I sound like a fucking broken record.

I have been writing a lot more letters lately, thanks to Doug. I really feel akin to him. It's strange, considering that I haven't known him long, and since he moved to Davis for the quarter, so I've only lived with him for less than a month. But I really feel like I have bonded with him, opened myself up in a way that I only do with people I've known for years.

Speaking of people I've known for years, I miss Laura so much. I have been getting really sorry with myself for fucking up New York so bad. Because she is likely going to go abroad next year, and even if I am in NYC that will make a third year apart. If I had kept it up in NYC, I would be with her. I miss her more than I can say. I can't wait till Christmas break. I'm going to cook a huge feast for her. I love her. She really is my wife. I hope she has a boyfriend by then. I think she needs one that means something...

She deserves one.

I feel so good right now. I am so busy, but constructively busy. I am scared of this new job. The bosses seem scary and demanding. But hopefully it will be a little easier on me than the pizza job, which fucked up my diabetes and my feet (and my shoes and clothes and shit with pizza grease/cheese/shittttttttt). But I am getting everything I need to done. And with this new job, I think I should be pulling in at least $1100 a month, which is enough to completely pay rent, utilities, and hopefully have some left over for clothes and fun, without relying on anyone for financial support. That makes me feel great. I am going to have to stop doing my relapse prevention program though, which my parents are going to object to. But it is worth it to me. I'm going to make this commitment and keep it and that keeps me sober.

Admittedly this isn't a very emotional entry. But shit, I am happy.

Here's my personal statement for UC applications. I will preface this by saying that nearly all the details are bullshit, as is most of the time frame, as is most of the essay. I haven't lied to anyone about my heroin addiction, it's the essay that's a lie:

The Misery and Growth of Spring

It was a warm spring day, the day that strangled the youth out of my nearly lifeless body. I was 17 years old and I was hurting more deeply than any physical pain could have penetrated my nerves. I had left my boyfriend 3,000 miles away for a break in New York City. He did not know what I had become. He did not know about what I was trying my hardest to run from, to escape from, to hide from. It was not a vacation, exactly. No, it was more a chance to try to cleanse my body of the toxic black tar that had corroded my veins, my thoughts, my soul and my life. I had planned a week away from home to kick my heroin habit for good. But that one last time, my planned finale to two years of hellish existence, was the one that kicked me to the curb, leaving me to wake up in the white-walled rooms of St. Vincent�s Medical Center Emergency Room in downtown Manhattan on that warm, windy, nostalgic day.

That spring was one of the most trying, important, and incredible times in my lifetime. It shaped me, possibly, more than any other time. To quote Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair�." I had a boyfriend, and, for the first time, I felt comfortable with my homosexuality. I fought with my parents nearly every day, and resented what I deemed their unnecessary and entrapping control over my life.

I had been doing heroin for two years, on and off. The six months before that spring day, I had used nearly every day. I went to New York a sick, dying kid, with a plan to pull the shambles of my life back together.

It takes a lot of lies to be a heroin addict, and these lies destroyed me. I have always considered myself an honest man, but still, I found myself incapable of honesty around the issue of my drug use. It was not the lies to my parents that devastated me. Nor was it the lies to my friends. Nor was it the lies to my boyfriend. No, it was a much simpler lie: the lie to myself. And by that spring, I could not run from myself any more. I could no`t hide from the fact that I had a problem that I needed to address. I was waking up in the middle of the night with a stomachache, leg cramps, the typical, clich�d, heroin addict dope sickness. And my life was falling apart. It took this misery and more to force me to acknowledge the truth behind my self-deception.

And with the beginning sparks of this newfound knowledge, I went to New York to clean myself up. I brought with me one last fix to act as a milestone end to my addiction. And it was this incredibly foolish idea that finally made me give up. For it was this idea that caused me to overdose and wake up in that hospital, downtown, in the early morning hours of a pleasant spring day.

I was lucky, and for the first time, even though I was hurt, humiliated, close to death, and sicker than I have ever been before or since, I felt alive and relieved of the burden of my deception. For the first time, I knew exactly what the future held for me, and I knew I was ready for it.

I have remained sober since that day, and I will continue to remain sober indefinitely. That is not a question, to me; it is fact. And the experience has shown me so much more than just that. The pain, the destruction that I caused that day, I consider to be the start of a process that has left me growing, more mature, and more alive than I could otherwise be. For I did not just destroy my body, my faith, the trust that others give to me. No, I also destroyed the ignorance, the denial that kept me from seeing myself as the child that I was. I destroyed the part of me that forced me to lie, not just to my friends and family, but to myself. And that spring morning showed me what I have the potential to become. More than anything, I know that the only key to my escape from the chains of addiction is education.

College is more than just a phase I must enter to get a job, to make money, to turn into my parents. No, college is a portal into a world that I can excel in. I know that I refuse to be a drug-addicted youth when I have the opportunity, and the ability, to reach so much higher. I do not pretend that it is an easy task, or an easy goal, but I know that that spring, and particularly that horrible day in New York, have taught me how to be the adult that I know I can be.

--------------------

Good night. I am going to do something nice for Scotty tonight.

'I didn't take no shortcuts. I spent the money that I saved up. Oh Mom, I'm runnin' out of luck and like my sister don't give a fuck. I wanna steal your instincts. To me my life it just don't make no sense.' ----'Barely Legal' by The Strokes