MUSICAL OVERLOAD... TOO MANY TUNES... I'VE DELETED ONE ALREADY... Black Coffee (All Saints' best song) will have to wait till some future time...
AT THE DRUG CLINIC TODAY... after an hour+ wait finally I got to see my worker (YES I HAD MISSED AN APPOINTMENT YESTERDAY: how typical of me)... now we're going to weekly appointments again... We're constructing a recovery plan that involves me aquiring new socks, new towels, keeping my room like a temple. (Not an operating theatre. But a temple is cool. I might even get an incense burner...) She said my housing situation is ridiculous and I now have two people from the Drugs Agency working to get me somewhere... I might even get into some type of supported housing... I don't know if that is a nightmare or good bc I think it means you actually have a "staff member" on call or actually living there... Rather than turn away from the suggestion I'm thinking perhaps it is a good idea. I have shown myself singularly incapable of running an adult life of my own. (When I was down the depths of those pits a year or two ago I wouldn't even have been able to keep it together to score. If I hadn't been on methadone to take care of my daily drugs requirements I don't think I could have survived. Honestly. I had been a street beggar and made enough money to take a gram of heroin most days, so my life has never been "charmed"... I was living with Lona who people have also called "Nutnut"... she eroded what little self-esteem and self-reliance I had left... So when I got rehoused and hid from her I found myself wallowing in a pit that I just could not clamber out of... How can you explain why after the event? Drugs weaken you in ways you can't imagine possible... and yet leave you functioning in ways you never expected. It's a deal with the Devil and the Devil does nothing in a straightforward manner.
I had trouble sticking to the requisite three screens... Does everyone know Barker's Adagio? You might not think you do, but you do. If you know the film Platoon you definitely know it. The Cambridge Trinity Choral version is the most beautiful I've ever heard... and that Nasa-enhanced video is so amazing... I guarantee if you watch it in the right frame of mind you might get literal shivers up your back... Cut to DJ Tiesto playing same tune at an Alexandra Palace rave... Ally Pally used to be right local to me... I used to go walking on the spacious lawns outside on charming Sunday morns... wow! What a wonderful place. And what a moment they captured on camera! The crowd are going mental! The last clip is William Orbit's Ferry Corsten remix version ... which gave me amazing flashbacks to nights "on the pill"...
I returned home earlier to find a Roborovski party of my very own going on in the corner... all three gaggling in the corner, little furry gremlins kissing one another and pushing paws in each other's faces (I've no idea why they do this but it seems to be some social ritual)... I tapped my fingers on the glass assuming they would flee, they started gledebbing up to my fingers as if it was their long lost Roborovski friend...
... mad creatures. Quite seriously deranged...
I'm still at scruff notes stage to the memoirs... though I tell you who did just put an autobiography out (and this is one cracking tale if I know anything at all about the author) Clarissa Dixon Wright, the fitter one of the BBC's Two Fat Ladies TV Cooks series (butter and cream sales jumped 21% in the first week, so they claimed, when their shows were first aired!)... Born the daughter of an heiress and a man with a posh accent... privately educated... became the youngest ever barrister practising in England (barrister being an advocate ... the lawyer who represents you in murder trials etc) ... only she had a manic problem with drink... two and a half bottles of gin per day and that was on a quiet day... I've heard her interviewed before and she tells a cracking story so if you want something to peruse while you're waiting for mine to come out (it may be a bit of a weight I'm afraid) ... hers is my recommended Read of the Month!
THE VIDEOS:
~Sly and the Family Stone: Runnin' Away (starring the BBC's own Pan's People dance troupe)
~Mamas and Papas: Creeque Alley
~Choir of Trinity College Cambridge: Barber's Adagio
~DJ Tiesto Alexandra Palace rave Barber's Adagio
~William Orbit (Ferry Corsten) techno'd up Barber's Adagio
AUDREY I GOT THE SAME POWER BIRD AS YOU ... but i couldn't tell you as this computer somehow fell foul of the popups blocker...
ReplyDeleteLOL...birds of a feather, lends a balance to that test measuring paranoia etc done earlier..We are all sane,happy people again, Im sticking with the bird test..lol
ReplyDeleteThe video and recording of the Cambridge choir is amazing, quite beautiful.
Supported accomodation varies Gleds, depending on individual needs. I work in a 24hr support service, but people are funded for hours varying from 2 to up to 21 a week, some choose to use very little of their hours,some need more,its very personal and has to be flexible. Ulitmately its about building good,honest,trusting relationships if its to have any meaning.
Catching up...good price for the guitar, great challenge, enjoyable,frustrating,sore fingertips,buy it,try it and enjoy
Keep going with the memoirs!!
the memoirs i'm kind of coasting away on... finding excuses to procrastinate and deviate and divert... e.g. what year was the cassette tape invented (bc we were a cassette only household - no records!) answer 1965 years b4 i was born in 1972... but i WAS born only 2 years & 9 months or thereabouts after Neil Armstrong walked 1st time on the moon... which supports my opening that I was BORN INTO A DIFFERENT EARA... which i certainly was ... only it's not s'posed to be spelt "ear" i know!
ReplyDeletenice music selection. i especially liked the variety of barber's adadgio... so diverse you are, gleds ;) it looks like your robos are becoming used to you. also sounds like you're doing relatively well... glad to hear about that. good luck with the housing situation. also, thanks for the book recommendation... i never knew she was a boozer!
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see Cass again. Sad she died so young.
ReplyDeleteThe Trinity college vid keeps cutting out on me: probably dodgy connection so I'll try later.
I really hope your worker gets kicking some ass, and getting you sorted accommodation-wise. Knowing someone trustworthy is around - as long as you can form a good relationship - must be helpful to you.
That's quite a lot of gin in one day!
"Drugs weaken you in ways you can't imagine possible... and yet leave you functioning in ways you never expected."
ReplyDeleteGled.. Can you be more specific? I really want to understand.. living with somebody who believes drugs deplete us as much as he does i cant help but pause in my path. and right now i cant sleep and i have a feeling it has to do with the clonipins i was gulping like water...seems likea month ago but was probably just two days ago.
i want to understand how it weakens me.. but i dont. i cant.
Raffi: You never knew she was a boozer... I never knew you knew who Clarissa Dixon Wright was... how the hell do you know her?!? Do you watch BBC America? Does her stuff come out on the cookery channel? Is she a transatlantic celebrity?!? Wow. Clarissa Dixon Wright rocks though... I've heard her Desert Island Discs; I've heard her giving interviews about rehab.. every interview she does is fascinating... she is a great raconteur as much as anything else and she has a zest for living... what a gal!
ReplyDeleteLiz: I might go in that supported thing if it is available... I don't know that I'd qualify as "mental" but they might do it for drugs as well... or just for people who have fallen over and are having extended troubles getting back on their feet (I would rather get in on those criteria than be lumped in with a load of paranoiac schizophrenics they would probably send ME raving mad too...)
Ivy: the first bit of the question is relatively easy to answer: how it weakened ME... right basically I didn't have enough money to score so I had to go begging or "panhandling" on the street to make enough for my "fixes"... this trebled my habit very quickly and from there I was off... a fully fledged junkie and there was no turning back.
Because I was begging for a living it seemed par for the course/whatever the expression is to be a bit unkempt. If I was too clean people would think I didn't need their help.
So that started a downward spiral of not bothering to care for myself.
I got into a bad relationship with Nutnut... she eroded my trust etc
BC I was so badly addicted I lost all interest in the things other people take interest in.. ie had no idea what was on TV (even though I had daily access to TV at Nutnut's house), music/etc.. went into rehab and didn't have a clue what everyone else was talking about re music etc bc I'd just lost it with life...
Then I fell into a pit of depression on top of all of this... found self staring at blank walls and feeling blank too...
It's not just the drugs but the addiction... it made me lazy and someone who no longer cared about consequences of my actions whereas before I'd always been pretty organized and careful.
I no longer cared what other people thought.
If I had to have my drugs they ALWAYS came first before anything or anyone else... I couldn't BE of much help without them anyhow...
and so on and so on it was a slow process of gradual erosion of everything my old self was and stood for and it happened quite subtly
... what it might be doing is
ReplyDeleteobsessing you about the drugs before anything or anyone else and people will pick up that you don't care about them. Which isn't the case but they'll realize they somehow come second... does that make any sense?
... hey I gotta think about the rest of the answer
Wow, heavy stuff.
ReplyDeleteWhen I mentioned spending the day with the history channel, I didn't mention that it was a marathon of programs about the universe, planets, asteroids, and nebula's, etc.
So, to see that awesome footage put to the hauntingly beautiful Adagio for Strings was mysteriously and appropriately timely. Thank you for that!
I seen the Mama and Papas a few years back (1990?), but there was no Cass. She had been replaced by Spanky McFarland. Papa John was in the hospital that night and his daughter McKenzie was in the band.
I did manage to meet Mickey Dolenz of the Monkeys that night.
Good luck with your housing. You will still have internet, right?
Hi, Gleds. The supported housing does sound like a good idea for a while and it might be pleasant. Glad you joined in the robo party! I didn't know Clarissa had written her autobiog - I must get it [while I await yours, of course]. Well done.
ReplyDeleteJim: Bloody hell I hope so... what am I saying i don't get the internet in my house NOW... i use the local cafe!
ReplyDeleteWelshcakes: i would definitely get clarrisa d-w's book bc i bet it is brilliant...
if i really could go into that special housing thing then i would (i can't believe i am saying this) but ... well you don't gotta stay there forever and it is probably WAY better than being where i am now seriously
"she eroded what little self-esteem and self-reliance I had left... So when I got rehoused and hid from her I found myself wallowing in a pit that I just could not clamber out of... How can you explain why after the event? Drugs weaken you in ways you can't imagine possible... and yet leave you functioning in ways you never expected. It's a deal with the Devil and the Devil does nothing in a straightforward manner"
ReplyDeleteThis passage really speaks to me, brings me to a place in my not distant past that I need to remember, to hold close to my consciousness. Thank you for writing your experiences and sharing them.
I will collect, hopefully, a medallion marking 4 years clean on September 14th.
M-filer: How come my writing always looks good in selected quotes... yet most of it seems like a gigantic ocean of burbling to me (most of the time) maybe i get sick of my own droning voice!
ReplyDelete