measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Home from work I felt a bit off-kilter last night, and was debating taking the day off. Woke up at 8, and only a couple minutes later, [erich] called me to let me know "he felt like ass" and would be staying home. No problem... I decided to do the same. I'm SO glad I did. I do feel a bit icky-- the glands in my neck are a bit swollen, making swallowing a bit difficult. But that happens sometimes when I get fast outbreaks of cold sores, so I'm not all that worried. Mostly, I was just tired, and the frustration of not getting stuff done around here was making things worse. So I stayed home and got some work done. :) All of my laundry is done, hung up or folded, and put in the closet. I cleaned out the disaster next to my computer desk, and now have my CPU back against the wall, rather than in the middle of the room. In the process of cleaning, though, I knocked over my coffee cup and killed my blue and white keyboard. *sigh* Fortunately, I have a G3 tower, which allowed both USB and older serial-port keyboards, so I pulled the one off my old computer. The keys are filthy, though... time to get out the rubbing alcohol and Qtips to clean off the tops of the keys. Bleh... In the next couple paychecks, I'll pick up a new keyboard hopefully. If not, no big deal, but I don't like how this one feels. It's much harder under my fingers. Thankfully, my hockey-puck mouse escaped unscathed. Although I wouldn't be exactly heartbroken to get an optical mouse, either. I just can't afford one. Still, even though I haven't gotten everything done, I got enough done to feel satisfied. The Beast is getting tamed. Slowly but surely. I can't complain--it's better than it was. [bar] Somebody put me in for a diary review, under the guise of being me-- people know how I feel about said things, especially since I did interviewed to be the anti-review. I did read it, snorted, and then shut the window. Apparently I was in the top quarter percentile, based on their scoring system. If you really want to read it, feel free to dig through my guestbook, but I'm not going to post it here. However, whomever did sign my name for one of those obnoxious things, get a life, eh? My journal is my outlet of writing. I enjoy having people who read; I enjoy connecting with people who do or do not have similar views to me. But I hated the cliquish attitude of "I'm better than you are" crap when I was a teenager, and that's exactly how I see those review sites. [bar] I will, however, talk about something else that happened yesterday from journal to journal, mostly because it pissed me off so much that I had to restrain myself typing to the person. Now, I'm not slamming on this person as a "you suck" attitude, but my response to the person in his/her guestbook became an unwitting journal entry for the person. This has to do with drugs. And with making them, specifically marijuana and ecstacy, legal. Nothing new, and I know a lot of people have this argument. However four things pissed me off right away... her incorrect assumption that people on marijuana (and solely on marijuana) are not violent, her incorrect definition of hyponatremia, which she claims is water intoxication (per her original entry on the subject, although she claims she did not pass on incorrect information), the comment about how ecstacy loses its magic after a while, and her comment about how no one has been able to match lung cancer to people who have ONLY smoked marijuana. Let's go through these, from the importance in my own point of view: Hyponatremia is a condition of dangerously low sodium in the bloodstream, where the amount of sodium is being lost at a rate greater than drinking water and eating food can alleviate through normal replentishing. This usually happens through long periods of strenuous activity (for example, running a marathon or doing a triathalon), or heavy exercise on a hot day. The reason a drug "loses its magic" after a number of doses is because the body becomes accustomed and tolerant of the dosage. Allergy sufferers who take daily medication can vouch on this one (anyone else who took Seldane in the '80s?). The user must take more and more to get the same amount of effect, or "fix." This happens with heroin, this happens with cocaine, and this happens with marijuana. It's called addiction, and it can happen with ANY substance that alters the body, whether its chocolate or coke. I AM a caffeine addict. I know what the withdrawl symptoms feel like. I've watched my brother fight off the withdrawls from weed. You argue it's not addictive? I've watched four people have to fight to get away from it. They can't be near it without cravings, just as nicotine addicts and alcoholics feel once they've "kicked" their addiction. No one's been able to match marijuana smokers to lung cancer? Interesting? I'd love to see her research where she's found this information. From my experience with people who have started by smoking weed... after a while, weed doesn't give enough of a fix. They move onto higher drugs, which lead to other medical problems. So perhaps marijuana doesn't lead directly to lung cancer, but it leads to much greater, nastier addictions and dangerous health risks. Now to violence... the one I have the MOST experience with. Because I've dealt with this in my family. My brother is a marijuana addict. His usage led to him nearly getting smacked with a felony record because while high, he attempted to send three pounds of marijuana through the mail to his friends. He was a fucking idiot, and his actions, while perhaps not physically violent, were an emotional hurricane. His actions and his addiction ripped my family apart at its core. His behavior while stoned was so nasty and aggressive that he forced family members who had until then loved him unconditionally, to vow never to have anything to do with him again because he was so verbally abusive. After a year with lawyers for a court date, he managed to get off with what I considered a slap on the wrist... a fine worth a few months of my rent, mandatory drug tests weekly for three years, and some couple hundred hours of community service. Personally, I thought mandated rehab or jail would have done much better for him. I don't think he's learned his lesson, and I think that now that he's done with his drug testing, he's back doing it. He is a drug user. His drug use destroyed my family. My parents, while divorced, used to get along just fine. Then Scott's drug problems started, and they started bickering. The bad blood has caused my parents to stop talking to each other altogether. My parents throw fingers around about who made him this way, and why he's trying to destroy his life. And Scott couldn't care less. So Meanheart, perhaps a reconsidering about why some of us condemn drugs is in order. It's because our lives have been violently wrenched by people on them. Drug users seem to think their lives are in a vaccuum. But those drugs that they take hurt their family and friends secondhand. It is promotion like what you wrote which makes me realize how selfish drug users truly are, because they seem to fall under the opinion of "my life, my body" without any consideration of how their actions affect others. Violence is not just physical. It can be, and often is emotional. And the emotional violence can be much more scarring and harmful in the long run, since it takes longer to build up and destroy the people around the abuser. Drug use and abuse has "violated" (your words) my life. And until I die, I will oppose those drugs becoming legal. I would much rather go through the inconvenience of having to go up to the pharmacy counter than let this crap get into the hands of addicts. And yes, that goes for alcohol, too. --Mel. 11:19 p.m. - 12 March 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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