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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Stuck In A Roomful of Airborn Snot

InglewoodImage via Wikipedia

April 21, 2004
Notes from my journal on living in a veterans' shelter in Inglewood, California, Room 404B with my roommate, Airborn Ranger Mike, who turned out to be a distant guitar-pickin' cousin:

I'm trying to keep this journal on my adventures in this crazy but interesting place but I can't. I can't. I can't write with my roommate's TV on and off and on and off and on all night. When it's on, he switches channels. Switching, switching, switching. Sitcom laugh tracks. Oh, the sitcom laugh tracks.

Ranger Mike is going through Vicodin withdrawal (again . . .and again and again and again and again). And, by proxy, so am I. He has made me into a painkiller withdraw-suffering addict without my having taken one pill.

I can't stand it. I might have to go rent a motel room to get away from the constant tossing and turning, the TV switching on and off, on and off, the channels changing from one sitcom laugh track to another, the malignant vibe of drug withdrawal sticking on the walls like brown nicotine. It covers everything.

I think that's one thing drug addicts don't understand: that their addiction, like airborn snot, gets all over everybody else.

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2 comments:

  1. that's a pretty good piece of writing even though you couldn't write at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Steve! I think the best time to write is when I'm hungry or starving or angry or broke or scared. It tends to cut down on the adjectives.

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