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 crinkly 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!!!

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 crinkly 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!!!

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 Jim 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.

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 Particulars

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 luxurious 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!

I Bought Furniture Finally

When we moved into our new apartment in March, I made a concious decision to leave almost all of our living and dining room furniture behind because we had been carting it around for over a decade and were long overdue for something new so...The only things that we brought with us were couch, coffee table, small side table, two floor to ceiling bookcases and our floor model tv. I was incredibly ruthless and left everything else behind. My vow was for us to get brand new furniture this year and it still is very much a priority. I found the store that I want to purchase the furniture, EQ3 - you must check it out as it is awesome. My stumbling block has been my absolute inability to commit to a specific style or colour or even a particular piece. Well, I was really bored at work yesterday so I surfed on over to their site and noticed that they were having a huge sale, huge.

I decided to stop by the store today to check out the sale and oh my goodness...I left having ordered three pieces of furniture to be ready and delivered in about ten days. I am over the moon mostly because I finally took that first step and I imagine the next one will be that much easier. I decided only to purchase items that were on sale. Luckily there were three pieces that were in the collection that I was pretty sure I wanted so I grabbed all of them. My total price including tax would have been $920 for all three. The sale price however is $195.50! Can you believe that? That is a total savings of $720. I know, incredible. Here is a sneak peak at one of the items...

I am getting the chair and ottoman in red cause that is the only colour they have but the bookcase and cabinet will be in a high gloss laminate silver - tres cool, n'est pas?

It’s Not a Habit…

I started methadone August of 1999. By then I was a solid year and a half into a pretty heavy opiate addiction. It had started with dilaudid but as soon as we were able we had moved on to heroin. We live in a funny city. While it is reasonably large with close to half a million, it is near impossible to find heroin here. Except for a time in the 1970's - so I have been told - it is one drug that does not seem welcome. Very white collar town so there is lots of pot and cocaine. Crack has had some effect as has speed but not like those other two. Because this is also very much a university and college town, there is also lots of ecstasy and its ilk. By the time I had even given a dilaudid a try, I was about two years deep into a large coke and speed habit. Funny can't even remember what that was like but I know that we were using every day and had been for a long time. Then along came a little yellow pill and it was as if nothing else existed. It was wondrous and it didn't take long to develop a tolerance for it. Thank heavens we knew someone that could get us heroin. He was out of town three out of the seven days and he happened to be working in a place that was literally drowning in it so every Thursday night right after getting off his bus, he would drop by our place with our weekly package. Sunday night we would wave him goodbye as his bus left town, our money in his pocket. This went on for over a year.

It started to get quite expensive as all habits tend to but this one also felt different. Where before, I may have been a bit of a bitch if I couldn't get blow or speed, I could get by at least but not this time. When I was without I hurt, I felt sick, I was in severe pain. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go to work and I had always prided myself on never letting any of my vices interfere with work and to be honest, life in general. Suddenly I had become single minded, nothing else mattered but not feeling sick anymore. I had to have a hit no matter what. Came close to bankrupting us. Sad but at least we had a house to sell to get us out of debt. And selling this one, our favourite, meant that we still had two others left although they were nowhere near as nice and they were in a much rougher part of town but that didn't seem to concern us so much anymore. We moved. We had to. We had someone else very important in our life now that very much needed to be accommodated. I had never lied before but suddenly I found myself doing just that. When my family doctor confronted me I couldn't admit it at first. I was every which way of denial until I couldn't take it anymore. This drug eventually wears you down, strips you of every vestige of dignity and self respect. I fessed up and when he started talking about getting us into a methadone program, I pretty much said yes just to humour him plus he said that as soon as we were on the list, he would be able to help us out and get us from having to buy our dope on the street at ridiculous prices.

I had never actually intended to follow thru with the methadone. The moment we were accepted our doctor wrote us each a prescription for 30 dilaudid a week. It was as if we had hit the jackpot. Between us we had 60 pills that would normally have cost us almost $20 each - quite a savings. He said that he could keep us supplied until we reached a high enough methadone dose that could sustain us on its own. I figured that we would ride this out as long as we could. Looked like it would be at least eight weeks that we could get our prescription and I figured that was long enough for us to get our finances back in order. We would in theory save a lot by not having to buy opiods for a two month period. As it was we were spending about $700/week and that was barely keeping us from getting sick so I knew that we were living on borrowed time if we continued spending at that rate. We were long overdue for a financial break.

But a funny thing happened while we going to methadone. It started working. I stopped grieving for any of the others. I went a day without a hit, then two and then a week. A week turned into a month and then two and three and we were still going. Suddenly two years had passed and I no longer did anything except for my methadone. I didn't even drink anymore. I forgot about heroin and dilaudid and morphine - oxys had yet to make their appearance but that was only a matter of time. The methadone made me so very tired though even if it did seem to work a small miracle. I would start to nod off at the worst possible time something I rarely did while addicted to the others. I needed to stay awake. So before we knew it we were back doing speed but this time we vowed that we would keep our spending under control and we did for a long time. Speed wasn't the same anyway now that we were on meth. Yes, you could kind of feel it but you never felt as if you were way out there. Oh well, it was still better than nothing. And we were spending about half of what we used to spend on the other.

Suddenly twenty seven months had passed. We were starting to get tired of the daily grind of having to grab our methadone. Yes, for the most part normalcy had returned to our lives. We fell into our own little routine. Gone were the hours upon hours dedicated to finding that one hit that would take away the pain. I could go back to work full time, we both could. Methadone gave our life structure once again. My credit card debts were now paid off. We had sold the other two houses and purchased a three story apartment building. Our self confidence and esteem had returned. We didn't want or need methadone any more. It was time to say goodbye. I had two weeks vacation at Christmas 2001 but a week before my vacation started I got a terrible flu. I was down to about 20mg of methadone a day. I felt so sick that I just didn't feel like grabbing my methadone one day and the next and the day after that. I just stopped going and when my flu ended, any withdrawal that I may have been going thru had also ended. It was hard to tell one from the other so I kept telling myself that there was no withdrawal just crappy flu symptoms.

Fast forward three and a half years. I am once again severely dependent on that little yellow pill. Well now it is the little white pill. No more #4s for us, we now need #8s. We are back spending ridiculous amounts of money and are consumed by abject fear whenever we find that we have run out or that none of our dealers is holding. It is no longer pleasant. But what of the intervening three years you ask? Well that is obviously a story for another day...TO BE CONTINUED

Waiting for the Man

I just don't get it - it is now 3:19pm and I was dropped off to work an hour and a half ago. My boyfriend was to pick up another friend, they were to go over to collect some oxys around the corner from my work and then drop them off to me. Realistically, it should have taken no more than 40 minutes maximum and I am being way generous with my time. I made the trip last night and had to first go across town to get Jamie, then halfway across to get the pills, take him home and then take myself home. The entire trip took me one hour and 15 minutes and I had twice the amount of driving easy. I don't know, maybe she is not there today which would suck big cause I am starting to get mucho sick. My eyes have started to run, etc. And of course, I know the dip shit won't answer his cell phone cause he is way late for work already and is avoiding his boss. Guess that there is not much to do but wait....Sucks to be me right now I tell you. Two bloody days in a row now.

Happy Canada Day!!!

I can not believe that it is already morning. Happy Canada Day I guess...I still work my normal shift so I had more or less blocked out the fact that it was a holiday which may actually leave me in a bit of a precarious position dope wise today for work - I'll think about that later. On the positive side, I do get paid two and a half times my normal pay for working today so that is kind a sweet - half a week's pay for one day's work basically - not bad even if the government will end up taking most of this "extra" money. Whatever.

Today has to be better than yesterday cause if it is not, I am sure that I will end up losing it. My day pretty much went south the moment I got up. First off, my girlfriend and I were to go downtown to get our OHIP cards as both of us never did get a card with our photo's on it. Both of us had the original white with red stripe card from years and years back. We were going to bus it and had planned on being on the 11:45am bus as this would end up giving us loads of time before I had to go to work - I work at 2pm. Jim hadn't left for work yet so he said that he would drive us and even though I was a little skeptical about him getting us where we wanted to go on time, I said yes, sure, that would be nice as it certainly would save us from having to walk in yesterday's God awful humidity...Suddenly Sara is running out to me in the living room stating that it was 1:15pm, dadadadada and yadayadayada. So I hustle Jim together because I had just remembered that I had to go to the bank as tomorrow the banks were all closed for Canada Day and I still needed to deposit rent which is automatically withdrawn from our account on the first of every month. I also receive postdated monthly cheques in the amount of $275 - that is another story for another day.

Every month I end up going semi ballistic searching everywhere for these stupid post dated cheques so a friend said that I could give them to my bank to hold onto and that on the first of each month, my bank would deposit them in my account. Seemed like a brilliant solution to my current disorganization so after cashing last month's cheque, I handed the teller the remaining six post dates. Actually just before I handed my babies over I confirmed actually what was about to occur. The teller stated that they would keep my cheques at the branch and that I could expect it deposited by 10am on the first of every month. A couple of things before I continue. This was not my home branch but she said that this was no longer as important as it used to be and that you could actually go to any TD Canada Trust for any sort of maintenance of your account i.e. address change, new bank card, Visa application, you think of something, it could be done...Cool. Except for a handful of branches in this city, TD Canada Trust is open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and then on Saturday from 9am to 3pm. The remaining branches do not open on Saturdays and are only open during the week from 9am to 6pm. Of course, I give my post dates to one of these oddball branches and of course I want that $275 as soon as I can and as Friday is a holiday and this branch wasn't even open on Saturdays, I would end up having to wait until Monday for my money. While I was depositing the rent, I explained about these post dates and asked the teller - a different one than last month although she was also there but serving another customer - if she could just grab July's cheque for me as I would just take it to one of the other TD's that were open on Saturday.

She looks at me kind of blankly and mutters something about me putting a stop payment on it so I attempted to clarify by stating that it was not a post dated cheque that I had written but one that had been written to me and that this branch was looking after this cheque and five others for me. She then stated that they do not keep post dates on site but that they are all sent down to some central processing center or some such nonense. I tried to ask why I was told otherwise but I never actually did get an acceptable answer. I said that I would never have given up my cheques had I known that they would be leaving the branch. I asked them as they were not open Saturday and I assumed neither was the processing centre - I was right - that I would like them to retrieve the cheque and I would pick it up later in the day. They asked me how they would do that and I answered that I assumed that they used some sort of intercity courier between branches and could they not do that. Apparently not. The processing centre is located in town so it was not as if I was demanding that they courier a cheque down from Toronto or something like that.

LATER:
OK I have so forgotten my train of thought cause I had to walk away from this entry for like four hours. I know that all that rambling was about to lead up to something but now for the life of me, I have no idea exactly what that something is. Oh well, as they say it must have been important. Well, as I kind of remember the mood or theme that I was going for, I certainly can share another feel sorry for me anecdote. For some reason, I got a killer headache at work. I kind of over did it the day before and I think that I ended up taking the same if not more before I got to work yesterday. I know that I felt so incredibly tired and it was a real struggle to keep my eyes open. I rarely have a yearning for it, but yesterday I wanted speed so badly that at 3:30pm I called my boyfriend to go grab me some to help me get thru the rest of my day. I am still waiting at 6pm and by this time, I was starting to do a slow boil. When I called home, he was still there. He said that he had fallen out and I have to admit that I may have over-reacted just a tad. I basically demanded that he get his ass right down here and do me that long overdue favour so he did. I gave him some money and realistically he should have been back to me within the half hour. I am even allowing for chit chat time cause she only lives about six minutes away from my work.

I ended up taking $260 out of the bank. I reasoned that if they could not deposit my cheque until after the holiday then my rent should not come out either so I took $260 from the rent money that I had deposited earlier which will then be replaced with my cheque on Monday. Seemed absolutely flawless to me. So I go back to my desk to wait. Now I have a timer of sorts on my computer here at work and I happened to notice that the counter was fast approaching an hour which meant that Jim had been gone almost an hour and no sight of him so I got up off my ass to call him. He does not answer his cell so I call TS's house. When she answers I ask if he was there and of course he was. Talked to him for a bit to ask him what he was doing and he said that he hadn't been looked after yet. Excuse me? So I said give the phone back to her and I then asked her if there was any reason that she had not got to him yet. She said yes, cause she didn't have anything. OK, so why the heck wouldn't you let him know that at the outset rather than make him wait an eternity. Believe it or not, by this time I was done work so I just told him to come and get me.

There actually are a couple more what went wrong stories that I could recount but I am no longer in the mood. Time to move on from yesterday cause today is not shaping up much better!!!!OK need to at least pretend to do some work.