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February 28, 2005

Constant Reminder

I got my Driver's License renewed on my birth month, in December. I went to the State of Florida Department of Highways and Motor Vehicles website, which is far more convenient than waiting in line for hours at the local Driver's License office. Just put your payment info into the form and bang!, you're renewed. As I received my fresh new drivers license in the mail, I realized there was one distinct disadvantage to this method. They use the picture that you last had.

My Driver's License

When I last renewed my driver's license, it was August of 2000. I was heavily in the grips of my crystal meth addiction, was not working, and had in all tackiness bleached my already blond hair, and thought it looked good. My eyes and face was puffy. I was 33 years old, and pretty sad. I remember thinking at the time that I looked pretty good.

Last summer I watched the movie Spun, a movie starring Jason Schwartzman and a whole slew of other cast members, including Mickey Rourke, John Leguizamo and Deborah Harry. Jason plays Ross, this young college-dropout who is "Spun" on meth—the movie outlines a four-day run on the stuff with no sleep, and he encounters all sorts of wacky characters, also tweaked out, along the way. The outfits that some of the cast wore, most notably Mickey Rourke's psycho-cowboy garb, reminded me of tweaking life.

When I went out, I dressed in some pretty strange looking outfits, that I thought at the time were beyond stylish. Now that I look back on those days I have to laugh. I still don't dress like a typical a-gay fag, but at least now I dress down rather than "up."

It's one of the sure signs, other than the more subtle teeth grinding and rapid, nonsensical talking, that I can tell that someone's a bit too tweaked for words. The one who comes to mind is Bob (not his real age), who, in spite of his drug use is otherwise a really sweet guy, but he is also a middle-aged man who goes out of his house in the heat of day in tight Daisy-Mae short-shorts with red handkerchiefs in his back pockets. He thinks this is normal.

God I'm glad I'm clean. If I ever somehow decide forget what it was like, I have only my driver's license photo to remind me.

Posted by Bastique at February 28, 2005 11:00 PM

Comments

Hey Cary,
Newcomer from Alberta,Canada and linked onto Google for some reason I got to reading your story! man in touched me I'm sure your name is Cary ,Mine is Shawna like I said I live in Alberta I don't know if you will receive this message as it seems that this eppidemic has ONLY just begone In our parts of the world It's Not like we live in the Artic or something Crazy like that We are as normal as you coukd geuss I suppose. anyways My Sister had gone to a crack site which have been comman since the late 90's I think But Now we are facing a Huge Problem And Im seriously believe It's your Goverment Sending or Transporting It to Our parts. We have never had so many Homicides in Canda in the last Decade It's mindblowing It's because of that Drug Methinphimines or like Tina says Junk It's killing the people on our Streets Our Kids It's Everywhere ,You can almost find a dealer for Crack Cocaine then you can Weed (that is a medicinal drug All you need is a scprict from your Doc. Anyways goiing to read on. I sure Hope Casy that your still with us and have still been clean Like I said it's seems like this Blog could have been written along time ago so I don't know who it may reach!!!!!!

A Friend Shawna
Edmonton,Alberta Canada

Posted by: Shawna at October 4, 2005 2:11 PM

Hey Shawna, thanks for the support... yeah I'm still around and still sober thank God. And still writing stuff. My latest quit? Nicotine.

Peace

Posted by: Bastique at October 12, 2005 11:21 PM

I have a school ID like that, from over 20 years ago.

Posted by: Dawn at February 13, 2006 3:06 PM

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