I Fought The Law

After seventeen months, and a couple of false starts, it looks as if we may finally be getting our day in court. In less than 12 hours, the preliminary trial of the three men that attacked us and stabbed Jim is about to begin. Obviously, I am nervous. Am not expecting to get much sleep tonight although I also have no intention of actively sabotaging myself either - tempting as this may be!

Figures that the weather just took a turn for the worse. Yikes. The temp managed to reach a high of 4C today, although with the wind, I guess that it felt more like -1C. Tomorrow morning, they're forecasting the temp to be just above zero Celsius which is too cold for this time of the season that's for sure. Right now, this near freezing weather is causing me to have a near meltdown in my attempt to pick out an appropriate court - and now weather - outfit. I suppose that if this is the worst thing that I am currently battling then I am not really in as bad a shape as I might perceivce.

Additional mood updates as my evening progresses!!!

A Few Quick Updates

Am going to try this online web word processor to update my blog. Currently it is still in beta, and my first attempt at using it failed miserably. Of course, before I hit update, I failed to copy all of the text that I had spent half an hour entering so mega frustrating...This time I shall be adequately prepared!!! If this experiment does indeed succeed, anyone that may be interested in trying out something new, then check out WriteToMyBlog - I am such a sucker and always super eager anytime something new and different gets introduced.

OK, so the past month has been on the busy side. It looks as if finally we may actually be getting ready to go to trial. i.e of the three guys that attacked us and stabbed Jim last year. We met with the Crown and Victim Services for a fairly lengthy visit last week, and both of them have certainly done their homework. We both are feeling pretty confident that they are the ones to complete this successfully for us, and to represent us fairly and competently. I mean at the best of times, its certainly a bit of a crap shoot so here's hoping. Got all of our fingers crossed. Am also as nervous as hell as the prelim hearing is now just two under two weeks away.

To top everything off, I have been slowly but surely decreasing my dose of methadone. From a high of 100, I am now at 45. I have been on my current dose now for about two weeks, and of all of the decreases, this one has most definitely been the most challenging. If I go much more than 24 to 28 hours between my doses then I actually start to feel as if I am starting to go into withdrawal - mild withdrawal, but withdrawal none the less.

We had all of our blood work done recently, and while my results were all above excellent, Jim had a bit of bad news. His hep c is currently active, and the various liver tests that they performed came back way out of the normal range so his doctor was kind of concerned. He'd like him to start interferon treatment once the upset of the trial is behind us. Apparently I've got an angel sitting on my shoulder as all of my tests show up as better than normal. Go figure. I suppose that Jim getting stabbed in his liver has done nothing to help him!

P.S. My above experiment failed miserably so I give up for now. Don't know if it is me or the web site, but thank goodness for copying and pasting or once again, I would have lost yet one more update!!!

Manic Street Preachers

Hey, did I happen to mention that in less than 48 hours, I will finally be going to a show by the Manic Street Preachers? I've literally only waited fifteen years for this to actually happen. I am so stoked!!!

Funeral March

Well, the funeral turned out to be absolutely beautiful and something Daniel would have been pleased with, if this were at all even possible. Standing room only, too. It was still somewhat weird having to return to the town of our youth especially under these circumstances.

The actual service ended up lasting just over an hour. Both of his sisters got up to speak - he was the middle child - as well as his best friend from high school and also one of his nieces - in total he was uncle to five nieces and one nephew. The minister's sermon was very fitting as she took time to address Daniel's two decade battle with mental illness and depression, as well as talking about how he ultimately died. In fact, no one that got up to speak shied away from these normally uncomfortable subjects. To be sure, his parents opened this door originally when they stated in the newspaper's announcement's section how their son actually died. This was certainly a most unusual, not to mention brave move on their part. I can't remember ever seeing something like this mentioned in any other announcement of death in a paper's personnel's section.

I certainly can understand their reasons behind doing this. Anyone attending his funeral would have already been familiar with the fact he was bi-polar and had been for decades. This eliminated having to respond to dozens and dozens of people asking how he died. I can just imagine how both of his parents would have dreaded this part of the whole service, but because of the type of people that they are, they would have answered each and every question without hesitation.

Jim and Daniel started high school twenty nine years ago, and except for a few of their class mates that just simply could not make it to the funeral, almost their entire class managed to show up. This fact alone speaks volumes and then some...Its unfortunate that Daniel never was able to recognize this fact. For most of his life, he felt irrelevant, or that he just simply couldn't measure up to the rest of us. If only he could have taken a step back and actually seen what it was we all saw and recognized in him.

He was a brilliant writer and artist, as well as an excellent student and athlete. Everything came naturally for him though he may not have quite seen it that way. He was one of the best looking guys in high school who could have had any girl that he wanted, but ended up spending his years there single. He was accepted into all of the universities he applied for, and even managed to excel while studying away in a foreign city away from his friends and family.

It was during his final year at university that he was diagnosed with  manic depression - my understanding is that this is now called bi-polar - and even with this, he still managed to graduate. For about half a decade after this, he ended up in and out of institutions, so that by the time he was in his thirties, he felt as if he had really been left behind, and never recovered from this setback.

It really is all very, very tragic. His sisters read some of his most recent writings and while they were all exceptional, they certainly spoke to his current state of  mind. He was filled with far too much  pain it would seem, and nothing on this world seemed to offer him the relief he so obviously sought.

Peace, love and  happiness...

Suffer Well

Jim and I have to go to a funeral in the morning. I've only been to three other funerals in my entire life, which is a good thing I suppose. One of our friends from high school committed suicide four days ago. He had been suffering from depression for decades now, and I guess his wife of nine years leaving him recently was just too much for him. He had moved back in with his parents so it was his mother that found him. Even though at one point in our lives, we had all been close, we hadn't really seen him in the past decade. Out of respect for his parents, though, we are going. Jim's folks and his still live in the same small town we all grew up in, and they both attend the same church each and every Sunday. I hope that is suffering is over and that he has finally managed to find some peace.

The Informers

I've just finished watching The Informers. Its a new film written by Bret Easton Ellis based on his book of the same name which was published in 1994. The book is actually a collection of thirteen short stories, and this film has done its best to adapt these stories. It was directed by Gregor Jordan and features an ensemble cast, such as Winona Ryder, Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, and Kim Basinger. It also was Brad Renfro's last film before his untimely death. The film basically covers stories of seven of the film's characters with these stories  taking place over the course of one week in 1983 Los Angeles. These stories cover the lives of movie executives, rock stars, and other morally challenged characters.

This film was by no means great, in fact, I'm not even sure if it is even good, but for a number of reasons, it ended up kicking me in the stomach.  In an instant, I was transported back to the year that I turned nineteen, 1983! This was to be a seminal year for me and my friends. This was the year that we graduated high school and were about to enter university. Our whole lives were supposedly stretched out in front of us, as in, the world was our oyster. We were invincible, or so we thought.  We dreamed of going off to uni, being away from home and anyone that knew us. We imagined that this would be our time to finally be sexually free, to be able to experiment and to be able to do this without fear of any consequences. How quickly this was all shattered and destroyed.

1983 was also a time when we had first started to hear about some mystery illness that  initially seemed to be randomly killing only gays and IV drug users. A plague of sorts. A plague that was also extremely terrifying especially since the medical community at the time appeared so utterly baffled and helpless. Uncertainty was everywhere. Once the heterosexual population started to show signs of this illness, fears escalated rapidly, as did denial. The medical community had yet to announce how this illness was spreading nor how it could be prevented from spreading.

One thing, though, that we seemed to recognize instinctively, were any thoughts of us finally being able to have indiscriminate sexual encounters would have to end if we were to remain immune. So much for us going off to university with thoughts of anonymous one night stands dancing in  our heads. Didn't matter any more if we were on the pill as a much larger issue now existed. Not getting pregnant would be the least of our worries. The party really was over, as was our innocence.

This movies touches so many aspects of what me and my friends were going through in our own personal lives twenty six years ago. It seems eerie watching it now, almost voyeuristic. It also almost appears to be a sequel to Ellis's book/movie Less Than Zero. The book originally was published back in 1985, with the movie of the same name coming out a couple of years later, although there were a lot of changes and departures. What may really end up being interesting will be if Ellis does indeed publish a sequel to Less Than Zero, something he has been promising for a little while now.

P.S. Speaking of the above movie, I just had to go and dig it out to watch yet again. Even though its a bit on the dated side, it still remains one of my favourites from that time period.