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VINCE

Today was my friend’s daughter’s birthday. Audrey turned 10, which officially marks the point at which you can write numbers instead of spell them. Exciting! Anyhow, for whatever reason, a few other people from down in Southeastern Minnesota where I lived for a number of years, were sending me pictures of myself from back in the day, when my main source of nutrition was beer and weed. It brought back a lot of good, fun memories. In these pictures, I wasn’t engaging in illegal activities, and it appeared that for the most part I wasn’t hammered drunk. In  one I was hugging Audrey (the birthday girl) when she was maybe three or four, and she had a huge smile on her face, which she almost always does. I don’t have children, so she is the closest thing to it for me and I was there with her growing up for years. I was around for seven of her first ten years, missing the first and last two.

I miss all of my friends from the Fillmore County area. But with her I feel as if I left her without an explanation or understanding of why I was gone. I left the area because I got hooked on meth again, because somebody I used with many years ago moved to Fountain and I just went for it. It happened so fast. It took six months from the time I first used to stop talking to my friends, get fired from my job, and start selling. I managed to get a job in Lanesboro for one season but I cut all ties with the area once the tourist season was over, and went to work on the road full-time as  a meth dealer. I lost my apartment but I didn’t care, I didn’t plan on going back.

I wrote to a lot of my friends when I was locked up. Not all of them wrote me back as much as I thought they should have. I don’t know why I expected them to after I just threw my life in the trash and left them all without a word, but I did. I wrote Audrey a few times. I tried to explain to her what I had done and where I was in a way that a nine-year old could understand. I don’t know how well I did but it must have been alright because she wrote me back. Twice. And those letters made me feel like I still had a soul.

Every period in my life when I abused drugs, and sold them, something happened to me. A transformation took place in which I was no longer able to care about people. More specifically, my family, or any close friends that would not have approved of my drug use. When my friend died (the one I wrote about in a post recently) I had no emotional reaction to it. I remember getting the call from her partner and my first honest thought was, “Fuck. She owed me $300.” Then I went over to see Christie and when I arrived she seemed quite nonchalant about the situation. She had just come back from the grocery and liquor stores, and she asked if we could get high and we did.

It was not uncommon for a person’s life to be crumbling down around them and have no care in the world. People losing their children, their homes, their loved ones, but continuing to do anything other than get a job to get high. And of course there I was ready to listen to their story and sell them a bag. It took me a while to get over the fact that I didn’t have any morals. Thankfully I worked on it in treatment.  I can relate this in the opposite way to how A.A. works for people. When we were getting high we associated only with those types of people because we could understand each others’ pain. We didn’t do anything constructive about it, but we can now. And we are. I am. And as hard as it is for me to deal with society as a whole right now, there is a small group of people I meet with every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights that understands me just as I do them. I wish I could go to more meetings. But that’s my topic for the next post.

Dreams and Dentistry

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VINCE

I woke up this morning to my cell phone ringing. The number was restricted which means that it’s one of my I.S.R. agents calling. Most likely, as it was in this case, they are at the front door needing to be let in. For only a brief moment, I was terrified. I had a dream in which I went on the run because I was scheduled to go to court for violating the conditions of my release. I’m not sure what for, but it wasn’t a using dream, which can be so real that they often carry over into reality for some terrifying moments of confusion upon being awoken.

In the dream I was just about to call an old using friend from Rochester to come get me. I knew that I was going back to prison so I wanted to go get high for as long as I could before going back. Even in the dream I knew it sounded bad, but I made the call anyhow. That’s when I woke up to my cell phone. When I opened the door up to the agent I saw the sealed plastic bag with a piss test cup in it. If I was nervous I didn’t show it. I knew I was clean, but the dream was still running through my mind.

When I went into county jail after my sentencing, I had some crazy dreams. Vivid. Colorful. And absolutely wild. This is fairly common when quitting meth. I had a recurring dream in which I was in a different jail, and friends of mine were on work release and would bring in drugs, cigarettes, and paraphernalia and I would think that I was sneaking them back into my cell. When I woke up, I believed that I had actually been successful and was shocked to check my pockets and find them empty, no matter how many times I had the hallucination. And everything, like the air, the background, was always green. It’s really hard to explain dreams most of the time, but these never went away. For about two weeks I had a hard time distinguishing reality from psychotic dream. And then they were gone. Last night’s dream had a real feel to it, but nothing like those when coming off of drugs. In the end, which was this morning, I passed my drug test. Doing drugs in a dream has never yielded a positive result, just the fear of one.

On another note, yesterday I went to the U of M School of Dentistry Clinic to become a Dentist. But, they said they “weren’t hiring” and that I had no qualifications and that I had no business wearing a smock and scrubs and what was I doing with a drill. No, no, no, none of that happened. I was there for my first dental exam in a decade. A scary thing for an ex meth user, and former prisoner where they don’t let you see a dentist unless you’ve been in for three years, Ugh. Anywho, after enduring an hour of a new x-ray “technology”, I found out that not only do I have really long roots, I have zero cavities! After all of that abuse, nothing. Since I don’t know how to upload photos from my phone to this blog, I will let you find them for yourself on my Facebook page. Well, I don’t know how to add a link either, so if you don’t already know, my name is Vincent Maertz, and I’m an addict. I hope you enjoy my pictures, and my daily response to life via social media. I know I do. My student dentist was awesome. She put up with me and my jokes, and didn’t cringe when I opened my mouth. My teeth really aren’t too bad, but I have a broken front tooth, and I haven’t smiled fully for years. I get that fixed in three weeks. I can’t wait.

Forty words left. hmm. Well, I’ve got the house to myself tonight, and other than writing this, I’ve been watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and am going to watch a movie on Net-Flix tonight. I’ll tell you about it next time!

Dear Vince

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VINCE

This is another one of my treatment assignments. My dear mother has been waiting for me to publish this for a while since it’s actually written by her.  Well, sort of.

It was written by me during a phase of treatment in which we were learning about the ripple effect. Not quite like the butterfly in China causing a hurricane in Iowa.  Or whatever.  This is more like how my actions, however insignificant they may have seemed at the time, affected my friends, family, and society.  The assignment was to write a one page letter from a victim in our ripple.  I chose my mom pretty quickly because I believe my actions have had the greatest effect on her over time.  It wasn’t supposed to be hurtful or degrading, but simply state, from her point of view,  my actions and how they made her feel. It was well received by counselor and peers, but I still don’t know if I really hit the mark. I guess I’ll find out soon. I wrote it from the time just after my arrest for my current charge.  Here goes:

Vince, I haven’t seen or heard from you in so long.  But for now at least I know where you are and that you are safe.  When I heard you were arrested I can’t say I was surprised but I was still sad and hurt.  On the other hand I was grateful that you might have another chance at recovery.

In your nearly five years of sobriety, you shined.  You were always a favorite with the kids in both our, and our extended families.  They looked up to you. They admired you, and loved you. We all loved you since the day you were born.  Then, without any warning, you disappeared.  For the second time in a decade, you fell off the face of the earth.  Because of your history, we knew more or less what was going on.  And from our experience we knew that any attempt to communicate with you would have been shot down.

After a couple years, the second time around, you showed up and said flat out you were using again and if I wanted to be part of your life I needed to accept that.  Well, I did.  It was tough.  You drank so much and so openly with your friends but you seemed happy.  But every time I would bring up the future, or school, or family, you shut down and didn’t want to talk about it. So I stopped bringing it up.

Then after eight years you were gone again.  The closest friends you have ever had couldn’t tell me where you were.  They were just as confused and upset as I was.  For a while I was so afraid that you would show up dead in an alley or on the side of the road, but then you showed up on the news, and you were finally somewhere again.

Since then we have become closer than ever, as a result in large part, by you being open and honest about everything with me and more importantly yourself.  I’m glad you are excited about being where you are. I hear in your voice and in your letters the same enthusiasm about recovery you had when you left Hazelden and Florida.  Me and the rest of the family will be here for you when you get out.  You will always have our full support in every way as long as you remain active in your recovery.

—

And that’s it.  When I was writing it I recall feeling sad for the first time in treatment.  I don’t often feel emotions, and rarely do they make me feel bad but this assignment did just that.  Even though that wasn’t the point of it, I thought of a lot of bad times I’ve had with her and because of being high or drunk nearly all of my adult life.  I hope you get out of it what you can mother, and I’m sure I’ll hear your thoughts on it in the morning!

For the rest of you. Well my day to day life is a struggle.  I don’t have a job yet.  I am not worried. My agents are not worried.  But I can tell my mom is.  I communicate with the world three times a week for an hour at A.A. meetings, through this blog and on Facebook.  I do not like talking to people outside of my family or very few friends, all of which I was incarcerated with.  Shit.  I’m over 700 words.  Until next time.

Ultimate Price

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VINCE

Very rarely in my life have I had to deal with death. Most recently, a friend paid the ultimate price in a fiery wreck during the time I was out on bail from my drug charge, back in March of ’14. Most likely she had fallen asleep while driving, as I had done so many times in the past. Unfortunately for her, she was pinned inside the truck and more than likely burned to death along with her dog when the gas tank exploded, as evidenced by the claw marks inside the plastic by the door. I have seen pictures of the vehicle and the body after the accident, and I wish I had not. I have seen a lot in my day, and I have seen a lot of death on the internet. But nothing could have prepared me for seeing somebody I actually knew. I could make out the features, especially the teeth and facial bone structure. It was unsettling, if not disturbing.

I met Christie and Mackenzie (names changed) at a mutual friend’s house in Chatfield in the Winter of 2012. They were both alcoholics and low-level drug dealers (allegedly), and had formed up as a lesbian couple a number of years before I met them and were living together in **. *******.  I took a liking to them right away because they seemed like they were still fun people, a rarity among meth users.  I started selling to them (allegedly) pretty quickly after that, so I would often go to their house.  It is there that I started to see the devastation more common to our kind.

The house was in complete disarray.  Shit everywhere, broken glass on the floor, rotting food on the counters, and paraphernalia abundant.  What I wasn’t expecting was the blatant domestic arguments that would occur directly in front of me.  These women would really get heated.  On more than one occasion I saw bruises and lesions on both of them but they would never come to blows in front of me or anybody that I knew.  It got really uncomfortable for me on more than one occasion, and one of them would leave, or, more commonly, I would.  Over and over, of course, they would come back to each other, make up, and start over.  My guess is that the accident occurred on a morning after the evening of a fight, although this would never be confirmed.

An early Thursday morning on U.S. Hwy. 14 in Lewiston, MN in March of 2014 would be a day any friends of the couple would never forget.  A westbound pickup truck crossed the center line and smashed into a construction vehicle head-on and caught fire, killing my friend and her dog.  I’m not going to provide any more details, but the internet has all sorts of resources, and it would be pretty easy to find.  Just keep the names private please.

What transpired afterward was even worse for me, because her partner went crazy, very slowly, before I went to prison, and she was eventually arrested for robbery, possession of meth with a handgun, and a number of lesser charges.

Christie frequently suffered delusions after the accident, and often accused her friends, myself included, of being responsible for Mackenzie’s death.  Contributing to the  insanity was the lack of sleep that is the result of methamphetamine use, and depression, a result I’m sure of losing one’s life-mate or partner.  She would ramble incoherently and shout at the walls.  She would speak of conspiracies involving women breaking in through cracks in the walls.  She was arrested for robbing somebody of $400 in her own living room at gunpoint.  The person she robbed had reported seeing an earlier robbery in which she twisted somebody’s arm behind her back, accusing her of being responsible for Mackenzie’s death, then took $500 from her purse.  She was arrested three days later and her house was searched yielding scales, bags, drugs, and a loaded rifle on the couch.  She’s not currently in jail or prison that I can find.  I wish her the best.

Mackenzie– I am sorry I wasn’t a better friend. I will never forget your laugh, or your cry. Go be with the angels now.

Uncomfortably numb

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VINCE

Sorry for the delay in posting this. I planned on writing it after my meeting last night and, well, I failed. It was a great meeting. Only the second I have been able to attend since my release because of scheduling difficulties and a complete inability to communicate with my I.S.R. agents. We are supposed to call a voicemail number anytime we deviate even slightly from our schedule that we submit every week. I should back up and say that every morning before 10 AM I have to call the voicemail with my schedule for the day, which I basically just read off of the written schedule I have already submitted. Sound redundant yet? Anywho, for the first week, I had the times for all of my meetings incorrect, and I had not left myself nearly enough time for transportation so I called every day I had a meeting to ask permission to alter and nobody ever called me back. EVER! So I stayed at home which is the protocol for when there’s any confusion.  We do not have a number that we can call to communicate with a person. I have spoken with many of my fellow ex-offenders and they say they are experiencing the same frustrations. But hey, what a luxury to not be behind bars, right?

St. Paul is what I consider to be my hometown. I haven’t lived here in a decade, but there are still some familiarities about it. In the nearly two weeks since my release from C.I.P., I have progressed from complete confusion and overload, to confusion and overload. I’ve gone out grocery shopping a few times and always I have trouble. Here are some examples of what makes me want to run….. Did you know that at Aldi (kind of like a grocery store) they don’t have bags to put your groceries in? True story. So after I take a quick tour around the store looking for anything at all in a size larger than individual, and canned fake duck meat, per special request from mom, I realize I need to go somewhere I can stretch out my very limited funds. There were only two people in line until I decided I wanted to check out what I had, then everybody seemed to sense that I was on a tight two-hour leave from house arrest and they all fell into line before me. Move forward ten minutes– So the clerk asks me if I want to buy bags and I just stare, as if I don’t understand the question, because I don’t. So she asks me again and I say no and she just puts my stuff back in the cart. Fortunately for me, I had been sent along my way with a number of tasks to complete along with all my shopping for the week so I had a bag of bags that I think I was supposed to bring to a store, or maybe throw in a river. I don’t know. And then I went to Cub Foods where everything went much smoother.

I think the term anxiety would suffice. I’ve never been diagnosed but it seems like that’s what I’m dealing with. Wherever I am, I want to leave. I blame others for being the cause but it is probably me. For six months we were not allowed to speak or even look at people without permission, we were told what to do, never having to ask questions. Now out here I am left to my own devices. I don’t know how to talk to people. I can’t sit still. I bummed a cigarette from somebody after the meeting last night just so I could talk to them. Then I left and drove straight home with 45 minutes of free time left, and I don’t get any free time. What do people do? O.K. I give up. Mother is hammering…. next time. Bye.

 

 

 

BeFUDdled

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ANNE

I am writing this on Sunday to post on Monday, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I will go to early services, then spend much of the day outside. I love the High Holidays because, for one thing, the weather is always beautiful—crisp and cool, with the leaves starting to change colors and the sky intensely blue. Even though I no longer believe in god, I feel it’s important to participate in community, so I go to services. Now there’s a new prayer book for my stream of Judaism, Reform Judaism, that acknowledges many people’s disbelief. I don’t know if the synagogue I’m going to has it yet, but I look forward to buying a copy. I think that’ll make me feel more “legitimate” walking in the door.

In the evening some friends will come over for dinner. Vince is looking forward to making a real hearty, holiday meal.

—

Vince has been home for five days. There was so little information available ahead of time that I didn’t clock on to the fact that he’s on house arrest. I don’t know the difference between probation and parole but I thought he’d be on one or the other and would be able to come and go as he pleased, as long as he was doing constructive things like job hunting or going to AA meetings.

But no, he is confined to the house 24/7 except for job hunting from 9-2 Monday through Friday and other things he has to clear with the agents. So for instance he proposed an AA meeting on Saturday night and that was approved but he hadn’t researched how far away the meeting would be or, more important, that there was a meeting at that time—which there isn’t. So he’s looking forward to fine-tuning his schedule.

Yesterday he had a two-hour window approved to go shopping. I thought he would enjoy the farmers market, with all the colors, choices, and people watching. Not to mention, it’s cheap. I dropped him off with some reusable shopping bags and went to park the car. These are the bags.

A few minutes later I got a text from him:

I don’t like it here. There are no instructions. And I’m the only one with purses.

These are the “purses,” aka shopping bags.  Do they look gay?

Bags

He was overwhelmed. I joined him and explained that everything was “two dallah.” We consulted our list for the holiday dinner and he seemed to relax into the experience. Then we went into the adjacent Asian market, which was even more crowded and full of the smells of live fish. He got a kick out of some of the items:

Fud

Last stop, Aldi, also crowded. I am normally a very slow and deliberate shopper but even I was sick of the shopping crowds, so we threw a bunch of stuff in the cart and got back to the house with time to spare.

—

It is definitely a big adjustment for me to live with someone. The condo is 825 square feet, not large by American standards.

This morning we both got up and out of the house at 7:30 am for exercise. He ran, I walked. I stopped in at the nearby YWCA to get membership info and picked up a scholarship form for Vince. I gave it to him when I got home and won’t ask him every day, “Did you fill out that form?” It’s none of my business.

On the other hand, when I walked into the bathroom and saw some clothing tags next to the wastebasket instead of inside it, that was my business.

“Vince, what would they have done at boot camp if you’d thrown trash on the floor next to the wastebasket?”

“Ah, someone would have picked up after me,” he joked. I think he was joking. Anyway, the tags were gone next time I looked. No drama.

So that’s all I have to do for a year—know when to say something and when to bite my tongue. So far there has been no yelling, eye rolling, sighing, or crying.

A great day for freedom

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VINCE

It’s good to be home. After 15 months of incarceration, I’m finally able to type my own words. The first few days have been fairly uneventful. I’ve mostly been relaxing, healing, and setting up my schedule for this week. I took the train down a good portion of University Avenue and back. There were a lot of people everywhere. it’s overwhelming. But I survived. I have a few more posts coming from my last few days in Willow River. Then it’s on to the next phase of my life. Thank you to all our followers, I hope it has been helpful and entertaining at the very least. Here’s the last few posts from prison.

8-2-15   On day two, our first full day of boot camp, we had our initial weigh-in. I had arrived in St. Cloud at an alarming 216 pounds. I did a little better when i got to Moose Lake at 201, with a body-fat percentage of 14.4%. Today we had our final weigh-in. When I saw the numbers appear, I was shocked. 173 pounds and 9.5% body-fat. I succeeded in both of my fitness goals! Then we ran our test-out mile. My entrance mile was 11:14. I shaved off four and a half minutes. One mile in 6:45. I was breathless after i ran but it still felt good.

I feel good about myself in so many ways. I am so ready to get out of here.

OK, that’s all for now. Typing is very frustrating for me. I need to work on that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out

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ANNE

I pride myself on being highly organized, but I lost the letter Vince had sent me that outlined the schedule for the day of his release.  I called the facility and asked what time I needed to be there.  The guy I talked to was very nice, and said Vince was a “great kid” and a “known agate collector.”  It was my first positive interaction with the corrections system.

I found out later that Vince received a demerit because I made this call.

—

I left the house at 7:30 am to drive up to the little town of Willow River, population 403 plus 142 inmates at the correctional facility.  Here are some photos of Willow River:

photo 1 photo 2

I had dug out a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt from my winter clothes so there would be no chance I could get either of us in trouble.  After all, this would be their last chance to fuck with me in person.  But when I arrived at the facility half the women there for the release of their loved ones were wearing plunging cleavage and skin-tight tights.

We were shown into a gymnasium with a long row of empty chairs in the front facing us.  The warden or whoever she was made a short speech, then the two graduating squads marched in.  The first one was led by a guy who could be a real competitor on American Idol.  There were no cameras or cell phones allowed, which is too bad because he was really impressive.  He lead Hotel Squad—17 guys—into the room, belting out the boot camp slogans in an old timey, spiritual sort of call and response.

Then it was Vince’s squad’s turn—India Squad.  He had told me that someone else had been chosen to lead them out, but there was Vince doing it!  I’m still not clear on what happened to the other guy.  And while Vince wouldn’t make it to the finals on American Idol, I was very moved that he was the leader of his squad.

There were various speeches by the head of the chemical dependency and education programs, which no one could hear because of the crying and otherwise-noisy kids in the room.  Then each prisoner stood up and stated the length of his original term (between 48 and 100 months), what he had learned (patience was the one I recall hearing most often), and who he had to thank for helping him make it through.

All the guys thanked their families and the boot camp staff.  One guy thanked The Lord.  Vince mentioned the boot camp counselors by name but didn’t mention me or anyone else outside of the program.

I knew in that moment I needed to:

  1. get myself back to Alanon; and
  2. schedule some weekends away, by myself.

—

An hour later, we were on the road back to St. Paul.  It’s no exaggeration that Vince was released with only the clothes on his back, a folder full of papers, and one month worth of medication for his Restless Legs Syndrome.

He asked to stop at a gas station.  “The first thing every one of us guys wants to do is play scratch off tickets,” he said.

“I guess it’s better than buying meth,” I said.  “And I saw a billboard for gambling addictions on the way up so you know that help is available.”  He laughed.

Twice during the graduation ceremony, they had said that this second phase of boot camp–house arrest–would be harder than incarceration.  That’ll be true for me, too.  My first challenge is, now that I’ve made clear my low opinion of gambling, to let it go.  I have a right to state my opinion—once.  Saying it over and over would be an attempt to control and manipulate.

More on the day later, but here are some photos of Vince shopping at Walmart.

photo 3photo 4

The End. The Beginning.

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VINCE

Everything seems to be falling into place.  Maybe not in the order I want it to, but aligning nonetheless.  I volunteered to be one of the two in-house facilitators of the AA meeting, in addition to the NA meeting.  It’s been a while since I lead a meeting but it is something I enjoy and have a lot of experience doing.  It’s all about service work.  Starting it here will not only make me look good with my case worker but makes me feel good inside.

—

I’m sitting in study hall, nice and quiet, when a man starts banging loudly on a table, starts crying, and leaves the room.  I finally saw somebody snap.  That’s the only explanation.  He’s been here as long as I have, I hope they don’t kick him out.  He’s a good guy, but this place can make you revisit some pretty bad places in your head.

—

What a day.  Restorative Justice has a way of making me feel good, even with seven oozing blisters on my hands from shoveling tons of wet sand.

After breakfast (which is after aerobics), nine of us donned our reflective vests and hopped in the van, trailer in tow, and headed for Hinkley.  We love riding in the van.  And we were treated to a 40-minute trip.  We were told we would be working hard, and that we were going to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity.  Both statements were true.

Essentially we dug a four foot moat around the 30’ x 60’ house, two feet deep, four feet wide.  Then we put blue Styrofoam insulation down to guard against frost.  Then, after three hours of shoveling the sand out, we shoveled it back in.  Ugh.

In the middle of the operation, I did get a side job of varnishing six wooden doors.  That’s something I have some experience with and enjoy and, well, it’s way easier.  But I still ended my day with load after load on the scoop shovel.  Each scoop no less than 50 pounds.  Our uniforms were destroyed.  We were bleeding.  We were hungry and tired.

And after all of that, the man in charge gave us a tour of the house and said it was being built for a single mother of three who had been working for five years taking care of mentally and physically disabled adults, but couldn’t make ends meet and was now homeless.  A tear came to his eye when he thanked us for our work.  There may have been some tears in our eyes too, or maybe I just had some sand in my eyes.

He told us how generous Wells Fargo was to donate the property.  3M paid HFH for the opportunity to have volunteers come and insulate the entire house.  Whirlpool donates appliances to every—every HFH house.  And an un-named source donates the highest quality and efficient furnaces, water heaters, and air conditioners.  And countless people donate their time in any way they can.

For their house, the soon-to-be-owner must put in 260 hours of her own time on the house, put $100 down, and pay a mortgage of $300 a month, interest free.

Yeah, I feel good because I worked hard for somebody who is in need.  I’d like to do more things like that when I get out.

[ANNE: This will be Vince’s last post from inside prison because … he is being released today!  As you read this, I will be in Willow River watching his graduation ceremony.  Then he will walk out the door, with the clothes on his back and about $300.  I will have an avocado in the car for him.  We’ll drive straight to a 1:30 pm appointment in St. Paul with his ISR agent.  Then I will bring him home.  I got the landline phone, as required.  Thanks to friends pitching in, I’ve got a bed for him and toiletries and some books and a few clothes that won’t make him stand out as an ex con.  I am so excited.  So happy.  We’ll post a report on how it went, with photos, next time.]

Froggie Went a Courtin’

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VINCE

I just came back from a lawn mowing where I took the life of an innocent frog.  It was a cold-blooded murder in the most literal sense.  Wait.  Are frogs cold blooded?  Hmm.  I may be wrong but it sounded funny in my head.

I don’t like to kill things, so I felt bad for a few minutes.  I didn’t do it on purpose, but when his (her?) severed head was staring into my eyes, I could still see life and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  Now that I’ve written about it, I can let it go.

I once killed a deer, for meat, and I once killed a deer with a Pontiac Sunfire.  Oh, and some squirrels, which I also ate.

—

After months of no formal discipline, I got an intervention today.  That is my sixth in five months, not bad.  The guy with the most discipline in my squad has 21 and three Learning Experiences (LEs).

An intervention is basically a military gig, not a rehab intervention like you might see on TV.  Mine was for not sleeping under one of my two sheets.  It’s very petty.  If I do it two more times which I won’t, I will get an LE.

—

I redeemed myself today for killing the frog.  I saw him/her just in time while I was pushing the Frog Killer 2000 over the grass, and helped him along into the garden.  Oh, yea, there were two of them.  So if I ever kill another frog, I’m even.

—

We’ve been working lately in CD on the “ripple effect” of our crimes.  Well, most of us have.  The guy who shot at somebody several times but missed still claims his offense has no victim.

I never denied that selling drugs hurt society, people’s lives, families, and of course the children.  I’m sure the money given to me for meth could have been better spent on food, clothing, and shelter.

My criminality has affected my family as well.  I didn’t directly try to bring harm to them, other than stealing some money from My Mom years ago, and borrowing money more recently without, so far, paying it back.  But I see my Mother, now in her 50s, still beautiful, energetic, kind, and unbelievably patient, without a husband, and I wonder if I am indirectly or directly responsible.  Is that where the shame took hold?  Am I such a black sheep that she didn’t even bother?

She’s had boyfriends over the years but they didn’t stick.  I see myself in the same boat.  37 with no wife and kids, no girlfriend waiting for me out there.  Maybe together, we emit a powerful toxic odor that that repels potential mates.  Hmm…I hope not.

The point is, even if I am not responsible for her mating habits, I am seeing that my choices affect more than just me.  And it can ripple a long way out.  I’m not just staying clean for me, I’m doing it for the whole pond.

[ANNE: My heart sank when I read this.  Vince is in no way responsible for me being one of the 7% of American women my age who have never married.  Take out the lesbian women who couldn’t marry, and I am part of a really small club.  I always wanted to get married.  I assumed I would.  I wrote a blog post about dating years ago that demonstrates the effort I put into finding a mate.

Like a lot of things, it’s complicated.  I wasted my 20s and 30s—the years when most people marry—on Kermit and other alcoholics, abusers, and just plain jerks.  Then I took a break from dating to figure out how to stop doing that.  Then came Vince’s lost year, when I was too distraught to think of anything else.  Then, the older you are, the harder it is to meet people.  So it was a combo of bad choices, bad timing, bad luck and yes, Vince was a factor but far from the only one.  Being single is far from the worst fate, so now I claim my spinsterhood as if it was my plan all along.]