In Search of Lost Time

Days without an update: 18

Wow, time flies when you’re on drugs. At least I think that’s the case for my opioid addict boss, Hundo, who didn’t realize that it was no longer August. He was blind-sided by the Jewish New Year and took off for the holiday, leaving me a few work days without visiting every Duane Reade in the city. Happy New Year!

I haven’t behaved much better than (allegedly) Hundo has, with my alcoholism lapsing into black outs all over the city. Thus the lack of updates, time for both blackouts and recovery is all my social calendar can handle.

About a week ago I cleared time in my social calendar to meet with Georgia Ann, Times Square and a few other friends that I’d been neglecting. We all met at El Rey Del Sol on 14th and enjoyed ourselves, along with a pitcher of margaritas. Part way through the evening we began to notice that the seasons were slowly changing from summer to fall, that we’re all becoming more accustomed to the city, and that the guys sitting behind me were very attractive.

Ten minutes later I had become BFF with Carlos and whatever the other guy’s name was, and found my conversation at their table leading very promising places. My gaggle of friends decided to move on to Flannery’s (love it) and I decided to stick around for ten more minutes and a cigarette (which is practically unveiled code for “let me seal the deal first”).

The next thing I know, its 6:30 in the morning and I’m on the E train in Queens. No cell phone, no iPod, and no idea how this all happened.

After only an hour and a half of sleep in Harlem, the Harem awakens me and informs me that moving day is upon us, just like autumn weather and the winter of my discontent. I pushed through a brutal headache and managed to drag my roomies belongings down the steps of our fifth floor walk-up and into the moving truck before nearly passing out on a subway train to our new home in Brooklyn. Unfortunately surviving one headache meant sucumbing to a new one- Straight Boyfriend’s bed was too big for our staircase and could not be pushed up the one flight of steps into our new (huge and awesome) apartment.

There was a brief moment when I pulled the box springs over my head that I worried I might faint, but when Straight Boyfriend literally threw his bed and I caught it by the loose fabric and pulled it over our second story balcony everything turned out ok. Then I immediately collapsed on our new couch, physically exhausted from moving and mentally not quite sure what happened the evening before.

Eventually the clues fell into place- my friends had called all night because I had simply disappeared (though I lost my phone and couldn’t call them), my hangover never included the slightest twinge of nausea, my memory lapsed for an epic 8 hour span, my bar tab never increased during the night, and I only had two drinks of the margaritas…. at 9 pm! That does not explain feeling entirely out of your own body at noon the next day.

Too confused and perturbed to venture out on Saturday, I chatted with a friend over mimosas and goat-cheese omlettes about my night. The conclusion: rohypnol. Perhaps GHB. Either way, fantastic.

Less than a year in a city and I already can’t remember the boys I’m going home with.

Jokes aside, the entire event does shake your confidence. Nothing of the evening was out of the ordinary, nothing incredibly dangerous or unwise, just incredibly bad luck and the complete ignorance/naivety of a midwesterner attempting to meet new people and have some margaritas. The strange marks on my arm have healed, I’ve retrieved my phone after a lengthy time out of touch, and my friends have forgiven me for disappearing. I have all my money, I am disease free, I was not forced to ingest anything illegal, and I wasn’t sold into black market slavery (that would RUIN my night). I am pretty lucky for all of that, though. The next few weeks have brought a sense of normalty, and the new apartment is coming along nicely. I’m *this close* to buying a real bed! Party.

It’s a shame for the boys though, I would’ve spent the night without the drugs. Bummer.

[everything it seems i like is a little bit sweeter, a little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me]

Mein Kampf

Days Sick: 7

Drug addiction is back like Britney.

After a few days of office illin’ I still refused to take any medication. A lifetime of watching my family pop pills and living with two pharmacist roommates has convinced me that medicinal drugs are the devil, or at least very bad conversation starters. Not all drugs, once upon a time I was the first person to put something under my tongue, but the FDA-approved kind.

My vendetta against prescriptions not withstanding, I quickly found myself hiking nearly a mile to a pharmacy in Manhattan to fill an order for my boss. By Friday treked to the pharmacy 4 times in the week, to pick up pills that cost hundreds of dollars and use my boss’ debit card. However, my boss’ behavior began to get more and more eradic. By the end of the week Hundo was back to being the sweaty twitchy intense mess that originally hired me, but had disappeared lately. The newly re-twitchy Hundo was adament that I keep quiet about my pharmacy hikes, that not another assistant or manager find out where I’d been going. I would disappear for nearly an hour and leave my other bosses to do my work, and when I returned I had to lie about where I had been. They caught on rather quickly. And that’s when they started getting worried.

Primarily used to treat opioid addiction, Hundo’s medication can also be prescribed to treat intense pain (which he has in his foot), causes mild euphoria and increased verbal communication, and is the most abused drug in Scandanavian countries. That explains why Hundo keeps singing the first line of “Climb Every Mountain” over and over again before leaving his office to jabber random things at me before singing again. Euphoria. Verbal communication. Climb every mountain, for eight hours a day.

While ignoring my boss’ obvious drug problems and refusing to actually tell any co-workers or managers about my worries might be a bad idea for his personal health, making blind accusations about his drug use is a much worse idea. I’ve decided to make my peace with his addiction. And I’m not getting anything to battle this damn sickness.

However, the world decided that my Friday needed to be as unbarable as possible, which meant my unmedicated sickness became incrimentally worse when I awoke. Hoping to shake the malaise before heading to DC for the day, I packed my bags and left for work a little early… Only to be sprayed with garbage by the damn power-scrubbing street cleaner after it ran over the curb. Great.

Once safely on the subway and away from (copious) amounts of airborn trash I was greeted by a lovely young street urchin who deemed me the “suit and tie nigga” and proceded to barate me for a good 15 minutes before my subway stop. Fortunately, my iPod can be turned up louder than this kid could speak in a crowded subway. Unfortunately, I felt completely defenseless. How do you possibly defend yourself to someone who clearly just wants to make a scene? How do you reconcile other people’s race expectations with your own career goals? How do you explain that race has nothing to do with the potential to succeed? That clothing doesn’t dictate allegiances? And how do you ignore the small ember in you that says maybe you don’t fit in with your race, maybe you’re as big of a traitor as this kid accuses you of being. Turning up your yuppie iPod that’s tucked into your faux-Oxford shirt certainly doesn’t do anything to prove this kid wrong, nor does it do a thing to restore the masculinity that you’re quietly letting yourself be stripped of. Gentrification is an ugly process, whether it’s on behalf of the whites who “invade” the neighborhoods, the minorities that lose “their” neighborhood, or the quiet mixed guy on the subway who looks like part of the neighborhood and dresses like the other half. Meanwhile, all I could think about was getting to work on time so that I could buy Hundo’s drugs.

After my subway neutering I made it to work on time and realized I had forgotten my phone. If I was going to spend a weekend in DC with Weather Man it’s vital that I get my phone to let people know where to meet me/ make weekend plans/ etc. After some intense finagling my roommate got my phone as far as 6th avenue, I just had to meet up with him to grab it.

An hour later I had skipped lunch, braved the rain, and retrieved my phone. My sickness was worse, Hundo accused me of costing the company $65,000 in cancelations- only later to realize I was in the clear and had done a great job, and it occured to me that I was not going to go to DC. I was sick, tired, cranky, sweaty, hungry, and wet. Sitting on a bus without food or a change of clothes for 5 hours would not have helped.

And that’s when I had to deal with Crazy Face. For weeks her work has been piling up, to the point that other assistants have helped her with small tasks to help her out. Earlier this week Hundo pulled me aside and explained to me that if I didn’t help Crazy Face finish all of her new orders, she would be fired. And that was a problem for me since I was going to be her supervisor.

Supervisor? Promotion? Already? Sweet!

Talk and work with Crazy Face? Bummer.

Throughout the entire day I was doing all of my own work at break neck speeds, avoiding the expensive mistake I made earlier this week (which turned out fine), and then doing Crazy Face’s work. …While she made copies, talked on the phone with her friends, and walked around with her Crazy Face. And then left early.

Bitch left early!?! Hell no. It’s one thing for you to get fired if you work hard, that’s sad. It’s another thing to get fired because you’re slow at your job and then leave early. She’s awful at every job she does and hideous along the way, she’s the freaking Chris Kattan of my office.

By the time I got home I was far too sick to do anything other than lay around. Friday night in New York City spent being sick and cranky on a couch in Harlem and watching Pretty Woman on TBS. That’s just about rock bottom.

And that’s when an old friend called, drunk, to inform me of what structures he was going to pee on. As he spilled his drinks he also spilled the beans, and accidentally let me know that a mutual friend had a severe addiction to opioid medication. And it had gotten ugly. And no, our mutual friend isn’t Hundo.

Everyone I know is doing drugs, while not doing any keeps me on this damn couch. For now, my only addiction will be Richard Gere circa 1990, and Friday will remain the worst day here yet.

[play that song again. another couple Klonopin. a nod, a glance, and half-hearted bow]