2001-06-23 - 9:08 p.m.

i am preparing for my adventure away in south east asia. i feel like i'm already on some strange, quiet trip.

today my close friend drug me to downtown LA to buy things for her wedding. we went to the garmet district which is busstling with exchange and milky browns and sandles and baby turtles that squirm around in ill equipt cages only to live a few more weeks.

i know this cuz years ago in college i bought one, brought it home. threw it in the bath, went on the balcony with my boyfriend, took an enormous hit off a large water bong and ralfed off ;a projectile into the grass below. i thought the turtle died cuz it refused to move. it was frozen in that big, solitary pool of captured water. i called the reptile store. they said these turtles are illegal and unless you buy hundreds of dollars in equipment, tanks, etc, then my green shelled myrtle the turtle will die. so i gave it to the store and then grew him up to have a hard candy shell and hopefully a nice long life.

i bought a party dress for my trip, because darling i may be backpacking but i am still a total doll.

i just went to a friends to borrow books on bali. her and her man had such a cool vibe at their place. it had a white wooden interior that reminded me of being inside a floating cabana. mellow, well traveled, loving, open, peaceful. i loved soaking in it. as i walked out, i glanced across the street to notice this horrid shit brown wooded apartments that remind me of the early 80's and bad tans.

i realized it was the spot where the jewish boy i used to use resided. during my relapse from sobriety, i dated him. he needed to take care of someone insane and i swept him up in my lonely storm. i lied to him to drink, i came over drunk, he would pick up my car after nights of stumbling, he would nurse my hangovers, he got to be my hero. i remember leaving his place cuz i couldn't figure out how to sneek drinks of ;my jack, so i pretended to be mad at his conversation he was having on the phone with another woman. i left. i bought coke, poured the mixture and drank on the walk home. i was very alone everywhere i went. i punished myself for the destruction. i remember my last night b4 i was going off to rehab. he was to take me and it just so turns out my friend came over with coke, then we got more then we had a hook up to bring us more. i knew i'd have to sleep with this man to get his coke. which i was, i guess dating him for coke at the time. he used to lock me into his apartment at night, so i'd be up all night wandering the quiet house, realizing that i was trapped.

that night i knew i was late to my jewish caretakers house. i said i had trouble packing. my friend i used with wanted to rage onto the angry night, i had this rising sensation of utter panic. i knew i had to get to my friends, that i was working to save my life that very night. i booted her, but not b4 she forced me to buy liquor be4 the close of 2a.m. we had an understanding as drunks. there was to be no qualms about the fact that we are alcoholics, we just drank our suicide as a slow liquored intoxification. she is part am. indian and that might explain her ferocious addiction. she's the only person i feel that could keep up with the way i revve. i had the roughest night coming down. i drank my last drink. a god damn corona. sips off a fucking corona. i wish my last drink was a cuba libre like i like it. i felt like if i moved the wrong way i'd die. i tried to throw up and had nothing inside. i had nothing inside. i was vacant. by 11am. the next day i felt ready and perky. . . to use again. but i was admitted into a rehab. i thought it was something just to quiet everyone down so that i could use again.

that was two and a half years ago. by some miracle i haven't picked up. the thread has been so thin sometimes. i'm so young. i've made it through the break up, a layoff, work changes, the car...and it's all small challenges comparatively.

i want to drink right this moment, just thinking of that inebriation. that blanketing. forgetting myself completly because i finally didn't care. that feeling that people had to fight to care about me. they had to fight me to keep me alive. i lived countrary to my basic instinct of survival. i killed a bit of myself off each day.

what is this thing? my life is incredible right now and i want to drink it away.

and i know that if i drink and use in thailand there is a very real chance that i wouldn't make it out alive. i may never come back. i know this about myself inside. they'd have to fly in and go on a mad hunt to find me. i'm a devastatingly lost drunk inside. i'm actively defying all the odds at every given moment. my fate was to drink myself to death, i am choosing a different destiny.

this trip, i will be alive and awake to all the beauty and stimulus of life in its flow. i'm of the sensitive variety that hurts when life gets too beautiful. it's hard to explain. it can be a simple connection with a person that makes me fight back tears. i'm afraid of it all being so beautiful and i'm afraid of bathing in it. i'm afraid the showers will render me so wet that i'll need refuge in a drink.

i'm also afraid i'll be raped as this is always a constant concern to me. i think back to traveling in europe assed out drunk and i can't believe i wasn't raped. how could i now be raped with all my wits about me? how could h or b or m'l or r of been raped? why do i have to keep their names anonymous? why are the victims anonymous in a shield of shame as their rapist prowdly walk the world with the dick bouncing in the air with a sense that everyone owes their angry white asses something. i'm less afraid of the homeless man on the corner than i am of the white frat boy. how could all of those courageous, beautiful spirits have been robbed of their essence, their bearings by a man who probably didn't think twice. now those women have thought eternally of that night they were robbed, taken.

it makes me want to pack my gerber gator knife. i usually travel with it. but i'm told someone could end up using it against me. i'm told i'm defenseless.

beside these random ramblings, i'm thoroughly enthralled by this chance for adventure. and i'm filled everytime someone gasps when they hear i'm traveling alone. the truth is, i have a feeling that i am never alone. that i feel a pulse of the universe here. i feel it in the ocean, in the twisting bark of a wrinkled tree and i have a sneeking suspicion that i will feel it there too.

last night the funny writer guy i used to work with came over. we had sex. for an hour. i talked dirty. i imagined a beautiful woman. i ate rubarb pie.

i went to a mtg and ate with lizard. i love laughing about light matters with her like hair gell and shoes. i loved the fact that i chilled tonight with these friends and didn't feel impending need to be somewhere tonight. i like that i'm getting so comfortable with myself as a companion. the quiet times. the shame is lifting from me. first i think i had to realize how i have been RULED by it. this is revolutionary for me to be okay, alone and doing not much on a saturday night. i makes me feel brave and ever closer to my truth inside.

i will definately try to update you on my adventures, so cum along.

cheers.