Heroin Helper Blog

If only life was so easy/logical... (or should I have said: If only I wasn't so cynically apathetic)

There was a great meeting in LA last year for Incarcerated (and formerly incarcerated/involved in the DOC any-which-way) Persons. I'm not sure it went anywhere, but come to think of it now I am interested to see what their planning committee came up with. Now to see if I bookmarked anything...

You know, just as a kind reminder, all your devoted fans are surely wondering when you're gonna discuss the NCASA/Columbia University report on addiction treatment standards (or lack there of)...?

:] <3

@Mike - The problem is that my devoted fans are smarter and better read than I am. Mostly though, I think I'm just trying to convince myself to become more involved. But this is important because people don't much think about AIDS anymore, and yet it is still a big issue among IV drug users.

Good south park episode about AIDS though ;)

Ah, the genesis of modern culture, south park that is.

Anywho, I think you should give yourself more credit. What you really meant to say was something like this - "The problem is that, taken together, my devoted fans have diverse interests, some of them are very intelligent and have more leisure time than I."

After all, I have yet (although things are looking better each day) of getting a good, real five days a week, nine-to-fiver again. So I'm trying to make the most of it, at least until I'm graced with the maturity of getting back once again to full time employment.

Fiction... I mentioned Ken Follett in terms of fun ways to escape non-fiction. Paper Money is, in my humble opinion, his best novelle. I often turn to Borges. Time and time again, it amazes me how enjoyably timeless many of his stories are (esp Lottery of Babylon). Then, of course, we have lawyer fiction - Connelly and to a better extent Grisham (A Painted House, one of his only book not about lawyers, is great). I used to be a big fan of Graham Greene, so I have safely say that after reading 30-odd of his books, screen plays and short stories, many find him enjoyable. Steinbeck! How could I leave him out of the list?! If you want to try something once again different, one of my current favorites is Paulo Coelho. Alas, I've said too much... What kind of fiction have you had your eye on recently?

BTW, to bring this back to the subject, I think I remember you writing somewhere on HH about how Junkies are the new Fags - whereas homosexuality/inter-racial marriage/non-traditional relationships have become more or less normalized, so called addicts and drug abusers have taken up their disfigured place in our collective psyche. I remember old urban legends about HIV/AIDS as the product of homosexuality, whereas now the same, if more institutionalized, mythos is projected onto IV drug users. Of course, both unprotected intercourse and using dirty needles can lead to the transmission of HIV, it certainly are not the result of such risky behavior.

I have to constantly remind myself, however, that even some of the ideas I take for granted as commonplace are anything but for most of my American siblings. For instance my mom's first husbands, having come for (more like having escaped) a deeply religious, bigoted Southern family, never could bring my mom to meet his family.

They had learned in church how all Jews were born with a tail, and they all walk around with it between their legs. This is shit his family believed, in the same sense that many others believe illegal drug use is the root of crime, poverty and any number of social ills.

Dog Slebs Acirema

@Mike - Easy for you to say. I think I've read about 5 books in the last two weeks that came directly from you!

I'm not sure how we got on this topic, but here goes. I haven't read Ken Follett, but I've seen the filmed version of "Eye of the Needle," which I thought was pretty good. Your opinion of Grisham has made me rethink my high regard for you. I have a soft spot in my heart for Turow, because I learned how to write a novel from him. Greene and Steinbeck are my two best examples of writers who make it look easy. I've read "Cannery Row" more than any other novel. My first novel was a junkie CR circling around a KOA. I don't know Coelho, but increasingly I like translated fiction. I'm not too fond of the kind of American fiction I should like.

I just read Greene's "Monsignor Quixote." It is wonderful. I will most likely read "Heart of Darkness" today for technical reasons.

You mean Jews don't have tails? What about horns?

It bugged me for years that people would ask me about HIV tests. Why? I didn't share needles. It isn't like tetanus, just floating around.

This is what is so pernicious about the AA idea that drug addiction as a moral failing. If that is the case, then it makes complete sense to lock us all up. Despicable.

Care to explain "Dog Slebs Acirema"?