Meth-odology

Meth, like Adderal, Ritalin, and Dexedrine, can be a method for getting things done, for a wide range of people from soccer moms to medschool students, from orgy organizers to striving wall streeters. A student told me she wrote a term paper in long stretches -- up to 30 hours -- while smoking and snorting meth. Having burned her nose out from the snorting, she resorting to smoking. She filled the crack beneath her cubicle door and lit up her newly purchased pipe and let the crystals crackle and twist into fumes that she gently sucked into her lungs, careful not to pull in any unmelted crystals at the same time. 2 or 3 drags and a delayed deep release, and she was ready to work. She said the route to thought was narrow and channel-like; she slalomed down it as far as her unwavering concentration allowed her, finishing her work in record time.

Mobile Meth

a Columbia (MO) cab driver recounted how he has been paid for rides as far as South Carolina. When I asked who could possibly want such a thing, he said, "I don't know, just a man with a suitcase." I then asked "but you spent a long time with this guy...you must have learned something about him. The cab driver said that he was paid $1,700 for the ride, was put up in a motel for about 4 hours one night, then hit the road again until reaching Columbia. "I don't know nothing," he said. The cab driver knew I understood and smiled as he enjoyed his circumlocutions, which I eventually clarified with knowing looks I flashed him through his rear view mirror.

When I told him I was doing research on meth, he said in the form of quiet but dramatic exclamation, "Ooooh! i could tell you stories." I focused now on the side of his face from my position in the back seat, "Well, go on." He didn't hesitate at all: "Well I live in Millersburg, about 10 miles East of Columbia, and the other day I went down to the general store and heard that I live on 'meth alley', that's what they call it, Road 309. Just the other day they done busted 3 meth labs -- 3 -- right on my dead-end street. Two of them were in mobile homes and the third was a fixed structure. The cops busted them all." He told me he lived at the beginning of Rd. 309 and that the labs were found at the dead end. He said that even the old-timer farmers in the area are attuned to the presence of meth -- "one guy, couldn't be younger than eighty says he can smell a meth lab near by -- I don't know, though. Maybe he's just afraid of getting robbed and so is on the lookout a little too hard."

methography

means "writing meth" or the problem of reproducing the force of meth in writing. What, for example, is an everyday point of view from a meth high? Some bloggers have suggested vocabulary for writing meth:


crystallization: the self-proclaimed mastery of a meth-user to sum up life






methafor: the apprehension of objects and events as a function of the force of meth

methic: of or pertaining to the hyperreality constructed through meth use

meth mouth: the discolored, odorous, rotted, soft-toothed mouth of a meth smoker. Metaphorically, it might mean euphoric, sincere and declaratory words that are tarnished with tweaked inspiration.

beartrapped shacks

acquaintances have warned me that taking an aimless stroll in the woods outside Columbia, especially in the vicinity of Mexico, Missouri, could turn into a nightmarish, violent event. Meth lab shacks located in these woods are encircled with beartraps to ward off intruders of all kinds.

meth babies

the local public radio announced that a government program for "meth babies" was in the works for the state of Missouri. The program is a response to the enormous problem of children "orphaned" by parents who have been incarcerated for running meth labs. The announcement included the claim that the number of such children has reached 500 per year.