| Evening, Monday February 14, 2000 My desk chair is being a pain. A couple of weeks ago I’d finally had it with
the creaks and groans it’s been making. It’s been a little wobbly too.
I’ve let the repairs go because it kept Jeffrey out of it. I didn’t mind him
sitting in the chair, but I his rolling all around the apartment on the hardwood floors in
the middle of the night didn’t exactly ingratiate me with the neighbors. So if he
thought the chair seemed too dangerous to drive, so much the better.
I inverted the chair and inspected everything. The screws on the plate attached to the
center post were loose. They’re what keep the seat attached to the center post. I got
out the ratchet and the WD-40. I became quite alarmed when tightening the screws took over
six full turns each! No wonder it was wobbly. I wondered if there had been any permanent
damage to the chair, but from what I could tell visually, there didn’t seem to be.
Before I turned it back over, I sprayed WD-40 in the tilt mechanism to stop the nasty
creaks and groans. Then, grasping the chair by its base and an arm, I started to turn it
over. The base came off in my hand. I don’t remember it ever coming off before, but
who knows. I put the base on the floor and lowered the chair onto it. No wobbles, no
squeaks, creaks or groans. Life is good.
Until the next morning when I got up. The wobble was back and it felt strange, like
something was out of adjustment. But there’s almost nothing to adjust. It has height
and tilt adjustments. That’s it. I put it out of my mind for a few days.
Last week I noticed my back had started bothering me, but only the right side. Something
clicked in my mind. I wiggled in the chair, adjusted my posture and paid attention to
everything. The chair had developed a significant list to starboard and I was compensating
by leaning to my left.
By "significant list to starboard", I mean that the left armrest touched the
bottom of the keyboard shelf, and the right armrest had 1˝” of clearance. Were it a
cruise ship, I’d have been in a lifeboat with a free cruise voucher in my hand two
weeks ago! I figured I must have broken something by overtightening the screws. I silently
cursed myself for buying a $200 chair with only a 4-year life span.
Over the weekend my right wrist started bothering me again. Everything’s been just
fine since I bought a wavy keyboard and started mousing left-handed nearly a year ago. In
fact, I really like the combo. The wavy keyboard really is much more comfortable once you
get used to it.
Mousing left-handed is great because of the way it frees up my right hand for other
things. No, I’m not talking about surfing one-handed. Eating, drinking, smoking,
taking notes and using the remote for the stereo are no longer a distraction. And I feel I
have a choice again between the cursor keys and the mouse. Working both together, I can
really zoom around quickly. It makes me wonder why I moused right-handed for the past
eight years.
Yeah, okay. It makes one-handed surfing easier too.
Anyway, this time the culprit wasn’t the mouse or the keyboard. It was the chair and
the weird angle I had to hold my arm at to reach the keyboard. On Saturday I rummaged
around and found my wrist brace. By this afternoon the strain had transferred to my
shoulder. Arrgh!
Tonight while making supper I discovered the side-dish-in-a-box I’d selected required
milk. Drat! It was too late to change the menu, so I turned everything down and got
dressed for the arctic trek to The Corner Store. As I spun the chair around so I could sit
down and put on my boots, it all but leapt off its base. What the f...?
I turned dinner off and inverted the chair to investigate. This time, some sort of sleeve
bearing came off with the base. All I could envision as I tried to figure out how
everything went back together was using one of my faux Windsor kitchen chairs at the desk
for the next six months. All of them need repair. I was ready to cry.
Suddenly, the parts all slipped together. It seemed stable enough so I put it back
upright. No wobble. I had a test sit. It seemed out of whack. <sigh> I put on my
boots and rolled the chair under the desk. The right arm hit the keyboard shelf. So did
the left. Amazingly, the chair no longer lists. It wobbles ever so slightly, and the creak
and groan are back, but it’s level! Which means after a couple of more days my back,
shoulder and wrist should be back to normal.
Which leaves me wondering how my chair will attack me next.
I watched television last night. There was a new Poirot mystery on A&E. Finally, something worth watching! I
cranked up the surround sound, gathered some snacks and beverages and settled into the
couch. Then the commercials started and they put my brain back into gear. So much for my
evening of light entertainment.
What got my tits in an uproar was the IBM e-business commercial about the refrigerator
that calls the repairman before it breaks down. Now, I'm a big fan of the Internet. I have
a web site I diddle around with. I have a broadband connection. My PC is on 24x7 and
I’m at it for most of my waking hours. But this whole hullabaloo about networked
appliances is taking things a bit too far.
If this fridge is so unreliable that it needs an Internet connection to e-mail the
repairman, why would I want to buy it? It reminds me of the whole appliance store
"service contract" scam. Why not simply purchase a more reliable model and save
the hassle? Call me old-fashioned, but personally, as long as a fridge makes adequate
amounts of cold and the light goes on when I open the door, I’m a happy camper.
What is it with these propellerheads anyway? For the past 25 years electronics engineers
have dictated that everything needs to emit a warning blast and flash something in a
digital readout every time a button is pressed. Now they want my fridge to have an IP
address and an e-mail account?
While it’s true you could probably use a Pentium III as a hotplate, why should I have
to worry about a stove that needs to be rebooted halfway through dinner? Then again, maybe
Betty Crocker could do a better job with operating systems than Bill Gates. And the manual
would not only be more comprehensive, but so much easier to read and follow!
Particularly in light of the Internet attacks last week, there are the inevitable security
issues to consider. I don’t want to have to worry about people hacking into my washer
to set the temperature to hot when I’m washing woolens, or worse, setting my toaster
to “light” and my coffee maker to “weak”. Oh the horrors!
What I want from technology for my appliances is simple. I want a volume control on my
microwave. That’s all. I don’t want the buttons to beep when I press them and I
don’t want it to wake the entire neighborhood when my hot chocolate is done at
4:00AM.
Life is complicated enough. Just give me a volume knob on my microwave, not volume buttons
thank you very much, and keep your LAN cables and IP addresses out of my kitchen.
Evening, Tuesday February 15, 2000
I am so beat. Please accept my apologies in advance typos, missing
words, mixed up word order and general incoherence.
My sleep has been weird for the past week. I have to stay up until I’m exhausted or
else I can’t fall asleep. I’ve been hitting the hay around 2:00AM. I’ve
been able to sleep only until 4:00 or 4:30 or so, and that two hours or so is fractured,
fragmented and full of nightmares.. Then I’m wide-awake until around 7:00 when I can
get some normal sleep until around noon. Hence the naps all week.
It was hard, but I skipped my nap yesterday. Given the anticipation I felt for
today’s visit to the jail I had hopes of being able to get to bed earlier and sleep
better. It didn’t work. It was harder to get to sleep and the quality was worse. I
awoke at 4:00 and have been on the go since.
You only get a half-hour for the first-time visit at the jail. It’s unscheduled, you
just show up. I arrived at 9:00 and got in to see Jeffrey at 10:30. Because of the way the
mail works at the jail and coupled with his not being assigned a bunk until yesterday, he
didn’t get the letter I sent on Friday until this morning. I’d hoped he would
have a couple of days to digest it before we met, instead he had only a couple of hours.
He wrote a response and smuggled it out to me in the visiting room. He asked me to
transcribe and post it on his site. Some of it won’t make sense unless you know what
I wrote to him. Since he wanted me to post his reply, I have no choice but to post my
letter to him.
Thursday February 10, 2000
JEFFREY
C/O MONROE COUNTY JAIL
130 PLYMOUTH AVE S
ROCHESTER NY 14614-2213
Dear Jeffrey,
I know I need to be very careful in how I write to you in order to prevent the problems
we’ve had in the past. In proofreading this letter I think I met my goals of being
clear in my meaning. As a result, the language is unemotional and cold. I sacrificed the
warmth of emotion for the coldness of clarity. By itself, that can be misleading so
I’ll be equally clear, although warmer, here.
My feelings for you and our friendship have never changed, nor do I expect them to. You
can count on my feeling the love of friendship towards you and on my loyalty to you and
our friendship. I still stand in awe of the depth of those feelings. They will be with me
to my grave, and my words will live on from beyond there.
I got your message Wednesday from the Pre-Trial Office. I got your message today from the
Deputy. I lied to Pre-Trial and to the Deputy because I didn’t want anything lost in
the translation. I’m sorry I missed your phone call Wednesday night, but I got and
saved the message.
Nearly a year ago I made a commitment to you and to myself. We’ve talked about it
since. You acknowledged it in your poem, “Danger-Boy”. That commitment was, and
remains, that I won’t post bail for you. I am keeping my word.
My hope is that you’ll respect me for keeping my word. But I’m fully prepared to
deal with any other feelings you may have. If you feel betrayal, I ask, how is my keeping
my word to you, keeping my commitment to you a betrayal? If you feel I’m being mean
and vindictive, the same question applies.
On the other hand, it’s okay to feel anger, disappointment, resentment, abandonment,
betrayal and yes, hate. I imagine that were the roles reversed, I would feel these same
things, so in fairness I cannot hold that against you if you do feel or express these
things to me. But after all those feelings pass, will you respect me for having kept my
word, my commitment? If that answer turns out to be no, it means you have no respect for
me now, so I will have lost nothing.
I won’t accept argument on any other point than this. Why should I give up whatever
respect you have for me, and whatever self-respect I have, by breaking my word, breaking
my commitment? It needs to be a very powerful argument for me to give up my self-respect.
New Subject
The Deputy figures you’ll be in general population on Friday or Saturday. You’ll
already know by the time you get this that I dropped by on Saturday with a book and that I
made a deposit to your account.
I’ll come by for the first-time visit on Tuesday, I’m shooting for the middle
one in the morning. I ask that you take a few moments to think towards the future and plan
for your needs during this incarceration. Then we can discuss them during our visit.
You won’t be a state-baby, but I cannot afford to keep you in the lap of luxury as I
did last summer. So with regard to property, decide for yourself what your priorities are
and I’ll work my way down the list, stopping where my finances dictate.
I’m asking for communication and I’m asking you to take charge of your affairs.
Enforcing that, I will not act upon a non-specific request like, “Whatever you can
do.” I don’t know what your priorities are so you must decide them for me.
Remember that quantities can vary within your list. (I’m making this up as an
example, not as a suggestion.) It might be three sets of underwear and t-shirts, six pairs
of socks, sweats, one each of long underwear, then maybe more t-shirts. I don’t know
their relative importance to you, nor do I know where my budget will run out.
It all has to compete with commissary funds, so where does a radio, where do books, where
do art supplies fit into the total picture? What can you do for yourself to overcome any
shortfall?
If there are specific people you’d like me to ask to help you, I’ll coordinate
purchases and delivery with them. I won’t be asking them to help me. I’ll be
relaying your request that they help you. Again, I’m asking you to decide. I
won’t make the decisions and ask anyone I can think of.
[Two personal and confidential paragraphs deleted.]
That’s it for now. I’m guessing you’ve got plenty to deal with anyway. Just
so you know and don’t have to worry, I’m doing better this time than others.
I’m not the mess I usually am. Experience and the space we’ve taken in the past
month have helped. Responsibilities are locked-down. There are groceries in the kitchen
and TP in the bathroom. I soldier on.
Yours,
 |
For his reply, see Essay II From the Monroe County Jail.
With the exception of a couple of spelling errors Word fixed, it’s a faithful
transcription, right down to his idiosyncratic style of punctuation.
I’m not sure how to interpret his reply. I’m too tired right now. I would like
your help with the interpretation and I invite advice.
In conversation, he told me that despite what it says in his essay, he does not want me to
bail him out. This is what confuses me.
Anyway, he spent five days in the full misery of the DTs. It’s taken a couple of days
for him to recover from that and he said that today was the first day he’s felt
decent in weeks. I’ve seen him after detox more times than I care to count. He swings
into a major manic phase and today was no exception.
I told him I only wanted to speak on one topic today and otherwise the floor was his.
Between the mania and having so much to say in only a half-length visit, I could barely
hear as fast as he was talking. Remember that fast-talking guy on the FedEx commercials
years ago? Still, most everything got through.
He told me that he called the police himself last Tuesday and then waited for them to
arrive, despite everyone else at the scene begging him to run off and promising
they’d lie to the police in order to cover for him. He and the police negotiated the
charges and he got into the car by himself, sans handcuffs. The charges are not as serious
as I’d originally assumed, but since the matter is still before the court, I will not
go into detail here.
I was also able to verify this and other parts of his story to my satisfaction when I
visited his mother immediately after leaving the jail. She made me lunch and we talked for
two hours at least. But that’s another story.
He told me that Pre-Trial and made him a release offer and he turned it down. He says he
told them that the would accept pre-trial release on the condition that they put him on
in-person daily-reporting. He wants to be breathalyzed daily and have random urine screens
for cocaine. They’re not sure they want to get that involved.
He also asked that I contact DSS to explain why he didn’t make it to his meeting with
them last Thursday and to see about rescheduling. I happily agreed to this.
Here’s the topper. When he is released, either through pre-trial or after completing
his sentence, he’s looking for “a hard-assed mutherfucker” to be his AA
sponsor. He wants a rigid and unyielding program as much I want one that isn’t. Any
referrals? Any takers?
Needless to say, all this conflicting information left my already woozy head reeling.
I’ve heard it all before. But this time he had a started to put a program together
before he put himself in jail, rather than wait until he got there.
And of course through my enabling, I’ve helped him shoot down every attempt at
staying sober. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a fine line between accepting
responsibility for your contribution, and taking the blame. We both stand on the correct
side of that line with regard to my enabling. And with regard to his enabling me.
It’s the one thing we agreed upon today.
When it came my turn to talk I explained the thoughts I had on enabling as I wrote last
week. I’ve had more time to think about it, so I was able to take things a step
further with him. It deserves more attention than I can give here right now, but the inner
conflict I unconsciously felt was a huge contributor to the anger that had come to
permeate my feelings for and interactions with Jeffrey.
Ultimately he summarized things nicely and we have a new pact: Because of the love and
respect we have for each other, we will not enable each other’s additions.
This lets us off the hook in many ways. If I fall off the wagon and Jeffrey didn’t
enable me to do it, it saves him from my anger and his own guilt. And vice-versa. There
will certainly be a bit more than a tsk-tsk, but it may go a long way towards preventing
the explosions.
I’ve got to stop here, this is making very little sense to me and I already know what
I want to say.
Right now, the very best thing I could do for myself, is go to bed. So I shall.
Evening, Wednesday February 16,
2000
It wasn’t until I got home this afternoon that I remembered why I
wanted to stop at the pharmacy. I’d stood there wondering why I couldn’t
remember what it was that I was going to buy. Benadryl.
I’m taking it as a good sign that I’m questioning my motives about the purchase
of something as seemingly innocuous as Benadryl. I’m thinking about my own disease
again. The last time I really remember doing such a thing was long before I started this
journal, three years ago, maybe four?
My temporary memory loss bought me time to rethink the decision. I’d already decided
that the goal of the purchase was an altered state. A dangerous proposition for an addict,
even if that altered state is sleep. I’d already decided to buy the Benadryl. It was
a decision made in desperation. Desperation is not the best place to be when making
decisions.
I went to bed last night shortly before 9:00. I was still wide-awake at 4:00 this morning.
I’d tried everything. It was exhaustion, plain and simple, that got me five hours
last night. This afternoon and evening, I got another four hours before being awakened by
the phone. It was a deputy from the jail. My first thought was, “Uh oh. Here comes
the bail request.”
Nope. There’s a commissary account issue. The jail has new software. (There’s a
category you wouldn’t think about, Jail Software.) New software means all new inmate
ID numbers. Jeffrey’s old number, 091938, dated back to his juvenile days,
identifying him to the other inmates as an “old-timer” in the system. This
automatically bought him a certain amount of respect in the population. Now, as 206936, he
has to earn it like everyone else.
The regular money lady wasn’t at the money deposit window on Saturday. Jeffrey also
wasn’t in general population. Between the money girl wanting to be helpful in taking
a deposit before they technically are supposed to, and my trying to be helpful by
supplying her with his old ID number, he never got the $20 I deposited on Saturday. If
they don’t have it straightened out by my visit tomorrow, I’ll have to take my
receipt upstairs to Jail Administration.
You could have knocked me over with a feather
yesterday when Jeffrey told me he was taking my words to heart about taking charge of his
own affairs. When we discussed property, he said, “I checked the price sheet at the
commissary. Except for sweats, the prices are okay. I can buy everything here one item at
a time as the need comes up.”
Wow! This is a big change. A HUGE change!
“They want $25 a piece for sweats. That’s way too much. I know you can get them
for around six or seven bucks a piece. I can’t get coloring books, either. So all
I’m asking you for is sweats and a Looney Tunes coloring book.”
I asked, “What about a radio?” The only permitted radios are $30 at the
commissary and it’s usually the first thing buys there after personal care items.
“No. If I want one I can trade for one or wait until someone’s released.”
Still reeling from the shock I asked, “What about art supplies?”
“Nope. The ones you get me are $35. You can’t afford that. I’ll use what I
can get here.”
“But they’re so shitty,” I protested. Crayola makes great crayons, but
their colored pencils bite the big one.
“I said no. Just get me the cheapest sweats you can find and I’ll handle the
rest. The only thing I ask is, can you get them to me today?”
He’s in PSB, one of the nicer blocks, view of the river, the Corn Hill neighborhood
and I-490, but it has climate control problems.
“All I’ve got is the uniform,” he continued. “It’s too cold to
get out of bed.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “If I can find sweats downtown and I can be back before
Property closes at 3:00, you’ll have them today. Otherwise, you’ll have them
tomorrow.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
Mark took me out to the ‘burbs last night.
(Thanks again, Mark. I still owe you that dinner.) I’d looked everywhere downtown and
couldn’t find sweats the match the jail’s specification, plain gray, no trim, no
logos, no drawstring waist. $5.99 each for tops and bottoms. I couldn’t find any
Looney Tunes coloring books, so I got him a Disney one for now. It was only 99˘ at Big
Lots.
It must have been ballbreaker day at the Property window today.
“Go to jail, get a new wardrobe,” teased the supervisor.
“Hey, look at this! Go to jail learn to draw,” exclaimed the clerk.
My turn to tease them: “It’s those wonderful art classes you have in Henrietta
(the “suburban branch” jail used for longer sentences) that keeps him coming
back. He’s hoping for the neo-classics course this semester. He didn’t care for
the impressionism one last summer.”
The mail today brought an interesting critique.
Actually, it made my day. After discussing the conflicting messages I'm getting from
Jeffrey, Ed in NYC (who has become a trusted friend) reminded me to be careful, that it
was probably still a manipulation to get bail. He concluded with the remark:
I could be wrong … but if it is manipulation, he gets the Oscar AND the Golden
Globe. I really had thought that all the stuff that's on his part of the site had been
carefully edited by you for grammar, spelling and punctuation. He writes very well for
someone in his state of mind. This totally destroyed the image I had of him as being a
brainless piece of trade.
I replied,
Nope. Sometimes it pains me, but I respect his words enough to put that aside. It's
built a trust between us that's also given us the freedom to ask each other for help when
the right word or phrase eludes.
We've had spirited discussions over writing and such. The dictionary has resolved so many
arguments! We're about 50-50 in who's right and who's wrong.
Willie gave me his Webster’s Unabridged when he moved back to Nicaragua. It gets
plenty of use, probably more than the whistling teakettle and the pillows he also gave me.
It’s certainly the most meaningful gift I’ve received in a long time.
I’m calling it quits for tonight. It's almost 10:00 and I haven’t made dinner
yet. I’ve given up trying to sort out all the conflicting messages I got from Jeffrey
yesterday. I have a morning visit tomorrow at the jail, which should help clear things up.
I also have my assignment to write for class tomorrow night./p>
Late evening, Friday February 18, 2000
I got a pizza last night. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except that I
usually get pizza on Friday nights. All day, I’ve thought it was Saturday! Daft boy.
I’ll go into more detail tomorrow, but here are the major bullet points from the past
two days:
 |
I woke up at 4:00AM yesterday and didn’t go back to sleep because
I was afraid I’d sleep through the alarm and miss my visit at the jail. |
|
Jeffrey and I resolved the mixed messages regarding the bail.
Won’t happen. |
|
I forgot that I hadn’t finished the essay for class and took a
nap. Ooops! I finished the piece a few minutes before class. This week’s topic,
“Write about your earliest childhood memory” produced “Geek”. |
|
I didn’t eat all day and was too tired to cook when I got home
from class, hence the pizza. |
|
I collapsed from exhaustion three hours earlier than usual and slept
until 5:00AM! Six hours, wooo hooo! |
|
Excepting a four-hour nap, I worked all day on behind the scene stuff
on the site. It’s mostly for my benefit and except for a new page, everything should
be (Dare I say it?) “transparent to the user.” Can you find the link to the new
Cast List page? |
Other than kicking myself for not getting some things
done because I thought it was Saturday, I’m feeling better on all fronts. But except
for cold leftover pizza for breakfast, I haven’t eaten a thing all day. Off to the
kitchen…
Evening, Saturday February 19, 2000
I haven’t written about music lately. It doesn’t mean I'm not
listening to or liking anything, it’s mostly because I haven’t been buying any.
There’s a remix that Music Choice has been playing lately that may get me back into
that habit.
Jennifer Lopez has been described as “fluffy, not exactly barn-busting but perfectly
serviceable.” In its original version from the album On The 6, “Waiting
For Tonight” is exactly that. A light, pleasant little song, more of a background
disposapop piece than a dance number. Then Pablo Flores got a hold of it. His Miami Mix
has completely transformed it into a powerhouse.
I can think of only a handful for tunes that when they come on, they kick me out of my
chair and make me scream as I grab the remote, crank up the volume, clear the living room
floor and dance like a crazy person. Flores had done just that with “Waiting for
Tonight”.
I’m a sucker for sophisticated Latin percussion and the Miami Mix delivers. But
something that really trips my trigger is when a fat powerful bass line carries the
melody. It’s easy to screw up the mix when you move the melody down the scale by two
octaves. But Flores has left plenty of “air” in the mix and all the lines have
plenty of elbowroom to be heard without competition.
His reconstruction and reordering of the piece can best be described in sexual terms. Like
a good partner, Flores gets excited quickly, then becomes a tease. The long intro is
followed by a build-up of intensity you just know is going to break over into the refrain.
But rather than give us the eargasm, he smoothly drops into the first verse.
Oh honey gimme more! And he does. Alternately building and releasing intensity, he keeps
it on the edge until the wait is intolerable, then he lets it rip. Ultimately, I’m
left exhausted and screaming for more.
The only problem is, the remix is available in the US only on vinyl. There are two EPs
from the UK, but one of them isn’t the one I want and there’s no track listing
available. Damn.
Fuck! My chair just attacked me again. This time it’s going for the vertebrae.
Something let go and it suddenly free-fell three inches. I was slouching a bit and when
the center post hit the floor, the sudden stop got me right around the L5. It hurts to sit
up. Rather than risk further injury by writing, I’m going for ibuprofen and bed. Just
as I was getting warmed up too… |
