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DEPRESSION

It's kicking my ass. I quit my job basically in January but was on short term leave till March and then I basically never went back. I'll be 31 on the 31st and what do I have to show for it?

My brain is so disappointed in myself but my heart is like, give yourself a break. You had a lot more to deal with as a child than your peers. That's why you're 31 and unemployed and depressed and still dependent on benzos and opioids. Thankfully my girlfriend is working full time now.

But we are still behind on bills and rent and it's always the same fucking routine.

I ran out of Suboxone a week early last month so that justified my brain to go and buy 5 bundles and even that wasn't enough to get me to my next prescription refill. I always thought it would just be so easy if I had a prescription for opioids because I could manage them and blah blah but nope. I'm just an idiot.

I have shit tons of benzos though. I'm typing this on an iPad mini so forgive the typos and autocorrect idiocy I am sure to have.

My therapist whom I've mentioned on here numerous times and who I thought was so cool and who I've been seeing since fucking 2011(!?!?!) and got absolutely nothing done with terminated my treatment 2 weeks ago, which is a hilarious joke because there was no real treatment.

We bought drugs together, whatever, but there was just something always more sinister there. Who knows, honestly, but I really am lucky to be done with him. I've been done with him for a while because he said I only kept like 7 of my appointments since last year. But I'm just so angry he's still practicing and still has patients and it's all no big deal to him. I saw this new lady once but I don't think we click, nor do I want to go so far downtown every week.

Ugh, I'm mad I'm even mentioning this because it's so ridiculous but basically I've isolated myself so much that the only people I even talked to were my girlfriend, my dealer and my "therapist". Every other friend I used to have is gone and I'm just so lonely. I suppose I understand why NA and AA are good for addicts, so they don't go crazy alone in their heads and shit.

Also, RIP Chris Cornell and Chester, I wasn't totally into your music but I totally get it.

I'm listening to Jimmy Eat World and trying not to call my dealer to see if he wants to "hang out". I'm so lonely and distraught. I've got absolutely no one and nothing. It's always the same shit.

Whatever. I'll probably write more in here maybe. I keep forgetting about it. Going back and rereading it is scary to me. My girlfriend is a saint for staying with me throughout this. But I feel like she's had enough of me too at this point. Anyone would.

God I hate summer.

I just saw my 80 year old grandmother hit a nod from iv morphine. Life's weird.

In my previous post, I forgot to mention NLP which is a type of hypnosis, not a drug.

NLP stands for Neuro-linguistic programming. it is a subtype of hypnosis that uses special sounds called Binaural beats in the background to induce a variety of moods/levels of awareness. Different sound frequencies create different mental states. each frequency has been assigned a different greek letter. I know alpha enhances awareness for example, delta is for deep sleep, theta for deep relaxed trance etc I personally love the theta ( deep trance) ones but, everyone is different.

there are free recordings on youtube. Just search for Binaural beats. Try to get one with music over the top if you can. A new comer will go nuts with just the beats. From my experience though, Brian's ( see the next paragraph) is the best out there (and no, I don't get kick backs for saying that. He doesn't even know me). I like his stuff because it induces very deep trance for me and does not require headphones. All the youtube ones will require headphones to work

the link to Brian's recordings is http://briandavidphillips.net/2001/06/26/fdrtrc01/ however, I got my copy years ago and I did not know Brian now charges for the recording. To me, it would still be worth the one time 15 dollar fee because unlike real drugs digital ones can never run out. if i had not yet tried any of this, it would be a toss up really; between paying once for a CD or once for a monthly membership to the site and having access to all his stuff for a month to experiment with. it looks like Members can only stream not download. So, if you want to keep just one recording I would get the CD. the Primary DRTRC one is much stronger than his others ( they all used to be free so ive gone through the list)


A few things to keep in mind: NLP gets easier/ more fun the more one uses it. If you are just starting you will need a quiet distraction free area. I know people talk about going to the dentist and using hypnosis to not be aware of anything there. That can work with lots of practice but, the dentist or during WD is not a good place to start because it takes time to condition the triggers. Also it is possible to just listen to the recording and have nothing happen. One just has to decide to stay awake through it. I did this my first time because I wanted to know everything the recording said before I let myself go into trance.I also did not follow the directions that time just listened.

I am not that experienced yet so extreme pain is a distraction that I cannot yet overcome with NLP. Btw, the stuff on youtube is not NLP just the background sounds that make NLP stronger than hypnosis. So those recordings are like the under layer of NLP not the whole thing.

Also, a word of warning anyone with Dissociative Identity Disorder should not use NLP, hypnosis or Binaural beats except possibly in an office session with a trained therapist. I gave the above link to a friend with Dissociative Identity Disorder back when it was free and it triggered a major flashback for her.

None of this is advice it's just what helps me.
my withdrawal survival list:

1. kratom or loperamide.

2.dxm 12 hour liquid plain not cold/flu combo meds ( if on loperamide)

3. dramamine original formula ( if on loperamide)

4.milk of magnesia ( if on loperamide)

if I take kratom I mix red and yellow Bali.

Loperamide:
if I take loperamide I take milk of magnesia first, I let the milk of magnesia kick in then take loperamide starting at the box dose and going up every few hrs by 1 pill until the w/d stops (yes day 1 sucks).

On day 2-5 I automatically take whatever dose of lope I found to work on day 1. (usually 8-10 pills)

Starting day 6, I taper lope by 1 pill a day. I hold the taper if w/d gets too strong at any point; I stay at a given dose until I stabilize and then taper more. After 1 pill, I start tapering with liquid lope. Note: I would rather have diarrhea than constipation so I take daily milk of magnesia with the lope.

I also find that long acting DXM (on the label dose) helps with the mental side if I am taking loperamide.


Kratom:
for me, Kratom is far preferable to Lope and DXM. For one, it deals with pain whereas lope/dxm do not. For another, I don't have to take laxatives with kratom. Also, I find I don't need dxm with kratom.

My only advice for finding a kratom vendor is: look for one who offers free samples ( let them earn your trust).

I just pour the powder in water and drink ( with sugar and a few drops of lemon juice). Whenever I try a new vendor I try 1/4 tsp first. If in an hour, nothing adverse has happened I take more.

I try not to eat for at least 4 hours after I take kratom.

One other thing, Dramamine can help with sleep if i am taking lope/dxm and can't sleep, I will take on the label doses of Dramamine. Hope some of this helps you

My life has been better with Kratom my feet stay normal sized and I'm not taking Percocet daily for my hip. That said, the idea of having to dose while I was out or worse while I was traveling from my university to my home town ( which i have to do often for appointments) scared me at first.

I have found a solution I thought I would share. Yes, you can get and fill capsules. However, I have Cerebral Palsy and I can only swallow tiny pills ( I even cut my precocet in half). So, I would need a lot of small capulses.

I will say straight off that the vendor I use offers powder that if like baking flour consistency. If you have larger leaf pieces you made need to grind them before using my travel method.

At home, I just pour the powder into hot water and drink it, the way people do with instant water-flavoring powder. So, my problem was really how to carry the powder while traveling.

Mini M&Ms come in plastic canisters which I find works quite well for this. ( I peel the label off so it's less likely for anyone to mistake it for candy still).

I pre-measure one dose per-canister and add the necessary amount of sweetener. So, if I need to dose while out, I just have to find somewhere to fill my water bottle.

The downside, these canisters are not child/pet resistant. So, if you have pets or kids maybe empty unlabeled pill bottles would be better. Also, the canisters resist water to a point , but will leak if submerged. Anyway, I hope this helps someone else.

You can google a million things about drugs but aparently its not all fact. This blog is dedicated to those stories as an outsider, or you if you remember.

"Choose Life" obviously if your a reader/bluelighter, your probably familiar with Trainspotting, and T2 Trainspotting.

Choose life, was a phrase that was suposedly common on T shirts in Britain, to spread awareness and combat the issue of suicide, and drug addiction. Trainspotting took this phrase and used it to describe the way young people feel when they are rebelous.
"choose a job, choose school, choose a 9 to 5 job working your ass every day to repeat it over and over again, choose fitting in, choose success"
when i saw this phrase put to light, i was already hooked on the movie for two reasons. at the time, i was new to drugs, and loved opiates. (loratabs, which wasnt an addiction just felt good i guess, and everyone wanted to be around you if you had some)
The phrases in red were once things i could fit in. but in some peoples life that makes these mistakes or otherwise had a bad hand in life, i started at a young age, to want to be normal. I wanted that car, the wife, the two kids at church on a wednesday night, the family reunions, ect.

Today, that saying may just seem like a tv reference from a weird obsession, how some love star wars just a bit too much.
A good person who has things going for them most likely rarely thinks about life as being so precious. An evil person doesnt care.
but a good person treated as a bad guy, for whatever reason, rarely shrugs it off and "pushes through".

All i ever wanted was a nice car, a loving wife, my family to be around to see it, and to be a part of this new exciting age of the 21st century. When i lost faith in that dream, i realized i would be fighting to "choose life"

This feeling arose from being surrounded by horrible situations, people i call my family friends, Jake Jess Josh, and watching them live life so differently than myself and feeling left behind. I never once felt as if i was messing up, had a good job working every day, a stable family home, and no legal trouble.

A car accident. because i was tired and excited. i rolled my chevy malibu on the muskogee turnpike at 90 MPH. rear end. i thought "oh shit im in trouble" i remember rolling through the air thinking "this is it im going to die," but the actual words i said in my head were "...aaaaannd iiiiimmm deeaaaddd" boom. rolled 3-4 times into a ditch no scratch. i never felt thankful to be alive because i was more concerned about this funny word! "Punishment"
For the record that only exists from my own eyes and memory of the experience, i was sober. galveston to muskogee. I was 100% honest to the cops about everything, and my medication was in my trunk. trazadone. not a narcotic. Was given a sobriety test and failed (who else could walk strait under pressure and recite the alphebet backwards after that experience?
.......... i was SHOCKED to go to jail for a DUI that night. finally i spent my whole life afraid to be in legal trouble and obeying the law, i get a charge i was innocent for. I now have PTSD from that, not that the car scared me but the fact that i was both in shock and feeling empathetic, i was vunrable emotionally. since then, My reputation with my family and just in general was tainted, and theres nothing i could do.

That day destroyed my faith in obeying the law as hard as i tried to. If i am to be in trouble, or if i am to loose something or to dissapoint, it will always feel like someone elses fault. Im not a criminal, I am just alone. i felt alone at the time anyway. i was never truly alone until i had a second wreck. no laws broken. but i was abandoned by everyone that i love. in a homeless shelter, no car, at 19. a teenager.

Today i chose life and that is why i am here to write. and i may choose life tomorrow as well. any way you want to phrase it. But the sad reality is that life isnt a choice. Living is.

ive decided to start this blog simply as a legacy to myself and my personal story, from my eyes. it is only public for when i die.

This bluelight account was created in november of 2015, to share my experiences with things i couldnt share with anyone else. ive posted what i know to help others only. at one point drugs and medicine was interesting to me, now its just a big part of life for everyone.
Most people think its all about the fun and the feeling. thats what makes it cool right?

well what ive learned is if you are honest with people about this topic, youll immediately be viewed differently. represented as someone your not, and generally that is what causes most of the problems with drugs. i used to get called crazy or insane when i was younger, due to my depression. and when that time came when i was old enough to be tagged an addict, it happened immediately. (later got professional medical diagnosis and medication), i started with drugs using xanax to treat GAD, undiagnosed. in no way was it fun. but when i opened up to family about what i was doing, there was no help.

My blog will mainly contain my story of my downfall in life, and how mistakes, false opinions, and myself, brought me to my low point in life. hopefully when i pass, my family will get a hold of this information. this is not intended to be hurtful but to inform, that even i, (sean) have a very real non biased emotional life.

I noticed my mind is quickly thinking of something else when I start to think about my brother passing.

Not 100% sure what my mind is trying to tell me, maybe i am worried about the way i will react? Maybe trying to keep me safe from doing something stupid like acting out on emotions.
It really makes me wonder, if this 'barrier' of sorts is a defensive mechanism, or now is not the time to mourn for my loss.

I am looking at is help, and not harm. My mind has its own way with dealing with feelings and emotins on a sober level, because while on drugs i used to numb the pain. Now my brain is using the feelings to slowly change my attitude.

Either way, thought I would share about where i am at with this.

So I'm 2 months out of prison after serving 40 months in Lansing here in Kansas. My 4 felonies are all drug related, as I had a terrible opiate addiction. I was on suboxone 6 months prior to going in to serve my time. Before that I was doing (per day) one of the following: 160mgs oxycodone nasally/300mgs morphine IV/24mgs dilaudid IV.


Now that I'm out I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to break the law lol. I love not being opiate-dependent (for the last 3.5 years). But there was still the urge to do something opiate-like on occasion. That's when I figured I'd finally try this Kratom I've been hearing about all the time on forums.

Soo i ordered some Bali and was pleasantly surprised. I really had to experiment with the doses though to find my sweet spot. 4 grams was decent but not enough... 11 grams was too much. Caused blurry vision, shakey hands, took all the willpower I had not to puke.

So after all the experimenting I found the way that suits me best and figured I'd share it with other Kratom enthusiasts!
i take 8 grams at once, parachuted cuz for some fucked up reason no matter how hard I try not to, I ALWAYS end up inhaling some from doing toss n wash and have a coughing fit for a miserable ass hour.
i always allow at LEAST 24 hours between dosages, and this has been treating me very well when it comes to tolerance.

But yeah! Kratom is super awesome to throw back after work after being in the hot sun all day in the oil fields. And i hope to God it never gets banned in the U.S.! It is a beautiful thing!

I have to get myself out of being under the thumb of my father who is a nominee for my finances.

He is doing what he thinks is in my best interests and putting all my money I earn towards my motrgage and while that is great it leaves me with nothing.

I have to go through him to withdraw anything and I need a computer. He says no to just buying one and ai have to put in more which I cant do.

Its my money and I no longer need him to control my life.

But hes an old man and dont want to hurt him. I feel stifled. And while I realise I dont have his enert sense of reason I feel that I should be able to not go broke without him.

I need a computer for work and fun. I dont see why I should ask him for anything as it is my money I have earned.

Where I last left off…. This took place two years ago. I was new to Paris, and I was lonely. I had just met Drusilla at a Paris Fashion Week party held at my work.

I suffer from a neurological condition that affects my ability to remember people’s faces. As a result, throughout my life, all of my friends and acquaintances have looked unusual in various ways. For example, I was friends with the gay black kid in my school who had dreadlocks. I was also friends with the one skinhead for the same reason. For obvious reasons, I didn’t hang out with both of them at the same time. And, I was friends with the kid who had a decomposing Kentucky Fried Chicken leg bone piercing his septum as jewelry. Conversely, I’m not able to remember and recognise people who have faces that look ordinary unless I’ve seen them every day for ten years.

It affects my ability interact in social situations. It’s hard to make friends and is sometimes embarrassing. The condition is called prosopagnosia.

In keeping with this tendency, Drusilla’s appearance was unusual. She bore a remarkable resemblance to the Red Priestess from a popular television show, the Game of Thrones. She is thin with scarlet hair. She wears a lot of red. Her features are somewhat aquiline. Her eyes are hard, and her lips are red.

I had met Drusilla at a fancy party a few months before. I had been spending time with her since then. We travelled to the Alps together to spend two weeks skiing.

One might think that such a ski trip would be romantic. Indeed, we had rented an apartment with a fireplace, bear skin rug, and a great view. We finished supper. We had wine and candles. In this atmosphere, we (mostly she) talked for two hours straight, and she had just gotten to the part where she told me that she is married and has a family. Listening to someone talk for two hours straight builds up an appetite.

So, I buttered a piece of bread and put it in the microwave oven. She went wild.

“What are you doing? What is this? You are using the microwave!” she exclaimed, getting out of her chair..

“Yeah, what about it?” I said.

She calmed down and stared at me for a moment.

Then, she spoke, “my 12 year old son has looked up microwave ovens online and found a website that said microwaves ruin the food. Microwaves destroy all of the nutrition and make it toxic. They cause nuclear reactions in the food and make it toxic and break it down.”

Her boy’s conspiracy theory about microwave ovens makes about as much sense as as a sack full of ass holes or even moon landing denial, and when confronted with shocking stupidity, I don’t know where to begin. Such stupidity is like black pudding or maybe haggis. No matter what you do short of eating it yourself, you can’t make it go away.

“Why are you taking dietary advice from your 12 year old?”

She continued, “Microwaves are a new ting, and they (scientists) don’t understand the harm they do to food. “

“I’m a scientist, and as I scientist, I can confirm that you are wrong. The physics of microwaving food is well understood. As long as you don’t over-cook the food, it’s as safe as food cooked in an ordinary oven, ” I said.

“No, it is true,” she insisted. “My son looked this up. There is a good website that explains how it makes the food toxic. Microwave ovens will give you cancer.”

“Which website? Alex Jones?” I said.

She looked blank, appearing not to understand the reference to a conspiracy theory website.

“The writers of that website are probably confusing ionizing radiation with heat-producing radiation,“ I said. “Ionizing radiation is the dangerous kind, and microwave ovens do not produce ionizing radiation. It’s physically impossible.”

She looked blank. She obviously didn’t know her physics. This is only highschool level physics. I could not believe a supposedly educated woman was saying this.

I realised what her problem was. Drusilla has an undergrad degree in mathematics and knows the insurance industry. Those are respectable accomplishments, but when they are the limit of one’s education forever, that’s not respectable at all. She had completely stopped learning after college, and that is what makes someone intellectually incompatible. It is not about what fancy schools someone attends and their degrees, but it is about their willingness to continue to learn. She knew just enough to be a corporate drone but not enough to realise how little she knew.

What helps make such people impossible is that she doesn’t even know enough basic knowledge to realise how little she knows about anything. The result is that she thinks she knows everything. Know-it-alls do not have any self-evaluation skills. She is not capable of recognising when she is wrong, and at home she is surrounded by people who know even less than she knows.

It’s possible to talk down somebody who is having a bad acid trip, but it’s not possible to talk down a crazy person. I cleaned up and went to bed.

After a full week of not having any, I took a large dose of morphine that night. I had been tired, but the stuff woke me up and gave me a lot of energy. I ended up reading late into the night. I read a story by Jack London and started reading Zadie Smith.

Finally, at around four am, I went to bed. Thanks to the morphine, I felt more relaxed than I had felt in a long time. I closed my eyes, and images and realistic scenery formed behind my closed eyelids. The first was an image of a kitten curled up on a chair. It was a brown and white tabby. I watched the kitten for a moment. It was sleeping contentedly. I could see its tiny chest rising and falling as it breathed. My dream hand reached down and pet the kitten. The kitten stretched its front legs and extended its toes. It yawned, showing the pink inside of its mouth, white teeth, and red tongue. It rolled over and settled again. The kitten look pleased.

I felt like I was watching Psychic Youtube kitten videos. The scene of the kitten faded away to be replaced by another kitten drinking milk. The milk was in a bowl on the floor of a kitchen. I did not recognise the kitchen. The kitten was black and white. It looked up at me. It looked happy. That kitten scene faded to be replaced by a series of scenes of kittens engaged in various activities. Some kitten were playing, some were sleepign, others were walking. Every kitten looked happy. Some were alone and some were with other kittens. Each was a different breed: orange tabbies, white Persians, multicolored cats, gray cats, calicos, tabbies, Russian blues, Burmese, Siamese, Abbysinians,and rag dolls.

That’s the kind of thing I often dream about while under the influence of morphine. Tonight it was smiling kittens. Other nights, it is adult cats.

Sometimes, it is elaborite sci fi stories, or often it’s watching the ocean waves breakign against cliffs, but most often, it’s cats.

I woke up around 8am the next morning and got ready to ski.

This is not going to be sufficient in my writing abilities. I am a writer. I hope my book gets published... and I also don't... it's dangerous content for young minds.

Anyway. I have a name. And I got my name from my biological mother. I was put up for adoption. Taken by the state of Idaho at birth.
I have a name. And my adopted parents chose to keep it. I was named by my biological mother, after her friend who overdosed on opiates. Don't know what it was, don't care.
When I met my biological mom at 18, when my own daughter was only 3 months old... I asked about my name.
I never asked again.

This blog isn't just about me. It's about a lot of things. I am way, way too tired... my daughter is so upset...
And I'm going to add to it later. Once I figure this out.

Had to write though

I got some shit to talk about.

I'm a little confused as I don't have the full details nor do I really want to go through the hassle and risk of obtaining them but basically I was snitched out.

I got called in to the drug counselor's office in the middle of class. This is how it went down:

DC: "How are you doing today, man?"
Me: "Good, though I'm not sure why I'm here?"
DC: "Why don't you take a guess. You know what I do on campus, right, man?"
Me: "You're the drug counselor, so I'm assuming this has to do with drugs."
DC: "Yes, but what exactly? Can you guess why you're here?"

Realizing I'm fucked and someone ratted I said:

Me: "Is it because I smoked weed?"

Smoking weed while in this program is illegal and punishable by instant termination.

DC: "I'll be honest with you man. I don't give a fuck about weed. I'm only concerned about the heavier stuff. But you are getting warmer. I'm trying to see how honest you are here."

There is nothing else he could have known about other than the meth. I have heard many stories from trainees saying if you are honest and tell the 100% truth, he will not get you into trouble.

Me: "So it's the meth."
DC: "Bingo."

I lower my head and a sense of great dread falls over me. It's over. I'm fucked. How could this have happened? Who could have snitched? And why? Were they paid? Did I talk too loud one time? It couldn't be.

DC: "I'm not here to terminate you. I remember when you first came in, and you're a good kid and you came for the right reasons. I just want to know who gave it to you. The reason you are here is because someone came in telling me that you were kind of pressing him to bring drugs into the campus."

Damn. The guy who offered me a place to stay if I get terminated. The one who always pays me back. The guy I drink with and talk about personal shit with. The guy I trust most on this campus. He was the rat. Why?

Keep in mind, the guy that got me into meth (not the one I trust) I hate now. He basically bullies me. That's kind of a pussy way to put it but he never leaves me alone. He always fucks with me, makes fun of me, and uses the Zero Tolerance fighting rule to his advantage.

So I told him. He said both of them had already spoken to him.

DC: "I'm not going to punish you. I just want you to attend a few NA meetings here on center just to get your mind right, man."

Then I agreed, shook his hand, and went on my way. Needless to say, I won't be talking to either of those people again.

You can't trust anyone.

In other news, living in the room I'm in with certain people has become too much. There are "almost fights" every day. Like the other day, this kid was telling a joke. I thought the joke was funny. So I went next door and told my friend the joke. This kid comes in pressing and getting all mad that I told HIS joke, which by the way he didn't even fuck make up. I told him YOU HEARD THE JOKE FROM SOMEONE ELSE TOO SO YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE. He wasn't having it. Just called me fucking lame and all that and wanted to fight.

So after keeping my mouth shut since I got here and letting these people have the last word over dumb shit, I told my RA that I wanted to switch rooms. I will be in a different room on Monday. Good riddance.

I'm leaving to go camp again on this mountain viewpoint with some friends. Going to drink a lot.

Other than that, I got cool with my parents again. Talk to my mom every night now. She's going to help me out by bringing my speakers and my sub over here so I can produce my music more efficiently. I like producing with speakers because it gives you a feel of what people are actually going to hear. Rather than my studio headphones which pick up every tiny noise. I end up detailing a lot of shit that can't even be heard without nice ass headphones.

Thanks for reading.

So I did 3-4 bumps more of meth today. It scares me because I really like it. I read something that said it was programmed to fuck your life up and hook you. I don't believe in that necessarily because I believe in science and chemistry and 6the fact that it's just another chemical. Well chosen, though.

I'm a big fan of stimulants of all kind. Meth is the king obviously besides maybe MDPV. Meth is more popular though.

The thing that scares me about this is how fiendy it is. I'll still be high but I'll get a craving that says I'm not where I should be in the "high spectrum".

They searched us and our dorms yesterday. My friend who gave it to me had it in his pocket when he walked in and they were waiting for everyone, blocking the path to our rooms and telling us to sit down. So what he did is he sat out of sight and hid it under the couch. They found nothing. My friend hadn't slept in 3 days so he was hella tired. He decided to take a nap in his room afterwards and after telling me where it was. He told me if it went missing he'd be beyond pissed since I now had the info of where it was. So I decided to grab it, pour a few bumps into a baggie, and put it back lowkey.

So if you think about it, I'm already stealing to get meth and it's day 3. That's sketchy. It feels weird because logically I know what's right and what's wrong and what the drug is doing to me, but it like impairs your ability to say no. Which is why I'm pretty glad that he's all out of it and so am I.

I hate the feeling of like being sober when you're still high. When you're seeking a booster, it makes you feel like your high that you're on now isn't adequate.

I'm telling myself I won't ever do it again but not really. The next time my friend has it, I'm almost 100% doing it again. It's great. it's functional. The negatives GREATLY outweigh the positives. I always told myself I'd never try it because I knew I wouldn't be able to trust myself with it. I've watched friends smoke it right next to me for hours and offer it to me and I'd say no because I already knew. And what do you know, it's true.

My therapist told me I have a self-fulfilling prophecy. He says because my parents call me a drug addict and all this shit for smoking bud and drinking, that I'm unconsciously rebelling against them and becoming it. I didn't deny it because if it's unconscious then how am I to know. Brain chemistry and genes, man...

A thought of using my $23.01 paycheck for a baggie of meth and forcing myself to only use every so often until it's gone is flooding my brain right now. Like just right now. That's crazy........asdasdagfh

Anyways, this blog is about Job Corps. I'm still in class right now, procrastinating my work. Listening to music and typing fast. I want a cigarette. Even though I said I'd stop because cigarettes are retarded. A 30-45 second lightheadedness in return for cancer, emphysema, and all kinds of other issues? I'll pass...

Or I guess not.

The search that occurred yesterday happened because some dumbass brought weed on campus, rolled a blunt in our dorm bathroom, and threw the bag (open) into the trashcan of the enclosed ass bathroom. You really have to be a moron to do that, especially with security that's getting tighter and tighter.

I moved beds finally. One of our cubemates finally completed and I moved from the top bunk to his bed on the floor. All I have to say is thank god. It's hot as fuck up there, no fan can reach up there, making my bed is close to impossible and ALWAYS frustrating and mood-killing.

I ate nothing for lunch again. I just chugged two cups of heavily sugared coffee in an attempt to boost my tweak. Didn't really do shit.

I got kicked out of smoke break. For some reason, cigarettes seem to boost my tweak. So I found someone who was willing to piece his cigarette with me. I walked with him to the front. We were literally lighting the fucking cigarette when my counselor (who was also smoking) said "What are you doing here?" I said I was here for smoke break. She kicked me out for being 18 and not 21+. I was heated. I still am heated. So many people I know who are under 21 go on smoke break just because they look older or are favored. Fuck that.

Other than that, things are pretty normal around here. My music skills are increasing on the daily and it's super exciting. I love the feeling of "this is why I was born" when I create music. It's such a warm and satisfying feeling.

Signing off, love y'all, thanks for reading.

I started off the year great. I got about 4 months of sobriety under my belt. No complaints, either. It felt nice, although a piece of me was missing... Anyways, the passed month I have dabbled with oxy, fent, and methadone a handful of times. Nothing crazy, more of a "chipping" ordeal. But within the passed 5 days I have spent a little over $500 on dones. Basically, I spent all the hard earned money I saved while i was sober. I don't feel bad about it, either. I am more so bummed because I can't spend anymore of my money bc I only have enough for rent/bills/etc. So, I have about 2days worth of pills and I most likely am going to take them all tonight. Typical, right? I do have two 8mg strips of sub, too. I will probably take 1mg -3mg a day until I run out, in hopes of seeking a small high too.. and then i'll hop back on the Kratom Train from here on out, until i can save more money and splurge again. hehe. This seems to be how my routine has been going for a while now. I honestly love it. I love everything about it.
If anyone reading this is going through any similar "issues" or can relate, feel free to PM me. Support is vital to this lifestyle.
I just felt like ranting while at work, right now. Feel free to holler.
Much love and cheers,
LS

What do I do? I miss my dog so much . He had cancer . It's been almost a month since I put him down.
His 12th birthday is aug 11 ... that's going to be a hard day ...
My boyfriend and I are going to break up soon. I can't handle it anymore. He's such a little shit head.
I don't want to to be alone .. I've always had my dog , no matter what at least I've always had him .. but he's not here with me .. there's so much going on and I have no one to talk to .. who can understand, who do I know that will believe me when I tell them that...
I knew my dog was going to die.
He told me . So I hired an animal communicator. I wanted to ask him what part of his body hurt so I could tell the vet. I scheduled an ultra sound and X-ray. He had just went to the vet , had blood work , he was fine. I hate the vets out here.
She shrugged her shoulders when I told her he was losing his bark . She said his stomach looks a little big but he was fine, I could go home.
So anyway, I learned from the animal communicator that he wasn't fine. She told me that he was preparing to die. That he was ok with it. That he sees it as a graduation .
He wanted me to know , THAT HE WASNT LEAVING. It was very important to him that I know that. She did an energy scan of his body and said his energy was very low and whatever it was had spread through his body . And he didn't feel good. She said she couldn't tell me when he would pass .
So after a visit to the holistic vet, I learned he had a tumor the size of a softball on his liver . And a possible mass in his lyrinix (voice box) .
Cancer. Thank you vet prescribed medications that kill the liver and your dog along with it. I paid money for those pain meds. They said it was ok ,just get blood work every now and then.
So 3 weeks after my phone session with the animal communicator, I had to put him down. He was in a lot of pain

He would of been 12 a month and a half later .
I've been trying to be ok about it. He was my child. My family .
He said he wasn't leaving ...
I feel him sometimes but not like I thought I would . Im a spiritual person, he feels so far away , I can hardly feel him at all sometimes. I'm getting angry . I can connect with other spirits but why not with my dog??
My boyfriend gets mad when I talk about my experience. He is never here anymore. He's choosing meth over me.. I need to leave ..
I woke up at 5 am this morning to him not in bed with me . He took off somewhere. We have nothing between us anymore.
I don't want to be alone . But i can't stay here... I'm dreading those nights alone . The heavy heart . I want to get high so bad. I can get roxys super cheap... I don't have any friends... maybe one , but he works all the time. He's not someone I can really talk to either.
There's work, I have decent job... I'm recovering from a sprained foot... when I go back it will help ... but a wave of depression always comes over me when it nears time to go home...
I feel lost and afraid. Afraid of the future. I know the pain I'm going to face with this break up. I remember all to well how I was before I met my boyfriend. How alone and depressed I was. I was praying everyday for god to put someone in my life.
It's been 3 years since we hooked up.. seems like this might be it ... I know it's what I need to do . I need to leave ..
I really wish I had that group of friends you can count on....
I miss my dog

Sorry for making you wait so long…

Now, where were we? When we last checked in on our little ball of "reality," so to speak, this is what we found:

"Stay in touch."

"Uh uh, no." He stepped in front of me as I scuttled toward the door. "I've tried looking you up before, but I guess I can't spell your name or something." (As a side note, I give my cell to damn near everyone. Who cares? I can always ignore or block you. Plus, I have a cool service on top to filter calls. I don't give out my landline [yes, I'm a dinosaur with a landline] but everyone has my cell anyway; hasn't changed in 16 years. Yeah, weird, whatever.) "How do I get you?"

I panicked. This was The Line. If I gave him my info, he was going to use it. If I gave him fake info, a) I was an ass and 2) I'd bump into him again, SOON, and he would totally call me out on that shit and iii) I…kinda…sorta maybe, perhaps wanted…I like games. I gave him my Facebook info. And bolted.

And didn't hear from him again until JULY.



Ready for more? Buckle up because here we go!

Some friends of mine host a pretty outstanding 4th of July party at their place every year: tons of food, a bounce house for the kids and real, professional, mind-blowing fireworks after dark. I love going to these gatherings since my lil' guy Lucian has some sensory issues; he can stay inside and watch from the living room without getting too overwhelmed and Amaya and I can enjoy the full show: music, lights, BOOM, the whole nine yards. This particular year, the party - always on a Saturday - fell on the 6th, and I'd planned to show up around 4 or 5 - not too early to be stuck standing around with annoying small talk, but not so late as to seem like I was just there to eat up the free food (and booze. Did I mention booze? Oh, so much booze…).

Around 11, the phone rang and I grabbed it without looking. "Hello?"

"It took me forever to find your number…" began the male voice, familiar but unidentifiable.

"Who is this?" I asked, anxious. I don't like male voices on my phone, especially ones which are familiar but unidentifiable. Those are the scariest.

"It's Halsten." I froze. My inner voices kicked into high gear: Yay! That jackass! Hooray! About frikkin' time! What does he want? What does he want? It's so nice to finally hear from him! It's about damn time to finally hear from him…What took him so long? What took him so long? I hope it's something awesome! I don't give a shit what it is. Whatever it is, yes! Whatever it is, NO.

"Listen, my friends are having a 4th of July party tonight. I'd like you to come." He paused and the air crackled with expectation.

Involuntarily, I found myself asking, "What time?"

His reply was adorable, "Anytime. Now. The whole day. Whenever you want. I don't care. I just really want to see you." Something inside me went all slushy. Something outside me went a bit slushy as well…

The Mean Me took over. I replied brusquely, "Yeah, well, I dunno. I already have plans for today - another party - so I doubt it. Maybe another time." Yeah, another time that had been before July, dingbat.

The disappointment in his voice was tangible, "Oh…well…may, maybe…you could come over after?" I asked where it was and after he mentioned a town about a half hour away and I laughed, he said, "Yeah, I guess probably not…" his voice trailed off and there was a flicker of sadness somewhere inside me. Suddenly, I wanted to salvage it.

"Go ahead and text me the address. You never know." I shrugged, as if he could see me. The change in his voice was instant as he eagerly agreed. Before he hung up, he again reiterated his desire to see me and …there was something there. Something different, something…that was …other than just him. My Tummy Voice - who is never wrong - cleared Her throat and I knew something was going to happen, I just didn't know what. I raised an eyebrow to no one.



Musical chimes of laughter filled the air as children darted about the yard, sparklers and water guns marking their territories. The goodbye of the setting sun baked His sentiments into my back, perhaps saddened to be leaving the festivities so early. His smile giggled off the edge of my wineglass as I rose it to my lips for an illicit kiss. I felt good in my skin.

Since the party was hosted by old school friends, many of the guests were also friends I hadn't seen since middle school. The old faces were a real treat. There was a lot of catching up to do. Halsten was barely a thought in my mind. The food was munched and the booze consumed, stories were told and boo-boos kissed. There was more cavorting by all as the dusk deepened and then enveloped us into velvety darkness.

BOOM! The sky exploded into a cacophony of color and sound and Lucian virtually teleported from my side to the living room. Once safely behind the bodyguard of glass, his eyes lit up with as much light as the night sky. I stood on the porch, laughing with a friend when a woman approached us, half-heartedly apologizing for her late arrival. My friend cocked her head to the side while extending her hand in greeting. "I recognize you but I can't place you. What's your name?"

What came from her mouth turned my blood to pure ice. Then this monster turned to offer me her hand. I recoiled as if it had been the claw of the Lord of Hell himself. It was that wretched pediatrician who almost killed my daughter. I looked at her in utter disgust; the last firework was clearing in the air.

"Let's go kids! We are off to another party!"

Being single, not only do I eat alone, but it is usually better to eat alone. Most people sound like pigs when they eat. Their lip-smacking, the slurping, the chewing, the little clicks in their mouths, the food squishing around, the saliva sounds, the scraping and clattering of their knives and forks against their plates, the dinging of silverware against their teeth, their grunting, sighing, farting, breathing, the sound of air passing around obstructions in their nostrils, the sound of swallowing -- all of it is psychological painful to hear. It turns my stomach sour. On the rare event that I eat under such conditions, I get sick to my stomach and I feel mentally exhausted from the struggle not to pick up the nearest chair and bludgeon the loudest offenders. I've stuffed earplugs in my ears, but they always fall out when I chew. When I eat with other people, I eat fast and leave.

Eating at restaurants can be a problem, depending on the company. I had eaten out with Drusilla before, and she had turned out to be a quiet eater. As for the other customers, you get what you pay for in terms of being in the company of people who eat like pigs. Fast food places are not tolerable, but loud background music or television helps. Otherwise, I go when the restaurant opens or later in the shift when there aren’t so many people.

We were on a ski trip, equally sharing expenses and responsibilities. Now, she was acting like it was her house and I was her retarded child. She had her own plans for how I would spend my time.

She had chosen the meal. There were turnips, beets, cabbage, and carrots all boiled together. Mercifully, there was no garlic or onions. Garlic and onions can kill me. Carrots are the one vegetable she bought that I like, but she ruined them by cooking them. It makes them mushy and bitter, and it breaks down the vitamins. Who in their right mind cooks carrots?

The same goes for spinach. I had picked out some fresh spinach leaves at the grocery store, and I had intended to eat the spinach lightly steamed and the carrots raw. As with the carrots, she boiled the spinach, rendering it an inedible lump of dark green sludge.

The food was done and brought to the table. We dished it out onto our plates.

“I am a purist,” she said.

“What’s a purist?” I said.

“I never use salt, spices, or sugar in my cooking,” she said.

I sighed. Two weeks of bland food was ahead of me. The only restaurants in town were overpriced tourist traps. At least the tiny grocery store in the town was cheap. It was the same price as the Paris Megasized grocery store. I knew that I would not be able to maintain my body weight under these conditions.

I tasted the plate of stew or whatever it was supposed to be. It had no flavor. True to her word, she had put no salt or any kind of seasoning in it. Eating it was going to be a chore. Luckily for me, there was a salt shaker in the flat. I upturned the salt shaker and shook it over my plate for a minute. My serving had become dusted with a light layer of salt crystals.

She stared at me, her eyes looking like they were going bug out. She looked angry, but I had tasted her cooking first. She had no right to be angry at me. She wasn’t a good cook, and the only person she had a right to be mad at was herself..

“Salt is bad for you. It will give you high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attacks,” she said with a pedantic delivery.

“My blood pressure is very low. In fact, I need extra salt because run every day and sweat it out. If I don’t eat salt, I will get sick,” I said.

“That is crazy. Who ever heard of such a thing?” she said.

Bossiness is not a nice personality trait, but when it is combined with ignorance, that person is intolerable. I do not appreciate such people questioning my actions. Drusilla does not have a background in medicine, nutrition, or fitness. I shook salt onto the stew for another ten seconds and added some butter.

“You should see a doctor,” she said.

“Why should I see a doctor? How is it even your business? It happens that I just saw a doctor, and she told me to eat salt. It’s a standard recommendation for anybody who does extended periods of exercise and sweats. Salt-free diets are for elderly and sedentary people with bad hearts,” I said.

As an endurance athlete, I’ve learned about nutrition. Failing to learn about sports nutrition will result in bad performance, sickness, and even death under certain conditions. Experts advise that staying hydrated and taking salt is vital. This is the reason salty drinks like Gatorade are popular among athletes. In contrast, the demands of people like Drusilla are dangerous because she is so sure of herself, yet she is horribly wrong. If Drusilla’s advice is followed, it can result in illness or death. When I just got into running when I was a teenager, my father once made me chug a gallon of water. I was not given salts or Gatorade. Within an hour, I had the worst headache of my life, vomiting, and couldn’t get out of bed for three days. It turned out that his bad advice had caused a condition called hyponatremia. It hadn’t been the first time my father’s moronic advice had almost killed me. By now, I like to think that I have learned to ignore the suggestions of fools, and I have a knee jerk reaction to hate anybody who acts like my father.

Every little thing I did was a battle with her.

Next, she complained about which hand held my fork. People who eat left handed bother her. I switched my fork ot my right hand without looking at her or saying a word.

“You’re holding your fork wrong,” Drusilla said.

I was holding my fork overhanded.

“My arm was broken during childhood and did not heal correctly. Because of my injury, overhanded is the only way I can hold the fork, and it’s painful,” I said.

“How can this be?” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

She said, “Did I tell you I’m married, And I have two sons.”

“No,” I said.

I looked at her hands. She wasn’t wearing a wedding now, and she had never worn one in my presence.

She said, “I remember telling you. Why don’t you remember?”

I said, “You didn’t tell me. I’m sure I would have remembered.”

That’s one thing I would never forget; as having an affair with a married woman can be fatal - well, maybe not fatal in France where more than half the population has affairs and even expects to share their spouse, but fatal back in the US.

This revelation was bizarre. We had told each other we were single when we first met. She was attractive enough on the outside, but the entire time I knew her, she did not have that rare inner spark, the self awareness, the right smell, the joy of life, the natural curiosity about existence that is needed to draw my interest. I had not wanted to be anything other than friends, and the supermarket diversion ensured that I would never develop any romantic interest in her.

I said, ”are you separated?”

“We live together, but we live as roommates. I do what I want, and he does what he wants. Divorce is expensive in France, so we keep the house and don’t split up the family,” she said.

“So you see other people?”

“yes,” she said.

“How do you have a love life when you’re still living with your husband?" I said.

“We have separate rooms. We each do as we please,” she said.

“And he doesn’t try to interfere with you?” I said.

“no,” she said.

“How old are your children?” I said.

“14 and 12,” she said.

I had wondered why affairs are so common in France while divorce is not so common. One could get a divorce and have the former spouse out of the way to start a new life. Perhaps it is because the French are too cheap to get a divorce and want a roommate to save on rent. Maybe children chain the former mates together. France is also notorious for its paperwork and bureaucracy.

I was reminded of Married with Children, a sitcom about an typical American middle class couple and their loveless marriage. The husband, Al Bundy, works menial and degrading jobs to support the wife and their children. The housewife, Peggy, is out of feminist writer Esther Vilar’s Manipulated Man. Peggy views her husband as a tool. He is both her slave and her free meal ticket for life. Peggy has the intelligence of a monkey and spends her days on the couch watching television and eating bonbons. Despite the fact that her husband, Al, bought her automated household appliances to make her household duties fast and easy, she never does her chores. She does not cook, the kids are undisciplined, and the house is filthy. Al is too worn down to notice or care. Peggy browbeats and abuses Al at every opportunity without ever showing gratitude for the fact that he has given her a life free of the burden of work as well as having given her the children she wants.

Marriage with Children served as a cautionary tale for the generation of boys who grew up with it. Marriage with children is the end of life as we know it, so what on earth was Drusilla doing going on a ski trip and living like she’s single? And worse, on a trip that might be taken to be romantic? Had I known she was married, I wouldn’t have gone because it’s disrespectful toward her husband, her children, and her marriage commitment. She ought to be on the trip with her family. If she wanted time away from her children, she should have left her kids with the grandparents, who are alive and in good health. I didn’t ask if her husband knew where she was. She must have been cuckolding him for years. He was probably sleeping around as well.

After two hours of talking, I was hungry again. I took a piece of bread, buttered it, asked she she wanted a piece, and put it in the microwave.

She went wild.

“What are you doing? What is this? You are using the microwave!” she exclaimed.

I have no idea what im doing with myself. I feel the urge to drink and get high almost everyday now, and when im walking around toen i catch myself looking for a place to set a tent up.
Its almost like im trying to set myself up for failure..
My time is almost up here at rehab, and not sure what to do afterwords. I feel limited in options, and maybe this anxiety is making me want to get closer to the streets. Maybe its all in my head, ive come a long way and hate to fuck it up because i have no back up plan(once i complete the full program).
So thats where im at today .

Dope is the rope we sometimes hang ourselves with but what better alternative do we have at our disposal.
A dead end job?
A career? that goes no where ?
Sorry,we're downsizing,but I'm sure you'll land on your feet.
Have you tried applying to so and so ? I hear they're hiring.
You're just not trying hard enough,son.
Why when I was a kid....
Get a government job,you'll be golden.
Have you thought of going back to school ?
You got to take the bull by the horns.
What's wrong with you ?
Learn a trade.
Be a man.
Stop taking drugs and see how your life improves
If they say no,kick the door in
The cops aren't out to get you.
You're just a fuck-up and will never amount to anything.
You got to play the system.
You're over qualified.
Start at the bottom.
Bite your tongue and go along to get along.

In other words,be a Fucking Slave to America Inc. and kiss your ass goodbye,cause they already own you.

CHRIST, he stinks. And he snores loud as fuck. That is, when he's not attempting to blow his fucking cerebellum out of his nostrils. Every fucking 20 seconds he's awake.

I listen to that Big World/Christina Aguilera "Say Something I'm Giving Up On You" song a lot. I think it bothers him. Good, I fucking hope it does.

What's left? Holy shit - he genuinely does not see how little he loves me. (He still hasn't figured out love is a verb.) I'm supposed to stick around, unfucked, untouched, with no tenderness...yet he wants me to tell him how great he is when every word out of his mouth is negativity or rejection of me...or himself...or our lives. Badmouthing the kids. And no efforts at all for improvement in any sector. I'm not looking for that around me. I'm not well enough for it. I need bliss, joy, serenity, not ugly bullshit.

I get we're both facing a damn near insurmountable amount of challenges. I know he's also struggling with depression and health issues. I know all of this will pass which is why I haven't done something either of us will regret...but I'm just hoping this moment here doesn't cause irreparable damage for me.

One of the comics at the February show said something I can't shake. Yes, bad me. I was flirting. Sue me. He said, "I just want to fuck a beautiful woman." I. Can't. Get. That. Out. Of. My. Head.

I couldn't pay my dumbass hubby to say that. I can't buy his time in bed. All he does is sleep. And get high. And bitch about how he doesn't get enough sleep.

And I have no one to talk to because I can't say shit about any of this and I'll be fucked if I can talk to him; I am not allowed to bring up any challenging topics, EVER. If we are in a "good" place, I can't ruin it and if we are in a bad place, isn't it bad enough already, geez?!

And he never ever fucking will. (Talk. Or work to improve this. Or fuck me.)

Why am I doing this? Why am I here? My jackass ex hurt me so bad and now...my HUSBAND?!? My fucking HUSBAND?! Who fucking cares what the goddamn excuse is? The bottom line is he gives no fucking shit about fighting to fix us.

I have done everything I can and it's fried and boiled horse ass I'm doing this all over again!! What the fuck is wrong with me?? This is a martyr level of forgiveness and I am not fucking Gandhi. I can not fucking do this bullshit any. fucking. more.

So this is day 42.

I tried meth yesterday for the first time. San Bernardino is riddled with meth and tweakers like the ocean is riddled with sea water. I tried a little bump from a friend and was very fidgety and tweaky. Slight euphoria. I liked methylphenidate far more. There is a better rush, intense euphoria, and beautiful taste and smoothness up the nose.

I was given a full line for today. I am currently in my business and finance trade while waiting to get into culinary arts which is why I came here. So I am doing endless, tedious projects on Microsoft Word and doing easy but plentiful business math all day. I figured tweak would be the perfect cure.

Well, I did one bump in the bathroom before class and I have to say I am speeding. My fingers are moving remarkably fast but feel fatigued at the same time? It's kind of confusing. I am not as fidgety. That is one thing I disliked when I tried it yesterday. I couldn't even really focus. Everything was so fast that I couldn't sit still and focus like I can on pharma stims like Adderall, Vyvanse, and Ritalin.

Anyways, all is good so far. A bunch of new inputs came in yesterday. I befriended two of them and comforted one and told him he can sit with me anytime he wants if he's alone. He seems like a quiet, nice, and awkward kid. I just know how it feels to be that new guy and scared. It's not fun and I'll be forever grateful to the ones who helped me when I first came in.

I've gone out the past three weekends and smoked and drank. I'm also smoking wayyyy too many cigarettes. Cigarettes are stupid. But as my therapist told me, I can't handle boredom or idle time. And that's where cigs grab ahold of you. I am not addicted, but I am not saying no like I tell my self to. I never feel the need for one, but if someone has one and invites me and I'm not doing much, I cave. Fuck tobacco.

I called my mom yesterday. I haven't spoken to her in a month after I went home and was falsely accused of stealing coins (lol). They still haven't found the coins... Anyways, we got good and I am much happier now.

My therapist told me that I have a self-fulfilling prophecy. He said that since my parents call me a drug addict and a liar and shit, that I am unconsciously doing those things to spite them and therefore making the statements true. I didn't deny it because if it is unconscious then how am I to know. I just know that's not how I feel on the surface level. But then again I was told I was rebelling because I don't know my real dad by a therapist once too. I always said I wasn't angry but after he told me that, I did get angry about it.

He could have at least paid child support...

Anyways, I typed this post in like 5 minutes without stopping lol. I'm going to sign off now. Thanks for reading, I love this community and I love you all. Peace .

Puritanical abstinence is a sign of spiritual disease. Variety makes the day better and more interesting. An enriched environment makes people smarter and improves the health of the brain by stimulates the formation of new neural connections and strengthening old ones. Fanatics can abstain from any of a variety of normal daily activities. People who go on pure vegetarian diets miss out on a wide variety good food, clothing choices, and tools. Vegans miss out on even more. They even object to gathering wild honey. The ATkins dieters spend more time obsessing over avoiding carb intake than they spend time exercising. Switching their priorities would allow them to run off the fat. Sugar-free nuts miss out on the best desserts in the world. Teetotalers miss out on the pleasures of alcohol. I like to drink, but sadly for me, I have a bad reaction whenever I drink. That reaction forces me to abstain from most alcohol which makes me virtually a teetotaler. Some people abstain from sex. The American politico-economic empire across the world enforces abstinence from all mind altering substances except for alcohol.

It’s part of the condition of sentient beings to seek out altered states of consciousness such as those provided by mental disciplines and the ingestion of entheogens. Cat’s crave the high of catnip, other animals seek windfall fruits which have been naturally fermented via the action of wild yeast. They eat the alcoholic fruits until they are drunk. Some animals seek out psychedelics. Humans have sought the same experiences since the beginning of time, and having it is an inalienable right that has never been interfered with by government action until recently in history.

The current drug Prohibition criminalises a normal and healthy (when the user exercises self-control) behaviour. The government does not have the moral authority to Prohibit anything. As with alcohol, opiates have recreational merit, and along with many other drugs, opiates arguably have spiritual merit. I can’t get drunk owing to the fact that alcohol triggers migraines, so I’ve taken up the use of opiates. Addiction is not healthy, and it takes a lot of time and energy to deal with, so I keep it to once every three or four days. Without addiction, there is no need to compulsively locate a source all the time, and travelling is easy.
....

We found the guest house easily. It was in an old part of town with centuries old buildings around it. Drusilla parked the car, and we got out and stretched. The temperature was mild, barely below freezing. The air was fresh. The town was surrounded by high, snowy mountains.

The key under a rock next to the door. Our apartment was a suite of rooms that had been partitioned off in a traditional French mountain house. The apartment was a full sized two bedroom apartment complete with a kitchen. We unloaded the car and put away the groceries. We had more groceries than we had actual luggage.

She offered to cook if I washed the dishes. I agreed. I’m not a good cook, but I’m a professionally trained dishwasher. I received my training when I had a part time job in college washing dishes at a Greek restaurant. I washed dishes quickly, thoroughly, and carefully. I only broke a single wine glass that entire job and never had a complaint about dirty dishes. I had been good at my job.

The local pub was still open. It was in a block of old buildings near our flat. The interior, the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, were all of dark wood, and the lights were low. Drusilla ordered a cocktail called “sex on the beach.” While she ordered, she looked into my eyes and had a look that I suspected was intended to communicate something meaningful. I wondered what it was she was trying to say with her eyes.

I ordered an apéritif, a drink served before our meal. It was a liqueur made from wildflowers that grow in the area. Our drinks arrived, and she leaned close to me and touched my knee. The taste of my drink was bitter like medicine. I almost gagged on it. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t want to risk a migraine. I didn’t want to talk to her any more either. I looked out the window and across the valley at the snowy mountains.

Afterwards, we went back to the apartment. She cooked supper. I offered to help, but she reminded me that all I had to do was wash dishes.

“Would you set the table?” she said.

I didn’t know why she wanted the table set. She was sending out bad vibrations. I suddenly felt like I was visiting a girlfriend’s snooty middle_class_pretending_to_be_upper_class parents. I had begun to think of Drusilla as a bitter and hypocritical prospective mother-in-law. The perception of being around someone judgemental and pushy yet ignorant was strong. She was sending out so many conflicting signals.

It’s not that I was embarrassed about the fact that I don’t know how to set a table. I don’t care how it’s done, and I do not need to know how it’s done. Maybe it was different for my grandparents’ generation, but nobody sets the table any more. Most people don’t eat together anymore either. Everyone picks out their own plates, serves their own food, sits where they want, reads a book or newspaper, plays with a phone, watches TV, or works on a laptop. As long as nobody is actually speaking into the phone or playing audio without headphones, it is acceptable. There is no rule that says you must focus on the other person sitting there, whether they are a friend or a stranger.

I suspected that it was my indifferences to irrelevant and outdated social norms that upset her.

Charles Bukowski pointed out that one of the problems with the world is that the ignorant are always dead sure of themselves while the intelligent always question everything including themselves. I had begun to suspect that her personality was, in fact, authoritarian and bullying. I don’t know how I missed this when I first met her. Drusilla is the kind of personality who goes to work as a government bureaucrat or some other soul-destroying job as a drone in the government or corporate sphere. They love rules and regulations and hate anything unstructured, spontaneous, or informal. Such people are not welcome in my life. She can go on living her life gathering and calculating accounting statistics for a rich corporation. I imagine the shareholders appreciate her dedicating her best years to their capital gains and dividends.

As a child, I was taught that table setting, on the rare instance it was done, was women’s work. Whether or not that is relevant, I do not work in the food industry, and I’m not a butler or a housekeeper. I took the trouble to get a PhD in a potentially lucrative field, Molecular Biology, with the expectation that I would NEVER need to know how things like setting tables are done. If it did come up, I would ask or look it up. Even better, on the rare event that I would eat a formal meal, someone would do it for me. That’s how it has been since college. My training is in a highly specialised academic field, and it’s a waste of time to futz around with drudgery like table setting. The last time I tried to cook a formal meal, it was for an American girlfriend, and she threw it out the window.

I found two plates, two forks, two spoons, and two knives. I put them on the table in no particular arrangement.

“You forgot the linens,” she said, with a scowl that I almost missed noticing. “We need glasses too.”

After a quick search, I found some glasses in a cupboard. There were a wide variety, each with a specific function which I did not know. Although there were several types of wine glasses, I picked two of the same kind and two large glasses for water. She bought a case of bottled water, but here we were in a town that has the freshest spring water in the world running from its faucets. I poured a glass of tap water for myself and set out a bottle of grocery store water for her.

The apartment had wifi. I had to look up on my laptop what she wanted me to do with linen cloth in this context.

Next, she got out the wine.

“Would you open the bottle?” she said.

I found a cork screw and opened the wine, waited for it to “breath,” and poured two glasses. Then I worked at my laptop while she cooked. My serving was small because of my sensitivity to alcohol.

“Please clear everything else off the table. No maps, no gloves, no books, no papers, nothing. That includes your laptop,” she said.

There was only one useable table, and that was the dining room table.

In the field of science, the concept of a work-life balance has been lost. Even though the pay is peanuts, work takes the priority in life. It’s expected that one continue to work at home after leaving the lab. That work includes data analysis, writing papers, and responding to work-related emails late into the night. Everybody is doing it; so that is the bare minimum needed to keep up in the competitive field. Failing to do it will result in job loss.

Had I known about the work conditions in academic science beforehand, I would have chosen a different career. Science was not like that only 15 years ago when the economy was better. Everybody who still has a job in today’s economy works at it with a clinical OCD obsession. Ones social life, hobbies, family life, fitness are sacrificed to keep a job in academia. (The combined suicide and attempted suicide rates among PhD students and postdocs is 1 in 4 researchers.)

I was on vacation, but it had been ingrained in me that to survive in science, I need to work compulsively every day and at all hours. I wanted to work on a project on my laptop. It’s a tiny laptop, and the table was so large that it was designed for six people. It was not in the way of the meal. Besides that, food wouldn’t be ready for another hour on account of the fact that she was cooking tough, rooty things that only an eastern European washer-woman would think to cook.

Back to the ski trip.

It was noon on Saturday, and I was still serving in Purgatory at the megamarket grocery store situated in a suburb of Paris I had been writing about during the previous five blog entries. I was there with a friend shopping for food that we would bring with us on a two week ski trip. I don’t like supermarkets, and I hate shopping during the weekend rush, but being here wasn’t my choice. Drusilla had been leading me around the store, and I was pushing the cart, trying to keep up in the heavy crowd. I felt like a retard on a trip to the zoo.

The next thing Drusilla led me to was the bananas. She picked up a bunch of enormous green Cavendish bananas. They were so green that they could not ripen in two weeks. They rot before they ripen. Despite that, ripe or green, Cavendish is disgusting for its flavor, its week-old garbage-like odor, and its potato-like texture.

Some varieties of banana I like, but I do not like Cavendish bananas. Their odor makes me queasy. The flavor is bland. I will eat them as an alternative to starvation, but I unless I’m on the brink of starvation, I avoid them. Also, bananas do not travel well. They are a terrible thing to take on a road trip. They tend to get crushed and turn into stinky black slime in transit. The place they were stored will reek for months afterwards.

There happens to be more than a hundred varieties of banana commercially grown, and some of them are delicious. Unfortunately, Cavendish bananas are the only kind of banana most grocery stores in the West sell. They are cheaply mass produced. Cavendish store for months on ocean cargo ships, provided they are harvested while rock hard and green. Other varieties rot or suffer from a mold disease during ocean transport.

Drusilla wanted those bananas, and she can eat what she wants. I won’t eat that crap. I won’t comment or argue. By now, I needed to leave. I would cut my losses and buy my own food in the ski village. I just wanted to get on the road. We were wasting the day.

She went on to pick out a lot of turnips, beets, radishes, cucumbers, cabbage, and other cheap and flavorless food that I had no intention of eating. The one rooty vegetable I like is carrots, but Drusilla does not like carrots, so we didn’t get carrots. All of this stuff was so cheap, I didn’t see the economic advantage of dealing with this supermarket, especially if all she wants is cheap stuff you can buy anywhere. Not only is it cheap everywhere in the world, but after hauling it, all 200 pounds of it, 500 miles across the Europe, it would cost us more in gas tro transport this crap than it would to pay a slightly higher price for the same thing when we got there.

Drusilla might have been a math whiz in college, but she is old and her brain appears to have ossified. She wasn’t thinking things through. She fails at economics 101. Math majors, at least in US colleges, learn some basic economic calculations including logistics and how to calculate the cost of transporting consumer goods. Her actions made no sense. I was only a math minor, and even I could do this simple calculation in my head while I was waiting behind the campers in the cheese aisle.

All together, the experience was killing me. This isn’t meant to pick her apart for not knowing things but to point out that she is pushy and forces poorly thought out ideas on others.

I had the feeling she was used to getting her own way, like the Queen of Hearts. I felt sorry for any man who would marry her. Her general lack of knowledge and inability to apply what little she might know wouldn’t have bothered me if she hadn’t been so insistent on saying the last word, on winning every argument, on having everything her way or else.

Most of what she picked was either toxic to me (like the garlic, onions, scallions, cow milk, pork) or just disgusting. Many of her choices didn’t even make sense. She ate the kind of food old people eat, bland rooty things, and she was willing to pay a fortune in extra gas hauling them across Europe in her car.

During the shopping trip, observing her food choices, I thought of a way to cure obesity. I could solve America’s obesity problem if people would just listen to the following suggestions. All one needs to do is eat a diet of bland, rooty things, and then America will be trim again. The food is so unappealing, that I prefer to go hungry rather than eat it.

If that is all I have to eat for the next two weeks, I will starve. If the food does not taste good, if it is not sweet, salty, spicy, or somehow interesting, I lose interest. I prefer to go hungry.

Overhead in the store were fluorescent lights, and they flickered slightly but perceptibly, at 60 hertz, the temporal periphery of my visual perception. The color spectrum of fluorescent lights is a bluish cast which is found nowhere in nature. It had now been an hour since we entered the supermarket, and I had begun to see bright afterimages and trailers.

The sounds in the store were also overwhelming. Manic announcements were continuously broadcast over the store’s public address system. People everywhere were talking, coughing, sneezing, blowing their noses, and making all kinds of other noises. It was making me dizzy. I would hate to see the effect this place would have on an Autism patient. I felt a migraine coming on. It was Saturday, family shopping day at the supermarket in the suburbs. The Suburbs are a projection of Hell on earth.

You can learn a lot about somebody by shopping with them, and you can learn even more about them by travelling with them. I didn’t like what I was learning.

We checked out and loaded the car.

“Why don’t you drive for a whle now?” she said.

“I don’t have a French driver’s license. I told you this last week,“ I said.

Even if I had a French license, I was in no condition to drive after being in that store for an hour.

“Why don’t you have a driver’s license?” she insisted with an undertone of accusation in her voice.

“I have a driver’s license, just not a French one. You know I haven’t been here five months, and I don’t know if I’ll even be here a year, so it hasn’t been practical. There is public transportation everywhere in Europe, so I don’t expect to need one here.”

She already knew I had just arrived in this country. She was like an aggressive cop or trial lawyer. I felt like, by not pleasing her, my liberty was at stake. In the field of psychology, there are people wwho have certain personality disorders, specifically clinical narcissist, sociopath, and psychopath, who deliberately make the people in their lives feel this way in order to manipulate them. I wondered whether Drusilla is a clinical narcissist. She was demonstrating the manipulative behavior known as “stone walling” and other manipulations.

“Come on,” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You know I almost never drive even in the US, and you ask me to drive a car that has different controls for the first time in the middle of Saturday rush hour shopping traffic. I will be happy to drive once we get a couple of hours away fromthe cithy and there isn’t any traffic. We talked about my driving status weeks ago,” I said. “Why are you bringing it up now?”

“But you should get one. You should have already done it,“ she said. “Why don’t you drive?”

“Cars are dangerous and bad for the environment. The oil they use creates a demand that causes oil wars,” I said.

I continued, “I’ve only been here a few months, and I don’t know how long I will be here. My work contract is temporary, keeping a car in the city costs several hundred a month in parking and other expenses. A bicycle is faster for distances under ten miles. Owning a car is not a priority. “

“I still think you should get one. It is not that hard. “

“I’ll be happy to drive for a couple of hours when we get to a quiet stretch of road, but I haven’t driven a car for years, and doing it now in heavy traffic with a foreign car and unfamiliar road signs is a bad idea,” I said.

She was silent.

I gave up. There are certain kinds of people with whom it is futile to argue: religious nuts, the insane, drunks, people who insist that they are always right, and after today, French Women. She had surprised me just when I had started to trust her. She was pushy and aggressive. I was pretty sure I knew why she was single at the age of 50.

The drive was six hours. I did offer to drive. There was a safe stretch of highway for me to drive, a couple of hours through a sparsely populated area with little traffic where there are no traffic cops on the highways France who do ID checks on foreigners driving for a while to relieve their companion. She refused to let me.

She drove the entire way, and the highway took us through a valley surrounded by 10,000 foot mountains. She wouldn’t let me drive when I asked two hours later. We talked much of the time.

The ski resort was another hour away, and I wondered if she would make any more revelations before we got there. Whatever she might say didn’t matter. I realised had no romantic feelings for her. That was out of the question. What she expected from me and how all that was dealt with is another chapter.

For the last segment of the drive, we climbed through a quick series of Alpine valleys. The town where we would stay, Huez, is a village built on the foot of the mountain Alp d’Huez. It was dark, and the full moon lit up the snowy landscape.