Got 'em up about a month and a half ago in an antiques store when I went down to Lowell and my assignment got rained out:

Best part? They're vintage Ray-Bans. Even better? Got 'em for $8 freakin' bucks, man! Tara's Sean laughed at me when I wore them to my boss' 4th party, but I think they're cool. And the pic is me (natch) with The Baby being retarded at Pride. So far, it's the only one where I think we look even remotely alike. As usual, no making fun of my ginormous head and 25 chins.

So tonight's assignment had me at court awaiting the ruling of this guy who amassed 278 charges of animal neglect -- they weren't ALL animal neglect; many of them were code violations, but still -- and I ended up aiding and abetting two bonafide tweakers that amazingly enough aren't related to me. You might be wondering how the hell I ended up doing that. Well, allow me to start by saying that although I realize a courtroom is not the best place to see society's finest, this particular courtroom was, like, whoa with the dregs. And because the courtroom is so small, about 50 of them were standing outside waiting to be called in. I was talking to another completely cracked-out broad who of course has this juicy story to tell me about how the law won't give her back her kids (I'm guessing it's ultimately because she's a crackhead, but I got only bits and pieces of the story since she's now slightly agoraphobic after her car accident and needed some Xanax real bad) when these two other women kept coming in and out of the courtroom looking for a phone. I lent them mine. The story went that they needed to go back to the one's dad's house to cash a check at a bar for the fine the one was going to have to pay for whatever her charge was, which I kinda wondered about since the judge usually gives people between 30 and 60 days to come up with the scratch, but whatever. So the one asked me if I would take her to the old man's house so the other one wouldn't get nailed for failure to appear, and since I had at least an hour to kill before I'd get to talk to who I needed, I said all right.

So the whole car ride, the woman, who was way skinny, yapyapyapYAPPED nonstop about this, that and the other between thanking me profusely and saying my name over and over so she wouldn't forget it. Among the things she told me: She's bipolar, and that's why she can't pass the test to get her license; her friend back at the courtroom just got diagnosed with breast cancer after being hospitalized with an infection for having the wrong false teeth given to her (wha? Yeah, that's what I thought.); and that her friend's dad is a former city mucky-muck who had a stroke and that she and the daughter are taking care of him. Anyway, we get to the old man's crib, a shithole flophouse above the ol' family store complete with all kinds of detritus, and the woman has him write a check for $100, but then chides him for writing it out of an account that has his and his other daughter's name on it. Half-naked and a whole lot disoriented, the poor bastard writes then another check while telling me of how he used to be a city mucky-muck. I then take her to a bar to cash the check, and then back to the courthouse, where she met back up the daughter. When I told them I couldn't give them a ride, they walked off across the street and suckered some other guy. This was after she told me mucky-muck's daughter was too weak to walk from the wrong false teeth infection or the cancer or whatever.

And so I thought to myself, are all drug addicts the same? Do they all clamor desperately for attention, good or bad? Because these two were no different than Crackhead.