THEY SAY ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY!

Well, I am hoping to be able to sit down for a moment or two although I doubt very much that I'll really get to as there is just so much going on right now. Today is my daughter Sara's birthday. She is now eighteen years old, an adult it would seem. Two decades have near passed since she was born, a score if my memory is correct, almost half my life ago. It seems as if I merely blinked and all of this time simply raced on by.

As we speak, she and about a dozen of her closest friends are partying the night away in one of the apartment building's empty units. Well, better the mess there, than here in my incredibly small apt!

GONE, BUT HAVE NOW RETURNED. THE CHILDREN ARE ON THEIR OWN - OR AT LEAST UNTIL I GET A NOISE COMPLAINT FROM ONE OF THE OTHER TENANTS!

Her party was a complete surprise to her which made Katie extremely happy as she was afraid that someone would end up letting the cat out of the bag, accidentally, of course. It's a wonder that the party ended up going off without a hitch as they had to wait patiently while Sara sat at the hairdressers getting her hair done for close to three hours! She does look marvelous now though, all grown up and sophisticated!

Much more to write later on as I've just now decided that what I really should be doing is sitting down in front of the tv that I rarely ever get to watch and put my throbbing feet up and then soak in the otherwise peaceful, quiet home.

FROM THE ARCHIVES 2005 07 13

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2005

Well, I guess it is about time that I told you a bit about myself and my current evils. My weakness is and always has been anything that is part of the opiod family. Up until that first hit, I had been somewhat indifferent towards drugs but the moment that first dilaudid entered my system, I knew that it was pretty much all over for me. I had found my Achilles heal although at that time, I had no idea what a rollercoaster ride I was about to begin.

I actually never even tried drugs until I was almost twenty-one. Through high school, I was more of a drinker. My brother who is a couple of years younger than I am began experimenting at the ripe age of 12 and I watched in absolute terror what he was doing and did to his young body. I also did not want to add to the anguish that my parents endured as my brother navigated thru his teen years. I just couldn''t added to that so I kind of made a casual commitment to myself that I could wait to try plus in all honesty, it didn''t look like a whole lot of fun watching my brother puke, stagger, dripple down his clothes, pass out, you name it. I can''t remember how many times my boyfriend or myself or both rescued my brother from mess after mess after mess. Believe me nothing about his behaviour was remotely attractive and as a result I never felt as if I missed out on anything. Now in hindsight I am kind of glad that I never used anything as a teenager because my brain cells were pretty much left untouched during their crucial growth period.

For my first year of university there were no situations that I found myself in to have a chance to try anything other than liquer. Again never felt as if I was missing anything. Finally in my second year, I decided that I wasn''t going to lifeguard. Instead, I wanted to give waitressing a try because I felt I had a greater chance of making much more money while working less hours. I found a place to hire me as a cocktail server and this place just happened to be the place to go every Thursday, Friday and Saturday way back then. I made money hand over fist and I started meeting some very interesting and experienced people - both fellow staff members and customers. Lord when I think back to my second year, I was so utterly out of my depth and so very green. I started going to the parties after the bars closed and finally I was standing around with a group when someone passed a joint around. I carefully watched everyone and when it was my turn, I believe that I carried it off like a pro. Once people had seen me take some form, any form, they became much more open and inviting with me.

The next party I find myself being invited into one of the three bedrooms with a couple of other people. When I get in there, there are about a dozen lines of this white powder lined up in a row and a guy sitting behind the table. He says help yourself to us with the qualification that it will cost us $10 a line. I had never seen cocaine until that moment and to be honest, I didn''t really have any idea what it actually was and what it would do...Drum roll...Of course, I ponied up my money and waited my turn. Again I paid close attention to what the others before me did and when it was my turn, I flipped my hair over my shoulder so that it fell down my back out of the way of this precious powder. Inhale and away I went. It was the coolest. Oh my goodness, I felt amazing. I was amazing. I was no longer little shy me from no name town population 1500. I had arrived and what an arrival it was!!!

My second year at university was coming to an end and I was getting ready to spend the summer in the British Isles with my best friend. About a month before we were to leave, I got involved with one of the bouncers at work. He was a very bad boy and I found him so utterly exciting. He just oozed danger and I was ripe for the picking...

TO BE CONTINUED...MUSHROOMS, ACID AND THE RINGING IN MY EARS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

FROM THE METHADONE PRETTY ARCHIVES: MY FIRST ENTRY FROM MY OLD SITE WRITTEN 2005 07 12

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 ecstacy 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 wonderous 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 literaly 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 servere 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 accomodated. 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 severly 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

Don't Know What To Do...

Well, it looks as if I was wrong all along about getting my old writings back from my previous site. I did actually have them returned to me which has made me outrageously happy. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to bits to have them back all safe and sound. There is just one tiny, tiny problem. The type of file that was emailed to me is one that I am not remotely familiar with, so I have no idea now what to do with this file!

I somehow was able to view the file through one of the programs that I've got installed on my computer that I use as a substitute to Windows Explorer but after confirming that all of my writing was there, I've no idea how tro proceed. If anyone is able to help, please let me know. The type of file extension that I got is .sql

Thanks to anyone that is able to give me a hand.

Too Good To Be True I Guess

Well I haven't heard from the Web Master of junkylife.com now since 3/17/2008 1:52 PM when he emailed me the following:

Still have it all – just give me a few days to get it set back up from the backup and moved over.

So I guess that I am not going to get back all of my previous writings to put up at my newly created archived site. Kind of had a feeling that this was just a little too good to be true. What a huge disappointment. Guess I shall try one more time. Sent another email just in case.

tHANK gOODNESS fOR cALL dISPLAY

Obviously, being a Building Manager of a reasonably large apartment building - 96 units over eight stories - you can absolutely be assured that there will certainly be some very special moments, not to mention a stereotypically odd assortment of characters residing within these eight floors. Some days are definitely easier than others, as are some tenants. Regardless of the individual, I always attempt to conduct myself with professionalism when it comes to their concerns, no matter how trivial or annoying. For the most part, I rarely find them irritating or annoying, but like everything else in life, there will always be an exception to the rule! Case in point would be the new tenant who recently moved into a unit on the second floor. Hmmm, for convenience, let us call him Kevin shall we.

Not the tiniest bit of exaggeration, but I have never met someone this annoying in my entire life. This dude has honestly gotten me beyond upset but which is something I rarely allow happen in respect to my job. Work is work is work, and most of the time, it doesn't come home with me - so to speak. Obviously, when you work where you live and live where you work, it tends to be a little bit more difficult to keep the two separate, but certainly not impossible. You just need to ensure that your create very specific boundaries with the tenants and then make sure that they are very much aware of what these boundaries are. Normally when someone new moves into the building, they are each subjected to my standard lecture concerning our work hours and what would be considered appropriate times to contact us. I also remind them that my apartment is also my family's home which means that it is a private residence. What this means then is that you just can't come knocking on my front door whenever the mood strikes you, no matter how important you might think it is to do this. This normally takes a bit of time to sink in for some of them but usually after much reminding, it sinks in.

Lucky me though, Kevin just can't seem to comprehend this particular detail, or simply doesn't care, which I feel is more to the point. It is this that has got me so utterly worked up. His lease was dated for April 1, 2008 which generally translates into the day that you would be taking possession of your unit at which time you would then be able to start to move into it. Now, as this year this fell on a Tuesday, and he was moving from a city which is a two and a half hour drive away on a good day, I allowed him into his unit a few days earlier. Once again, I find whenever you do something nice for a tenant, they inevitably end up taking advantage of this, making me resent my generosity. Surprise, Kevin turned out to be no exception. I had told him that he could move in on the Saturday but midweek of the week he was to move in, he mentions to me that he had reserved his truck for the Friday. WTF? I told him that I suppose that would be fine seeing how he h ad already gone and reserved the vehicle.

Upon him moving in, there were a couple of minor concerns he had that he wanted addressed. Now, not a single one of them would be considered critical or serious or immediate - wanted door stoppers installed, items we actually happen to have in our storage room, but something that our company does not provide as standard as well as wanting all of the plates for his light switches and electrical outlets to be the same colour even though they were all the same colour in each separate room. He wanted additional caulking around his bathtub and kitchen counter but there was already caulking there and in all honesty, there was nothing wrong with it. There was also a satellite on the balcony adjoining his that he wanted to be able to access as he had some sort of way of hacking into it to get it for free. Excuse me but I am not about to give you keys to another unit regardless of whether or not it just happens to be empty at the moment. Whatever. I could literally go on and on and on but I'm actually starting to get bored.

Anyway, the weekend that he moved in just also happened to be the weekend that we were on duty, otherwise we rotate weekends with two other Building Managers - one on, then two off. He bothered us the entire weekend looking for one thing or another - shopping carts to help him move stuff or one of Jim's dollies or whatever. I put up with this for the weekend even though he thought nothing of knocking on our door on the Sunday night after 10pm for one favour or another. Even Monday when he was calling my phone and knocking on our door at 9pm, I managed to keep my mouth shut. Tuesday still kept my trap shut but by Wednesday when he did this, I literally had to contain myself with every fiber so that I didn't end up losing it on him. I lectured him as politely and firmly as I could letting him know that I worked from 9am until 5pm Monday to Friday if he needed to ask something. Fell on deaf ears apparently as he called me five times in a row tonight starting at 8:02pm. I ignored the phone, refusing to pick up as I had already spent a half an hour earlier this morning listening to go on about something.

Still trying to get into that empty unit but not going to happen. Also wants me to do something regarding the fact that there are no working jacks for his telephone in his unit. Five days in a row he has called regarding this one issue and each time I have responded exactly the same. The Regional Manager, my boss, informed me that we do not own the telephone lines in this building so there is nothing that we could do regarding this matter. That would be up to him and his telephone provider to work something out. Even right now, Jim is up there helping him move something and it is 9:30pm. Me, I've had more than enough of this clown for quite some time that's for bloody sure.

P.S. I have just spent a panicked fifteen minutes searching for this entry. I was using one of those desktop blog editors to enter the content and for some reason when I went to publish it, the program deleted it for some reason. Duh! Could also have been operator error, it doesn't really matter. Either way, I was near screwed as it takes me a near eternity to type something of this length cause I am a crap typist - took me almost an hour and a half to type the above so...NOW YOU HAD BETTER READ EACH AND EVERY WORD!!!

Guns of Brixton

Sew, Sew, Sew Your Boat

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Just kind of messing around on the computer right now cause I am not feeling remotely motivated to do much of anything else. We had the weekend off so I am just trying to enjoy the last few remaining hours. We also took Friday off as they owed us a few days off - five in total so far - so seemed like as good a time as any to take an extra long weekend. The previous two weeks of work turned out to be pretty hectic so that extra day was very much needed!

Didn't end up doing much of anything this weekend as it turned out. We did a little bit of shopping on Saturday but nothing special. Bought a few things for the house. I went to Fabricland with my Mom on Friday so I bought some more fabric to do a little bit of sewing in the near future. I recently bought a brand new sewing machine as well as a serger - amazing what one can buy when you remove a life with no expensive addictions from the equation! Shocking n'est pas? I still find myself amazed when I've actually got a bit of money saved up in my bank account. I am still not quite used to this feeling yet and actually hope that I never do get used to it - should keep me honest so to speak. Anyway, I really wanted both machines and as I could well afford them both, I went ahead and treated myself.

I have yet to use the serger because it looks kind of on the complicated side and the manual is not quite clear enough for me but am in no rush. I just know that this was something that I've always wanted to get as I know that once I do end up mastering it, it will be a wonderful addition to my sewing arsenal. So on this note, I think that I shall go and check out my new sewing machine which can do 88 different stitches - about 70 more than my last one!

TIME AFTER TIME

Well, I somehow have managed to make it to my forty fourth birthday, safe and sound. Wow, a miracle of sorts I should imagine! It doesn't even seem like I've been alive for that amount of time, nor do I even remotely feel middle aged, whatever that is even supposed to feel like. Sometimes, when I look at my daughter, she will be eighteen in less then two weeks, I feel my age, but mostly, I feel fairly amazed - and blessed - that I feel as good as I do. While I have a hard enough time wrapping my head around my own age, I honestly can not believe that nearly two decades have passed since her birth. It truly seems like yesterday that I was giving birth to this tiny, beautiful baby. Time does fly it would seem!

Had a very low key birthday. It passed nice and quietly. I have never, ever been the type to draw attention to myself at the best of times, never mind for an event like this. My Mom took me out for a nice lunch yesterday and after we did a bit of shopping. The girls made me a beautiful card which they put in a picture fame, plus they got me one of my favourite MAC lipsticks, Film Noir, and a Social Distortion alarm clock. Some of the best presents ever. I was very touched and exceedingly pleased.