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This is political theater. This Mayor is gearing up for his presidential bid and he’s hoping he can ride the coat tails of another newly elected populist. Obviously the high rises of glass and steel evoke an image that is not one of a populist movement. It is absolutely idiotic - at best.I’ve seen several permutations of this question on Quora. So many of the answers are the same. Yes! We have to stop them! They are so ugly! They are not energy efficient! They are not sustainable! Who are these people? What qualifications do they have? Beyond their opinion that a building is ugly - which is fine - but you know what they say about opinions.Three general ordinances govern if/how a building is built in NYC:Zoning Code: has absolutely nothing to say about the materiality of a building. It does have some provisions for energy efficiency which can lead to increased density. It also has some provisions in certain situations for transparency and/or screening requirements. And of course, it governs “bulk” which is the shape and size of a building.Building Code: indirectly can influence the materiality of a building. It does this by requiring windows for certain types of spaces and by controlling/specifying the fire rating of assemblies (only certain types of assemblies can hit those types of fire ratings which ends up driving what materials you use).Energy Code: already one of the strictest in the country. We’re supposed to get another version this year or next which will become even stricter.Let’s look at the primary points of his platform and how they may differ from current policy or reality.NYC has traditionally allowed existing non-conforming buildings to remain “as is” with only minor alterations/improvements required. Unless you add a sizable amount of floor area, change the use, or make a sizable financial improvement to the building - those items would trigger the requirement to bring the building “up to code”. We still have buildings that operate under the 1938 & 1968 code! Heck, we have some buildings that are so old they don’t even (and can’t) get a certificate of occupancy - a good example is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While you can argue this decision both ways - it does make some sense. We have some of the oldest building stock in the nation. Many times it is virtually impossible to bring a building up to code or financially impossible. It could be significantly cheaper to tear it down and rebuild. So if we want to live in a city with a mix of old and new, that hasn’t erased its past then rules such as these make sense. Side note - I personally lament the loss of some of the historic fabric of NYC, but not everything is worth saving.Buildings of glass and steel are inefficient. Says who? I hate it when politicians use their platform to spread disinformation. We will look at a couple of examples momentarily, but let’s start off by making something clear. No new building in NYC gets built without passing energy code (we spend 3–4 months in energy review now-a-days in any new building). I don’t care if it’s made of glass & steel or marshmallows & fairy dust. Older buildings are indeed many times energy inefficient and do not comply with the current energy code. See #1 above. In that case it doesn’t matter if they are made of glass & steel or any other material. It’s a product of the time and the technology available.Lever HouseCompleted in 1952 by Gordon Bunshaft of SOM (one of my all time favorite architects). It’s a designated landmark, a registered SHPO project and inefficient as heck. Perfect snap shot in history and (though I hate green glass) a beautiful project.Seagram BuildingBy Mies Van Der Rohe and Phillip Johnson completed 1958. Another snapshot in history. Look at all that plate glass. Leaks energy like a sieve. Plate glass (characteristic of the time) is about as energy efficient as rice paper. Also a designated landmark along with the plaza.Jerome L. Greene Science CenterThis is not quite a tower, but it’s a glass building. It’s a science building on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus. It’s all glass wth a double skin facade that implements a host of passive and active environmental control measures. It contains a host of other energy efficient systems that are designed to mitigate not only the environment but the energy intensive applications being pursued within. It’s LEED gold accredited. I could design a concrete box stuffed with insulation lit only by daylight and still have a hard time hitting LEED gold.BOFA TowerThis building got hammered starting with an article published by the New Republic about how inefficient it is. Give it a read, it’s a good article and probably be best one you will read that makes the mayors point.The Green-Building RacketBut stop and think about why the article is lambasting the building for being inefficient. Context is important no? The majority of the building’s floors are trading floors and network server floors. Both of these functions are extreme energy hogs. Both of these functions would continue to be extreme energy hogs whether located in a building of glass & steel or in a building made of marshmallows & pixie dust. To its credit, the article does point out that the building does an excellent job of mitigating the negative effects of these uses, but there is just no way to negate those effects.A building is like clothes. Try as I may - I might be able to find a pair of pants that make me look thinner but I just can’t seem to find a pair that actually makes me thinner. Nope. Still fat. Until I decide to change my lifestyle. Now that’s a valuable goal for any person or company to pursue. But how do we plan on regulating that? Is Bill going to reinvent the way banks do business? No more computer screens! No more servers!? Let’s get real. But I digress. Back to the question - the enemy here yet again is not glass & steel.The WestFinishing on a personal note. This is a 225 unit condo in Hell’s Kitchen set to open 2021. The upper half of the building is all glass. Furthermore, every apartment gets a cantilevered glass box overhanging the facade which contains either a master bedroom or living room and provides for a terrace for the unit above. This is important because we have now increased exposure to the elements as every apartment has a “roof” AND a fully exposed floor where we need to mitigate the elements. We’ve also increased the surface area (and linear footage) of every floor as all the boxes “project” from the building. Not only do we meet our energy code requirements (the second strictest in the nation behind California) we exceed them and comply with NYC’s Zone Green program. The glass (which costs a fortune) is a double glazed IGU with an inert gas layer and a thermal/ solar gain coating. The non-transparent surfaces (columns, slab edges, slab bottoms, terraces) are highly insulated and in some cases use a special type of insulation (DowSil) originally developed for the space shuttle and later applied in industrial uses. It’s finally made its way to residential (at $27/SF).So - long & short. Verify the “facts” that politicians give you. Make sure they have a clue about what they’re talking about (I think too often they don’t). Your personal opinions are yours - and they’re important. But be careful how you want your personal opinions - especially something as subjective as aesthetic taste - to influence policy and regulations. Aesthetics should not be used to promote a class war - they are irrespective of your income class or financial standing in life. Architecture has enough problems to deal with. It doesn’t need to get pulled into the middle of a shallow political debate.

2001 - September 11 - a.k.a. 911I had just reported to my sales job at John’s Truck Parts in Wurtsboro and upon arriving, heard someone say that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. My immediate thought was that a small private plane headed for Teterboro Airport had wondered off the course into the Trade Center Building. I went to work, which was cold-calling users of truck parts in the Hudson Valley. Getting on the highway, the radio blared on that this was no small private plane but a huge airliner filled high-octane fuel and that people were jumping out of the windows above the 75th floor to their death to avoid being burned alive.One of my daughters, Jada, worked in the World Trade Center (WTC) complex at the Southwest Restaurant. I panicked thinking she was in the middle of the carnage and rushed home. The minute I walked in the front door, I saw Bettie at the kitchen table watching the TV news coverage on the attack. She said Jada just called and said for me not to worry, she was all right and had not gone to work when she saw the first plane hit from her apartment window. Jada lived right across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center in an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey. From her vantage point, Jada had a front row seat to the entire attack, including the collapse of the Twin Towers.By the time I got home, the second plane had hit the other Tower. Bettie and I watched as flames engulfed the buildings and saw people jumping out of windows above the point where the planes hit. It became clear that we were under attack from some source and that this was no accident. The TV news coverage was graphic and very agonizing. Bettie and I sat in the kitchen and were glued to the coverage. One by one, we saw the Twin Towers and other buildings come down in a cloud of dust. Tens of thousands of people were in the streets, fleeing the swirling dust cloud and the flying debris.The exhaustive news coverage went on for months. Images of the wreckage at Ground Zero played daily on the news as thousands of rescue workers dug through the ruins looking for survivors. I sat glued to the TV set and read all the New York City papers that spared no bloody detail, no matter how gruesome.The best pictures were on the Internet, where hundreds of new explicit images of death and destruction appeared daily. In a city of millions with thousands of reporters from all over the world, there were plentiful cameras and videos that recorded the 9/11 events. Color images were lurid and showed death, destruction and heroism in all its forms. More than 400 uniformed New York City fire and police were killed, all heroes who were rescuing people fleeing the burning buildings. The fire department alone lost 343 fire fighters and the police lost another 84 people.We learned that fundamentalist Muslim Arabs who commandeered aircraft flying out of Boston conducted the attack. The terrorists killed stewardess, passengers and pilots by cutting their throats with box cutters, and flew the planes into the buildings shouting, “God is Great.” These Arabs were part of a much larger Islamist group led by Sumac Ben Laden who was headquartered in Afghanistan. Located in more than 65 countries, including the United States, fanatical Islam has declared War against the United States and I pray that we will fight this war vigorously, destroying them in all their places, wherever that may be. As the days passed, we counted casualties of those we knew. I lost five friends from my old company, Digital Equipment, who were at “Windows of the World” restaurant for a conference. Another friend, Bill Cummings, was a paramedic in the Bronx sent to the WTC to rescue people, The WTC collapsed on him and he was buried under 20 feet of debris for three days, was dug out and lived. Carl Azariah, a fireman we knew from the soccer field where our grandchildren played, lost his life on West Street when the North Tower collapsed on his fire truck. There were other firemen that died that we did not know personally, but who part of our community. No day went by without announcements of lose from our community. Some people we knew and some were casual acquaintances.Lynn Morris, a 21-year-old girl from our church died when the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald took a hit from a plane and exploded into a 3000-degree fireball initiated by high-octane airplane fuel. They're many more friends who worked in the World Trade Center and escaped annihilation.All had harrowing stories to tell of miraculous escapes and near death experiences. Bill Cummings, a friend of mine and ex Town of Wallkill Supervisor who works in the Bronx as a Para Medic was treating a victim in the street and had a building collapse on him. He was of those who was dug out and rescued. Fate played a big part too. Colin, a friend of Jada’s who also worked in Cantor Fitzgerald, was a block away at the cleaner picking up a suit. He was walking back to work when he saw the first plane hit his office floor. He watched in horror as people he knew were blown out of or jumped out of the window to their death. A neighbor, who works at American Express, where many died, was sick that day. Mike Sellet, one of my friends on the school board, a full time National Guard Security Specialist, was sent to Ground Zero. He talked about the blood and guts smeared on the walls of nearby buildings and body parts laying about everywhere.Our community, filled with commuters who worked in Manhattan, is inundated with countless stories of death, rescue, and surviving. It is even worse in other large commuter communities or those that housed thousands of New York City fire and police. Middletown, New Jersey lost more people to the World Trade Center attack than they did during either World War II or Vietnam.The World Trade Center disaster exemplified the best and worst in mankind. There were so many heroes who saved lives and so many crooks that cashed in on the pile of money created by donations to support survivors. Jada was granted $2,500 for loss of her job. She never received the check; a thief in the organization collecting the WTC money cashed it. It happened to thousands of people and the police were too busy to do anything about the theft. In addition, there were thousands of false claims made by people who had no connection whatsoever to the Trade Center. Many were from overseas; all were trying to cash in on the huge amounts of money collected.I don't have much regard for the Middle East having gone through the area while in the Navy in the 1950s. One year ago, I originally thought that it was risky for Bush to have gone into Iraq, thinking maybe we would be better off going after al Qaeda in a big way; after all, al Qaeda is located in more than 65 countries. But, I believe that Bush’s grand strategy was establish a democracy in the volatile Middle East and to open an Iraqi front against the war on terrorism thereby drawing in all the Arab terrorists from the region. One year later, Bush’s strategy has proved correct, Iraq has become the central battleground on the War on Terrorism. Bush is also betting the farm that a democracy can be set up in an Arab country and proliferate throughout the Middle East which would then mitigate the Islamic terrorist threat against the West.However, to think that the United States could administer Iraq following a "successful" military campaign is wishful. Iraq is majority Shiite and ruled by a dictator Sunni. They are at war with each other over religion more violently that the Protestants and Catholics were in Western Europe or the Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. Iraq is not like Germany or Japan following World War II, it is not homogeneous as Japan or Germany nor can be occupied successfully by today’s major powers. Further, is it not disciplined in the same manner as either Japan or Germany? Much of the Middle East, particularly Iran and Iraq are emotionally driven by religious fundamentalism and rampart tribalism, which makes them incapable of politically stability by western standards. I suspect there will never be a western style democracy in any Arab country. For the United States to declare victory and withdraw successfully from the mid east, it is important that the governing of Iraq be quickly turned over to Iraqis who will govern according to their own culture.The USA had learned that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for planning and recruiting for the attack on the World Trade Center. Troops were sent to Afghanistan to capture or kill him. But remember, our western Christian presence in the Middle East creates Islamic terrorists who will gladly die to attack us.Ground Zero - November 3, 2001, 2001Heloiza Asaro, one of our friends from Scotchtown, lost her husband September 11 in the World Trade Center attack. We remember him being at the Pine Bush soccer field, his kids playing with our grandchildren. They were all great friends, especially [our daughter] Jeanne and Heloiza. Carl was a fireman with Engine 54, who on the fateful day of September 11, responded from his 77th Street and Broadway station to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Carl Asaro drove the Chief to the disaster, parking behind the World Trade Center on West Street, while his engine company entered the lobby of the north tower. Then the building collapsed on top of him. He was buried under 110 stories of rubble, crushed into the ground into nothingness, now existing as molecular sized particles of bone and flesh. The truck he was driving was flattened, as other was, to the thickness of an inch, and to this day, it still has not been recovered. His wife Heloiza, a Brazilian woman, with his five children, was racked in painful despair, for this massive death and destruction was caused by Muslim fundamentalists, whose hate of Americans and Western society rose to a murderous evil unheard of in the history of man.On November 2, her husband’s engine company invited her down to Ground Zero for a memorial service. She invited Bettie and me to go along so if she broke down, we would be there to comfort her. Leaving Middletown at 9:00 A.M., and driving Heloiza’s new red Windstar van, bought with monies donated by the fireman from her husband’s engine company, I drove to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where we would meet other people attending the memorial service for the nine members of engine 54 who were killed in the terrorist attack. It was Friday and I was amazed there was no heavy traffic. We easily drove down the Palisades Parkway, across the George Washington Bridge, down the Harlem River Drive, across the Triborough Bridge, down the Brooklyn Queens Expressway past Green Point. We quickly maneuvered the 95 miles to Brooklyn.Things in New York City have slowed considerably since September 11, and it took us only two hours to navigate to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At the gate, an armed security guard directed us to where [about one hundred] other grieving family members were gathered. We were waiting for an excursion boat to take us to lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. A hundred of us milled about a Fire Department building that stood next to the East River waterfront standing three stories tall, I remembered well this red brick Fire Station. I had taken service calls more than twenty-five years ago when I worked for Digital Equipment Corp.The firemen announced there would be a delay because of a demonstration by their brothers at the site. New York City firemen call each other brothers; they consider themselves a member of a ‘Brotherhood.’ Since day one of the attacks, the firemen have been at the World Trade Center site called Ground Zero to help with the removal of bodies - 343 of which are New York City firemen.Today, Major Giuliani has decreed that only a few firemen can be at Ground Zero; he says it’s too dangerous for the hundreds who frequent the area to be there anymore. The firemen are furious and rush police barricades and 12 are arrested. Until this demonstration settles down, we are on hold in Brooklyn.Finally, the excursion boat arrives and we sail away under the Brooklyn Bridge toward lower Manhattan. I can see my old customer, New York Telephone’s large 375 Pearl Street building, rising above the Manhattan skyline. Even though the Twin Towers are gone, resting as rubble with 3,000 decimated souls ground into the granite bedrock, the Manhattan skyline is still majestically beautiful and exudes power - a visual message of corporate America.The firemen provided soft drinks and snacks, so we are not left hungry, as we eat and contemplate our feelings while the boat chugs along the sky scrapper studded shoreline. After a 45-minute ride, the boat tied up amongst piers that provide a closed area at the base of the World Trade Center site.We disembark and are told to assemble for a talk by the firemen coordinators. They lay down the ground rules, the police are enforcing ‘no picture taking,’ no walking around the site, be quite and respectful, and be ready to participate in a memorial ceremony. We are told we can spend all the time we want, until we have to make way for another group. We will be escorted to a wooden platform at Ground Zero.While walking the prepared-covered walkway to the site, I notice New Yorkers [who live in the area] standing around and looking respectfully at the surrounding buildings, all damaged by the collapse of the twin towers. The entire area is pervaded by an eerie silence, like solemnly walking into a funeral to view a family member; we all have a feeling of great respect and sorrow. Manhattan is always full of runners, whose tennis shoes tap tap their way along every walkway in the City. It is no different here, as runners rush by on Water Front Drive.Our group walks a short distance to the steps that take us onto the platform constructed for victim's families and there is the rubble, the remains of the World Trade Center, now at 40 feet above street height, but only a month ago that was 15 stories tall. There is a huge red twin derrick crane sitting in front of us, its huge 100-foot steel arms used to lift and clear large steel beams. Around the site, 20 orange excavators scurry about, using their huge claws to deposit powdered concrete debris into 45- foot dump trucks. Every few minutes a flatbed truck goes by, loaded with cut up pieces of four-inch thick, gigantic steel beams, weighing in at 1,700 pounds per running foot. The rubble is headed for a dump on Staten Island where hundreds of investigators go through every scrap to find body parts, or anything significant relating to the human habitation of the twin towers. What they find are body pieces so small that only DNA will ever tell the story what belongs to whom. Mile Sellet is a National Guard [Military Police] friend who has been serving at Ground Zero since week one. He says they found hundreds of shoes with pieces of feet in them. That body parts were smeared all over the standing buildings, atomized to into red splotches.Ground Zero is a horrible place, filled with blood and guts, and millions of tons of debris, that once were the two largest office buildings in the world, a place that once exemplified America and its economic might. Now it serves another purpose, its glorious memory joins a nation together, likes never before, in a righteous cause.There are over a hundred of us on the platform, all starring at the devastation and surrounding buildings covered from roof to lobby in black cloth, so as to keep them from absorbing the dust, smell of kerosene and death. All around us are buildings that have come down, or will soon come down due to their extensive damage. The entire complex of World Trade Center buildings will be demolished.Between this destruction and black cloth, we are cast into a referent spell, all silent, only whispering when something has to be said. I look down and see two firemen standing there. With kneepads and lighted helmets, they have just returned from a search, tunneling down deep through rubble. Both look big and strong, with harnesses and other equipment strapped onto their torsos. With dull eyes, they are staring blankly off into the void, as if no one else was there, but obviously some serious thoughts occupy their minds.My eyes tear as emotion wells up in me and I feel the shared pain of all those who gave so much, and 00those who now serve in this great cause. Looking at the twisted wreckage, you feel like crying and many do. Bettie has a pen and I write this thought on the banister just like hundreds wrote before me, to leave a little something written here for posterity. Later, we all will discover the wreckage of the World Trade Center is embedded forever in our sub conscience. With great reference, a Catholic memorial ceremony takes place, with all of us praying for the dear departed and those who will continue their lives in pain and sorrow. After spending an hour contemplating and praying, another fireman group needs the platform, so we depart.A block away is the black granite wall covered with hundreds of names of policemen killed in the line of duty. There are 37 new ones killed in the Trade Center that haven’t been engraved yet. But their pictures are there for us all to look at. Men, dressed in black combat uniforms and carrying Mack Ten assault rifles, walk around keeping a watchful eye. Nearby are two firemen, standing outfitted with mountain climbing equipment. They are strong men, their muscles bulging through their shirts. Hollywood central casting could never find actors more colorfully suited to express their epic story, more emphatically, than these heroic firemen. I strike up a conversation with them and learn they have been at Ground Zero since the planes hit the towers. The firemen said when the planes hit the twin towers; the resulting damage was catastrophic, beyond any human comprehension, like the exploding force of an atom bomb. People were there working and in the next instant, they were gone, vaporized by a 3000-degree fireball. That is what happened to the 700 people from one firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, a place where one of our friends, Lynn Morris, from church worked. Into this maelstrom of death and destruction rushed New York’s Firemen.They spoke eloquently of their brother firemen, the bravest of the brave, who rushed up the tower stairways as thousands of people scurried down to safety. With no thought to their own safety, they went on knowingly to certain death, in the furlong hope of saving surviving burn victims, who lay about and were too traumatized to move. They themselves wound up on the 75th floor where hundreds of people lay about wounded or dead. Starting rescue operations, with fire and explosions all around them, they radioed status to their brothers and started down. They said radio communications were ineffective with ground forces. After exiting the lobby, suddenly the building collapsed and hundreds of their brothers still in the stairwells went crashing to their death. The impact was equal to a 2.3 Richter Scale earthquake, enough to grind concrete and people to dust, only the four inch steal beams survived, but looking like twisted spaghetti.My two new friends related their day-by-day experiences since the collapse. The days spent crawling through the eight stories deep underground tunnels looking for people. More days tunneling through 15 stories of debris, and more days hanging from the sides of steel beams sticking out of the rubble. Their adventure stories were the stuff Bruce Willis movies are made of, all excitement and death defying acts of heroism and courage. I wondered if they realized just how brave they are.Finally, we board the boat for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. On the trip back, Heloiza and many others are crying. No one would ever be the same; this experience would stay with us for the rest of our lives. Traveling through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and on the West Highway, a fireman from Engine 54 took us to the firehouse on 77th and Broadway. There we met the Chief and many firemen, all standing duty for the next fire, or lost child stuck on a roof.The comradery among these men was exemplitory, a real tribute to the Brotherhood. Heloiza was presented with another check, raised by the firemen from midtown neighborhood donations. What we had seen and what we felt would be embodied in us forever. Grief and despair, but also a belief in the goodness of this great nation, one that would never go away. God Bless America!

“I should have…”“I could have…”“I would have…”“If only.”My father used to call me out on by interrupting me when I started to make excuses for myself.He called these words my “regret words that were useful only for gift-wrapping my excuses”.And there were more than a few “turning points” which were opportunities for me to awaken, if I had been watching and listening to the people around me to advised me not to make a habit out what we thought was casual and occasional recreational meth use.My best friend at the time who had been selling to support his habit counseled me not to get into selling because unlike him, I had no criminal record (then) and a good job: he had scarce few options for legitimate work. He has since cleaned up and is on track to get his CDL.When I was pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence, I answered some questions the wrong way and a safery frisk escalated into a six hour ordeal culminating in my first arrest and the use of my “get out of jail on a RoR (released on own recognizance) … but oh by the way, its not because now you're forever going to be on our radar”…… That night I ended up with me calling my wife at 9am to inform her that she needed to come pick me up at the state trooper barracks 20 Mike's away: ironic in that I had been stopped less than 400 feet from my house.I had in my hands summonses and appearance tickets and informations of accusations for about 15 charges, 8 misdemeanor possession charges, several “fix-it tickets", and a misdemeanor driving while drugged charge. The vehicle violations were largely just added insult to injury, because it's a normal practice for the police to stack the deck as high as possible so that the DA has something big and juicy to negotiate a higher penalty with.When you get stopped for a DUI or similarly serious charge at 2am you'll probably find that the cops are going to roll up on you 12 deep like gangbusters. It didn't help that that morning after I stupidly let them search my car to find all sorts of things I wasn't supposed to have: during the questioning at the station one of the troopers that even brought me the red sketch that I had full of things like needles, bacteriostatic water, prepared doses of meth in aqueous solution, GHB, ketamine, ecstasy, and somebody's Rx bottle they had left in my vehicle in their bag… and a small handful of 1015 Apple baggies (used for massing out sale units of 1.0g to 1.75g “teenagers” (1/16th oz.)… I might have had an eight ball or two worth of the stuff. Well over 5g total to be sure. The trooper opened this sketch kit up and made sure I knew that he knew what we were looking at, though he never specifically asked me about ANY of it.Later that morning when I recovered the car from the impound, my sketch kit was in the back of the car, casually tossed in back as if it were a second thought: when I checked it out after getting home, everything was still there except for the ketamine and the bags of meth. I figured I was fucked and might be looking at a grand jury indictment later on, but it never resurfaced. It likely disappeared into some officer's personal party fund or might be in some evidence locker collecting dust.A scene logical and rational person might at this point have thought that it would be a good idea to leave the insanity behind: After a very stressful year of doing more meth, selling even more meth, and trying to keep my dysfunctional marriage going on paper, partly out of concern for the kids and partly out of fear of losing the only grounding influence I had … that while doing damage control to cover my shitty job performance that was slipping more and more because I needed to be somewhere to move my meth or keep up appearances among the A-list tweakers in NYC…… and while trying to dodge an especially shitty human being (more for his safety and my need not to murder him) as I learned he liked to “party and play” (drug fueled sex) with younger men. As in not even yet men: I had cut him off from my supply chain and even blackballed him to my other dealer friends and connects upon learning and verifying that he had used my product to get a 10th grader high and in bed with him.It didn't end well and by all regards it could have ended far worse: I had threatened to permanently crease the back of his head with a tire iron if I were ever to see him again. There are a few hints he left in some messages to me that he had been looking to throw me under the bus to the cops as a major dealer, but I had leverage on him for the things he was doing, and made sure that I knew that he knew would suffer far worse in prison as a pedophile than I would as a drug trafficker. And if he didn't, some outlaw friends of mine would make certain of it. In any event I never saw him again after that.Again, things I should have done and didn't do — or should not have done, but allowed to happen: the situation was complicated because that creep had put me in contact with his lawyer whose genius had gotten all my misdemeanor charges dismissed due to shitty police evidence gathering and procedural failures, leaving only the driving while drugged charge which under NY State law either has to be discharged, brought to trial, or plead down to a driving while ability impaired by alcohol (DWAI) which I found absolutely humorous since I'm a non-drinker.That lawyer was a fucking genius though. And while I usually keep to my own business, I was able to mitigate against any potential for damage by this creep through whom I had met my lawyer.The lawyer is also gay, and our community north of NYC is much thinner on the ground: he knew fully well about the creep and his “preferences”.But that aside, the lawyer made short work of getting my many charges down to the DWAI traffic violation. An especially expensive one at around $4500 once all the fees and fines and lawyer's retainer was taken care of, not to mention a 90-day suspension, a $750 driver responsibility assessment, and having to sit through a “driver improvement” class lead by a pompous self-righteous condescending windbag.Not that he wasn't right about what he had to teach, and about the reasons why I needed to sit down and shut up and take in what was being offered regardless of the package it came in.By this time, a year had lapsed since that arrest, and a fatefully careless early AM drive to make a sale at one dude's place, and then meet a hot young stud who had been wanting me to “turn him out” …Oh, boy.Given his abysmal lack of skill as a bottom and overall lackluster personality I had more than sufficient grounds for me to have just stayed home that night. But the DickBrain doesn't engage in logic or rationality, and the DickBrain on meth is even less of a rational and logical beast.Shortly after leaving the unskilled bottom boy behind (he may have actually made noises about needing to get to sleep which I might have read as an excuse to GTFO) I got into my car and started to drive down the very long and twisting dirt road of the farm he was staying at.I was overwhelmed with sleep and began to regret my decision to abruptly leave as it probably would have solved several problems if I had asked to sleep on his couch or in my car in his driveway for a quick combat nap before heading home.Nope. Zero rational thinking.I had stopped my car on the side what I thought was the driveway into the farm just short of when it Tee-ed into the State road. I cut my lights but left the motor running with the heat as it was late February.Probably not more then a half hour to 45 minutes later I was awoken by the stern wrap of the state troopers knock on my car door window.I had made the mistake I'm going off on to the side of what should have been a shoulder of the State Road. Actually I had made several mistakes as in a total freaking deja vu of what had led to my arrest the previous year.And this time the troopers making the stop were extremely thorough and knew their stuff: everything from the red sketch kit to the bag of cash (almost $10K) to about 11g of super pure crystal methamphetamine, about 120ml of GHB (which they had no clue about, it was in a shampoo bottle) and bag of 10 fresh points… scales and a roll of 2020 baggies : these troopers had landed themselves a full on dealer, and whatever blip they probably read about my arrest the previous year made them dig deep.They tore up the car from stem to stern and from top to bottom. I had maybe the only bit of good sense in that I had hit a button to an app that would send off a coded text to my best friend and then wipe and brick my phone. I had info on that phone that had details about quarter pounders, keys, and liters which had nothing to do at all with having the keys to a burger joint and access to the soda fountain.The six or seven hours of being chained to a steel bench did not end in my release or any sort of small talk - I would be field tested several times and even taken to the ER at a hospital across the river to be blood tested as I may have insulted the intelligence and elite training of some kid special agent from the State Narcotics Investigation Unit who had read my dilated pupils and extremely tense muscle tone as certain proof that I was high on heroin… which I wasn't, it had been meth!So I had told him that I'd gladly submit to a blood test to prove him wrong. Which it did, for the price of an especially unpleasant RN who ordered that the draw be taken from a vein in my wrist with what seemed like a 14ga. needle. She might have been “joking”, but nothing in her demeanor suggested humor, and it was as big a needle as I never hope to see near me again.It may have had an unintended consequence: I never shot meth again after that.The trip back from the hospital had me at the trooper station briefly to get a receipt for the cash that the troopers siezed and also for the car and non-evidence items.From there, off to the county jail for a few days.Where I slept for the better part of all of those days except for the visit I had from my best friend and my family.This was my rock bottom: seeing my kids see me at my worst. In my orange jumpsuit, my son said that I resembled a Shaolin monk, or maybe one of the Dragonball Z fighters.This put the seed of an idea in my head, which would be the subject of a number of conversations for the half year between my arrest and sentencing which lead me to the Buddha Dharma. Not just for the sake of finding myself and finding meaning in my life after my arrest and conviction, but also for finding a path to recovery that was not necessarily 12-stepped in the trappings of Judeo-Christianity.I'd been down that path a few times, and each time I went through that revolving door, I had never felt comfortable in myself as a gay man where the one third of the population that seemed to remain (and weren't revolving door Christians) where mostly of the type who only see a “druggie and a faggot” despite swearing on stacks of bibles while looking down their nose at me with my hand clasped in theirs in a like clammy grip.There are a few rare saints who actually get what Jesus was talking about who wouldn't go full Judgmental Judy on me, but finding them takes lotto ticket odds it seems.Not long after my release from jail on pretrial release probation, I attended a Zen Retreat at the Zen Mountain Monastery at Mount Tremper NY, where I found the beginnings of the answer which I was looking for.I'm not going to proselytize for the Mountains and Rivers Order, or any particular school of Ch'an or Zen Buddhism. What I did begin to see was how deluded I truly was.Zen is not about a God or a lack of a God or acceptance by a god or by members of any religious group, or the acceptance of a compact rules created by any religious group.Zen is about acceptance of reality, unvarnished by our thoughts and desires and/or aversions to that reality.In 12-step terms, this was my first step. My powerlessness over my meth addiction (and as it turns out, quite a few other functional areas in my life) was due to my inability to correctly perceive and accept my reality. It isn't something that can be bargained with or reasoned with; it simply is, and must be simply accepted on its own terms.And for me, this is where the power to change comes: the great confidence which meets great doubt, and reduces my fears and anxieties into sunyatta - emptiness.I don't need the meth anymore (and I do not plan on getting anywhere near that zoo, much less the cages with that old monster which Mr. Rick Klugman spoke of in his answer to this question.I barely need the ADHD and anxiety meds in the volume that has been prescribed for me as much as I used to. I wake up each day I have clean (481 to date) and thank the Creative Force and whatever good karma and merit that others have sent my way to open the door for my recovery and for the opportunity to walk in the dharma that I do not need to live in that hellish cage of my own making with that Meth Monster.And lastly, thanks, Dad (wherever your soul may be now) for teaching me to own my own problems even though it has taken me almost 50 years to learn it!