the long run, that will be a whole lot easier…

Some Particualars

I guess a little bit about myself – my current self. I have been with the same partner for just over 15 years. We have seen each other thru the good, the bad and the ugly. I truly love and adore him and trust him with my entire being. We are what I would consider reasonably successful. He owns his own business and I do troubleshooting for a software company that distributes dvd burning software. I have seven years post secondary education – an HBA in History from the University of Western Ontario and my Business Diploma – Marketing from Fanshawe College. I would like to go back to school to study some courses in Web Design also. Between the both of us, our combined take home pay each month is around $3700. We have also gotten our expenses pretty much in order as neither one of us has any credit cards or any sort of bank loan any more. Our vehicle, a 1998 Ford 150 extended cab pick up truck, is also owned outright so other than our rent and phone each month, our only bill is our truck’s insurance. When we sold our house(s) I made sure that whatever we rent includes all utilities. We currently live in what I would consider a semi-luxury high rise. Our rent is $910 a month but that includes our utilities and underground parking, a godsend in the winter. I would say that the average price of a decent two bedroom apartment in this city would be about $725 a month and I definitely consider what we have considerably more luxious than the average. We have almost 1400 square feet plus two full bathrooms that are quite a decent size. We have an eat-in kitchen with a dishwasher, ample storage both off of the entrance and in our bedroom and balconies off of both of bedroom and our living room. If you click right here you can actually see the floor plan for our unit – not bad at all. We live in a grouping of six identical high rises but they are situated on beautifully landscaped grounds with lots of trees and rolling hills. There is also an outdoor swimming pool which is well maintained and a sauna and whirlpool inside.

Anyway, we are pretty happy with our situation right now. I had a reason for providing all of this info when I started but after a few distractions, I can no longer remember what point I had intended to make and why it was important that you understood the financial details of my life. Well, as I now have to start getting ready for work I will post this as is and hopefully by the time I get to work, I will have remembered my original train of thought!