Yes, I had a great time in LB. Met tons of new people and even made a stop at the Abbey in LA on the way up. More drinking though then even I was used to (think 9am - uh, well to 6am) - that with a ton of sun from West Beach and I was fairly under the weather come Sunday night. HERO looked after me with an ALOE VERA back-rub and some much needed cuddling.

Back to a hectic work life and for some reason sleeping dreadfully. Tons of nightmares (think 28 Days Later and it's all you can dream about no matter how many times you wake up).

I finally watched "Circuit" last night (I know, I know - I take forever to get in the loop - Hey BTW what's this new musical CATS that all the kids are talking about ??). I have to admit I never expected it to have such an effect on me. I suppose as a party-boy retiree (or is that "escapee") - I had a hard time seeing the gross reality to alot of it. Waking up in a bathroom stall - a little lost on what happened the night before (though you so know the bouncers of Crowbar or any other major city club would have you on the curb within 15 minutes of falling out). I got upset enough that at the end of the movie I went to the other room to cry so HERO wouldn't see. I'm not sure what it really was. In reflection this morning, maybe just the fact that I should be dead. With at least 3 pretty dramatic fall-outs on GHB to my name - I am, and was lucky. Maybe it's all the times I thought I appeared 'together' at a bar, but between a bevy of "beers and bumps" was so far inside myself nothing I must have mumbled must have made sense. Maybe it's shame. Shame that I probably knew how bad I was getting and didn't really care if I just got worse. Shame that I must have hated myself so much - that feeling anything but who I was - was worth the close to $1,400 a month habit at it's peak. How did just taking a hit of ecstacy 4 years ago on New Years Eve become a habit ? And what of my desire to still do drugs. I haven't stopped. Not cold turkey. I don't buy anymore and I have distance myself from those influences - but if I'm drunk and it's offered to me by a friend or admirer - well sure. I still find myself craving the warm feeling, the distance from my problems, the lack of inhibition.

This weekend I partied.
There was coke,
there was pot,
there was ecstacy,
a bump of tina.

But like the lead actor in the film, how easy would it be to get pulled back in ?

I'm a much stronger person then I was after all the personal blows last year. I won't add a question mark to that sentence: I know and believe this to be true. I have conquered, even slain, many of my personal demons.

But what of the feelings that made me crave drugs - are they stronger then the experiences that tell me not to go back down the path? I should make mention that HERO doesn't do drugs - at all. It's not that he's stopped, it's that he never started. I had to keep pausing and explaining lingo and scenes throughout the film : that's a bullet honey, no-no he's smoking crystal now, oh actually that's just coke. In his sweet farm-boy way he asked what their like and I found myself cutting short the explanantions as I found myself wanting to not just describe them, but do them with him. To feel him under me - fucking away on G. To dance to Tony Moran with him in my arms each of us in a K-Hole. To get tweaked out of our brains when we can't take a step further when the clock hit 8am on a Sunday morning at a circuit party - to only find ourselves able to go another 6 hours.

I wanted to corrupt him. I wanted to show him the darker side of things - the sexy under belly if you will. Then I thought of that night - that magical night with Lucky at the Sony Pavaillion in SFO for Mondo Millenium New Years Eve 2000. It was gonna be just a hit and then ok maybe just a bump - but I'll never do 'G' or 'Tina'. Four months later at White Party we did 'Tina' - just a bit - we didn't want to miss the next party - we were up for three days. Six months after that standing at La Cage with the only hot couple in Milwaukee, sure "OK - I'll try G"...and it was good and I found I didn't want to be in a club (or a bathouse) without it. And then last summer, I could find any of them in my house at a given time: Coke, Crystal, Ecstacy, G. I would lie to my boyfriend about whatever I was on - knowing I wasn't allowed to do G - claiming I was slipped a mickey when I fell out on Halloween. Once I convinced my ex to go to couples counseling after a few bumps of K - it would open us up I said. There were good times on drugs - to many of them. Walking home in the snow with my buddies, after a bar, as the sun rose over the Chicago skyline - rolling, laughing, my body so alive. Hearing Lucky say I love you for the first time on the dance floor - Lighthouse Family singing in the background "You and me will be - together for enternity - together we wil be so Hiiiigggghh" . 'Kitty Vision' at a friends house for movie night friends and bumpers. They were great times.

And now I feel like I've shut the door on them...

and it's harder to feel those things

- that way

- again.