Star E Rose, Alberta St., Portland OREGON

Today is the most beautiful day ever. It's sunny and warm after so much rain. Donna left for Palm Springs today. She'll be there for a week.

I walked to Alberta. It was a lot further than I thought. It took an hour but I stopped to rest in Wilshire Park, aka heaven on earth. It had tall trees and a perfect little playground in primary colors with rickety old metal slides. Parents and their kids were everywhere and their voices were muffled in the pines. The little playground scene so tiny and colorful and the giant trees stretching so tall into into the clear sky. It was like music.

There are so many smells I haven't smelled since 2003. I haven't been clean in Portland in spring since March 15 2003. That was when I started and didn't stop... I've been here the last two years in the spring but I wasn't clean -- I took some walks, I think, at least I walked around while I was scoring... but I probably didn't notice my surroundings. Or at least I don't remember any of it.

The smells are so overwhelming. Only Portland smells like this and only in the spring. The rain everywhere evaporating in the sun, the flowering trees, dirt, gardens, exhaust, wood smoke, food cooking, the trees -- I don't know what it is but it's so specific. It makes me feel faint to smell it again after so long.

I went out on this walk to avoid heroin. Even though we took extreme measures so I couldn't do it, I could think of ways around it and I don't want to end up without a place to live.

My desire scares me. It's so illogical. Until an hour before Donna left, I was still thinking that the things we were doing were extreme and that maybe she could leave me with some money after all. But near when she left I started to get that nervous energy, waves of random emotions, suddenly imagining the whole thing from start to finish. One moment I was sitting on the windowsill drinking pomegranate juice in the sun, thinking of how happy I was and how great it was to be clean, the next minute it consumed my thoughts like a poison -- how much better this amazing day would be with heroin.

Even when I sat down here, literally HIGH from walking for so long -- I was holding back tears at the beauty of everything -- then suddenly I KNEW that this perfection would only be improved with heroin -- no matter how perfect something is, heroin makes it better. The only exception I can think of is spending time with Donna. But it doesn't REALLY improve anything. But it does for a moment. Even the fragrant spring air. But it makes it not real. You don't feel and you don't remember.

Do I have to live for the rest of my life avoiding the thought that whatever I'm experiencing would be better with heroin? It's always there, like turning over a piece of paper. I wish I could forget how easy it is. There is so much beauty...

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The extreme measures I referred to were to make sure I don't have any money. We bought enough food for a week, put gas in my car, and I gave my remaining money, my bank card, and both my IDs to Donna (so I can't sell anything). I haven't been alone since I got here a month ago, other than going to work, and the consequences of me doing heroin are dire -- S. said I would have to find another place to live within 30 days if I did it.

Ultimatums never worked with me in the past because I seem to have no qualms about throwing my dignity out the window along with my friends, life, whatever else stands in my way when I get *that feeling*. But luckily he and Donna control the only two things in the world that I care about -- having a stable life in Portland, and living with Donna. They are also the only two people who know me well enough to be able to tell if I've done it.

I could find a way to get money, even now. But the important thing is that I'm avoiding the situation where I'm driving around alone with $40 in my pocket, and something -- a street, a thought, a memory -- reminds me of heroin, my stomach drops like I'm on a roller coaster, I get *that feeling*, the logical part of my brain shuts off and I go into auto-mode and the next thing I know I'm shooting up. Yeah. Hustling some money would take longer than a few hours, too long to stay in auto-mode. As long as I continue to think logically I can remember the part about not having a place to live if I do it.

I'm not going to lie. It is very hard to be in Portland. Normally having Donna around cancels it out, but when I'm alone the feeling almost crushes me. I probably shouldn't think about it too much right now because I'm getting dizzy.

Hopefully right after she left will be the hardest part. I got through that...