I sorta looked liked this back then ^. A vague blur staggering thru life. I can’t take credit for the “vague blur” thing, it’s from a Philip K Dick book called In Milton Lumky Territory. Sort of a sci-fi The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit. About a man who becomes so absorbed by his job he becomes hard to see. So when he wins an award for some useless corporate achievement, the Master of Ceremonies yells out “Let’s hear it for the vague blur!” It’s the best part of the book. Just though I’d mention it.
Oct 19 2019
Fell asleep nude yesterday with a cigarette in between my fingers & my hands in my lap.
Woke up to a sharp and burning pain. Like my penis was on fire. Which it kinda was, being covered in hot ash and also by the lit end of a cigarette. I stubbed the cigarette out and shook the ashes off and ran to the sink. Quickly as possible I filled a mason jar with water & ice cubes & tenderly dipped my wounded penis into it.
I got to it quick enough but man, what if I’d been out like a light? Like some of these fent bangers I know who wouldn’t wake up if you slapped them in the face?
I’m not the kinda guy who thinks that having a penis makes you a man but since I already have one I’d rather keep it intact and not burned to a crisp.
In Keith Richard’s questionably accurate memoir Life there’s a memorable scene where cops are dragging a dozing Richards (who claims in the book to sleep only twice a week and eat 3 times a week…a claim I do not believe…then again…the man should be dead, so why lie about anything else health-related?) back and forth across his hotel room.
I did not know this, or maybe it’s just a U.K. thing but: Police cannot arrest a sleeping individual. His son Marlon saw the whole thing. I’m not saying Keith Richards should be proud of this particular “memory,” but at least his son saw enough that he has avoided drugs & alcohol almost completely, having seen what they’ve done to his father & many less lucky members of the Stones entourage (for example, the “groupie” girl shooting heroin in the rarely seen Cocksucker Blues (a 1972 tour documentary of the Stones that makes Gimme Shelter look like the Care Bears) I’d be AMAZED if she is still alive.)
Eventually the cops awake Richards and charge him with whatever it is he charged with. Another classic Stones story. And possible traumatic childhood memory for Marlon.
Anyway, the doc sez it’s a minor burn. So thank God for that. I asked if he had any after care advice. He turned, grinning.
“Yes. Polysporin. Don’t touch it for the next few days. So, no sex, no nothing. Let it scab, let it breathe and let it heal.”
Then he broke into a full grin. “And try not falling asleep naked, nodding off on fentanyl, with a lit cigarette between your legs.”
*pregnant pause as he leaves the room*
“Dumbass.”
Oct 20 2019
Oct 21 2019
we were being engulfed, both of us, by the false embodiments of the things we really need…or think we need.
Me…I wanted my childhood back. And Simon,1 he wanted warmth and comfort.
And he thought he could find it in smack, a particularly watery form of warmth, aqueous green & blue. Turquoise. Warmth like the lovely blast of heat you get from a wall mounted hand dryer, how sometimes during winter he’d pull at the neckline of his t-shirt and let the rush of air shoot down his shirt and caress the goosebumped flesh of his pale chest.
Thoughts: (as in my August 2021 thoughts on the above diary entries)
On entry #1:
I’m not seeing anybody right now. I don’t plan to. I just mailed out my “acknowledgement of being served a divorce” form to some jackass lawyer I’ll nickname Captain Crunch with an auto-reply “I’m not vacation email.” Really set the world on fire didn’t ya, Captain? Helping sad people never ever see each other again?
I really wanted to send him an expletive-filled email because I am an immature person, but I didn’t do it. I just confirmed that the stupid form in in the regular mail en route to his office and should be there when he gets back all tanned and pleased with himself. In my mind, he’s the kind of man who wears a watch even though everyone has a phone these days and our phones tell us what time it is.
Penis-wise: I’m not sexual relationship & I’m still a lot of methadone (tho I am tapering with the goal of getting to zero. I might “shortcut” it with 4 days of hellish withdrawal, then get back on Suboxone, which in my experience is easier to get off. But for now it’s methadone2 with the attendant crash in libido that comes with addiction medicine, so I don’t have much use for my penis these days. That’s not to say I still don’t think about it sometimes. Not Keith Richards so-called “plight,” I mean me nodding off with a lit smoke next to my genitals. What if the pain hadn’t woke me up? Would I still have a penis today? My most “memorable” overdose, memorable in the sense that I remember how scared I was afterwards, I snorted a line and smoked a line off tinfoil @ 1:30am and remember nothing, nothing at all, until 5:30pm that same day. That’s a 16 hour nap. That is some strong shit, considering I did less than…two points? (Less than $40) I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if I’d banged (injected) that stuff I’d be alive. I wouldn’t not be. No way. A seasoned user like myself passing out for 16 hours? That’s the kinda thing that makes you sit up and take notice. It was one of the last times I ever used.
On entry #2:
I don’t think about this one at all for the simple reason that I don’t know what happened on October 20 2019. I’m sure drugs were involved tho.
On entry #3:
The “he” in question is still alive. Heading into some 6-month program I begged him not to skip. “I’m not judging you man but if you can go that long without using, it will change your life. For the better.”
Still waiting to hear back.
NOT his real name
They mix it with Tang so you can’t inject it, eh? The powder (the Tang, I mean) will fuck shit up in your arms. Or whatever injection site you choose. So if you have read this far: DO NOT INJECT METHADONE.