Fighting Words

Life is fragile.     Life is fleeting.          Life is beautiful.                   Life is hard..... I have had so many reminders of these facts in the past week, it would be hard to write about anything else.  My mind is all over the place, and my heart is torn apart.  On Friday I witnessed some of the most precious and devastating moments shared by a family, and I know those memories will be burned into my mind forever.  My best friend since I was six years old stood vigil by her mother's hospital bed when I walked in, her sister sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, and her father- a man who was the kind of husband they write fairy tales about- was lying next to her in the bed, his forehead pressed to hers, his arms around her, his lips uttering the promises she needed to hear before she could find h...

I have a lot on my mind today, but I cannot articulate it all here.  It is all too much to put on paper.  But I have been meaning to post a paper I wrote about the War on Drugs a couple years ago, because I feel like it deserves more exposure than it has had thus far.  There's no need to preface it with anything...it speaks for itself.  (Names have been changed to protect the individuals involved) *************   On November 22 nd , 2011 at 11:03PM, 23-year-old *Taylor Hopp got the best heroin of his life.  Taylor had been hooked on heroin for over two years, but in the months leading up to that night he had attempted to quit using several times.  He tried to get into treatment programs for months, and finally did in June 2011.  But, after three months in a suboxone program, Taylor’s girlfriend of three years left him.  Taylor began to drink daily, and eventually he lost his job and his insurance, and subsequently, his suboxone program. ...

Most people that know me are probably expecting some serious anger from me regarding the results of last night's election.  Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not mad.  I am a lot of things, but angry is not one of them.  I am discouraged.  I am sad.  I am disappointed.  I'm also still wondering how this even happened, how the two worst candidates from both parties ended up squaring off against each other when no one even liked them.  It's ridiculous.  Democracy, it seems, is a joke.  Then again, those of us who are even slightly educated and informed have known this for many years.  Our country belongs to the wealthy...it is a plutocracy, in all actuality.  So along with not being angry about the election, I am also not surprised.  This is what I've come to expect from the American people, as brainwashed as they are by the corporate media and pop culture.  Sheep...that's what our society has been reduced to...a bunch of ove...

For the past two decades of my life I have been constantly on the receiving end of messages telling me that there is something wrong with me.  I heard it from my parents growing up, when I stopped being their perfect little angel daughter.  I heard it from my friends as an adolescent and a teenager, when my behavior didn't conform to what was "cool" at the time.  I heard it from just about every man I ever dated.  Then I became a heroin addict, and that became the perfect scapegoat for my "wrongness."  Everything I did that was not deemed socially acceptable, every character defect I possessed, every bad behavior I engaged in was automatically attributed to the fact that I was a junkie.  I went to jail, to rehab, to church, to therapists, to doctors, to psychiatrists...all of them agreed that there was something wrong with me.  "Yes, Juli, you are not right in the head.  You are 'off.'  You don't belong anywhere, you only fit in with the othe...

I recently learned that there are people in our communities opposing the administration of Narcan to those experiencing an opiate overdose.  The logic behind their opposition is that states and counties are footing the bill for this reckless behavior, and taxpayers should not be fiscally responsible for saving the lives of people who, in their opinion, don't value their own lives.  Essentially, they are saying money is more important to them than human beings are.  This makes me physically ill, the idea that a person's life is not worth saving if they are an addict.  Clearly these misinformed individuals don't know anything about addiction, and I've always adhered to the idea that if you know jack shit about something you should shut your fool mouth and get educated before spewing an opinion.  Just saying.  Unfortunately we live in an era where misinformation is touted as fact and people are too lazy to question it, hence the circus sideshow ...

I know in my last post I mentioned a couple topics, but I'm not feeling either one of those things right now.  What I'm feeling at the moment is reverberations from being a nonperson...being relegated to whatever labels the world has assigned me instead of being appreciated (or respected) for the multifaceted individual I am.  *sigh*  Such is life... It makes me angry.  It makes me angry that so many people out there see the world in black and white alone and miss out on all the other colors there are.  And I don't mean skin color, although that plays its part as well.  It plays a major part, actually. I began typing this post as I was struggling to find a place to live by September.  Those of you who know me personally know I have a very colorful history, a history that has made me both the amazing and strong individual I am today and a very undesirable rental candidate.  Sometimes it is difficult to stomach the sheer extent...

I imagined starting this blog with some lame cliché statement, something akin to, "Horrible injustices are occurring every day in the shadows of our society."  Lame, I know, but it's a true story.  I'll try to refrain from all that high-drama rhetoric in the future, but no promises.  I have things to say, serious and (I believe) important things that have been stuck in my head for years while I've wasted my life and my time and my intelligence either speaking to the wrong audience or not speaking at all.  There is crazy shit going down in the world every day, more and more by the minute, and it seems like nobody cares.  It seems like people are watching it go down and saying, "well, if it's not happening to me, it doesn't matter."  If you are one of those people, feel free to jump off a tall building whenever the urge strikes; I assure you the world will be just fine (or better) without you in it.  If you are not one ...