07 December 2002 ~ Sketchiness all around...

First of all, just to put some of you at ease... Me whining about not getting any action and being horny does not mean I'm going to go wander around through campus housing in a bikini, begging people to screw me. It also doesn't mean I'm accepting applications for mercy fucks. I'm not that sort of girl. Well... okay, sometimes I have been that sort of girl. But not right now. Every time I'm feeling like whining, I'm simply going to listen to NPR and eat something bland, like Special K. You know, Mr. Kellogg, of cereal fame, was, when he invented corn flakes, trying to come up with a medication to eliminate libido? Yes, seriously. The fellow who invented graham crackers, too.

Anyway, don't be worrying about me. First of all, it would be WAY too weird to sleep with my friends who are feeling bad for me. I know, I know, I've kind of made a habit of sleeping with my closest friends, but that's always ended up weird and uncomfortable at some point, so I'm renouncing my old ways... Second of all, I really do not know how to seduce somebody without use of coffee or cigarettes. Third... enh, whatever. NPR cures all.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Something very weird happened last night. Something I decided I was going to sleep on, because my mind just couldn't comprehend what, exactly, was going on at the moment... But I slept for ten hours last night and woke up as confused as before... I think I've got to write this all out to make any sense of it...

I was making dinner with Jürgen last night (because he has rice and sour cream, and I don't, and I have beans and Tillamook cheese, and he doesn't... and who wants to make dinner alone, anyway?), and we had to stop by my apartment to get the beans and cheese. While there, we were also going to pick up a video and watch part of that after dinner.

So I got the beans and rice, and I was hunting for the video. Well, Jake had been watching it not so long before his arrest, and I couldn't find where it had gone to. (Obviously, the past two months have NOT been good as far as cleaning instincts...) So, I was searching all over the damned place, and thought to look under the futon...

The video was not under the futon. Several other things were, including a large strip of what looked like sanitary-napkin-material (unused), and a ball of masking tape. Which is weird, because I don't OWN any masking tape. And...

Jake's pipe...

Jake's pipe and a clear plastic baggy, the inside of which was lightly coated with oily green flakes.

Okay, okay, let me explain why this is weird...

I knew Jake smoked weed. And I didn't give a shit, because a good 50% of my friends are regular enough smokers to own their own pipes or bongs, and another 20% or so would indulge at parties and so forth on occasion. I do not smoke weed, but you know: live and let live. Or live and say "fuck 'em," if that's your creed. It doesn't bother me WHAT drugs my friends do, as long as they do them in moderation, such that they're still in control of themselves, and relatively healthy. I'm very pro-legalization, despite the fact that I'm not a user. And as long as Jake kept his stuff well-hidden in my apartment, and didn't blow anything in my face, or try to hotbox the place, I was fine.

Now, just before Jake was arrested, he was looking for his weed so he could share it with the kids down the hall, who had let him into the building. He couldn't find it. I told him it was in the freezer; at least, that's where it usually was. I knew there was almost none left. Imagine a round chunk about the size of a small thumbnail. It was in a little plastic baggy. Sometimes the pipe was with it, and sometimes the pipe was on the windowsill. Jake didn't make a move to get it. And things started getting bad, and I left and went to the neighbors' apartment. I was there for about five or ten minutes, and then Jake was knocking on the door outside.

In those five or ten minutes, Jake had gone downstairs to the third floor of the building to knock on somebody else's door. He may have gone back up to the fourth floor and all the way to the other side of the building to knock on a door over there. Finally, he circled back and started knocking on the door of the room I was in.

In other words, he didn't light up during the five or ten minutes.

After Jake was arrested, I said to the police officers: "listen, there's some weed in my apartment. It's not mine and I don't use it. I want to give it to you because I don't want it in my house anymore." I said this because I figured my apartment was now a crime scene or something, and they'd probably find it anyway. If they just happened to find it, they'd assume it was mine and they'd charge me with a misdemeanor. But if I GAVE it to them and said it wasn't mine, I think they'd have to take my word for it. They'd HAVE to. That's like somebody finding a gun on a sidewalk and bringing it to the police station; they're not going to think it's YOUR gun, because who's stupid enough to bring their own gun in? Or whatever... And, if I turned it in, they couldn't link it to Jake. I figured I was being pretty smart.

At this point, I guess I was pretty stupid.

Jake had locked me out of my apartment (too drunk to see straight, yet still neurotic enough to lock the damned door behind him; for some reason, I think that's sort of cute in a disturbing way), so I had to go get the landlord's kid to open it. And when I finally got back into my room, the weed wasn't in the freezer. I figured Jake had been smoking it earlier that day, and had run out.

Keep in mind, this is a terribly small amount of marijuana. You know when you're feeding a goldfish, the amount of food you give it? Yeah; it was about that much weed.

Maybe an hour or two after the arrest, I decided to take a walk. I'd finally stopped crying. I just wanted some air. On the corner of Harrison and Division, one of the cops stopped me in a parking lot to inquire about my destination. I said I was taking a walk and maybe going to a friend's house. He said he needed to ask me some more questions. I gave him his answers and then said, "And by the way, I told you I was going to give you the weed in my apartment, but I couldn't find it." The officer said: "We found it on Jake when we took him to the jail."

Okay, HERE'S the problem with that...

At 2:00 in the afternoon, Jake had a thumbnail's worth of weed.

At 4:00 or so, he was at his parents' place for dinner. After dinner, he went directly out to meet some of his friends. He left about 6:00, according to his parents. According to everything I've been led to believe, these particular friends do not smoke weed.

At 10:30, Jake came into my apartment asking about his weed. I could have SWORN he said that he knew he only had a little bit left, but that he wanted to share it with the neighbors.

At 11:00 or so, Jake was in custody.

The thing is, it's very, very unlikely that Jake got any more weed that day between seeing me in the afternoon, and coming home drunk. No, it would have been impossible, unless he didn't pay for it, because he had exactly the same amount of money in his wallet after his arrest as he'd had that afternoon; we'd talked about it. He didn't buy anything that day, and I'm 90% sure he wasn't with anybody who would have given him any.

So how did the pipe and the baggy get from the freezer to underneath the futon? I can only guess that, between dropping me off at school at 2:00, and going to his parents' house at 4:00, Jake used up the last of what he'd had. He would have left the pipe and the baggy there, and stuffed it under the futon, because he's lazy about throwing things away sometimes. (As am I, so whatever...) And, being totally drunk, he probably forgot he'd used it up, and was asking me where he'd put it.

The weed in THAT baggy: where did it go?

The cops didn't find any weed on Jake until he was in the jail. Which means that, if they found THAT thumbnail's worth ON Jake's person when he got to jail, it wasn't wrapped up in anything; it was just a little chunk of weed in his hand or his pocket or something. Because the baggy WAS STILL AT MY PLACE, as of LAST NIGHT. What the fuck? Jake pulled the weed out of the baggy and stuffed it in his pocket? Fucking DUH! I don't care HOW drunk somebody is; a stoner would never do something that stupid.

But it wasn't a matter of finding him in the apartment smoking, because if they had, they would have taken the pipe, too. It's got a lot of resin in it. Probably enough to get a lightweight stoned.

It also wasn't a matter of Jake wandering around in the hallway with a thumbnail's worth of weed in his hand. Because the cops didn't find it until he was at the jail.

WHAT weed did they find on Jake?

Gahd, I wish I could talk to him. I mean, maybe I've got something wrong here. But it sure looks to me like this is a set-up.

As in: Jake didn't HAVE any weed on him, because it was already gone, and I don't see how he could have gotten any more. I told the cops: listen, there's weed in my apartment and I'm going to give it to you. But they didn't wait around for me to look for it and give it to them; they left before I even had the door opened to my apartment. They went to the jail and planted some weed on Jake. And charged him with possession.

He couldn't have had it on him. He couldn't have. This just doesn't make any sense. I was trying to do something GOOD; I was risking getting MYSELF a misdemeanor so that Jake wouldn't be charged with it. And the cops turned it around, planted something on him, and charged him anyway.

So, it's my fault.

And the cops suck ass.

AND, there's no way I can prove any of this, and there's not even a halfway decent way I can challenge this charge... I'd have to say: "Jake didn't have any weed on him at the time, because the weed he WOULD have had on him was gone, and the remains were under the futon." And then, all would be lost anyway.

I want to cry.

I want to call the police station and scream.

I mean, this isn't a serious charge, really. It sucks, but it's not a serious charge. But still...

I'm going to go home soon and search under my futon again, to see if I can't find anything else interesting... I wonder where that masking tape ball came from, anyway...

* * * * * * * * * * *

I am almost ten weeks pregnant. At twelve weeks, the baby will have all his/her important guts formed. At about thirteen weeks, I will stop feeling morning sickness. At least, according to my midwife and my mother. Both of them also told me not to listen to horror stories about women who have morning sickness until the day they die.

I don't like morning sickness very much.

* * * * * * * * * * *

So I went to this pharmacy because I have a prescription for prenatal vitamins. I also have a coupon, from the Department of Health and Social Services (or whatever it is), that says "give this chick ALL medical care related to her pregnancy." According to the man on the telephone, this means I get free visits to the midwife, free delivery, free tests, free vitamins, etc.

So I went to a pharmacy that takes these coupons, and the old lady behind the counter said, "honey, we can fill this for you, but you're gonna have to pay for it yourself."

I said: "Why? Doesn't the coupon cover prescriptions?"

She said: "Well, YOUR coupon only covers family planning."

Yes, well, I'm planning a family. And I'm planning to have a healthy family. As in, I want to take vitamins now, so hopefully my family will be better equipped to deal with this world. That's family planning, no?

No. The pharmacist said "family planning" only means abortions and condoms and a yearly PAP smear. And STD-testing. It means you're NOT supposed to have babies. If you DO have babies, you're violating some sort of code, I guess...

I told her she must have gotten something wrong. She advised me to call the social services people.

Imagine! "Family planning" means you can have an abortion, but you can't get prenatal vitamins! What bullshit! Um, isn't that non-family planning? As in, planning for a NON-family?

Anyway, I called the social services people. I was on hold for twelve minutes. Someone who sounded like an enormous black woman picked up the other end of the telephone. I was instantly reassured. Enormous black women have a reassuring effect somehow.

The enormous black woman told me there were two programs. I SHOULD be signed up for the Pregnancy program. But according to her computer, I was signed up for the "Take Charge" program. The latter is for "taking charge" of not having babies. And I HAD signed up for that once, because I needed to be tested for STDs. I told her so. I told her I SHOULD be signed up for BOTH programs. She said no, the Pregnancy people had never heard of me. She asked me a couple of other questions:

"Do you still live in Zip code 98114?"

"Uh... no, and I never did."

"What's yo' address?"

I told her. She said, "Huh-uh."

Um, YEAH. I'm 22 fucken years old and am in my fifteeenth year of school. I think I'd fucken know my own address.

Apparently, somebody named Helena Thomas, who lives at some other address, in Zip code 98114, who has my exact social security number and assigned case number, is signed up for these coupons. And apparently, the TWO HOURS I spent on the telephone signing up for this Pregnancy program were for naught. In other words: my only option, as far as social services is concerned, is to get an abortion, pay for the services I've already received from the midwife, and then take home a bunch of free condoms to avoid getting into this mess ever again.

Come Monday morning, I am going to be seated in front of somebody at the social services office, and I am going to be screaming my bloody head off about identity theft, and irresponsible employees, and computer fuck-ups keeping me and my baby from getting the vitamins we were supposed to be taking a month ago.

This is all REALLY sketchy. I've never lived at this address I supposedly live at. And you have to give your social security number to get signed up... My mom always said don't give your social security number over the phone, and I don't suppose this could possibly be a case of full-fledged identity theft. That doesn't make sense. But something is very wrong. Very sketchy. And I'm going to have to freak out about it as soon as possible.

* * * * * * * * * * *

What is it with things just not adding up? What is it with all of these sketchy things going on? Dude, I'm going to have a baby, and my brain is FRIED, all the time; I don't have the mental capacity to go around solving mysteries like this.

I'm going to go home now and root around under the futon for clues. And then watch lousy movies for awhile.

~Helena*