have you ever had the urge to throw some boy down into an active volcano as a sacrifice to pele, the volcano goddess? tori amos has, and that's why she's my idol. "boys for pele" is the album i put in whenever boys give me the mind-fuck, and it's been on repeat since about 8:30 yesterday evening. here it is, 4 am, and it's starting up on "caught a lite sneeze" again.
boys are good for two things: making you mad and making you cry. even when they seem like the sweetest people to ever be squeezed out of a vagina, there's side-effects to that sweetness. they get their little talons into you, and it's like being burnt: at first it kinda tingles and is warm and, in a sick way, it feels good. it takes awhile to start feeling the sting and the ache, but it always comes sooner or later, it's inevitable--yo
it's like picking up a hot plate at work (if you're a waiter) and you're like "i can handle it, bitch, i don't need no weenie-warmer!
all it takes is a good chick friend to ask what happened and you start crying like a little bitch saying "owie, it hurts! blow on it!!!"
"boys for pele" is my good chick friend.
this is my first public attempt to define the experience of being under the influence of various substances i've done in my short lifetime. ever since i quit doing drugs, i've been trying to define their effects on me more and more. i believe it's vital for me to understand why i did these drugs, why i let them control me for so long, and why i depended on them so much if i am going to truly sever myself from them.
there are a lot of people out there--some i know personally, some i've met briefly online or in person, some i'll never meet at all--that like to judge those who have done drugs as i have rather harshly; they seem to think that people who resort to drug use for whatever reason have little or no value to mainstream society. they think that "old habits" cannot be changed, that you're "once a drug addict, always a drug addict." it's as if once you sniff that first line, even if it's your last line as well, you're never again worthy of trust, love or compassion.
to those people, i have little to say. i'm not writing these words to redeem myself to anyone. i need no redemption; i think the realization that i needed to break away from my drug habits is redemption enough for me. i don't ask for their criticisms or their sympathy, because when it all boils down, the only fact left in the pot is that i don't need anyone else's approval if i approve of myself. my experiences have made me a stronger and smarter person, regardless of what anyone else would try to say to the contrary. i wasn't raise din a conventional way, to say it outright i had to raise myself for the most part. i made my mistakes, and i wouldn't change any of them, because without them, i wouldn't be in the same mindset that i am today.
i also don't want to place blame on anyone else, i take full responsibility for my drug abuse. not to say that i had no help along the way, but when the choice was made, i was the one who made it final.
i began taking painkillers before anything else, around the same age i started to smoke, which was age 11. my first experience with any drug was vicodin, followed soon by xanax and valium. these were drugs i could easily get from the medicine chest at mom's or grandma's, and most of the time i could tell my mom i had a headache and she'd slip me a tablet of whatever goodies she had at the moment. my mom used prescription drugs regularly for a very long time, as did my grandma. later, when my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, the house was a virtual buffet of pain drugs, anxiety drugs, you name it. there was never a lack of mother's little helpers. the use of such items was also rather accepted, if even noticed by my authority figures.
around 14 was the age that i first began smoking pot, with friends mostly to start out, and only every once in awhile. it became an almost daily habit once i moved in with my father at 16, because he smoked and i was always allowed to smoke with him. this was the real turning point for me. not only had i been experienced in prescription drugs and pot before moving in with dad, i was also living with an eating disorder. i dabbled in bulimia for a short spell, but once i realized that vomiting or diarrhea every day of my life seemed like a bum trade for a size 32 waist, i decided to stick to starving myself. i was living off of about 300 calories a day or less, for almost 6 straight years. if i went over that, i would stop eating for the following week. then i would resume my 300-calorie a day diet until i slipped and went over once again.
all of this was occurring when i lived with my mom and my aunt brandy, in environments where i wasn't exposed to the gay community for the most part, i was still a little fresh-out-the-
moving in with dad was a whole new world for me. once i started going to school in this area, i was introduced to a wonderful little drug known as speed. my little brother was prescribed to adderall, and he would give me his pills all the time. i was also able to get a bottle of mini-thins or yellow jackets for about 6 bucks, and those were my real downfall. i could take 6 mini-thins in the morning, go to school, buy a few vicodin or xanax, drink some robitussin or pop some coricetin, smoke some weed to get through the day, then pop the mini-thins to take me through my night. the next day, i could get up and start it all over again.
i was infatuated with speed, not only for the weight loss qualities, but also for the overall attitude and personality it gave me. speed makes you social, makes you really want to talk to whoever will listen. in a person who grew up very introverted, this was an entirely new sensation. when i took speed, my blood would be pumping, my heart fluttering, the rushing of chills from my scalp to the base of my spine every few seconds, combined with the energy, the loss of body fat, the outgoing and social butterfly persona—all combined to make me into quite the little speed freak.
this continued until they outlawed ephedrine, and taking a yellow jacket was nothing but a mood-killer. new yellow jackets and such are like instant bitch pills, they make you want to rip everyone's fucking throats out. it's not the magical little pill that makes you feel like you can conquer rome in a day, makes your scalp tingle and tighten and makes your heart skip beats every second. it's really kind of a letdown.
after i left school and moved away from home, i began going to the bars more often. i had to quit taking speed regularly once my hook-ups on adderall had been exhausted, but i was still dabbling in pills and smoking pot on a regular basis. soon, i was exposed to ecstasy, and i was in love immediately.
ecstasy is a drug like no other. i've never had a drug that left me with such a pure feeling of joy and a sense of endless possibility. e is a drug that can make you fuck for six hours then go dancing and not feel even the slightest muscle ache. you can do anything, as long as you have a steady outlet for this joy, this fabulous ball of energy inside of you, twisted and churning and longing to be released into the world. heat, light, and touch are new sensations, and the whole world seems to breathe deeply in and out around you, enveloping you in a cloud of good feelings as you float around in your own little world, just watching the real world breathing and seeing all of the beauty in it, even if your surroundings are disgusting.
ecstasy became my replacement for speed, and i took so much of it that i eventually couldn't feel a decent roll, even after taking 4 pills (one in the nose, one in the ass, two down the gullet), or more.
so, it was inevitable that i should find cocaine. ugh... just that word and i start to get chills...
cocaine is a tricky little bitch of a drug. when i first did it, it was amazing. one line and i felt like a god for at least three hours, then another line up the nose and the feeling came back, pure and strong. after about three weeks, one line would make me feel okay for about 30 minutes, then i'd find myself in the bathroom again, cutting up a bigger and fatter line, cutting it with less and less soda. and coke is fucking expensive. for 50 bucks, you get a pebble about the size of a nickel. once you get it, and you're alone in the privacy of your own little bathroom, you take this pebble and chop it down to powder and add a bit of soda, about ¼ the size of the pile of coke you have at the time. then you mix it up thoroughly, cut away a sizeable line, dip your fingertip in the pile to rub on your gums as a "numbie," then you take a straw or a crisp dollar bill rolled up (or a cut-out magazine photo of kate moss, if you're like me), and snort the line up into your nose. it hits the soft tissues of your nasal cavity, and you immediately feel the rush, that beautiful shower of energy and relief that tells you you just did a line. then you check your nose to make sure there's no residue, pick the excess out and rub the coked-up snot on your gums. then you snort and sniff until you can feel the chemical goodness rolling down the back of your throat and numbing everything it touches. this is known as the drip, and it's my personal favorite part of the high.
at this point, you have many different options, depending on the high you want to achieve. you can smoke pot, which will bring you down more and give you this orgasmic throb in your spine as you lie in a motionless puddle for a bit. you can drink, which is a dangerous combination that i don't recommend. or, you can take painkillers or methadone and achieve a higher state than the coke/pot option. or, you can just snort more lines and be a broke ass cokehead.
if you do enough coke for a long enough period of time, it does nothing. plain and simple, coke is purely a recreational or short-term drug, generally. but, if you have weight issues like me, it becomes a necessity, something you have to do, like taking vitamins or exercising. i relied on coke for the same reason i relied on speed, i liked the weight loss and the lack of work for it.
but, to my demise, i also loved the high, so i began seeking a more dangerous path. i began to smoke crack, which is probably the worst and best drug i've ever done. when you smoke crack, you get the sensation that you're going down that first hill on a huge roller coaster, except that it remains constant as long as the buzz is there. you feel warm, and enveloped like when you take e, but there's the euphoria of coke that i missed as well. this was when i had hit my lowest point, so i was ready and willing to do anything to get that high and cover up all the things i didn't want to pay attention to, like my eating disorder, my failure in relationships, my lack of ambition, the fact that i was wasting my talents, my abilities and my life, the fact that i could stand in a room full of people and feel like i was utterly alone.
it was then that i realized i needed to stop doing drugs. i moved to iowa and tried to escape everything i had left behind in michigan. i wanted to sever myself from everything and everyone that reminded me of my drug use. and it actually did help, but for only a short time.
when you run away from your problems, your past, your whole existence, and try to fool yourself into believing you're over it all, you're trying to be someone else. i didn't really hate who i was; i hated what i looked like and what i had become, but that was normal for me. i didn't let it ruin my entire view of myself, i still had mad love for who i was and where i was from, everything i had been through. it wasn't long before i realized i had just left everything at a time when i couldn't handle life anymore, and i did so because i didn't want to step up and admit that i had problems. i was the one with his shit together, the one who was going places, at least that's what everyone thought. i wasn't ready to admit i had failed at something yet again. so i ran. and it didn't solve anything.
i came back home, and got right back into everything again once i got back. i started with e, and after living with a boyfriend over the summer and almost becoming homeless, moving back home again and breaking up with him, i then moved on to coke, and then crack. eventually, i found myself with a baggie of heroin, snorting it into my nose and realizing that i was going to die soon. i knew if i let drugs continue to rule my life, i was going to go nowhere but the graveyard, and i would be there fast. so i stopped every drug i was doing, and sat down to figure out why i had let these substances rule me for so long.
i still haven't figured it out. i know i have weight issues, i still can't look into the mirror and see someone who weighs less than 250 pounds. i always see a fat ass in the reflection, and i can stand for hours in front of a mirror criticizing and hating every inch of my being. drugs were a way for me to lose weight, and not only that, they dulled the feelings of self-hatred and self-conscious
basically, drugs were my anti-life.
well, i'm back bitches. sorry for the absense. soul searching been hard lately. but so fucking worth it. seems there's some meaning now. a light again. and a new tori album that rocks my little blue world. and resolution. just got back home from my first weekend in marine city since i left there. laid my demons to rest, came to terms with some things. glad to be home again, in more ways than one.
WHO refolded every god damn pair of denim in the entire store today? Yeah, that would be me. I refolded and resized every pair, then rearranged each and every Collection rack in the store so they were ordered as follows: top, top, top, bottom, top, top, top, bottom, top, top, bottom. (ie~ sweater, blouse, tank, skirt, sweater, jacket, camisole, pant, etc, etc. etc....) Regional manager is in tomorrow, and guess who's closing with her there? Yeah,t hat would be me.
Moral: The next tiem you're shopping, ask an associate to get a size for you, regardless of whether it's in reach for you or not. They get paid to help you, they won't be angry. They'll be happy that you FUCKING CUSTOMERS aren't FUCKING UP THE CLOTHES THEY HAVE TO REFOLD!!!!!!!!
Quitting smoking... Wish I had an ax...
Sometimes I breathe you in...
And I choke. Why am I so upset by words from you? Why do I think of you still? Why is there no escape from your cold blue eyes?
I'm cold-hearted, unfeeling, sadistic... ? ...
Maybe I am. Maybe I've lost my light, my fire inside, my spark. Maybe I've just become more of what you hated before. Maybe I like what I am now, maybe I don't. Maybe I wish I could change it, but I'm not able to morph so quickly into what you want... Maybe there's a light still glowing, but you just shield your eyes.
Maybe there are too many maybes and not enough love...
And I'm too weak to create any more...
Loud silence echoes through empty corridors, like veins of concrete and linoleum... All you hear is the loud silence... You know how it is... When it's so quiet you can hear the earth spinning, the stars burning...
Footsteps fade toward you from a distant source... There is a slight lump of fear rising in the back of your throat... Hasn't this place been empty for eons? You heard tales of this fear as a child... You never listened...
All of a sudden, more noises emerge from the flourescent glow around you... The faint dripping of water from the degraded plumbing... A slight scurrying, maybe rats... Maybe not...
You recall tales you heard as a child, of a woman... Elizabeth Bathory was her name, a countess or some sort of noble... She would kill beautiful young women to bathe in their blood, convinced it would keep her young and beautiful... They found her out at last and usurped her seat of power, locking her in a tower and listening to her desperate screams as she realized she was growing old and grey...
You wonder if maybe the blood did keep her beautiful... You wonder at the beauty of blood...
You're inside of something, and yet you don't know what... There is an absence of certainty, and you realize that you've waived goodbye to everything in your former existence that made any sense whatsoever... Do you fear it? Do you want to understand it? Do you seek to escape it?
Centuries ago, there were wars of such a romantic proportion, wars that brought humanity together as much as they seperated us... Epic battles where swords met and lovers parted, where the dead lay stacked in heaps so large, they never even bothered to bury them... Lands were divided, people held no value higher than cattle... Slaughter and butchery the likes of which nobody in your generation could fathom...
In this age, our wars are weak, cowardly... We rely on technology, the ability to wipe out a civilization at the touch of a button. There is no rebuilding, there is no thought of the history, the culture that is lost... What is there when we've lost our feeling, our emotion? What is left after we decimate our past? there is this emptiness, like a long abandoned corridor, veins of concrete and linoleum... But they are inside ourselves, they are a part of us...
Do you fear it? Do you wish to escape it?
There is a war inside of you... In your heart and your soul... You know there is a battle, but it is one you cannot fight, and there is no hope of victory... You search for it, you grasp at straws that vanished years ago... You must now come to terms with the fact that there is no emotion, there is no fear, you are helpless... You are hopeless... You gave up your soul to your own vanities, your own insecurities..
The footsteps are treading closer...
You run the length of the corridor, searching for any door, any window that may offer an escape from this nightmarish place... There are no openings, just an endless tomb of walls, with the dripping of water, the scurrying of the Maybe Rats... And the footsteps... You soon come to realize that as you are running towards the hope of escape, you are only drawing the footsteps closer... You become frantic, your pulse quickens, and you knwo terror for the first time, you understand what it means to want to die... You realize that it isn't life you're living, but a race you're running...
You recall the stories you used to read, and one in particular strikes a chord... In it, the world has spun on it's axis, turning land to ocean, oceans to land... The lands you know are now oceans, everything you knwo is underwater... There is a woman who can travel in the astral realms, and she goes to the Statue of Liberty, sharks swimming through the spikes of her crown, her eyes watching over the submerged New York City...
You wonder if it could happen, and what would humanity do if that did occur?
Would we survive? Would we flourish, rebuild?
Or die away...
The footsteps are behind you... You turn around and meet the face of your fear...
You see your own reflection...
Welcome to my mind...
:The.Force.Of.
:by.BT.featuri
Remember the words we use to speak
The promises made have turned to all apologies
The weight of the storm of memories
Still you're flying to fight the force of gravity
(Force of gravity...)
Remember the words we use to speak
The promises made have turned to all apologies
The weight of the storm of memories
Still you're flying to fight the force of gravity
I remember the days I still could breathe
Now I'm sinking beneath, the waves are crashing over me
The empty space that lay between
Is all that's left of where our love was meant to be
The force of gravity
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Is it peace you seek at night when your body's weak?
Did it leave you with the scars, of a war-torn ravaged heart?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
(Do you cry...)
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Is it peace you seek at night when your body's weak?
Did it leave you with the scars, of a war-torn ravaged heart?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Is it peace you seek at night when your body's weak?
Did it leave you with the scars, of a war-torn ravaged heart?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
(Do you cry...)
(Do you cry...)
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
Is it peace you seek at night when your body's weak?
Did it leave you with the scars, of a war-torn ravaged heart?
Do you cry your eyes asleep?
(Asleep...)
"Carbon-made only wants to be un-made... Blade to ice... It's double diamond time... She sings... Little Green... To me... She sings in between... this world and that world, and any world... She can be at, more than I can... When she's in between your world, my world, uphill, another pill, another pill down... Another pill, downhill...
Time to race... race the downhill... Behind crystalline irises... Loon can dive where the world bleeds white...
Just keee.eee.eee.e
Black and blue.... Shredded ribbons of lithium... Blow by blow, her mind, cut in sheets... Laaa.aaa.aaa.y
Get me Neil on the line, no I can't hold... Have him read... 'Snow Glass Apples' where nothing is what it seems... Little sis you must crack this... He says to me... You must go in again...
Carbon-made only wants to be unmade....
Blade to ice.
It's double diamond time...."
Today was great at work... I was top seller for the second day in a row, and at around 7, my visuals manager, Leslie sold the last medium pink dress shirt off one of the mannequins, and looke dove rat me and said "Dress him up, make him look cute." Usually they don't let floor associates do those things, so I was all geeked. I dressed him up in such a good outfit that two guys actually asked where they could find it and bought it right away! It was quite expensive too, a 98.00 pair of pants, 59.00 shirt, 68.00 sweater, 42.00 tie, 35.00 belt and 88.00 bag, so that was a big part of my sales... Leslie keeps hinting around thta I need a car so she can have me trained for Visuals... Fat pay raise and benefits!!! I'm so excited... She even said I could dress that particular mannequin, a centerpiece int he store, from now on... I formed a bond with the mannequin... His name is Luke... *giggle*
I'm so sick of letting people in... I'm through. I'm going to have to learn to survive the way Temptation taught me, relearn it I should say. He opened me up again, made me feel new again, gave me a chance at hope, and now it's done... I'm never falling for it again. Love can kiss off, it's not real. Love is a fucking joke, and I don't get it.
"I know... Where beauty lives... I've seen it once... I know the warmth she gives... The light... That burns inside of me... It shines inside, you can't take that from me..."
~Madonna, as covered by Tori Amos *Live to Tell*
Well, today my sales sucked, cause our store was literally DEAD... Had a few people put Homecoming clothes on hold, but I won't get those sales until they pay for them, and that will be Friday, which I don't work (at least I'm not SUPPOSED to work, but the way my week has gone, I will). If I don't that'll be cool, cause it's like 700.00 worth of merchandise, which would make it a 700.00 sale on a day when I'm not even there... LOL
I straightened all of the Men's side and all of the Denim Lounge by myself, in like 45 minutes... I've never seen Denim in worse shape... I think Hurricane Ivan's effects were manifested in the Denim Lounge... Angel agreed... Angel also gave me my new nickname... "BoyToy"... Which means everyone but Bryan has a nickname... Carlos is Man Candy, Rob is Jail Bait, Jeff is Sugar Cane, DB is Captain Delight (or Captain Delicious), and Angel is just Hot Mama... I guess there's no such thing as sexual harrassment at Express, cause if there were, us guys would be the poster victims... I wouldn't have it any other way... Angel wishes she could close with us boys every nite...
I just wish my security gaurd closed every nite... *drool*
Random Memory of the Week:
So we were at this party, right? It was me, Megan, Chris, Holly, Tiana, Alex, Steve-O, Adam and a few other people... And we got like six half gallons of Five O'Clock vodka... It's swill, don't try it... But it's cheap, and none of us had jobs... Anyways, I chugged like a third of this one jug in one drink and got really drunk really fast... At this point, I'm sitting on the sofa next to Adam, Holly, Tiana, Alex and Steve-O, all kinda piled up on top of one another... And Steve-O's sitting next to me, playing with my hand and giving me bedroom eyes... So I ask if he's gay and he says "Nu-Uh"... So I ask if he's bi, and he says "Maaaayyyybe..
Okay, I am now announcing the Grand Opening of my new Wiki page "The Vanity Club" Now the problem: I need a banner! Anyone who loves the whole photo manipulation/c
Well, I love my new job! Today I made $666.77 in Sales and I was in the fitting rooms! I made $1,263.85 Thursday in Women's and Wednesday they had me clock in for two hours in Men's and I sold a mear $425.00.. And I even got the quiz question right this morning, which was What is the differnce between the Cetine and the Sarula denim? The difference is that they are both a low rise, but the Cetine is a lower rise. The Cetine are tight in the thigh and have a more extreme flare, the Sarula are more relaxed int he thigh and have a more narrow flare... I hate A & F even more now, because they decided to send an associate to tell us that their business was so great they could just toss a pile of clothes on the floor and they'd sell... Well, Express isn't anything like Abercrombie... We're here totarget the young, professional, descerning sophisticate, not the college frat boy who slams beer bongs and sets his farts on fire or the sorority bimbo who strives to get with such creatures, so thye can shove it up their annorexic asses! And American Eagle can lick my jollies asd well! At least we belive in customer service!
I keep thinking about everything Temptation taught me when I lived with her, about not trusting and not giving my heart up for people to break it again and again and again. How she said "There's no such thing as Love. Love is just some fantasy man created to make sex seem less beastial and animalistic." I wonder if she might be right. I had myself all prepared to face a world without love or the need of love, and now it's come crumbling down again. I thought melting would feel nice, that feeling things would make me human again, but I fear it really hasn't. Just leaves me scared and unsure of myself as always. And to think the last thing she said to me as I left those weeks ago was "Stay out of trouble honey! And don't trust anyone! You're too smart for that shit now!"
God, how I miss you, Temptation! You taught me so much, i never was hurt when you were looking out for me, and now I feel like I've been abandoned again to people's bullshit and drama and I don't know how to stop it!!! I need you now again, and yet I'm too far away to even have your advice!