excuse raze often synonymous with "bullshit". 130525 ... kerry still enduring some cravings but that’s what happens when you’re shedding this skin, unlearning a habit, what looked like a lifeline. moments walking on 15th with a heavy bag of overpriced groceries thinking: that woman who looks like a potato, always glaring and smoking 100s on her stoop–gross. that lanky guy with the paperback lighting up in the late morning, serene and contained–that’s more like it. “don’t judge me,” i’d said to peter, and then felt stupid for saying it. he suggested his old roommate asher’s method of quitting, which meant rolling his own, sometimes spliffs. i remember the three of us at a cabin in the blue ridge mountains, sitting on a bench swing and sharing a joint in the pitch black. we were staring into the forest, listening to the burbling creek we couldn’t see. so i tried it, his method, tricked myself into saying it was really working. “i think we both just inherited mom’s addictive personality,” peter had said magnanimously, and i said “yeah i guess so,” but rolled my eyes. i’m not sure if it’s an unfair comparison or just an insult to my dignity. i do know it’s an idea i used to believe in, bur now it sounds like a hollow excuse for just about anything. until she got diverticulitis and was forced to quit, mom was at best a heavy drinker and at worst a functioning alcoholic. sipping diluted chardonnay in a water bottle at peter’s little league games and laughing when i took a sip, not realizing what it was. mom floating around the kitchen, topping off her half empty glass. and dad eying her–disgust, disappointment. (too much alcohol, too much meat, too much salt, and on and on, so much excess. he complains and doesn’t lift a finger to help) i know the reasons, the trail of crumbs that shows how she (and i?) got from there to here, and it has nothing to do with personality. 220114 ... unhinged maybe how i feel about it has no bearing on how if affects her when i lie to myself, my insides push back against the lie. but when i face the uncomfortable truth my stomach naturally unclenches. A A A 220115 ... unhinged (i don't think addiction is a personality trait that only some of us have; i think it is a coping mechanism for the horror of modern life. i feel my own addiction voice nagging me lately. beer and pot are not erasing the irritation and anxiety, not even fading it into the background like a blurry picture. the taste for round pills with sharp edges tickles the back of my mind. i push that old impulse aside. sometimes i just want to turn my feelings off, be numb. my brain and my antenna are always buzzing. my feelings, their feelings, audible noise...it all buzzes and tingles and sometimes i just want to turn it all off. but eventually, feelings win. because humans are made for feelings and we literally get sick without them. when does medicine become addiction? why do i need an expert to tell me the difference?) 220115 what's it to you? who go blather from