a dark spirit holding a magic wand

Okay, due to popular demand (by which I mean, one anonymous commenter and my friend E) I am going to post an interesting story from the past. Last time I did this, I got quite a few comments about "you're back in the game" and "this didn't just happen you liar", so I'll repeat that this story is from the past. That means it already happened. For further clarification to those of you who don't understand English or just can't fucking read, I went to dictionary.com to help y'all out:

past (adjective)
1- gone by or elapsed in time
2- of, having existed in, or having occured during a time previous to the present; bygone
3- gone by just before the present time; just passed

In case you still don't get it, I will date my story. I might get some details wrong, but it was a long time ago so anyone who was there (Elliott) feel free to comment on what I fucked up on. Happy reading.

winter 2004, age 18

It was me and Elliott (aka 'E') hanging out in a state that is not Florida (but nearby!), and we were quite bored. Aside from a mountain of methamphetamine and some Steel Reserve 211, there was nothing to do. We were barely legal adults and were finished with our childish drug-fueled adventures- we were ready for bigger, badder, more "adult" drug-fueled adventures! So we got in his Range and started driving. We didn't have a particular destination in mind, we just drove (no stops necessary when there's a shitload of crank in the vehicle) until we realized we were near Tampa, Florida. Neither one of us had ever been to Tampa so we decided to finally stop and see what there was to do.

We looked around for the downtown area, figuring that was where the action (if any) was, and found a small, ghetto-looking town called Ybor City, aka downtown Tampa. There was a strip and it had a bar adjacent to a Cuban restaurant and since rice and beans followed by some whiskey sounded like a great idea to both of us, we parked the truck. We pulled out the needles for the first time that week and did a decent shot of speed before entering, since nothing gets an appetite going like being all tweaked out. At least for us.

We walked into the Cuban restaurant (I do NOT remember the name of the place, although I do recall a huge tile mural covered in colorful fish, which overstimulated my meth-addled brain), a little paranoid, thinking that everyone was going to know how fucked up we were and stare at us. Our fears were unfounded- the only people in there not tweaked out were drunk or nodding out, and I'm including the employees. E and I took a seat in the corner so that we could count and rearrange sugar packets unmolested until our tweaked-out waitress brought us menus.

I made a valiant attempt at reading the menu, but the words were shaking worse than my hands so I looked to E for assistance. He told the waitress to bring something delicious and some beers, which we pounded down in seconds. When the bill came, it was the menu fiasco all over again and we couldn't figure out what the hell the price of our food was. E left a random handful of tens and twenties, and we raced out of there and directly into the next-door bar (with a quick stop in the Range, of course, for another shot and to rustle up our fake IDs).

We sat at the bar, which was filled with just as many tweaked out/nodding/shitfaced folks as the restaurant, and started pounding down Jagerbombs. When the barkeep told us to leave, we suddenly noticed it was 3am- and we had gotten there around 6 or 7 in the evening. We stumbled out to the Range so that we could go home, but neither one of us could grab the steering wheel in two tries let alone drive anywhere. So we decided to take a nice walk around the unfamiliar ghetto to sober up. Great idea, right?

We wandered shitfaced around Ybor City until finding ourselves standing in front of what looked to be a housing project. Or possibly a crackhouse, I'm still not sure. It was 3 stories and surrounded by huge double-humped curbstones, which I wanted to sit down on for just a minute. E reached into his pocket to show me two prepped rigs, which sounded like an even better idea. So we went behind the project/crackhouse and hit that shit up.

The minute I pulled the rig out of my arm, I realized that shot had been wayyyyyyyyyy too much for my already-overloaded body to handle and I was teetering on the edge of cardiac arrest. The entire world went upside down and all the colors changed and got brighter. I couldn't breathe, but my heart sure was beating. I heard a voice saying something, sounded like "eh itegur." Didn't sound like E's voice, so I looked up. I heard the voice again, only now I understood the words: someone was saying "hey white girl." But I couldn't see a person, all I saw was a dark shadow ending in a long shiny object. My cranked up brain gave me a logical explanation for this phenomenon: it was a spirit holding a magic wand. I reached out to grab it.

Suddenly I was pushed to the floor, hard, from behind. Just as my face hit dirt, I felt something whizzing over my head which culminated in a *whack* *thump*, then my hand was forcibly grabbed and yanked very hard. I saw E's face, his eyes wild, staring at me through my fog. He was the one pulling on my hand, screaming "run! Run Michelle, fucking run NOW!!!"

When someone I trust tells me to fucking run NOW, I fucking run NOW. I half-ran and was half-dragged by E down Nebraska Avenue, away from where the "dark spirit" had offered me the "wand." Of course neither of us knew the Tampa city streets from our assholes, so we ran away from rather than towards anyplace. Finally, we saw a taxi and E practically jumped on the hood trying to get it to stop. That was when I looked over at him and for the first time realized that he was holding one of those huge curbstones... and it was covered in blood.

To this day I'm still amazed that the taxi picked us up, although the Benjamins thrown into the driver's window probably didn't hurt much. I asked E what the fuck had just happened, and he told me to just chill. By our description of the tile mural outside a Cuban restaurant, the cabbie was able to take us back to the Range. It didn't matter how fucked up we were, we had to get out of this town before something bad happened. When we finally got to the car and E was driving away from Tampa, we lit up a blunt to calm down while E explained what went down.

Apparently my dark spirit was a scary looking black crackhead, and the magic wand was a huge fucking switchblade. E, who was just as fucked up as I was apparently, decided to take fast action. He picked up one of those huge fucking curbstones that surrounded the project, pushed me down to the ground, and swung that curbstone over my head and directly into the face of my would-be assailant. Then we ran. Why he didn't let go of the heavy-ass curbstone while running, he couldn't tell me except to say "my fist was clenched so hard, I forgot I even had it... I couldn't feel my hand except to drag you." Now that's a good friend AND a hard ass motherfucker, am I right? We never went back to Tampa.

That's my story. Remember, it happened in the past, when there was no baby and I didn't have a year clean. All right E, was that a good story that made you sound gangster enough? And it's true to boot.

[before] [after]

These pics were taken in the same park, about 8-10 months apart. The first one, in the middle of a B-A-D heroin binge (and probably right after a shot). The second one, last weekend after about 3 consecutive dope-free months. Well, approximately 3 months- I stopped counting days after the first month since that's for the 12-steppin' NAzis. Anyways... see the difference?

To reply to one of the comments (too lazy to reply to all of 'em): Yes, the cops are disgusted with me. You know the cool part though? It doesn't keep me up nights, seeing that I don't think too much of them either. I'm not a cop-hater, I've just run across some real pieces of shit hiding behind a badge and a Tazer. Hooker or not, criminal or not, I'm still a goddamn American and deserve to be treated like one (regardless of what my internet "enemies" say).

where are all my haters?

WHERE ARE ALL MY HATERS??? DON'T YOU HAVE SOME BITCHY COMMENT TO MAKE ABOUT MY STORY??? DON'T YOU WANNA TELL ME THAT I'M SUCH A LIAR, THAT THERE AREN'T ANY MOUNTAINS IN FLORIDA AND THAT THEY DIDN'T SEE ANY BUS ACCIDENT ON THE NEWS??? COME ON GUYS, GET WITH THE FUCKING PROGRAM! : )

October 2005

I call Micheal's cell from a pay phone just as the sun is going down and tell him to come pick me up from where I've been working. I don't have much money, only $60, but I'm perfectly aware that we are out of heroin- it's time to go get more. We only know one person (well, technically 2 people but they are boyfriend and girlfriend and share a phone number) to cop from. I wait outside the McDonalds, but I'm not waiting for very long. Micheal and I never did waste any time when we were ready to cop.

Our dealers, "Pitbull" and his girl "Haitian" (don't worry- these aren't even the names they went by), used to live 7 exits away on I-95 before moving a little further south to Okeechobee Blvd. We would call and say we were beginning the half-hour trip in our Saturn SL4 and would be there in less than 10 minutes, which earned us endless ribbing from both of them. Not that it mattered, to us or them. When we needed h, we needed it now and they never minded our hurrying to give them our cash. But now, they lived closer- a good thing for us, since Pitbull lost his car when he had to bond out of jail and gas was going for $3.99/gallon at the time.

Micheal pulls up in front of the McDonald's grinning, and I jump in the passenger seat. I count out $40 and set it aside for the buy. "I already called Pitbull, and he said he'll get us 6 bags for what we got," said Micheal as he jumped on the closest exit of 95 headed north. We make the trip in about 5 minutes (as usual) but turned into the Taco Bell parking lot instead of down their street. There is a very good reason for this- we had been hassled by the same couple of PBSO cops for buying dope on their beat, and they let us know that we would get pulled over and searched every time they saw our car. I hand Micheal the remaining $20 and take off running down side streets around the back to where I needed to go while he goes inside Taco Bell to wait. Haitian is outside already. We do a quick handoff and I race down the back roads once again to the Taco Bell with the 6 dimebags in my hand- I figure if the cops stop me, I'll just open my hand and they can't do shit to me.

I get back to Taco Bell, hand Micheal 1 of the bags and he shoves a needle and a cooker in my purse so we can go to the seperate bathrooms and get our heads on straight. We used to shoot in the car, but now we are too hot in this neighborhood. He finishes his shot before me, and by the time I stumble out of the women's room he is already at the counter ordering us some food. We laugh and eat and get back in the car, ready to get back on the highway asap and get back to Lake Worth, where our efficiency is located. But right in front of the ramp- cops! We get pulled over with no time to hide the remaining 4 bags, which are found right away by the same cop that had been harrassing us before.

"I could arrest you both and tow the car, but I won't. This time I'm just taking Michelle," says the cop with a goofy grin. "Next time, I take Micheal and if you piss me off once more, both of you are going to jail for a long long time. I told you not to come around here no more." He slaps the cuffs on me and puts me in the back of his sherriff's cruiser. I get to Gun Club Jail with an $8,000 bond and my very first possession charge. I spend the night, and the next morning get released on drug probation. [A heroin addict takes probation- yes, I was a total idiot back then. I was also 19 years old, so there's my excuse.]

Micheal did not know that I was getting probation. He had already robbed a house to get the eight grand necessary to bond me out (in fact he had way more than just eight grand) by the time I call him from the holding cell to let him know I was getting sprung. [I never even went upstairs on a felony heroin possession charge- not bad for a bitch with a record!] I didn't find out about our sudden financial "windfall" until we were pulling out of the jail parking lot, and needless to say I was shocked and impressed. What do 2 junkies do when they have thousands of dollars they suddenly don't need for anything specific? We called up Pitbull and Haitian and asked how much dope they had. Haitian asked how much we wanted. I smiled- "we have a lot of money- how much you GOT?" Haitian asked if we had $500, and I answered in the affirmative. We roll over there, this time getting off I-95 a full exit south of Okeechobee Blvd, parking the Saturn, and getting in a taxi the rest of the way there. No chances this time. We tipped the cab driver $50 to not notice that we were buying drugs, and he was more than happy to oblige. We get back to our car (in a much safer area for us) with 65 bags of heroin and immediately do 3 apiece before driving carefully to a motel in Royal Palm Beach. I figured we needed to get out of Lake Worth/West Palm until this whole thing blew over, plus I was on probation.

What Micheal didn't tell me is whose house he robbed. It was about 2 miles from the Royal Inn, where our car was parked right in the fucking lot. We had just done more dope and were munching sleepily on a pizza when someone pounded on the door- the way cops pound on doors when they are gonna arrest the person on the other side. I grab the 50+ bags, which are all gathered into a bigger bag, and shove the whole thing up my pussy- I am NOT violating my probation in less than 24 hours for fuck's sake. The cops burst in the room and slam Micheal against the wall. "You're under arrest for burglary!" They search the room for drugs, but there aren't even empty bags laying around. Needles and cookers, yes- but they didn't take me in because I still had my paperwork from the jail, proving that I had been incarcerated while the house was being robbed and therefore couldn't have been involved. The cops had seen our car in the parking lot- if we had gone somewhere ELSE, he would have had at least a couple days before he went down, maybe longer. [And you guys thought I was stupid!]

So, Micheal is in jail and I am asked to leave the Royal Inn. He was holding all the money, which means I couldn't just take it and bond him out, but I have all the dope plus the car. At least the bastard didn't leave me empty-handed. I call Gun Club a couple hours later and ask what his bond is- no bond. Of course. I decide to stay at my dad's house until I figure out what I'm gonna do. Two weeks later, I'm back in jail. The charge? VOP possession of heroin. Tons of fun, right?

The moral of the story is- crime does pay, but you lose everything if you act like an idiot.

"people liked her, and she had friends"

Not dead, not in jail. You people actually check the PBSO mug shots for me when I haven't posted in a long time? Wow. For those who don't know yet, my full name is Michelle Angelina Moreau. I guess it doesn't matter anymore. I'm not working the streets anymore. You want to know why?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/
content/local_news/epaper/2008/02/28/
0228body.html?imw=Y

That girl in the article (Kimberly Dixon, we called her Kimmy) wasn't just some random ho to me. I lived with her. I did dates with her. Hell, I had a threesome with her and her ex-boyfriend just for fun a long time ago. This is a girl who would come to ME if a date beat her up, or the cops were after her and she needed a place to hide out, or if she was dopesick, or sad, or lonely, or had no place to stay and it was raining. I KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, that I've written in this blog about "Shane and Kim" being friends of mine. That's the Kimmy that they found in a fucking plastic bag. Blunt force trauma to the head by a motor vehicle- that's not in the article but I was contacted by Lake Worth detectives, since we were pretty close friends for "street people". The article does say this though:

"People liked her, and she had friends, said [the cop], and a woman at another hotel, who asked not to be named said the same thing."

Yes, she was a crack-smoking heroin-addicted street hooker. Yes, she was on the shit list of every police department in south Florida. Yes, she had a hell of a criminal record (all victimless crimes though, if you look closely- hooking, drugs, failure to appear but no robbery, no violence, no theft, no fraud). But people liked her, and she had friends, and once you proved to her that you weren't her enemy- that you were on her side- she was one of the sweetest, most compassionate, loving people I've ever known. Her and Shane, (who has been in a drug program for 8 months and stayed clean that whole time- he isn't a suspect AT ALL if anyone is thinking that) were the best friends I've ever had on the street. Well, one more name comes to mind- but that doesn't matter.

Those of you who have been reading me since last summer already know about Joe. He was my roommate at one of the motels I used to live in, and we got very close. At one point, we let a couple stay in the motel room with us- Shane and Kimmy. The 4 of us were great friends. Then Joe overdosed on heroin and died, back in August (I wrote about it here). I'm the one who found him. Out of that group of people- me, Shane, Joe, and Kimmy- half of the group is dead. Jesus.

ME AND KIMMY LIVED EXACTLY THE SAME...

So, yeah. I'm off the streets. I still do some dates, because I gave out my phone number to my favorite clients and they call me and arrange stuff, but I don't hit The Horror Mile anymore. (BTW Ron from Delray- the horror mile!!! I haven't heard that in like 2 years! Laughed my ass off- thanks.)

I've been off heroin for 2 weeks so FUCK ALL Y'ALL HATERZZZZ!!!!

*lights joint*

I don't need that fucking boy anymore anyways. Also, I broke up with Greg. For real this time- haven't spoken to him in over a week (although I do need my stuff back).

another perfect opportunity

This morning I woke up before anyone else did- what a perfect excuse to do a shot. Then my mom went to church- another perfect opportunity to get off! Then, she and my dad and my brother and his friends went to the International House of Pancakes. leaving me alone in the house. So you can imagine what I did. Then about an hour after they all got back, my mom had to go to Publix. Back I went, into the bathroom since I had 7 shots left and I'm going out tommorow.

By that point, I was 4 shots of heroin into the day and it wasn't even 1pm. This is where I figure I need to slow the fuck down. My brain and body can't handle all the dope. I've spent the entire day (until about 715pm, when I finally got in the shower because my mom was having friends over for dinner) laying outside, smoking cigarettes, nodding out and dropping books on myself, and scratching various parts of my back and arms and legs and ass. I haven't done a shot since 1 and I'm still nodding and itching.

The friend my mom invited over is the mother of this black girl who was my best friend when we were about 10 or 11. I don't know if she wants her name printed here cause she might be embarrassed to have ever been a friend of mine ("Hey, you know that heroin-addicted whore who lives with her parents and has scars all over her body? She used to be my BEST FRIEND! Aren't you proud of me?") so I'll just call her C. Back then, the two of us were totally infatuated by that stupid sitcome Step by Step. I can't understand what I ever liked about it! It's not even good enough for Nick at Nite for Chrissake. Full House, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Roseanne, America's Funniest Home Videos, Boy Meets World, Growing Pains- they all made the NaN cut. Step by Step was just too stupid. I think they still might play one episode at noon on weekdays on ABC Family. When you're unemployed or working nights, you watch a lot of daytime TV and when you take away news and soaps (both of which bore me to fucking tears) you end up watching ABC Family. And lots of SpongeBob SquarePants.

...I can't lie. I love SpongeBob SquarePants. I TiVo the episodes and watch them after my last shot of the night and drift off to the voices of Patrick, Squidward, Mr Krabs, Plankton, Sandy Cheeks, and good ol' SpongeBob himself. I know I'm legallly and physically an adult, but I never claimed to be mature, did I? I would never make a claim that I couldn't back up. It's just not my style.

Well earlier today I attempted to write on my other blog, attempted being the key word. I was nodding like a mother. I kept almost dropping the keyboard and almost certainly drooled on it. I kept having to backspace because my hand would land on the keyboard as I nodded, leaving something like this: lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll only 3 or 4 rows longer. Finally I got sick of trying and sick of fixing typos so I named the post "too high to finish" and left the typos at the end. I think it ends something like "thou loooooh" but I'm not exactly sure. Some sort of nonsense. I need to go somewhere where I can do a shot without feeling rushed. I'm needin' one. After being high all day then suddenly I'm not, it doesn't feel too good at all.

a great justice system

The Tale of Drug Court, or How I Got Off Easy Part Two

So, now I'm sitting in jail with no way to let Micheal know about it, so I did the only thing I could do: I called his mom. I knew that he had been in touch with that bitch Connie so I figured she would let him know. That is, after the celebratory "michelle-is-finally-away-from-micheal" party that he undoubtably threw that night. We started writing back and forth to each other from one cell to the next. He was incarcerated in the "drug dorm" which is a program within the county jail. It is the predecessor for "drug farm" which is a 1-3 year program designed for people who are facing long prison sentences, or if you're just doing county time it still looks good when you go before the judge.

Two weeks later, I was moved to stockade into the drug dorm. Micheal was facing prison time, so he was on the drug farm waiting list. But now we really had something to talk about- both male and female drug dorms had the same DIs (drill instructors), the same therapists, the same stupid rules, the same time-outs, the same pull-up sheets, the same Quiet Time One and Quiet Time Two, the same classes and the same schedules. Now we had something to make fun of together!

But as it turns out, one of the rules was "no writing letters to the male drug dorm." I never heard that rule anywhere, I never even tried to hide it! But hell. I was moved out of stockade back to the main jail and to GP (general population) and he was moved to B Dorm, known throughout the stockade as "the Gladiator Dorm." His chance at drug farm was gone, and he had to go back before the judge.

I got released into the Drug Abuse Foundation (DAF) with a 6-month suspended sentence if I walked. Now I could write to Micheal with no problems. I hated it there and knew that if I threatened to kill myself, I'd be sent to the Mental Health Pavillion at Columbia Hospital which was a hell of a lot better than DAF. I knew I'd have to go back, but I was just killing time because I only had to be there 3 months. I had only been at DAF 3 or 4 days at this point. I went into the Pavillion, got put on meds, and was released back to DAF a week later.

But what I didn't know was this: somewhere between the jail, the county-sponsored treatement center, and the mental hospital, I had gotten head lice. They couldn't have me there if I had head lice! So they sent me home for 2 weeks. This is right before Christmas too. I was the happiest girl alive. I hadn't been home for 3 days when I got a phone call. From Micheal. And it wasn't a collect phone call. I didn't hear that he was an inmate at the Palm Beach County Stockade. All I heard was "hey Michelle, it's me." I rode my bike about 5 miles to his mother's house just to see him that night. He had gotten out with Time Served, which I was jealous of. Fuckhead robs a house and I just had a little dope and he gets out BEFORE me? What kind of justice system is that?

Turns out it's a great justice system. I didn't return until 3 1/2 weeks later, testing positive for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. I was re-admitted. I never went back before the judge. And I got released after spending only 6 days, which is 9 or 10 total days, if I include the time I spent at the Pavillion it's about 16 days. Out of the 3 months I'm supposed to spend in treatment, I did 16 days. And I've never been arrested for drugs since. I was picked up once with some coke and twice with some dope, but I haven't been to jail for any of it. And that is called getting away with murder. I have a feeling that if I was a guy or if I was old and ugly, I wouldn't be getting away with shit.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

http://www.pbso.org/index.cfm?/36236E2D250215130035161D520F070B37523F371E40392C392E20014F1707340A5A1B1B093B3B01170E1F4D3936362C2131080A0420000728595C5E655C5B5B2C136072657F7E5C595654753A125A031E00741B0B1E1E436D3B363C6F0F0E080E7A5744445F5E546756565C94/index.htm

"junky strategy"

Some days I feel like I live this wild unpredictable life, and other days I feel like it's just the same shit repeating itself over and over again. It's true that if you hang out in the "cracker 'hood" anything can happen. And I get to meet new people every day, and I like sex and I like giving head, so I really don't know what I'm complaining about. It's just sometimes... I look over on the past 3 days and it looks like this:

1-2pm : wake up
2-3pm : get Greg to take me to Dixie
3-6pm : make money
6-7pm : cop dope and eat dinner
7-10pm: make more money
10-1am: go home, take pills, pass out

What does that song say, "Life is one big party when you're still young, but whos gonna have you back when it's all done?"

I still don't know how I'm getting back...

Well anyways, I was going to fill this with the non-excitement of the past few days, but I can summarize it: Thursday night I smoked too much coke, didn't sleep until Saturday at 1pm and woke up this morning almost out of heroin. Blah. I have stories from the past, so I'm gonna start writing my Past Adventures for the amusement of my readers, especially the ones who I date (and there's quite a few of y'all) and read my blog(s). So here it is:

The Tale of Drug Court, or How I Got Off Easy

Okay, the story begins at Okeechobee and Military, where Micheal and I used to cop (I can say this cause the dope girl doesn't live there anymore). The police in the area knew both our car and our intentions, so they fucked with us on pretty much a daily basis until we figured out a little "junky strategy." Micheal would drive up to Burger King and park while I ran the money around the back, down Indian Road to the house, sprint down Spafford, dive in the car, and floor it until we hit I-95 (it really helped that we lived literally less than a minute away from our exit on 95, so once we were on the highway, game over.

So one day we were attempting this same maneuver, I was running down Spafford to the Burger King and saw the cops crawling all over Micheal. I guess I stepped onto Okeechobee at the wrong moment because the cops, suddenly finished with my boyfriend, rushed over to search me. The female cop pulled the heroin out of my bra and cuffed me in what appeared to be one motion, and I went to jail. My bond was 8 grand.

The next morning, I went before the judge with no prior felonies. He sentenced me to Drug Court, which is like super-mega-probation. Twice-weekly drug tests, mandatory group and individual counseling, an AA/NA meeting signature sheet, weekly court appearances... super-mega-probation. Worst of all, I'd have to stay out of ANY sort of trouble for a YEAR. Fuckin' right. But by the time I went to court I was dopesick and I would have agreed to just about anything that would get me out of jail that same afternoon.

While I was awaiting release with my Drug Court paperwork, Micheal was getting my bond money by robbing his parent's house. While they were home. I'm not with that man anymore, but that was an act of love if I'd ever heard one. Twisted, but then again so were we. I call the cellphone and told him to come pick me up, but it wasn't until after he scooped me up at the gas station across from Gun Club Jail that he told me what he had done. So we did what any junkie couple would do right after a big lick: we partied. We bought a ton of heroin, a nice motel room, pizze, fresh stickers, etc. We were about to leave the room to buy cigarettes when the SWAT team showed up.

Okay, so it wasn't really the SWAT team, but from the way they handled us I say they wished they were SWAT instead of punk-ass street cops in virtually crime-free Royal Palm Beach. They slammed him against the wall and ripped his pockets apart looking for dope, which I had shoved up inside myself because I had a bad feeling about 10 minutes before the cops showed up. They took Micheal to jail for something he did to bond me out, so now I'm obligated to bond him out. But he has no bond. Oops! I got T-netix minutes on my phone so we could keep in touch and I promised I'd send $100/week
(which I did). I went to my first Drug Court appearance where they explained the rules to me. I never went back.

It was a week later and I was trying to get home. All my money had gone into Micheal's commissary account, because if you're in jail and you can't get out, it helps to have Fritos and Little Debbie cupcakes. I was waiting on the ride with 2 crackheads when the cops pulled up on us. I went to jail, for the second time in less than 2 weeks, for possession of heroin.

That's all I feel like typing right now... my next entry I'll finish the story.

day one, or a step into normalcy

Having a "regular" blog is just a step into normalcy, as my life has been anything since for the past... well, long time. They call me Shelly. In the past I've been everything from "Dan's girl" to "that one girl who sells the pills" to "junkie" to "the bald girl... no, not the lesbian, the other one." I've not only been at the top of the mountain and the bottom of the abyss, but I've been in all the little towns and valleys in between. I don't know where I'm at now, but I know I don't even see mountains. I can't see anything past the blackness and void. I'm 21 going on 50, as Shane likes to say about me. Everyone says that about me. What is it about me that, until one gets a visual, makes me seem much older than I really am? When people hear about me or read my writings, they find it hard to believe I'm only 21. Once they see my face, on the other hand, no one believes I have made it to 21. I get carded every day of my life, and that's just buying cigarettes. But regardless of appearence or experience, I am 21 years of age. I should be enjoying myself much more than I have been, I think, while some might argue that I've been enjoying myself far too much.

Rewind 8 years. 13 years old, and already a punk kid. Wore all black just for the shock value of it. Got wasted at punk rock shows. Hung with older guys. Carried an air of superiority and insanity around other girls my age; after all, I could chug a bottle of Jack Daniels to the head while they sipped on half-flat beers liberated from the Shell station's back room. Age 14: Discovered cocaine and then heroin. Age 15: Discovered the needle and got sent away, to live in Christian boarding school. Age 17: Graduated from said boarding school and met long-time boyfriend Micheal. Age 18: Discovered crack cocaine, ran with that for a few months, then got as far away from it as I could. Discovered that men would pay good money (crack money?) just to spend a short while with a blond 18-year-old woman. Age 19: Re-discovered Lady Heroin and her instruments of destruction. Before you could say, "every junkie's just a setting sun" I was eyeball-deep in the dope and the dope lifestyle. Age 21: Got arrested for the 10th time and was separated from Micheal, I have been trying to put it back together with him since then with very little luck.

Well, what's new in my world? I'm not on the hammer, for one thing. It's been over 24 hours now, I suppose I should be really patting my ass for this "accomplishment" but I have a feeling that my body is plotting how to get one last bag into me without involving my brain. And hell, it might succeed. My brain has set precedent for letting actions slip by that you'd think a brain would be able to catch. Heroin addiction has nothing to do with the brain. It starts there, but soon it's taken over your entire body and you can't get rid of it. No matter what. I could never touch hammer again, I could live to be 100 years old, and I will still lay in bed night after night and wish I had just one little bag to help me sleep. It doesn't happen with any other drug. When I was on coke, I knew there were certain times and places where it was completely inappropriate to be geeked out. With marijuana, you sleep and you eat and you watch TV but not much else happens. With speed and pills, you use them as medication when you need a sudden burst of energy or a blast in the opposite direction. But with heroin, life passes right in front of you and you can't understand how you didn't realize it. Bedtime? I need a shot to help me sleep. Mealtime? A bag will bring back my appetite. Morning? I can't function without a wake-up shot. Work? I wouldn't think of facing it sober. After work? No better way to kick back than with a bag of dope. And it's a slow progression, you don't even realize it, but suddenly you need heroin to do ANYTHING. From watching a movie to tying your shoes to walking to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes, a needle has to be involved. I get dressed to go to Burger King for some fries, spend 30 minutes struggling with a blood-filled apparatus and suddenly it smacks (no pun intended) me right in the face.

"Why do I have to numb myself in order to go get french fries?"

"Shut the fuck up and do what you have to do."

And so for a while, I did. Or so I thought. In reality I was doing exactly the opposite. I didn't do anything that I HAD to do, but rather everything that I wanted to do. And that's how life goes to shit. Pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of oblivion, pursuit of money to obtain oblivion. There isn't room for much else when those are your first priorities. And your only priorities. So, I decided to quit the hammer. With pharmaceuticals and some good weed to help me, how can I fail? Let me count the ways...