People who talk with me frequently know that I am obsessed with people who do hardcore drugs. I’m not sure if it’s because I grew up in the “Say No To Drugs” Reagan Era, or if it’s because my parent’s raised me in a teetotaler conservative household. It could be that I’m attracted to understanding people who can’t be understood—schizophrenics, sociopaths, borderline personality disorders, my mother.
Or it could just be that because I need to be so in control of myself to get things done—literally no one tells me what to do every day besides Caleb, who says things like, “Turn down the Kardashians!” and “Get off your phone!” and “Squeal like a pig!”—that I am always teetering on the verge of completely losing it.
Drug addicts, in other words, are my dark side. Watching them feels like running into my future self, time traveling back from the apocalypse, and confronting what I’ve become.
My obsession finds some solace in shows like Breaking Bad, and the photographs Larry Clark took in Tulsa, which I find myself returning to every few months. I just read his essay on the images here, and as usual, the hair on my arms rose. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Last night I was talking about drug addicts with Sadie Lady and DEH. Eventually, we got to discussing the latest season of Breaking Bad, the premiere of which I found to be underwhelming this past weekend. Each of us agreed that show was difficult to watch, but for different reasons.
“I just don’t like watching bald people,” Sadie Lady said. “That main character with the wrinkly face…ugh.” Then she shivered.
“I can’t watch when people do drugs,” I said. “I cover my eyes.”
“Those party scenes in the graffiti house are so cheesy,” DEH said. “It’s like, come, on, no one has parties like that.”
“Meth addicts do,” I said.
“Puh-lease,” DEH said. “As if you know.”
Because the truth is, I don’t. At my heart, I’m still a good Catholic girl who didn’t drink until she was 21, and didn’t hang out with the kids in high school who smoked week. Or so I’d like to believe.
