Look at a computer screen

See how pretty the pixels are.

Missing myself

So, my home is as far away as it can get. The very opposite of the Earth. There is a winding country road, with paddocks that stretch to the sky. The mirages the sun makes on the tarseal, the neighbours houses that I grew up in, that I know by heart. There is the house with the big garden, the verandah, the smell of my mother's hair. The hammocks that swing in the salty breeze, the crash of the waves. The insects singing in the trees. That is so far away, in every way. I wanted to go for a month, in January. I haven't been back for three years, or more. But how? Being sick the whole time? Actually yes. I'm deciding this as I write it, but I know it's the only way out. I'll quit methadone two weeks or so before I go. I'll reduce myself on h. Then, I'll get on a plane and go cold turkey. I'll arrive, pretend to be sick. Recover. Be well. It's the only way. Maybe I won't even come back. If I try to take methadone over there, my parents will find out. I'll be listed as a drug user, unable to adopt the baby that I need- just in case. It will mess up everything. Fuck. This is a strange dream. I wish I could wake up.

nothing nothing

I bought the cat a leash. We go out walking. But usually he ends up in my purse, head bobbing. Safe and secure in case of trucks- his big fear. I took him with me this morning, feeling like a crazy cat lady, avoiding people's eyes. It was 6.30am, I had cash to get out, my dealer was on his way. The routine dulls me. We took back alleys to get home, damp and raw with the smell of open trash. The cat was quiet, eyes big and wide. I creaked open the front door and took off the purse with him in it. He stayed there for a few minutes, as if hoping we'd go back out again, until I opened the newspaper. Every morning I have my shot of heroin and do the crossword. He watches me do my heroin, trying to knock it over, bite the syringe, attack it. But once my attention is on the paper so is his. He takes running leaps, building up speed by starting at the far end of the house and sliding, claws ripping, teeth biting, through the arts section, the business section, the sports. The expression on his face manic, psychotic. My little baby.

It's time again. I need to go to the bathroom, my legs are sore, my heart is beating quicker. I'll call the man with the bandanna. Give him my 60 bucks and turn it into half a teaspoon of liquid. A moment of softness and safety. The warm, tight hug of heroin.

Don't be bored

Go here and graffiti for a bit.

French boy

I pretended I was drunker than I was, the night I did IT for the first time. But I can't remember how we got to the parent's bedroom, in their bed, under the covers. Oddly unembarrassed, I directed him. His eyes were fiery with excitement. I was determined to enjoy it. Afterwards, we sat side by side on the swirl of messed up sheets covering smears of blood. He carefully spelled out the names of French rap he thought I'd like. He wrote them on a scrap of paper I saved for several years, trying to be sentimental. Finally, one day cleaning, I threw it out.

WAR

café talk

The guy sitting beside me is trying to impress the girl at his table. She nods her head, eyes glazed over. I know that look, that girl used to be me. He speaks loudly, making sure everyone can hear him. He never pauses enough to let her say a thing. God he's boring. Full of self-enthusiasm. This café reeks of cash. I'm scratching at my flea bites. Now one is bleeding. It looks more like measles now than fleas, they're everywhere.

Every time the cat walks past me I grab him, he meows angrily and squirms, and I pick off a flea, rolling and crunching it between my nails. If they're not at least bisected, they come back to life. They're so hardy, like little stones. Now the cat walks in wide circles to get past me, he's very wary. Even so, when I left this morning, he cried beside the door. It made me stop and smile. He's too tough to show affection to my face.

Now the guy next to me is talking about advertising, he wants to start a company. Of course, the typical 'ad-guy.' I feel interested beside myself. The girl finally says something, and her voice is so squeaky and her conversation so vacuous I can't blame him for drowning her out. She's a secretary and she's moving.

I've really fucked up last week. So many drugs I missed my methadone appointment. Blurred, sleeping, meeting the dealer, sleeping again. It makes my nightmares worse. The sky is so blue and clear outside. Why can't my life be like that?

I'm back

Sitting on my semi-stoop, in the rain. Locked out, laden with bags. Six o'clock, seven, eight. I went to an internet café. Ten o'clock, eleven. Eleven thirty he turned up. Angry with me."Why didn't you just climb on to the balcony and break in." Not strong enough. "Why didn't you call the landlord?" No number. "Why didn't you go to his house?" I don't know where he lives.

Strangely I didn't care. I had had an adventure without him. An ex-dealer had wandered past while I'd been waiting. On his way to score. He had new connections. Better than mine, nicer, fairer. Way stronger smack. I paid him 70 bucks for the number. It sounds crazy, but it's better than going through him twice a day and having everything I buy cut with random pills and taxed.
He's stopped by and hung out a few days since. We talk about writing and books. He thrills me with stories of jail, his rich parents, the people he knows who've been murdered. He's a doorway into a strange world.

I was in a cab the other day, and suddenly the traffic stopped. A thundering grew steadily louder. From the top of the hill, heading straight for us, were hundreds and hundreds of skateboarders. It was amazing. Some people were honking their horns or yelling, angry eyes. My cab driver laughed. When I got out I tipped him five bucks.

New nose

A Canadian ad for plastic surgery, I like it.

Spending-time

Sparkly little xmas horns are blaring their nasal toot. The streets have people pouring all over them. Flesh shiny with sweat. Girls in short everything. Plump bottoms. Rosy faces with darting eyes. Self-built for sex. Practising, trying to find a rich husband. Life is peculiar. I feel like like the wrong puzzle piece in my black dress with sleeves to the elbows, just long enough to cover my track marks. Smoky stalls with meat cooking, bright stall after stall trying to yell the loudest. Cheap, cheap cheap. I may as well, it's only ten bucks. Oh it's twenty? Well it's only twenty bucks. Quick, buy that thing you hate, it won't be here on Monday. Spend to spend time. Fill the void. You know you want something, you just don't know what.

Mirror mirror

It always seems to be this time. Sitting at my desk. Sore legs. Heroin behind me. Heroin ahead. I've finally found something in life that I don't procrastinate about. It's not by choice of course. My mind becomes strange, and when I try to not use, it's the enemy. It battles against me, hunting for reasons and excuses, trapdoors out of sterility and goodness. Part of me must want to feel shame and guilty. A dirtiness that I can't clean. I must secretly love the idea of throwing away everything. Or maybe i'm just trying to prove everyone who thinks I'm special wrong. Maybe I just want to fuck with myself until I'm nothing and then rebuild, independently and pure. Or maybe I'm trying to crawl back into the womb, helpless and cared for, my mother stroking my hair away from my face. Maybe I hate myself.

But I'm pretty and smart and I'm great at my job, I'll be the best at it one day and I'm loyal and honest and I let my best friend down and killed himself. That's right.

And my house is filled with my boyfriend's litter, and his tools, and I've worn the same dress to work, and slept in it, every day this week, and I earn more than my mother but I have to borrow from her. And when my boyfriend gets angry he gets vicious, and when he's not angry he's stealing from me.

That was really hard to write. I want to delete it so badly.

A weekend

Friday morning I was procrastinating. Stroking my boyfriend's cock. I didn't expect it to get hard, because it never does. Suddenly it grew, and turned red. He said, "why don't you get on." It wasn't a question. I tried to ignore the grubby line under the head of it, and gently lowered myself onto him. I used to make love with no foreplay at all. I'd get wet quickly, just thinking about him, his beautiful strong body, the hard expressions on his face as he touched me. But it had been at least a month since we'd played around and my whole body was frozen. It really hurt, just getting him inside me, and then every movement chafed. Gingerly we pulled apart. He put his arms around me, and said it hurt him too. I got up and went to work.

Saturday it rained. We got high and played scrabble in bed. My boyfriend is good. No one else I know has ever beaten me. He prides himself on using all his letters. He takes IQ tests online, because they say he's a genius. I haven't taken an IQ test since I was a kid. Maybe I'm scared. The cat is still not snuggling. The only time he wants to cuddle (and suddenly it's desperate) is when we're cooking drugs. I'm carefully balancing a small spoon with two days worth of pay in it and I have a cat jumping all over me. Of course the second I've had my shot and I scoop him up in my arms he wriggles and calmly wanders off.

Sunday didn't rain. We got high and played scrabble in bed. The day blurred into the day before, with a bit more pain because the pawn shop doesn't open until midday on Sunday. And that was that. The nightmares came again.

Look

Continuing my obsession with upside-down rooms, this installation is pretty amazing. It's by Carsten Holler, a German artist.

"Nighty night"

I wake up from a nightmare every night at around 1.30am. The TV is screaming, it's an infomercial. The bed next to me is empty. I reach behind me by the light of the TV, but the air feels different, I know instantly, instinctively, that he's gone. I switch off the TV and turn on my bed-side lamp. I curl up with my book until I've shaken off whatever woke me. When the alarm goes off at seven, he's always back in place. Innocent sleeping, baby-face. My living room has strange things in it. Stolen things. As soon as the pawn shop opens, he's through the door. Some things he can be on time for. It makes my skin crawl. "Don't you feel like an asshole?" I ask him. He shakes his head, entitled. Or gets angry, and starts crying. There's always some justification in his mind. I'm worried. I don't like having stolen things in my little home. I realize he will probably try to do the same thing to me when he moves out. Come in during the day, take the things I won't notice, or if he's desperate, take the things I will notice. I'm not sure how to make myself safe. I know he can break in, he's done it tons of times when he forgets the key. He can't empathise, he thinks I earn too much, thinks I have it easy. It would be so nice to wake up and find out this was just a bad dream too.

Empty

I feel depressed. Really fucking sad. I know why. This is the real me. The me without anti-depressants. My script has run out and I'm too broke to get more. It's been four days and my nerves are exposed. Somehow I can afford heroin though, and that makes me even more depressed. With Paxil, I feel fine. I don't think about how no one I know has ever quit heroin. I don't think about how much I miss my family and how alone I am. But mostly, I don't think about how my best friend is dead and I can't remember our last conversation because I was too blurred out from drugs.

I've been sick since yesterday. Mascara dripping down my cheeks. Delicate movements. Nauseous. Vomiting in the trash can under my desk. Lying on my side in bed, avoiding the TV because the lights make it worse. I wonder how long it will last this time? It comes every month or so, for a few days. Life feels sickly lurid, too warm, too cold. A strange fucked up dream. I've never even been addicted to ciggys. I wasn't abused, I've always been good. I've only been addicted for a year. But it crept up slowly. Burrowing under my skin. Into my blood. I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a huge mountain. I can't even see the top. I want to turn around and run. I want to give up and die.

Matter over mind

Saturday, I woke up too late. I smudged some foundation over the crooks of my arms, and wearing the same dress I'd fallen asleep in, I ran out the door. It was raining, Hard. I was jacketless, but the café was just around the corner. Sure enough, she was already there, head bowed, writing in a little book. I tapped on the window. I don't see my friends very often because of everything. It was the first time in months, we had a lot to catch up on. I ordered exactly what I always do, french toast and banana milkshake and coffee. She had poached eggs, they were served in a little white bowl filled with fluid. She drained it carefully as we talked.

We'd planned to go garage sale shopping, the neighbourhood is usually full of them at this time of year. But the weather was too bad for that. There was a fair advertised in the local paper, it sounded like it might be indoor, so we decided to walk over there. I carefully chose an umbrella from the store next door. I should have bought white, but I was feeling anxious, I couldn't trust myself. We walked across town, but the fair wasn't there. Maybe it was rained out too. We were damp by this time, despite my black umbrella, so she led me into a warm café. It was less than half a block from my dealers.

My heart was racing. Shakily, I checked through my bag for gear. Shit. Usually I always have it with me. The closest needle exchange was a 5 minute walk. How could I do it without her realizing? I could hear my heart beating over the café's music. I said I needed to make a phonecall. I ran to the dealer's door and pressed the intercom buzzer again and again. Finally someone else pushed open the door, I followed them in. Ran to the top floor. Past the familiar musty smells and chipped paint. Knocked and knocked. No one answered. I slunk back to the café. But it was on my mind, in my mind. All over it. Below every conversation a voice screamed in my head. I lasted for an hour and then I had to cut it short, go home and call.

Toxivision

I grew up without a TV. When we finally got one I was allowed to watch one hour of TV a week. This was always a toss up between Murder She Wrote and MacGyver. I have always loved mysteries, especially murder mysteries. With such a limited amount of viewing time, I never got the TV fads that hit the schoolyard, there were so many conversations I just couldn't join. As much as I tried to steer the talk to Jessica Fletcher, there were many times I remember nodding and saying "yeah, me too" to things I had no idea about. Now, for the first time in my life I turn on the TV and just watch whatever comes on. And god it's painful.

Canadian TV really fucking sucks. They repeat the same show or movie about three times a month, no exaggeration. So we re-watch and re-watch the same pathetic crap. Fortunately I usually nod out during each program, so I can just pick up where I left off. The good nights there are 3 or 4 episodes of Law and Order. The news is some bizarre 80s flashback, the hosts are cheesey and grating. Who styles this shit? How can they be this out of touch with pop-culture? NZ late news has cynical, smart hosts who rip apart politicians and have a modern view of life. Canadian media is really a sad state of affairs.

Canadian movies and TV shows are in a league of their own. You can spot them a mile away, the atrocious acting, the overly p.c. plot lines, the desperate imitation of American style TV. It's odd. I feel like screaming JUST BE YOURSELVES! Find your own style. Be brave. This bothers me working in advertising too. Every shot needs a black hugging an asian hugging a red-head holding hands with a brunette woman and a blond man in a wheel chair. All with huge toothy smiles. It makes me puke.

My boyfriend moves out in 20 day with his TV. Then I'll be back to listening to the book. Or maybe one hour of TV a week.