I'm considered strange in my family, because I don't drink, smoke, or fuck. I suppose that if I ever found the proper person and built up a large amount of trust between us, I would do that last bit, but so far, nothing.

I don't like alcohol. It smells funny, and it tastes weird. No amount of fruit flavor seems able to conceal it (I've tried it twice in my life, then swore it off). It's just gross, and I can't drink it without gagging.

I don't like cigarette smoke. It fucks up my head and it makes me sneeze. Which is why I don't usually hang around smokers. My friend, Taylor, is kind enough not to smoke whenever I come over, understanding that it bothers my head. I only wish Dad were that polite.

Dad often wonders how I get through life without chemical assistance. How I remain "sane." I don't personally think I've got all my marbles in a row, but what keeps me walking steadily on the line between the two states is my own imagination and music. Music isn't my anti-drug. Music is my drug. It takes me elsewhere; it makes me feel as though I'm floating when I listen to certain songs (Baba O'Riley, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, etc.) It's something that no joint or pill or needle could ever do for me. ("Remember kiddies--avoid all needle drugs! Only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon Dubya Bush!" -Abbie Hoffman, adapted to the current time). If I've got a CD and a pair of headphones, then I won't ever need any kind of drug to help me along. A copy of Who's Next or Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon will send me floating for longer than a drug can. What's even better is that I can have repeated hits of it without a break. XP

And if I don't have music, I sleep.

My dreams are crazy enough.

Which is the reason I actually like Percocet. I had a bottle of it back in October after a surgery and would spend two days at a time sleeping on its assistance! The machine that they had surgically attached to my backside didn't hurt very much, but I didn't want to hear the damn thing, so I would take a Percocet and sleep for a very long time. Wonderfully wild dreams. And once, in a half-awake hallucination, I saw John Lennon's face coming out of my wall.

But that bottle's done with, and for all the foreseeable future, I won't be needing it again. I don't really miss it. I'm done with it, and good riddance to it.

On a totally random note: I once heard John Entwistle describing why he refused to get a driver's license. "I'd rather drink than drive." Silly old Enty. ♥ I just don't wanna drive. Driving makes me a nervous wreck. If I were given the choice, I'd drink myself blind to the sound of old T.Rex.