The appealing simplicity of heroin; or the perils of a vivid imaginination.

As I have mentioned previously, my car is dead. I spend a lot of time on public transit with only the companionship of my trusty iPod. I like to listen to podcasts while i wait at the bus stop, or while i ride the train or bus. On one such podcast I heard Russel Brand, British comedian and former junkie, talking about heroin addiction. He talked about how the general neuroses of life fade, like looking for love or surviving your job, and all that becomes important is obtaining that next fix, your whole life becomes heroin. I have never tried it myself but I am familiar with the perils of the stuff, having only known one person in my lifetime who has completely come back(he says he is not over it, just taking a break until he retires). And knowing more then a few who have died from it. But I had never looked at it from the standpoint of simplicity. I am a worrier, a neurotic in the grand tradition of Mikey from "Swingers". (I have never acted out the famous answering machine scene, but only because I saw the movie before I had a girl to obsess about. God bless you Jon Favreau.)

I am an addict. I am a man of massive and elemental hungers for food, alcohol, pornography, viedo games and television. There is not one of those that I value over the others, they have all reached various levels of primacy in my life from time to time. I don't really consider myself addicted to those specific things, i have lived for long periods of time without one, some or all of them at one time or another. What I am addicted to is what they offer: Escape. Wherever I am, whatever I am doing there is a tiny little gear in my head, behind my right eye. It spins wildly, always pushing and driving me to think about what the next thing. That tiny gear is responsible for my insomnia, keeping me up nights,. It eats at me. The only time I can quiet it is when I throw myself into one of the aforementioned activities. Of course the downside is that when I eventually burn out of losing myself in these things, the little gear comes back with a vengeance. Turbo-charged by a super-sized well of guilt to feed off of.

I am trying as I get older to be more settled in my own skin. My roommate John and his lovely fiance (sorry I called you half a friend, I thought you would think me presumptuous if i had said more.) offered me a golden opportunity last year to get an apartment with them in the Bay Area. When I decided to take them up on it I made the resolution in my own head that i was going to make a stand. I had jumped around too much in the past 5 years career-wise, never staying more than a year or two in any one job. I was going to get a job and stick with it even if i hated it. (I did hate the job I got, and I resolved to stick it out, only to be laid off in January. Roll that irony on your tongue for a little while. I am pretty sure the lack of continuity on my resume is primarily responsible for my continued unemployment.) I was not going to run away anymore. And my newly engaged roommates are looking to buy a place of their own (in this soft market it only makes a shitload of sense), and I am not sure how long I can last in the Bay. Supposedly my last stand. There is a Yiddish Proverb that I think applies especially to this situation. Men plan, God laughs.

Disclaimer time. I have not and never will do heroin. I am not encouraging anyone else, and anyone who does do heroin and blames what I write is a fucking moron. You got bigger problems than drugs if you do them based on my musings. But I did spend some time after listening to Russel thinking about the simplicity of it. I have had many happy periods in my life, but never have I been content. Which is good. I think complacency is awful. There is an attraction there though. An attraction to lay down my burdens. To not worry about not having a job. To not wonder what the fuck is going on in my love life. To quiet that little gear once and for all. To trade in my many masters for just the one. Boil down my existence to the service of that one thing. That's too much like giving up however, too close to suicide. So I will keep plugging, trying to get back into the industry I love. Keep writing. Keep trying to figure out what the hell the girl I am halfway seeing would like from me. Keep trying to scale back on the escape and accept my life as is.