Looney Tunes

I seem to be suffering a relapse of sorts. I'm regressing. I have no idea what's bringing it on or what, but I'm finding that it's harder and harder to live the life I've created in the last 8 years.

Many of you already know that I feel as if I've been living a double life for a long time. I have the professional part of my life - which I truly hate - and the other part...The Real Me. The Real Me has struggled with sobriety for the last few years. The Real Me has, in fact, been clean of all illicit drugs since 1998. The Real Me smoked for 17 years and quit cold-turkey.

But The Real Me has also borderline-abused her prescription meds for a few years now. The Real Me quit AA cold-turkey and started drinking again - more and more often as of late. The Real Me resumed smoking (in secret, of course because we all know my boyfriend and parents would shit themselves) Marlboro Menthols. The Real Me has started keeping secrets (3.5 of them, actually) from everyone in her life except one woman: her best friend. I'm not even in a place where I can feel as if I can trust my therapist and tell him everything yet.

The Real Me has started acting like a lunatic. I'm losing my house, I hate my job, I lost my grandfather, I lost a great friend, and I feel pretty damned alone. I've been betrayed by someone I thought was a friend, I feel as if my boyfriend is kind of fickle and that his affection is conditional, and I almost feel as if I have nothing else to lose. That's over-exaggerating, but it's my perception most of the time.

I spend too much time daydreaming about other ways I can perpetuate my downward spiral. WHY? I don't know.

So today I was thinking about the drugs I used to do, the ones that I was using during the best times of my life, and then started doing Internet searches to see if I could find any more information about it.

My "gateway drug" was LSD. Is that even a gateway, or just jumping straight off the high-dive? Whatever. The first kind I had was called Looney Tunes and was printed with tiny images of the Looney Tunes characters. The first kind I ever saw on a full sheet of blotter paper with repeating patterns of Daffy Duck. I'm amazed at how many images of that particular design are all over the web.

But the one I remember the most, that was actually manufactured in my city and was around forever was the Blue Hawaiian. I can't even begin to tell you how many of these I took. I even remember helping my boyfriend split up sheets upon sheets and bag them up for sale.

 

Right or wrong, I sure do miss the trip. I don't hear about my students taking this kind of stuff. I have no idea if anyone even makes it anymore. Maybe I'm just around the wrong demographic of teens.

I wouldn't go down that road again, no matter how badly I want to. I know for a fact that Troy would leave me in a heartbeat if he found out. His whole family likes me and thinks I'm wonderful. My family has always known I'm a powderkeg so, if I relapsed again (yes, again), it wouldn't surprise them one bit, I'm sure. But I don't want to disappoint an entire family that just accepted me and enfolded me into their lives and I'm not sure it's worth it.

I'm functional. I don't get drunk on nights when I have to work the next morning. I don't smoke in my house. I haven't used prescription drugs in ways inconsistent with their labeling since about the time Steve died in June. I need to keep myself under control but, as my title says, I'm really just "one JagerBomb away from a breakdown."

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Stress Management What?

It's Back to School time and, while parents everywhere are cheering and celebrating, teachers like myself are cringing. Well, not all of us. But I am.

I've been seeing this guy off and on - a football coach at my school - and he seems to have positive things to say about this year's batch. Take into consideration, please, that he's seeing motivated kids who are willing to be out in the Texas heat over their summer just to play football. So, yeah, I would expect them to be rather good right now.

I don't hold out a whole lot of hope. As our state rolls out a brand-new, revamped, reworked standardized test, our elected representatives found a brilliant way to cut funds for education. Teachers across the state have been laid off and districts can't afford to spend money on any programs and even supplies. Where many teachers bought supplies with their own money, that's an impossibility since I think every district has frozen our already-substandard salaries.

If we weren't overworked before, we certainly will be this year. The last few days of trainings and meetings have brought back all the physical symptoms of job-related stress that I was feeling at the end of the year (oh, hell...who am I kidding? it was ALL YEAR) and it's killing me. My stomach is all tied in knots and my digestive system is all jacked up. I've had a headache for days. So bad, in fact, that I've been vomiting and it mimics a migraine - although I'm not sure that's what it was, technically.

I don't want this year to be the one where I walk out in the middle of a day, never to return, just to keep myself healthy. I have no idea what I'd do for a job if that happened, anyway. I've been trying to maintain a positive attitude about the upcoming academic year and, let me tell you, it's been hard. I don't buy in to the rumors and stories coming from the other teachers. I prefer to develop my own opinion of the kids once they show up.

Anyway, I have this weekend to fully relax before I go back to start Teacher Week Back. The Boy's taking me on a camping trip to a lake north of here and I plan on thoroughly enjoying myself, thank you very much! I'm excited and I'm going to take this time to appreciate what's left of my summer...all four days of it.

In that same vein, I gotta run. Time to get packed up!

About Last Night? Where Do I Begin... - IndieInk Challenge

This is an entry for the IndieInk Writing Challenge. Liz Culver challenged me and her prompt is at the end of the post. I challenged A Lil Irish Lass with a rather long prompt you'll have to go read about at her blog!

About Last Night? Where Do I Begin…

            My head felt like it was floating, full of teddy bear stuffing. The groan I emitted upon trying to sit up out of bed sort of reverberated throughout my skull and jaw. I’m pretty sure my teeth were wearing mittens and my tongue was a scarf.

            The sheets beneath my stark-naked ass were smooth and cool…definitely not my own. The room was light with windows around the entire room painted plain white. As I looked around, alarm began to rise up from my core (or was it vomit?) but I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. Where am I? What the HELL did I do?! Oh, GOD, Ryan’s going to kill me. I began to scrutinize my surroundings. There was an old steamer trunk covered in chipped white paint next to the bed being used as a nightstand. On it, an alarm clock displaying the truth that I’d slept until 10:30, my cell phone and car keys (thank GOD), a couple of remotes, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a note.

Unfortunately, there was nothing else around the room except for a few live music fliers and a rack system stereo near the corner. The hardwood floors were scuffed and scratched. There were two four-panel doors on the same wall. Both were closed.

I tried to piece together what had happened the night before. I was pretty good at working the evening backwards, usually. It wasn’t working this time. I flat-out blacked out at some point.

Okay. I met some friends at the diner. I had a BLT with Ruffles and a vanilla Coke. We walked three blocks down to a small, crowded bar – one of those places with pendant lamps and velour upholstery. Ryan suggested that maybe I’d had enough to drink but I disagreed. I remember getting into a small argument with him while our friends Chris and his new girlfriend Elizabeth stood by, helpless, and I went to the bathroom. Elizabeth came in to talk to me but I didn’t want to talk to her – I just met her last night. I remember talking to some other guy at the bar. Ryan came up to us. And then…that’s pretty much all I remember. Fuck. How did I manage to ruin my entire life over the course of a few drinks?

I picked up my cell phone. There were no missed calls and only one text from a friend in another state: “Are you okay? You sent some pretty effed up texts last night! Drunk again?” But no missed calls. Ryan never called. I checked incoming and outgoing calls. Ryan never called. Fuck.

I got up and found my clothes on the floor. I put them back on, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. The bed was nothing but a mattress on the floor, covered in very expensive sheets. I picked up my cell and my car keys. I didn’t even know if my car was outside. I drove last night but there’s no way I could have driven if I was that drunk. Either way, I had to piss like a racehorse and needed to find the bathroom. Do I want to see what’s behind Door #1, or Door #2? I opened the door on the right and walked into the bathroom. It was freakishly clean and empty except for a toothbrush, toothpaste, and toilet paper. At least there was body wash and a poofy thing in the shower. I took a really good look at the nasty, disgusting, shameful reflection of myself – then I remembered the note. Coffee. Good.

            The second door led to one big room with an open kitchen on one end. Again, there were windows all over the living area. Nothing but boxes everywhere, but there were some interesting things on the counter. My purse was on the counter. There was a coffee maker full of hot coffee with four coffee mugs and a barstool. I poured some coffee and peeked in the fridge. There was the sour milk, half a bottle of Dasani, a few Heinekens (eww), and a tub of chocolate cake frosting. I hate black coffee but it looked like that was all I was gonna get.

            There was nothing in the apartment at all to make it look personalized. The boxes made it look like someone was in a transition. There a plain blatantly-Ikea sofa and loveseat combo in, yep, white, but that was the only furniture. The more I realized how generic the room was, the more frightened I became. Maybe if I just focused on my coffee…but I couldn’t. My eye was twitching and the hangover was beginning to set in.

I have to get out of here. I have to get home and…and what? Where do I start? Where do I begin? There’s no way I can lie to Ryan about what happened – especially if I don’t know how much he knows. I have to get home first and then I can evaluate things. Oh, this is going to hurt…He was right; I should have just stopped drinking. He knows it interacts with my medication but I just wouldn’t listen. Why? WHY wouldn’t I listen?!

The dry heaving began, a combination of emotional panic, being hungover (nope, I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk), and the nasty-ass black coffee. I heard a rattle in the front door behind me and it squeaked open. I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t bear to see what I’d done – or, should I say, WHO I’d done.

“Hey, Cheryl! You’re up!”

Oh, shit. It was a female voice. I turned around. It was Elizabeth.

This is about to be a very, very, very bad day.

“Are you okay? Heh. You sure did drink a lot last night. I bet you’re really hung over! I brought some donuts. You want anything to eat, or are you queasy?” Elizabeth’s cheeriness made me feel even worse. I thought I was going to puke.

“Do I even want to know what happened?” I managed to choke out something that sounded a little bit like my voice.

“Oh, Ryan got called in, so Chris took him home to get his car. Ryan didn’t want to take your car so you’d have a way home,” she answered.

“So Ryan was here with me?”

“Of course. I just moved in and we were all pretty buzzed so you all just came here instead of risking the long drive home uptown. We let you and Ryan have the bed,” she chuckled. “It was closer to the bathroom and we figured you’d need it! Heh.”

I almost fainted. But I began thinking about it and I guess that would be why there were no calls from Ryan.

“Well, I have to go back to my old place to pick up some more boxes. Your car’s parked across the street whenever you feel well enough to leave. No rush. Ryan said he was going to your place on his way to work to feed the cats. See ya!” And with that, she went back out the door.

Liz's prompt to me was "Where do I start, where do I begin?" It reminded me of the lyrics from the Chemical Brothers song, "Where Do I Begin," which is where the coffee came in. I'm not sure I tackled this without the ending being disappointing or ridiculous, but I couldn't come up with anything I thought was short enough! LOL! Hope you enjoyed it.

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