May 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Long way from home
As we walked out of one of the many parking lots radiating like pie slices of trivial knowledge from the grounds of the fair, I saw a man leaning up against the hood of his red sports car and said for the first of many times that day “this is the best moment of my life!”
We had come to a county fair that afternoon to see a demolition derby and (I hoped) to find me a hat. Even outside the grounds...
WatchThe man with the dog faced short shorts
1 tag
Part timer
“What are you fucking part timers doing up there?” Our friend yelled, trying to insight the three or four people that had been lounging in the loft for the last hour. It was 10pm and all eleven of my companions had been drinking heavily since noon. The kind of drinking that demands regularly dosed stimulants to maintain; followed by more drinking to level off. Like the balancing act of a...
February 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Eight Carrots
I was having one of those incredible days, the kind where I was taken somewhere that was geographically close to home and yet in every other way, miles from ordinary. It felt like such a jarring violation of context that I found myself staring at everyday objects, seeing their absurdity for the first time. A friend had invited me over to his mother’s apartment for roast beef and at the moment my...
Shoot This!
sheilamcclear:
Now Michael Goodwin has chimed in and OK: IT ALL NEEDS TO STOP. JUST STOP the snickering comments on the city Health Department’s flyers created to show addicts how to shoot up safely.
“We assume instructions to “Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins,” and “Find the vein be fore you try to inject” are just the first of many helpful tips from City Hall in 2010....
Oh sure, I sober up and all of a sudden it becomes...
1 tag
Soapbox
I have had a bit of a rough week in some ways. For two of the four days that I worked I managed to bend myself well out of shape, hating my job and preaching an internal monologue from a rickety stack of soapboxes. Luckily, I have built into my weekly schedule, a guaranteed dollop of good feelings. Nothing forces gratitude on me more effectively than walking out of the three metal gates that...
January 2010
9 posts
1 tag
Clockwork
I remember kindergarten clearly. That is, I remember one moment in kindergarten, formatively. I was sitting on the stiff, short cut, bluish carpet with a chalk board in my hand. The kind that is about the size of a normal piece of paper, eight and a half by eleven. The kind that is designed to rein in one over sized child drawn letter. It had two faint green on green lines, put there to show...
1 tag
The Ditch
It sounds funny to say it but, I actually remember the first bad thing I ever did. I don’t know how old I was, young though, before kinder garden. I took a cookie from the drawer where my mom kept them. The reason I remember this is the feeling of surprise I had when I got away with it. I guess I must have thought that she counted them or something. This was the first dishonest thing I ever...
Brendon McLeod again, this is a great example of...
1 tag
dominos
The kind of workout that comes from ditch digging cannot be replicated with any number of twenty minute sessions on your Bowflex, or countless hours starting at the ass in the front of your spin class. Back breaking physical labor is something that I have lost in my life for a few years now, and when the opportunity arose to help a friend of mine dig a drainage ditch in the crawl space below his...
1 tag
assisted self discovery
Having just recently gotten out of my fourth run through treatment, I find myself regularly fielding the question “So… what do you think went different this time?” Naturally, I intend to avoid this subject whenever possible; this is no exception.
My achingly smooth transition (I moved three blocks from the bloody health farm that I was just discharged from) into a life of recovery has had its...
1 tag
A local guy I saw for the fist time a couple...
1 tag
No Name
The weeks leading up to my latest voluntary incarceration were not the darkest days in my years of addiction. Those weeks looked like me hiding from the people in my life so that I could sit in the dark and watch streaming television on my laptop. Oh right, I was also drinking copious amounts or vodka straight from the bottle. I often forget to write that part because it just seems implied when...
This is some of the best Hip Hop from Vancouver. ...
1 tag
Solid Ground
At different times in my life, I have been very afraid. I lost my passport in Laos for the second time on my trip though SE Asia. One time in fourth grade, my teacher asked me on which side of the division symbol the numerator went, and I had no idea. I once woke up in the hospital with no recollection of how I got there - I had to wait for a nurse to explain to me what the tubes coming out of...