Which one of these is a junkie? The answer is, they both are. The real question is, which of them would you be more likely to cross the street to avoid?
The answer is pretty obvious. But why?
To examine, let's go back a couple of weeks and examine the last weekend in June, when yours truly was in the Hamptons. Yes, the Hamptons. Aren't you jealous?
Well, don't be. It was full of annoying drug addicts, and being without a car, a train, a bus, or reliable access to a heliport (::sigh:: the life of a commoner), I was stuck there with them, being the only person not having the OMG BEST TIME, EVER!
It could have been worse, right? I could have been lost in the South Bronx or Brownsville after 10pm, with my Tiffany jewelry and impractical shoes on, trying to dodge all of the outstretched hands and avoiding the empty, dead eyes of all those strung out broke asses. But that is a forseeable circumstance that anyone with two brain cells to rub together could avoid.
I was not in the company of people like Junkie #1 and his brown brethren. In fact, there was not a brown person to be found anywhere. (I'm sure there was some housestaff of color somewhere, but we were slumming it with people without servants.)
The junkies I was stranded with are of a more insidious nature. They are:
- white
- female
- attractive (this includes having teeth)
- employed
- reasonably educated
- generally charming and amusing when not altered on substances
- unfortunately, my friends, whom I had no idea were such fucking coke whores.
So what's up with these silly bored little girls who go the Hamptons to be fabulous and "party"? Why do they not consider themselves drug addicts, even when most of their leisure activities are accompanied by hard drug use?
Simple.
Location IS everything. And so are appearances. Poor people do drugs in the inner city, in crack dens and flops, in filthy squats and in project staircases. Those brown ghetto people are addicts. But you? Your pretty little blonde self is just having a good time. What harm can it do?
The arrogance in the part time junkie mentality is grounded the assumption that they are somehow special because 'earn' their right to 'party' because they work and pay their bills like the rest of us.
Hold up.
When did working and paying your own way become merit-worthy? Like you're doing something extraordinary above and beyond what the fuck you're supposed to be doing as a grown up by feeding, clothing, and housing yourself?!
Seriously, who do cats think they are? I have never once considered myself special because I'm a functioning member of society--it's just what you're supposed to do. You ain't special cuz you got a job, bitch! You're supposed to have a job and pay rent and bills. That's called participating in society, which is a given if you enjoy vacations, manicures, and text messaging. Otherwise, you can skip the working and paying bills part and go live in a treehouse and eat coconuts and various grubs, and no one will give a shit what you do all day.
Hard drug use is not any less self destructive or disgusting when it takes place on weekends or in an upscale setting. If when you get off the Jitney and you go back to your doorman building apt, the thought of copping and doing those same drugs with, say, the gutter punks in Tompkins Square Park on a Tuesday horrifies you, then you are the brand of stupid cracker I'm talking about who thinks that having a job and some money to shop at Pookie & Sebastian or get your hair done at Mudhoney disqualifies you from being a junkie.
WRONG!!!!!
If you feel like you need drugs to have a good time...
If you can recall exactly how long it's been since you last had a drug and are eagerly awaiting the next time...
If you cannot pass up an opportunity to do a drug when it is offered to you...
Then you are addicted to that substance, and you MIGHT be a freaking junkie.
It's kind of that simple. And as someone who knows better, I have decidedly better things to do with my youth than hang out with your junkie ass.
Why do these weekend warriors call snorting cocaine "partying"? This clever little euphemism compounds my distaste for this scene, because of its playful insistence that everyone's just having a good time.
I think my closer friends and I party quite a bit, and often there upwards of a dozen people floating around in my apt and on my balcony. I maintain an open house most weekends--food, beer, movies, conversation for anyone who wants to drop by. Sometimes we stay up all night, talking, laughing, eating, dancing...but without any drugs.
Did my peeps and I miss something in the "partying" handbook? Do we need to brush up on our urban dictionary reading? Because last I checked, "partying" was having a gathering, a social function, and enjoying a good time with other people.
Not sneaking off, AWAY from said social activity, to snort cocaine in the parking lot while sober friends and family members (including children) wonder where you are.
Weekend junkies, and soon to be former friends of mine, here are a couple of tips for when you're high around people who do not share your insecurities and bullshit need for approval and pleasure seeking activities to fill a hole in your inner selves:
- Don't try to talk to sober people. They are not in on the great joke and will not be amused.
- If you are uncomfortable with being high around sober people, then maybe you should consider that there is a good reason for that. Get high @ home alone, or at least the hell away from sober people and children. That is not cool.
- Don't offer poor damaged suckers like me who don't "party" platitudes about understanding how they grew up around drug dealers and drug addicts, and how you could see how that would affect their view on drugs. Especially if you grew up in a nice house in the suburbs and have never been slashed by a junkie wielding a razor blade. I don't care how brave you think I am, you don't know me and you don't know jack shit about what drugs are really about.
- Do not relay any segment of your personal tragedies as a means to relate when the topic of my disapproval of casual drug use comes up. It does not work, and it does not make your drug use in the presence of sober people okay. You cannot relate to me because I don't have a need to alter myself with substances to be comfortable in a social setting. Please stop trying to relate in order to make yourself feel better; if there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, there is no need to justify it, is there?
What I don't get is how people leave the NY scene to go to the Hamptons scene. Are there insufficient 'cool' clubs to go to to get high here in NYC, or are you too lazy to go to them?
At any rate, I can't travel that far to be aggravated. The next time someone asks me to go to the Hamptons, I'm going to JUST SAY NO.
