Mood:  crushed out

TUESDAY — what a blank day.

    I’VE SCRAPPED so many would-be versions of today.

    Yes, it’s a blank, blank day.

    Saw my drugs worker earlier. I’m trying to banish the needle from my life (if not the drugs (yet)).

    Don’t want to go into detail here but I will say I’m doing a lot better than I was, say three or four years ago.

    There was just now a programme from a radio series on, “Am I Normal?”  This week’s topic was drinking.

    The British Government’s idea of binge drinking is exceeding eight units (men) or 6 units (women) in 24 hours.  

    Now that’s not most people’s idea of a binge.

    They used to say a “unit” (10 mls neat alcohol) represented a half pint (¼ litre) of lager or a single measure of spirits.

    The trouble is — who ever has just one half of beer or a single whiskey (unless they’re in a tearing hurry to get from the pub to somewhere else)?

    The typical pub wine glass holds nearly double what it did when the “unit” system was devised. Even the wine itself is stronger, up from an average 9% ABV to 11% or 12%.

    This “binge drinking” seems to be the in-thing for young adults and near-adults these days. I even heard that British-style drinking habits are catching on among the French youth.

    If that is the case, it’s a shame.

    Continentals have traditionally looked down on British and Irish tourists staggering about the streets of whatever resort, too drunk to remember even the name of their hotel. (I couldn’t really say the Brits in turn look up to the more sober locals because I don’t think they do. Probably most of the time they’re too blind drunk to take much notice!)

    That’s enough about booze…

    Tomorrow, I must remind myself, is a brand new day. I don’t have to do anything, I should remind myself of that. I can, if I remember to, take each day on its own merits.

    (I get into such a routine, you see, it’s sometimes hard to break out of it.)

    There… I did find something to say. (I wasn’t sure, when I started this, that I would.)

    I’m glad the day is over. I’m tired and I won’t say anything else here except goodnight. I might be in a better mood in the morning, who knows?...

   I don’t. I’m blank as today…

Posted by gledwood at 10:59 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 12 December 2006 11:06 PM GMT

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Mood:  not sure

FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING and I am butchering myself. Heroin-cocaine mixture ("speedball/snowball"); blunt needles, veins that have had enough. I sit there with blood running down my arms and legs. After 20 minutes of trying everywhere, finally get the "hit" into vein below my little finger...

    ...It misses (or the vein collapses). I got an acid burn up my arm (big white lumps like huge mosquito bites from the "acidifier", equivalent to double-strength lemon juice)...

    Then I went to sleep. Ho-hum...

    That was last night, it is Sunday night now.

    It is a miserable evening,; chilly, raining. Three hours ago I rang someone for "gear". I know this person always takes ages, especially on Sundays, so I called him well ahead of time. But two hours later, he's not answering my "where the hell are you?" calls, so I ring someone else. Then the first one rings back saying come out to the end of my street. Sure enough he's there. Barely have I had the chance to draw breath since arriving back in my own house than my phone rings again. Now it's guy number two... I don't want to deal with this. Trouble is these two individuals know one another too well and are very petty-minded and jealous.

    Strange to say, but I feel I have to put these passing thoughts in writing for the sake of posterity, because if I don't, and then I do get clean, the past will become a blur... (Never underestimate the power of memory to play tricks! Memories, if we're not careful, become treasuries of all those things we think we should remember...) I don't want to lose the past any more than I want to live there.  And that, I think, is quite enough on that subject for today!

Posted by gledwood at 7:01 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 12 December 2006 11:08 PM GMT

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Mood:  surprised

Okay it is 02:33 hrs I'm very tired; have not been sleeping well. Went to bed at 8(pm), up again by midnight. I actually bought my own tobacco yesterday. It has been rainy for days so few dogends survive at the bus-stop. (It doesn't matter so much that they're soggy, I can dry them out on tinfoil on the hotplate.) Strangely, of 12½g bought 24 hours ago I've still got baccy left.

    Some of the ads popping up round my site look really good. I wonder whether one of these posh rehabs would ever consider sponsoring me to sample their services...

    I've managed to add two good links to the resources I'm gathering up. Lord Rothschild's Dependency xyz etc. Worth clicking on for the more serious researcher.

    Aaargh! There's a load of  kids on the radio from Jerusalem and Romala, slagging each other off re the Palestinian and Israeli situations. Honestly I can't believe how ignorant these 16 year old kids from both sides are. The Palestinians didn't even know there had been Jews and Israelites settled in the region for at least 3500 years. The Israelites had very little sympathy for the Palestinian situation (being boxed in behind walls). The Palestinians said some very inflammatory things to the Israelis; I won't go into any more detail because I'm getting wound up just writing about this. Ignorance on every side.

    What I found most troubling was that if these were the best-educated and most articulate 16 year olds the BBC World Service could find (they were articulate, if nothing else) then I don't hold out much hope for the region.

    (And to think: "Jerusalem" is meant to mean "Harbour of Peace" -!!)

Posted by gledwood at 4:08 PM GMT

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Mood:  blue

ANOTHER WEEK BEGINS. HOW DEPRESSING. "Teeshirts in December!" the paper was exclaiming last week. This has been the hottest autumn since records began around 1700. The December weather — 8°C instead of 7°C — is an entire one degree warmer than average. I did notice a nutter wearing shorts last week. But why? It was rainy and damp every day. I wake up freezing cold each morning. Darkness surrounds us — from practically 4pm till 7am In deepest midwinter — the solstice is about a fortnight's time — two-thirds of the day is dark. How people cope in latitudes even northerner than here where nighttime eats up even more of the day I really can't comprehend.

A feature on BBC World Service's Outlook show tracked down this crazy family from the Norwegian isle of Spitsbergen, well inside the Arctic Circle. Dark for weeks on end at one pole of the year; light for weeks on end at the other. I mean, I call them crazy because you'd have to be mad to choose to live there. But these folks — man and wife and two teenage daughters — seemed remarkably sane, considering. Making jokes about all-night guitar-strumming in July. Also, I couldn't help noticing they all spoke better English than I do!! And Spitsbergen is about 1000 miles north of Scotland, hovering somewhere between Northern Greenland and the ice-sheets on top of Siberia on a latitude of about 80°. If I lived up there I'd hibernate from October to March.

But I don't know if I'll feel any less down come spring. "Come off the drugs!" I hear you cry.

And daily, the treadmill of addiction continues to turn.

"I went on them because I was depressed, " is my answer.

And that, you could say, is the most vicious circle of all.

"How are you ever going to give yourself a chance unless you do give up?" you reply.

Well... excuses, excuses: I could give more. I had some demoralizing experiences trying to stop. Despite the most admirable reasons, I was victim of my own bad planning, had a poor domestic situation to return to as well as teh mother of all Disfunctional Relationships — all unresolved.

In a great pickle of unhappiness I stumbled blindly on. (That is my "excuse".)

I cannot explain the inexplicable, dear Reader, though some mischievious megabyte-gobbling inner gremlin would love to rise to the challenge of trying.

"Moderation in all things," counselled Jesus Christ. Although I may come across as clement and mild-mannered to many, beneath the surface I'm probably the most immoderate person I have ever met. Bouncing through lfie from obsessoin to obsession with bleakness and despairing in-between. (The obsessive times can be fun, I must admit. Morning, noon and night I'm consumed by whatever project on and on... then I look back and wonder what the fuss was about.)

BTW a restaurant Up North called "Polonium" has been packed to the rafters since Russian spies, a sinister case of politics and poisoning and a trail of the 210 isotope between London and Moscow have put the nation's media (not to mention Geiger counters) in a tizz.

Well I did have a lovely Sunday lunch yesterday.

I'll leave you with a news story that made me laugh. "False passports let investigator into Britain"!! What a surprise. This from the nation that really does make headlines like : "Snow in winter shock!!"

Must go. There's yelling in the hallway. The Whore of Babylon has fallen out with another tart at the brothel. Now she's ranting and raving every detail for the entire house to hear.

Madhouse? I have been in the lunatic assylum and can confirm, it was a really together place compared to here.

Okay, okay her employment troubles all resolved. Just in case anyone cares, the WoB's booked herself a 16-hour shift on her back from 10am tomorrow till 2am! Drunk out of her brains she sobs, "I'm not going down hill any more..."

Posted by gledwood at 6:40 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:11 PM GMT

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Mood:  chillin'

I'M IN A STATE OF FLUX. Intending to score /intending not to. Put on shoes. Took shoes off. Told self it was too late to call Person I had in mind. (It's1am Saturday.) Put shoes back on (I say "shoes", they're minging silver Nikes.)

    Went out in the rainy dark.

    About-turned again.

    The money is there but I can't afford to score. There are bills & debts I'm meant to pay.

    So I'm being real respectible, for now...

Posted by gledwood at 6:34 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:18 PM GMT

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Mood:  blue

Visited a girl's website yesterday; "true life of a high class callgirl". Gorgeous-looking site. And impossibly glamorous. All false lashes & diamond-studded lips. Makes my site look incredibly rustic and yokelly. Other photos revealed a headless man who'd just paid her to wet his own pants.

    Compare this with last night's BBC report on UN Peacemakers in Haiti exploiting the local prostitutes. I must confess some of the claims rang false (they are, after all, prostitutes who are getting paid to be "exploited").

    Being a hopeless junkie, I know a lot of prostitutes. None of these would call themselves exploited. Most work for themselves on the streets. One, who works the saunas, makes an absolute fortune.

    I tend to think the guys paying for it are the exploitees as much as anyone else. They are, after all, paying for something that's supposed to be free.

    A lot of the clichés are true — "tart with a heart" & all that.

    But having said all this, not one of these Working Girls seems to be happy beneath the façade. Whether that's to do with their job or the fact that they're all desperately hooked on drugs I couldn't say...

Posted by gledwood at 6:22 PM GMT

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Mood:  special

Slept all day. I'm so exhausted. People yelling in next room have no sleep cycle. Washing up against wall at 4am.

    It's not as if I didn't sleep between 2am+10am.

    Was it something I took at 10am that knocked me out again? Why it should knock me out today especially I don't know. It's the same gear as yesterday.

    Ho-hum. I gotta go. A dog wants to see me about a man. But seriously I'm hungry + wanna go up the rd b4 the shops all start shutting.

    OK then. G

Posted by gledwood at 4:05 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:15 PM GMT

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Mood:  hug me

Valium Marilyn is lurking nearby; I hear her cries. Guesss what I found out about her? She is an old age pensioner and still on the drugs. She puts reading glasses on and takes false teeth off before smoking crack.

    When I'd stayed overnight I ha d such entertainment from Cockney Marilyn Monroe the other morning on the phone. "Oh please help me, ‘dear’ — I'm a poor old age pensioner and my money hasn't come through. I haven't got a penny!" (Sob, sob.)

    She threw in about three dozen "dears" in the space of ten minutes, winking at me conspiratorially every time.

    It's deep midwinter. Dark from not long after 4pm. All anyone wants to do is hibernate. No wonder the Chinese Mouse stays in bed round the clock. Roll on spring!

    Marilyn's nephew was in Australia last week. He sent back photos of a place called the Ice Bar in Sydney — literally it's carved out like an igloo. Every punter gets a free winter coat to put on at reception.

    I had never guessed Marilyn was a pensioner... She told me she was 47 years old only last week!!

    Bumped into another oldie who I'll call "Lucky" tonight. Had drink, smoke. Lucky showed me her old photos. Lucky is one of these people who has grown into her features; looks better in her 50s than she did as a kid. The only parallel I can dredge up is Joan Collins, who looked better in Dynasty than she ever did in her 20s. However, Lucky is no Joan Collins. Lucky is a true one-off.

    They're babbling on the radio about trains. Do you know what's embarrassing about Britain? Our only proper 180mph highspeed line is the one going to France!!

    Well I'm off now for more Jaffa Cakes. L8Rs, G.

Posted by gledwood at 11:10 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:16 PM GMT

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