Scored again, but at least it was the straightest stretch I've done since she left.
I must put down that I was feeling powerful this morning. More than powerful, I felt good. A strange feeling, and for a junkie, this feeling good without a sharp in hand was almost unsettling. I am very used to feeling good only after self-administration of opiates. Today I was bouncing along, I felt that I could do anything. Implement a complex corebanking system with no full time support staff? No worries. Natural highs are one of those things I hear about but have never believed would happen to me (sorry for the cliche kids), like winning lotto or finding your true love. But I felt good, for no discernible reason. If I had to be cynical, I'd insert that I've been hitting the valiums again.
The chemist who filled this month's script was professional and gave me 2mg tablets for a 2mg script. In the last 12 months I've had about a 30% success rate of chemists giving me 5mg tablets on a 2mg script. I would like to put it down to karma but it's more likely that their PC tells them I usually get a 5mg script, 5 mgs are the "default" setting on vals in Brisvegas, who gets 2mgs? I mention the valium because maybe the 4mg I take after I get home from work is the perfect amount to make me awake feeling good. I have never taken vals to get to sleep, well I guess when I've been hanging out badly (shudder) I would have tried to knock myself out with anything to hand. Though I remember last time I hung out heavily, back last century, I took Rohypnols and they did nothing to help me sleep. You could get Rohys (as street slang went) still back then, but they were S8s, like Morphine. The whole date rape thing put paid to that, the date rapists had to start scoring their tools on the street rather than in the doctor's office. I think they use Fantasy or something like that - GMB?
On the subject of true love, last night I watched some of my old home-made videos. One of the few purchases I have made that I've never hocked or had stolen is a handheld camcorder, analog of course, I bought it around 1998/1999 I think, when it was still very expensive to get a digital video camera. I do not regret this one purchase, and I have the odd animation to demonstrate the budding creative beast within (laughter). I was looking for the Lora flick I made when I went to Melb in 2001, instead I found a 1999 video of S and I just horsing around. We stayed in a Gold Coast hotel for the night to get away from the relentless ringing mobile.
Interesting to note she was finger-twirling her hair constantly in the flick, a trait she still has. She looked so different - rings on her fingers, pierced nose, short black hair, pants and padded jumper. White pancake makeup, almost goth but not really. Just that white washout like you're always stoned. The flat was so colourful back then, S had decorated it to her style, rags for curtains but it looked great. Compared to its current look The best explanation I can think of is that the colour drained out over the eight years.
Maybe it was my inbuilt negativity, but I imagined I could see her boredom in the video, even back then in 1999. My narrators voice was nasal and annoying, reminding me of nothing so much as those terrible home-porn videos that pretend to be home made, when they're semi-professional jobs for profit. My rambling stoned commentary was embarrassing. S persevered watching Rage music videos as I pointed the camera at her and sounded pretentious and stoned.
The question is, was she bored back then? Was she weighing up the free gabo against the cost of putting up with me and my shite. In one shot, she was dressed in all new clothes, a mix of Bessie Head clothing and a necklace from Sportsgirl. Nowadays S buys the clothes from Sportsgirl and maybe would get an accessory from somewhere like Bessie Head. It's amazing to see what a different person she is today. I guess she's a woman now, and she became one whilst she lived with me. Somewhere around 2001 perhaps, when the dope went off tap and we both had to start dealing with reality on a more than occasional basis.
Back then she was working at Two Faces of Eve, an Annerley diner where she met her good friend Mercedes. I (try to) fix Mercs de facto Warwick's computers from time to time. Actually, I have an unopened email from four days ago from Warwick about a job I looked at two weeks ago tomorrow. I haven't sent him a quote or got back to him in anyway. I have been busy with the Phoenix conversion, and I have been using a fair bit, but more than anything, stasis has my soul.
Watching the video was a sweet torture. In one shot she's sprawled across the bed that I still sleep in, wearing only a bra. The last few years she has wrapped up tightly in thick clothes every night. And apparently it's all been my fault, some inconsiderate event of five years ago causing her current day medical muff issues. Honestly I don't remember, maybe her at the very end saying "no don't continue it's hurting", but I remember it only as a casual aside, like many things one would say post coitus. And I really can't say if it happened the time she refers to, it could have been any other of the 3 or 4 times we bonked between 1999 and 2001. I would never have continued for a second if she'd just said stop.
I am stoned and I miss her terribly. More incentive to not use again. But there's a quarter sitting five feet away and I I'll take it in a minute ...punishment and reward, as DQ would say. That's what it's all about, punishment and reward. Catholic guilt makes me think I need to be punished if I get a reward like gabo. And watching a vid of S is a sweet punishment, I can tell you that. Tonight I'll dump it to avi so I can torture myself with less mucking around with cables.
Other news, Uni CU's Sandy V handed in her resignation this week from the FTP project, FCS To Phoenix. She was being asked to do her regular job as well as handle a huge implementation. My manager, SG, today looked me in the eye and said "So tell me G, you're not going to walk out on Day One are you?".
I replied in the negative, but later thought I should have added a postscript that Sandy probably would have given the same answer six weeks ago. No matter what I want to do, there are some things that cannot be controlled. Coming out of an eight year co-dependent relationship, being a junkie with unresolved issues, plus the enormity of the PHX conversion, duplicated across two societies, all these things could cause a breakdown that will burn me out and make me walk away.
Maybe one day I will view PHX the way I view ZZZ or Ms. S.
Maybe one day I will get things together and not focus on the 50 hertz buzz of life.