diSCr.eat|diSCr.ipt|diSCr.eem

Times Like these, Ambition With Soul

October 4th, 2005

I just streamed the Queen Bee Lil’ Kim’s latest video “Lighers Up.” I love her, but her tits are getting too big. Did I mention that I love her. Those lyrics and pictures made me yearn. See, I recognize a lot of the things she’s saying and things she’s showing. I’m right there with her on Fulton street in BedStuy. I get a gut reaction to her line about cops being on us like tattoos. I know the quality of the air that goes along with that shot of the droopy drawer’d nigger in the project hall. I never met any 12 year old prostitutes, though. Maybe I was hanging with the wrong crowd. Except I never hung with a crowd. Maybe I just didn’t ask the right questions. No, what I’m trying to say is that those words and images make me cringe but they make me nostalgic, too. It’s a contradiction like that contained in the her line that goes something like “I don’t think I’ma gon’ smoke no mo’, I don’t think I’ma gon’ drink no mo’. Well, fuck it, bartender you can give me one mo’.” I’m going to try my damnedest not to ask that question, despite all these…

Things I Miss About Being a Crack Addict:

[*It is my strong belief–one that is being and will continue to be tested rigorously–that effect drug abstinence depends on full-disclosure honesty. That means owning up about missing the drugs even when deciding you are through with that and never want to go back. It’s a little like the way I feel about my ex-wife. I would never want to be in a relationship with that woman again, maybe not even in the same room! But that doesn’t mean–how ever contradictory it may sound or seem–that it doesn’t sting a little that she’s not in my life and that I don’t get a little nostalgic thinking about the good times. Because one doesn’t get that involved or go that deep with someone or something if there isn’t something good about it. In the name of Holy Abstinence, Amen.]
• I miss Brooklyn.
• I miss that feeling right after copping.
• I miss more that feeling right after pulling.
• I miss breaking into the scene, the culture, the ‘hoods, knowing the dealers and being known.
• I miss the mechanics, the technicals, and techniques.
• I miss the focus I had on my personal work when I was high.
• I miss the heightened interest it lent me in all things.
• I miss the carefreedom.
• I miss witnessing the crazy things.
• I miss doing the crazy things.
• I miss being high.

Things I Don’t Miss About Being a Crack Addict:
• I don’t miss lying.
• I don’t miss lying about my lying.
• I don’t miss forgetting about my lies and looking stupid.
• I don’t miss the come down.
• I don’t miss dissing my friends.
• I don’t miss the hang-over.
• I don’t miss the money drain.
• I don’t miss being feeling like crap or having a chronic cough, sore thumbs, and furry teeth.
• I don’t miss missing beautiful spring days holed-up in my apartment.
• I don’t miss being unable to talk to a girl.
• I don’t miss doing things I’m ashamed of while high.
• I don’t miss paying a re-instatement fee because I just never felt like paying my phone bill.
• I don’t miss ignoring my mother’s call on mother’s day because I didn’t think I could talk to her and sound natural.
• I don’t miss terrifyingly unsafe sex.
• I don’t miss having to pass on good opportunities.

Apropos, looking back and looking forward.

Well, I’ve learned from my mistakes
This time I will escape
I’m too young to die!

– “Too Young To Die,” Living in Darkness, Agent Orange

and

I am a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again

– “Times Like These,” One, Foo Fighters

I’ve posted the lyrics of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” elsewhere, but I had to re-download it today as part of my ongoing and–given severe capacity limitations on my laptop–destined-to-fail efforts to replace the 20GB of music lost to the packing of my iPod next to the shortwave whose cover is held on by magnets. Anyway. I DL’ed it and then updated the ID3 tags, noticing that it came out in 1970. My birthyear. I love that song–ambition with soul. Ambition with soul! Plus, I love that the album is called simply “Curtis.” Not ground-breakingly original, but lovely.

Yesterday I was thinking about the cheeseball rhyming title
Crack To Crack: How I Found My Way Back
but this morning I was thinking I liked
Rock To Rock
better.

Today I pulled an old spray bottle out from under the sink. It’s label read “A Touch of Glass.” Perfect. I wanted to clean the odd cloudy streaky smears on one of the two glass squares on the coffee table. Only one of them needed it because the other I shattered into a million pieces last time I was cleaning that area. I was pretty damn drunk then. It was morning and I was finishing the bottle of Vodka that I luckily had on hand when the coke and/or crack was wearing off into desperation and a need to clean. My damnation for that act, besides having to replace it for Rose before I go (yes, she saw it), is forever cleaning out little microscopic sharp nuggets of glass. They’re in the joints of the wood. They’re in the cushions of the couch. And in the palms of my hands when I do push-ups on the floor in the vicinity. And in my cheeks when I fall asleep while reading a book. You can’t just wipe them up. You can, however–provided you’re not smashed–clean smeary streaks off the glass that isn’t already smashed itself. So I sprayed that spray, foggily registering in the back of my head its pungent acridity. I wiped and wiped again, and with some elbow greaselightning removed the handprints and smudgecicles. And as I turned with the sprayer to return its old hiding place under the sink, I noticed ti was labeled–feebily, I maintain–”Ant Killer” in black Magic Marker.

Foodies:
• b - oats in milk. I love plain old fashioned (not quick or instant) uncooked oats in milk. Delish. But then I chomped ’til my jaw ached on beef jerky. Doesn’t take much. That stuff is tough. And sweet. Forget health consids, it tastes like shit. Like sugar-coated shit. Okay, better than shit, but shittier than it should taste. ‘twould be so much better without the sugar. None. Take it out of the spaghetti sauce, too. You can see this is a pet peeve of mine. Why do these companies think they’ve got to load sugar into things where sugar has no business being? I didn’t order a beef jerky sundae. That’s not what I wanted.
• Turkey sandwich with provolone on wheat. Proud! Told Bryan at Care pharmacy I’d be back today for lunch. He owned up to his losing a bet on that. Said to “one of the girls” after I left, “he won’t be back.” The kid is so sweet; he had the woman charge me $2.50 for the $3.50 sandwich. And we bantered. And while he filled ’scrips, I read an interview in Spanish with a Colombian-South Carolinian community leader that I plan to contact for jelp on my mojado prawject. All good, so good. But then I went for “Better Than Sex” cake at the Crystallite Cafe. For such a hippy named place, it sure is full of friendly cool cute people. I kept the puns on the cake name rolling but not to the point of weirdness. I’m gonna be going back there too, even without the Romanians.

• 2 (or has it been 3) sets of 20 p-ups
• 50 lappers (speaking of laps, wouldn’t mind somebody doing something in mine)
• (does the bike riding to go fax things and eat lunch still count at this point?)

[By the way, those little nitty-gritty kind of to-do’s like the ones I had in yesterday’s post about who I needed to email and what not and others I’ve had in previous posts, I’m not sure if they belong here, but they’re easier to manage in Backpack and that’s where I’m going with them. Yesterday’s will be carried over there instead of here. It’s probably worth noting, however, that one of the items from yesterday, coming up with a daily schedule, got done this morning and will be implemented starting tomorrow. It is also maintained under Backpack (using the versioned “Writeboards” they have, which I think might add a small but interesting aspect to it, showing how and when it changes over time). So, if there are any marked differences to my posts or life starting tomorrow, we’ll know how that happened.]

Entry Filed under: Lifin