The impact breaks both of my wings.
It is excruciating.
All the beautiful and weightless moments I have witnessed flying, soaring, gliding, and racing flash before my eyes and spiral away to a pinpoint - then disappear. Curved arcs of horizons, atmospheres, planets, universes... galaxies fade away. I am no longer a sky creature. I am landlocked, trapped in this perspective. Stuck at this limited point. I am on my back, staring at the sky... with longing and fear.
That isn’t excruciating. I have never felt physical pain until now. White hot, gut-wrenching, stabbing, relentless bolts of unhappiness. It is impossible to integrate, a separate thing from me that I renounce - which is futile. It clouds every bit of my focus such that I cannot assess what kind of being I now am, or exactly where I find myself. I do not know what I can and cannot do. All I know is I must find some escape. My scapulae are searing. I reach back to feel my tertials and coracoid are shattered. I cannot move my wings at all other than when shrugging my shoulders without my inner wing structure. My hand comes back full of blood-soaked feathers. I have never lost a feather.
I roll onto my side and it’s clear from the pain that I have broken my outer wing bones as well. My arm scrapes against concrete and I jerk away, wrenching my right wing into my body at an angle it couldn’t move were my bones intact. The pain makes me retch and I vomit blood, stomach acid, and bile. I have never vomited. It is agony. I have no muscle tone, my abdomen is tortured with convulsions, my respiratory system burns and my nose runs and I have the hiccoughs. I lie there, panting, dry heaving, and weeping for what seems like hours. My head throbs, aches and I am nauseous and sensitive to light and sound. The pain begins in my wings and travels through my shoulders around the crown of my head ending at my forehead. I no longer have any innate sense of or control over time. The frustration defeats me - but it is not excruciating.
Upon impact and the feeling of pain I know that I am on Earth. I hear the white noise of freeway traffic. I sit up finally and look down at my form and it is human, not humanoid. I am a woman, a flabby, limp, muscle-less human in an adult body with blood and puke soaked useless, spasming, shedding wings, sitting in my own filth in the Los Angeles River. My halo is gone. This is not where I am supposed to be. This is not who I am. That is the excruciating part.
Only God could know I would prefer Hell to Los Angeles.
What a sick fucking joke.
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Trouble With Morality
The Trouble with Morality is that is full of half-truths, absolutism, and animal behaviors.
I reject the idea that some drugs are good, others evil. I stand by and will test my theories to their limits. No drug brings out people’s loathing quite as much as Mama Coca. Blood on every crystal. Dead Mexicans. Imprisoned South American farmers. Poisoned lands. As if she cares.
The only drug I’ve ever found dangerously addictive is cannabis. Every other rolls off my back - allowing me to indulge in it as I please without concern and with realistic countermeasures towards my health. Don’t get me wrong - I am aware of the destructive powers of drugs. I know two people dead and two whose lives have been destroyed because of cocaine. I can’t count the number of people I know dead and whose lives have been destroyed by sugar. Diabetes and obesity aren’t demonized the way that cocaine addiction is.
It started with a book - Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography. Never had I realized how much influence this once alkaloid had had on recent history, politics, and world relations. Stunning.
I know many people that occasionally use cocaine. All of them express guilt around it. I have used it on occasion, with years passing in between. I never feel guilty, but 85% of the time that it’s not worth it. It goes like this “Hey that would be fun if it were pure, maybe. Wow now I feel like shit. That wasn’t worth it. Let me do it again.”
Levamisole. Since 2002 an increasing amount of the cocaine imported into the US (and other places, but who cares about them) is adulterated with the drug Levamisole. Used in veterinary applications it kills worms and parasites. Used in humans it treats some cancers, and has some nasty effects including agranulocytosis wherein some of your white blood cells up and disappear... leaving you with things like skin rot. Skin rot.
It’s much more likely that your cocaine is cut with Levamisole than not. No matter how pure it looks (Levamisole’s masquerading as glittering, pure cocaine is what got it invited into up to 90% of the cocaine imported into the United States). It’s very chemically similar to cocaine, making it difficult to separate.
Still, the information I found claimed a difference in solubility between the two. I bought some cocaine, exposing me to white collar sadness but no narcoterrorists. I snorted it and had an allergic reaction. I purified best I could, and still reacted. I don’t know whether it’s cocaine, Levamisole, or adulterant X that is causing the reaction - but as this was not my first exposure to cocaine I don’t suspect it.
So I cooked it into crack. And smoked it. And I did not have an allergic reaction. I watched porn for 4 hours. It was fun, but not very “me”.
Then I ground the crack up with some weed and put it in the vaporizer. I’m calling it Trouble. It’s like being a rubber band: stretched in both directions, nestled into a tenuous and short-lived equilibrium. It was over for good once the crack ran out.
Cocaine is dangerous, dirty, and impure because of the War on Drugs, not because of Mama Coca. This I proved while chewing coca for a week straight at Burning Man.
Gentle medicine. Powerful plant friend. Deeply tempting. Coca left me more bereft than cocaine or crack. Likely the levels of cocaine in my system were more from chewing the leaf than they would be from crack and cocaine use. The high is all about the speed at which is passes the blood-brain barrier. As is the physical damage.
Coca makes me feel slightly superhuman. Comfortable. Relaxed. Alert. The first time I chewed it I had a hangover, which disappeared on my 2nd cud. The leaves are full of minerals and B vitamins. And cocaine. The taste of coca and limestone permeates the experience until the cheeks and taste buds are too numb to react. Hunger and thirst disappear - but I actually fell asleep for a nap with a plug of coca in my cheek.
Sensation heightening has so many uses - appreciating the arts, hiking, conversing, yoga, and sex are among my favorites. I lost interest in cocaine and crack entirely; coca rendered any of it’s parts useless to me - but the whole utterly compelling.
Months of intermittent depression following my barter with coca. I made a promise to Lucifer I would not buy coca leaves until next Burning Man and so far have kept it. No coca products have entered my system since the summer of cocaine, crack, coca.... and Levamisole.
..until a friend of mine visits Peru...
...to be continued...
I reject the idea that some drugs are good, others evil. I stand by and will test my theories to their limits. No drug brings out people’s loathing quite as much as Mama Coca. Blood on every crystal. Dead Mexicans. Imprisoned South American farmers. Poisoned lands. As if she cares.
The only drug I’ve ever found dangerously addictive is cannabis. Every other rolls off my back - allowing me to indulge in it as I please without concern and with realistic countermeasures towards my health. Don’t get me wrong - I am aware of the destructive powers of drugs. I know two people dead and two whose lives have been destroyed because of cocaine. I can’t count the number of people I know dead and whose lives have been destroyed by sugar. Diabetes and obesity aren’t demonized the way that cocaine addiction is.
It started with a book - Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography. Never had I realized how much influence this once alkaloid had had on recent history, politics, and world relations. Stunning.
I know many people that occasionally use cocaine. All of them express guilt around it. I have used it on occasion, with years passing in between. I never feel guilty, but 85% of the time that it’s not worth it. It goes like this “Hey that would be fun if it were pure, maybe. Wow now I feel like shit. That wasn’t worth it. Let me do it again.”
Levamisole. Since 2002 an increasing amount of the cocaine imported into the US (and other places, but who cares about them) is adulterated with the drug Levamisole. Used in veterinary applications it kills worms and parasites. Used in humans it treats some cancers, and has some nasty effects including agranulocytosis wherein some of your white blood cells up and disappear... leaving you with things like skin rot. Skin rot.
It’s much more likely that your cocaine is cut with Levamisole than not. No matter how pure it looks (Levamisole’s masquerading as glittering, pure cocaine is what got it invited into up to 90% of the cocaine imported into the United States). It’s very chemically similar to cocaine, making it difficult to separate.
Still, the information I found claimed a difference in solubility between the two. I bought some cocaine, exposing me to white collar sadness but no narcoterrorists. I snorted it and had an allergic reaction. I purified best I could, and still reacted. I don’t know whether it’s cocaine, Levamisole, or adulterant X that is causing the reaction - but as this was not my first exposure to cocaine I don’t suspect it.
So I cooked it into crack. And smoked it. And I did not have an allergic reaction. I watched porn for 4 hours. It was fun, but not very “me”.
Then I ground the crack up with some weed and put it in the vaporizer. I’m calling it Trouble. It’s like being a rubber band: stretched in both directions, nestled into a tenuous and short-lived equilibrium. It was over for good once the crack ran out.
Cocaine is dangerous, dirty, and impure because of the War on Drugs, not because of Mama Coca. This I proved while chewing coca for a week straight at Burning Man.
Gentle medicine. Powerful plant friend. Deeply tempting. Coca left me more bereft than cocaine or crack. Likely the levels of cocaine in my system were more from chewing the leaf than they would be from crack and cocaine use. The high is all about the speed at which is passes the blood-brain barrier. As is the physical damage.
Coca makes me feel slightly superhuman. Comfortable. Relaxed. Alert. The first time I chewed it I had a hangover, which disappeared on my 2nd cud. The leaves are full of minerals and B vitamins. And cocaine. The taste of coca and limestone permeates the experience until the cheeks and taste buds are too numb to react. Hunger and thirst disappear - but I actually fell asleep for a nap with a plug of coca in my cheek.
Sensation heightening has so many uses - appreciating the arts, hiking, conversing, yoga, and sex are among my favorites. I lost interest in cocaine and crack entirely; coca rendered any of it’s parts useless to me - but the whole utterly compelling.
Months of intermittent depression following my barter with coca. I made a promise to Lucifer I would not buy coca leaves until next Burning Man and so far have kept it. No coca products have entered my system since the summer of cocaine, crack, coca.... and Levamisole.
..until a friend of mine visits Peru...
...to be continued...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Anonymous
“Hi my name is Diablolita and I’m an addict.”
The only woman of color in the room hugs me and hands me a small, lavender-colored, plastic disc with “MA” printed on one side and “Keep Coming Back!” printed on the other. It hangs from a short chain. As the room chants “Hi Diablolita”, I unhook the chain and fasten it around my finger. As I’ve only been sober 28 days (and not even one by their terms as I drank alcohol the previous day) - the newcomer chip is the only one I am qualified to take under the honor system.
I’m here because I’ve railed intellectually against all of the Anonymous groups for years. I’m here to inhabit “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it”. I’m also here because my friend G was in the program for 9 months and had offered to show me the ropes. G smoked two bowls before the meeting. I am grateful to him for enduring it for me.
Before we take a seat, he introduces himself to his former sponsor. The sponsor is an older gentleman, barefoot with cane and toe ring. He says how much he missed G and their date, when they would drink “Apple Pies” - which is described to me as apple pie in a glass. G interrupts to inform the ex-sponsor that I don’t eat sugar. The man laughs and admits that he is diabetic - and then takes a swig off of a Mountain Dew. I judge and feel judgment upon me. This man is not even one second sober, and over 15 years into “the program”.
There are about 30 people in the room, ranging in age from anywhere between 12 and 80. Soiled, uncomfortable chairs are placed too closely, a rectangle in a church basement. Various volunteers set up $40 worth of bargain potato chips, red vines, chocolate cake, and coffee, while others bring out tattered boards displaying the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions.
1. We admitted we were powerless over marijuana, that our lives had become unmanageable.
I disagree. I have all the power in the world. No one is to blame for my usage other than myself. I don’t belong here. This hollow epithet has no right to disempower me.
I look around the room and see people unable to sit still. Fidgeting. Compulsively and continuously and compulsively consuming sugar and coffee (at 8:00pm). I see people drawing on themselves, playing with their hair, wringing their hands. I see signs of diabetic neuropathy in a few of the participants and these still suck down sugar like there’s no tomorrow. Everyone seems trying to crawl out of their skin. I feel my stomach flip... these people are not well.
The chip person gives out chips to people who have accomplished various periods of time sober. As he presents each one, lackadaisical golf claps scatter across the room. Then the rules of the meeting are read in strict monotone by a young man who doesn’t look up from the scratched, laminated piece of paper from which he reads.
The main speaker, a young lesbian, speaks for 20 minutes about her experiences with marijuana addiction. Her voice shakes. She has been sober for over 2 years. She talks about fear, and panic attacks, and struggling with her identity as she can no longer be that girl getting faded in the corner of a party.
I relate, but I do not. I understand, of course, I have felt the same feelings. However - there are worse problems to have in life. There are worse identities to assume than that of “The Stoner”. There is and always has been more to me than my usage.
I am not denying that I answer “yes” to all of the 12 questions.
She talks about feeling like everyone else got an emotional handbook and she did not. And now that she no longer suppresses her emotions with weed they are scary, new, uncharted territory. I wonder if she knows that everyone feels this - addict or not.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Sanity??? Even if I were powerless over marijuana, would that make me insane?
I worry the newcomer chip between my fingers as I listen to the speaker, and then realize I’m being sucked into the void displayed by the rest of the room. I put the chip away, on a keychain in my purse.
The first speaker finishes their 20 minutes and then more rules are read off of a different sheet by a different fella with a different monotone and the same lack of eye contact. I learn that for the next hour we will hear from a succession of speakers, each for 3 minutes. A man uses his cell phone alarm to time people.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God.
I am God.
One by one the depressed and anxious people speak. There is ritual in every word. They each begin by welcoming the newcomers, congratulating the chip-takers, and thanking the initial speaker. The first few respond to the initial speaker, but after those it is just people sharing their trials. No one seems to have an actual need to talk - rather they are performing a ritual that they’ve learned will keep them clean and sober through Pavlovian conditioning.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
I have done this step, and I will do it again. I think it’s important regardless of drug usage or abuse.
One of the speakers mistakes the main speaker for a man instead of a lesbian. He emphasizes how much he relates and manges to patronize at the same time.
There are many platitudes. “Being addicted to marijuana is like being kicked to death by a soft fuzzy bunny”. “The problem is my head. It’s like the horror movies where the police call the victim and say that the call is being traced to inside the house” “Disease” “Learning new ways of being is like cutting a fresh path through the grass.” “Stay off the grass”.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
I have spent other people’s money, wasted my potential, hurt people, and been a poor friend because I chose marijuana. I have lied, stolen, and cheated for it.
It was all worth it.
A speaker talks about how he would scrape resin off his smoking devices and smoke it - and that people who can just give or take weed don’t do that. I haven’t done that in over 10 years, but it had nothing to do with my addiction - it’s about money. Those that can afford weed don’t have any reason to do that. I will always leave a pipe smoking or a vapor hit for the fallen brothers (particularly when I am flush). Sacrifice is part of the ritual of imbibing cannabis.
There has not been a quality of desperation to my use of cannabis in over five years, I realize. I feel like a liar. The word addict seems fraught with cultural implications. “Habitual user”. That’s what I was. There is danger and excitement in identifying as an addict. Pathetic and cool all at once. I wonder how many in the room have fallen prey to the same slippage.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
There are no such thing as character defects. Humans are an endless spectrum of behavior and it is all glorious and perfect in the eyes of God.
I start to feel like I am going to cry from compassion for everyone in the room. So much pain and suffering. Why is no one offering treatment to these people? This poorly designed ritual of substitution is all they get? Why is there no health information on handling addiction but instead sugar and caffeine?
Maybe it’s a class thing. All of the people in the room are struggling for money. But where did they get the money for the weed? Where are those funds now being allocated? To red vines and instant coffee?
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
My shortcomings are beautiful.
Does no one else here love themselves? A woman whines about being dropped by her interim sponsor. She is 9 months sober and claims it’s been the worst 9 months of her life.
Bitch, smoke some fucking weed then!
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
I have done this step.
A young man speaks for fewer than his allotted minutes - to admit relapse. “I tried running my own life for a while, and surprise surprise it led me to using”. A murmur with the tone of “Amen” circles the room. There is judgment in the polite applause.
I had always thought that the one redeeming part of the Anonymous groups was that they provide a support group. This is not support. This isn’t even a group. No one is extending out to one another. No one is absorbing each other. There is no porosity to the experience. There is too much fear and judgment in the room for that. Instead - sharing is merely another meaningless ritual.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I wonder if there used to be fewer steps and then someone had the idea to separate out thought from action to give more rungs on the ladder.
I’ve also done this step, and will do it again.
A man speaks about accidentally giving the wrong number on a job reference, and how this challenge led him to a call with his sponsor who advised him to just tell the truth. His crisis does not qualify as a crisis to me. I again wonder if I am an addict or if I am exaggerating my connection to the drug. I don’t know if I believe in addiction. I certainly don’t believe it is a Disease. I’m far more willing to believe this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
Many people echo the thought that though there is no way to OD on marijuana - it causes another kind of death. I agree, and yet the stench of death permeates the room. Perhaps marijuana just brings out the latent death in all of us.
A speaker drones on past his allotted time as the timekeeper has fallen asleep. The group takes every opportunity to snicker at this, and at him.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
No problem.
The contradiction in the steps becomes apparent. “Take inventory” yet “Give it up to God”. Be ready to make amends, yet you aren’t responsible for your own life. My thought had been that this model works for some people. That there are five people in the room who have been doing this for over 10 years makes me wonder if it works at all. Why are they still here? Why is their term with MA longer than it was with marijuana?
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
God helps those that help themselves.
We are done with the speakers. Another male monotone reads another sheet about rules and procedures. It is then time for acknowledgments - which follow the formula (all names have been changed): “Kylie, speaker” *stomp* *clap* “Eric, cake” *stomp* *clap* “Justin, food” *stomp* *clap* “Tina, chip person” *stomp* *clap* “Alan, boards” *stomp* *clap* “Juan, coffee” *stomp* *clap*. For the first time in the evening the ritual feels better to me. It ceases to have that WASP timbre and feels primal, African, rhythmic.
When this is over there are announcements. G’s old sponsor breaks one of the rules by bringing in an outside issue at the wrong time and is immediately called out. The judgment has found its place. The people are vigilant. The altercation is over before it has begun. Conflict is not dealt with well by marijuana addicts. He is allowed to make his announcement in less than two minutes, during a different allotment. I roll my eyes at the precision in their adherence to the rules. These very rules prevent outside treatment information from being disseminated here.
Empty water pitchers are passed around for donations. Even those that are living in homeless shelters give up the money. The bookkeeper reads the books aloud. I am horrified to realize that the group is short on rent for the church basement, due next week - yet has spent half that rent on cake, red vines, potato chips, instant coffee, and non-dairy creamer. Every person in the room, but me, has had more than one serving of the above. More people cough up money to cover the difference.
In this moment I see how the lonely stoner has been converted into a group obligated sugar addict. This cannot be better than weed.
If there is anything I have to contribute to these people it is to make them aware that these substances are all psychoactive - and addictive. That the damage they are doing to their lives, bodies, and loved ones by consuming sugar, toxic fats, chemicals, and caffeine is just more supplanted addiction. I want to scream.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to marijuana addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
No.
The groups are Anonymous - no statistics are ever collected or released on their success. What if this process statistically does more harm than good? What if this is *all* a farce? This is the only court mandated treatment that exists and it is certainly not treatment... but what if it makes things worse?
The only woman of color in the room hugs me and hands me a small, lavender-colored, plastic disc with “MA” printed on one side and “Keep Coming Back!” printed on the other. It hangs from a short chain. As the room chants “Hi Diablolita”, I unhook the chain and fasten it around my finger. As I’ve only been sober 28 days (and not even one by their terms as I drank alcohol the previous day) - the newcomer chip is the only one I am qualified to take under the honor system.
I’m here because I’ve railed intellectually against all of the Anonymous groups for years. I’m here to inhabit “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it”. I’m also here because my friend G was in the program for 9 months and had offered to show me the ropes. G smoked two bowls before the meeting. I am grateful to him for enduring it for me.
Before we take a seat, he introduces himself to his former sponsor. The sponsor is an older gentleman, barefoot with cane and toe ring. He says how much he missed G and their date, when they would drink “Apple Pies” - which is described to me as apple pie in a glass. G interrupts to inform the ex-sponsor that I don’t eat sugar. The man laughs and admits that he is diabetic - and then takes a swig off of a Mountain Dew. I judge and feel judgment upon me. This man is not even one second sober, and over 15 years into “the program”.
There are about 30 people in the room, ranging in age from anywhere between 12 and 80. Soiled, uncomfortable chairs are placed too closely, a rectangle in a church basement. Various volunteers set up $40 worth of bargain potato chips, red vines, chocolate cake, and coffee, while others bring out tattered boards displaying the 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions.
1. We admitted we were powerless over marijuana, that our lives had become unmanageable.
I disagree. I have all the power in the world. No one is to blame for my usage other than myself. I don’t belong here. This hollow epithet has no right to disempower me.
I look around the room and see people unable to sit still. Fidgeting. Compulsively and continuously and compulsively consuming sugar and coffee (at 8:00pm). I see people drawing on themselves, playing with their hair, wringing their hands. I see signs of diabetic neuropathy in a few of the participants and these still suck down sugar like there’s no tomorrow. Everyone seems trying to crawl out of their skin. I feel my stomach flip... these people are not well.
The chip person gives out chips to people who have accomplished various periods of time sober. As he presents each one, lackadaisical golf claps scatter across the room. Then the rules of the meeting are read in strict monotone by a young man who doesn’t look up from the scratched, laminated piece of paper from which he reads.
The main speaker, a young lesbian, speaks for 20 minutes about her experiences with marijuana addiction. Her voice shakes. She has been sober for over 2 years. She talks about fear, and panic attacks, and struggling with her identity as she can no longer be that girl getting faded in the corner of a party.
I relate, but I do not. I understand, of course, I have felt the same feelings. However - there are worse problems to have in life. There are worse identities to assume than that of “The Stoner”. There is and always has been more to me than my usage.
I am not denying that I answer “yes” to all of the 12 questions.
She talks about feeling like everyone else got an emotional handbook and she did not. And now that she no longer suppresses her emotions with weed they are scary, new, uncharted territory. I wonder if she knows that everyone feels this - addict or not.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Sanity??? Even if I were powerless over marijuana, would that make me insane?
I worry the newcomer chip between my fingers as I listen to the speaker, and then realize I’m being sucked into the void displayed by the rest of the room. I put the chip away, on a keychain in my purse.
The first speaker finishes their 20 minutes and then more rules are read off of a different sheet by a different fella with a different monotone and the same lack of eye contact. I learn that for the next hour we will hear from a succession of speakers, each for 3 minutes. A man uses his cell phone alarm to time people.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God.
I am God.
One by one the depressed and anxious people speak. There is ritual in every word. They each begin by welcoming the newcomers, congratulating the chip-takers, and thanking the initial speaker. The first few respond to the initial speaker, but after those it is just people sharing their trials. No one seems to have an actual need to talk - rather they are performing a ritual that they’ve learned will keep them clean and sober through Pavlovian conditioning.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
I have done this step, and I will do it again. I think it’s important regardless of drug usage or abuse.
One of the speakers mistakes the main speaker for a man instead of a lesbian. He emphasizes how much he relates and manges to patronize at the same time.
There are many platitudes. “Being addicted to marijuana is like being kicked to death by a soft fuzzy bunny”. “The problem is my head. It’s like the horror movies where the police call the victim and say that the call is being traced to inside the house” “Disease” “Learning new ways of being is like cutting a fresh path through the grass.” “Stay off the grass”.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
I have spent other people’s money, wasted my potential, hurt people, and been a poor friend because I chose marijuana. I have lied, stolen, and cheated for it.
It was all worth it.
A speaker talks about how he would scrape resin off his smoking devices and smoke it - and that people who can just give or take weed don’t do that. I haven’t done that in over 10 years, but it had nothing to do with my addiction - it’s about money. Those that can afford weed don’t have any reason to do that. I will always leave a pipe smoking or a vapor hit for the fallen brothers (particularly when I am flush). Sacrifice is part of the ritual of imbibing cannabis.
There has not been a quality of desperation to my use of cannabis in over five years, I realize. I feel like a liar. The word addict seems fraught with cultural implications. “Habitual user”. That’s what I was. There is danger and excitement in identifying as an addict. Pathetic and cool all at once. I wonder how many in the room have fallen prey to the same slippage.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
There are no such thing as character defects. Humans are an endless spectrum of behavior and it is all glorious and perfect in the eyes of God.
I start to feel like I am going to cry from compassion for everyone in the room. So much pain and suffering. Why is no one offering treatment to these people? This poorly designed ritual of substitution is all they get? Why is there no health information on handling addiction but instead sugar and caffeine?
Maybe it’s a class thing. All of the people in the room are struggling for money. But where did they get the money for the weed? Where are those funds now being allocated? To red vines and instant coffee?
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
My shortcomings are beautiful.
Does no one else here love themselves? A woman whines about being dropped by her interim sponsor. She is 9 months sober and claims it’s been the worst 9 months of her life.
Bitch, smoke some fucking weed then!
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
I have done this step.
A young man speaks for fewer than his allotted minutes - to admit relapse. “I tried running my own life for a while, and surprise surprise it led me to using”. A murmur with the tone of “Amen” circles the room. There is judgment in the polite applause.
I had always thought that the one redeeming part of the Anonymous groups was that they provide a support group. This is not support. This isn’t even a group. No one is extending out to one another. No one is absorbing each other. There is no porosity to the experience. There is too much fear and judgment in the room for that. Instead - sharing is merely another meaningless ritual.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I wonder if there used to be fewer steps and then someone had the idea to separate out thought from action to give more rungs on the ladder.
I’ve also done this step, and will do it again.
A man speaks about accidentally giving the wrong number on a job reference, and how this challenge led him to a call with his sponsor who advised him to just tell the truth. His crisis does not qualify as a crisis to me. I again wonder if I am an addict or if I am exaggerating my connection to the drug. I don’t know if I believe in addiction. I certainly don’t believe it is a Disease. I’m far more willing to believe this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
Many people echo the thought that though there is no way to OD on marijuana - it causes another kind of death. I agree, and yet the stench of death permeates the room. Perhaps marijuana just brings out the latent death in all of us.
A speaker drones on past his allotted time as the timekeeper has fallen asleep. The group takes every opportunity to snicker at this, and at him.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
No problem.
The contradiction in the steps becomes apparent. “Take inventory” yet “Give it up to God”. Be ready to make amends, yet you aren’t responsible for your own life. My thought had been that this model works for some people. That there are five people in the room who have been doing this for over 10 years makes me wonder if it works at all. Why are they still here? Why is their term with MA longer than it was with marijuana?
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
God helps those that help themselves.
We are done with the speakers. Another male monotone reads another sheet about rules and procedures. It is then time for acknowledgments - which follow the formula (all names have been changed): “Kylie, speaker” *stomp* *clap* “Eric, cake” *stomp* *clap* “Justin, food” *stomp* *clap* “Tina, chip person” *stomp* *clap* “Alan, boards” *stomp* *clap* “Juan, coffee” *stomp* *clap*. For the first time in the evening the ritual feels better to me. It ceases to have that WASP timbre and feels primal, African, rhythmic.
When this is over there are announcements. G’s old sponsor breaks one of the rules by bringing in an outside issue at the wrong time and is immediately called out. The judgment has found its place. The people are vigilant. The altercation is over before it has begun. Conflict is not dealt with well by marijuana addicts. He is allowed to make his announcement in less than two minutes, during a different allotment. I roll my eyes at the precision in their adherence to the rules. These very rules prevent outside treatment information from being disseminated here.
Empty water pitchers are passed around for donations. Even those that are living in homeless shelters give up the money. The bookkeeper reads the books aloud. I am horrified to realize that the group is short on rent for the church basement, due next week - yet has spent half that rent on cake, red vines, potato chips, instant coffee, and non-dairy creamer. Every person in the room, but me, has had more than one serving of the above. More people cough up money to cover the difference.
In this moment I see how the lonely stoner has been converted into a group obligated sugar addict. This cannot be better than weed.
If there is anything I have to contribute to these people it is to make them aware that these substances are all psychoactive - and addictive. That the damage they are doing to their lives, bodies, and loved ones by consuming sugar, toxic fats, chemicals, and caffeine is just more supplanted addiction. I want to scream.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to marijuana addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
No.
The groups are Anonymous - no statistics are ever collected or released on their success. What if this process statistically does more harm than good? What if this is *all* a farce? This is the only court mandated treatment that exists and it is certainly not treatment... but what if it makes things worse?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Tsunami-San
I was in yoga class at 8:39 a.m. the morning when the waves that destroyed Northern Japan hit the Southern California coast. I love yoga class, and it was a particularly good one today. I would rather have had my ankles in the water, but the beaches were closed.
I would have plunged, planetary power pulling past in pools. I would be Force, growing miles high and striding backwards through time and over distance.
I would have struck the blow.
Not for the paparazzi to say "she's big in Japan, biggest thing to hit since Godzilla". Not to stomp on anyone's sand castles - a detached trickster itching for mayhem, smiling as I yank the tablecloth of the earth's crust. No.
To find integration in initiation of the vibration of creation of mountains. A rolling reshuffle of the surface to reveal unseen strata underneath. I want to crack the earth and set the ocean in motion. For what happens without and within. To remind Us that the great and deep solidity beneath and above is naught but masquerading
waves.
I would have plunged, planetary power pulling past in pools. I would be Force, growing miles high and striding backwards through time and over distance.
I would have struck the blow.
Not for the paparazzi to say "she's big in Japan, biggest thing to hit since Godzilla". Not to stomp on anyone's sand castles - a detached trickster itching for mayhem, smiling as I yank the tablecloth of the earth's crust. No.
To find integration in initiation of the vibration of creation of mountains. A rolling reshuffle of the surface to reveal unseen strata underneath. I want to crack the earth and set the ocean in motion. For what happens without and within. To remind Us that the great and deep solidity beneath and above is naught but masquerading
waves.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Flotation Comic Book (Art Needed)
It’s dark, that’s for sure.
The water could be warmer. I’m sure they left rattlesnakes in here. I don’t feel any snakes. Tank feels smaller than I thought it would though. I guess if there were snakes they would have drowned. Eww dead rattlesnakes might be even worse.
I’m not supposed to get the water in my eyes. Salty. The earplugs are weird. There are still bubbles seeping out of my ears. I wonder if that means that water’s getting in. I don’t think there could be all that much salt buildup after one session – I wonder why we wear earplugs. This place isn’t very well insulated, I hear things. There’s no way you could call this “sensory deprivation”
Yeah, it’s a shark, that’s what they’ve put in here. Definitely a shark. Or maybe…
Maybe I’m just not physically comfortable and it’s manifesting as fear. Where do I put my arms. By my sides? No, that’s not good. Up above my head? No, not that high. Yeah, right there, ah that’s good. Relax neck. Upper back. Relax butt. Ow my butt is sore from lunges.
When do we actually use a lunge in our life anyway? That’s not really functional. I can’t believe we’ve ever done much lunging, why do we have muscles that need to be built by that?
Floating. Wheeeeee. I wonder how my friend is doing in the other tank. I think I’m falling…
Into…
Hypnosis.
I’m think-dreaming. Or is it dream-thinking?
Oh there goes the world, all of it, all the people I know
and the things I think about and the memories I have, look at the show
there they are spiraling away as I fall asleep but that good survival rooted from belly down
says don’t sleep while you’re floating or you’ll drown.
So I pull back from sleep but oh no I pulled to hard
and now BANG I’m awake again, and jarred.
I wonder how long it took? I think I have to pee. I can’t pee in here. That was made clear. I think I’ll get out and pee in the shower. Is the experience supposed to be continuous? Will I give myself brain damage if I get out and pee during it? I already had enough fun with the hypnosis to get my money’s worth, and I know I won’t relax if I lie here having to pee.
Back in the tank. Much better. I can’t believe that I was in here for two hours. And now I have another hour. I wonder what’s next.
Hey… I’m rotating. I can’t be rotating. Not that much. Laterally rotating. Counter-clockwise. Clockwise. Now back to counter-clockwise. Now I can only go counter-clockwise. That’s lame. At least I can turn it on and off. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Stop. That is so COOL though. Proprioception hallucinations.
Float. Float. Float.
I hear music. That’s not from outside. Can I manipulate it like I used to be able to when I came down from taking too much MDMA? No. Maybe. A little. It’s more bluesy than electronic. If I could manipulate it then I would take it away from the rock side of blues. Give it some more twang. Oh… There it goes. That’s my good brain. Give me the stuff I want.
Aw rats. Time to get out.
The water could be warmer. I’m sure they left rattlesnakes in here. I don’t feel any snakes. Tank feels smaller than I thought it would though. I guess if there were snakes they would have drowned. Eww dead rattlesnakes might be even worse.
I’m not supposed to get the water in my eyes. Salty. The earplugs are weird. There are still bubbles seeping out of my ears. I wonder if that means that water’s getting in. I don’t think there could be all that much salt buildup after one session – I wonder why we wear earplugs. This place isn’t very well insulated, I hear things. There’s no way you could call this “sensory deprivation”
Yeah, it’s a shark, that’s what they’ve put in here. Definitely a shark. Or maybe…
Maybe I’m just not physically comfortable and it’s manifesting as fear. Where do I put my arms. By my sides? No, that’s not good. Up above my head? No, not that high. Yeah, right there, ah that’s good. Relax neck. Upper back. Relax butt. Ow my butt is sore from lunges.
When do we actually use a lunge in our life anyway? That’s not really functional. I can’t believe we’ve ever done much lunging, why do we have muscles that need to be built by that?
Floating. Wheeeeee. I wonder how my friend is doing in the other tank. I think I’m falling…
Into…
Hypnosis.
I’m think-dreaming. Or is it dream-thinking?
Oh there goes the world, all of it, all the people I know
and the things I think about and the memories I have, look at the show
there they are spiraling away as I fall asleep but that good survival rooted from belly down
says don’t sleep while you’re floating or you’ll drown.
So I pull back from sleep but oh no I pulled to hard
and now BANG I’m awake again, and jarred.
I wonder how long it took? I think I have to pee. I can’t pee in here. That was made clear. I think I’ll get out and pee in the shower. Is the experience supposed to be continuous? Will I give myself brain damage if I get out and pee during it? I already had enough fun with the hypnosis to get my money’s worth, and I know I won’t relax if I lie here having to pee.
Back in the tank. Much better. I can’t believe that I was in here for two hours. And now I have another hour. I wonder what’s next.
Hey… I’m rotating. I can’t be rotating. Not that much. Laterally rotating. Counter-clockwise. Clockwise. Now back to counter-clockwise. Now I can only go counter-clockwise. That’s lame. At least I can turn it on and off. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Stop. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Rotate. Stop. That is so COOL though. Proprioception hallucinations.
Float. Float. Float.
I hear music. That’s not from outside. Can I manipulate it like I used to be able to when I came down from taking too much MDMA? No. Maybe. A little. It’s more bluesy than electronic. If I could manipulate it then I would take it away from the rock side of blues. Give it some more twang. Oh… There it goes. That’s my good brain. Give me the stuff I want.
Aw rats. Time to get out.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Venezia
Things I will miss about Venice, California: The Pacific Ocean; my great roommates and their superheroic feats; Bellissimo Venice (high-end foodie organicy convenience store/deli/coffee less than a block from me); walking to the gym for training with JS and yoga with F; the most weed stores in the closest proximity of anywhere on the planet ever; arson; the electric energy of the night - made present and not overly offensive by partyfolk practicing expert Californian fun management; being catcalled by men of color every single day; the gorgeous view from the balcony (not that my new one isn't better); Whole Foods; the "fuck-it-no-apologies" attitude; being within walking distance of U and S and A and G and a whole mess of other people I don't see enough; graffiti and street art; pickup games near muscle beach (I always root for the skins); falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the ocean; the smell of gasoline; the weather; watching the hustlers (CD sales, drug sales, the shell game, 3 card monty, pimps, dog breeders, shops, services, etc.) on the boardwalk from above then going back to my own hustling online; people singing; the constant stream of athletes to ogle; the streets; being in a hub where people visit from everywhere; the light; the weather; the decent selection of organic vegetarian restaurants, particularly Seed; random art and creativity; diversity; contact highs of all kinds; the sunset over the ocean; proximity to external entertainment; not being regarded as a freak (even when I walk around in my pajamas); living with someone that can fix my computer (even though he can mostly do it remotely too); the sound of helicopters and airplanes; electric lights and sometimes their pretty trails; borrowing things from neighbors and friends; being able to walk to the flotation tank or the liquor store (or both? Drunk Float?); being able to walk most places I go to if I choose; walking places from home; at least some people here aren't "fucking hippies"; impressing people who've never been to LA with where I live; the proximity of all services and goods; hearing and speaking Spanish; prepping for Burning Man as a community.
Things I will not miss about Venice, California: Being able to see 80 residences from my window (not counting the ones I know are there on lower floors - just the ones I can see); living in gang territory (Topanga Crips repreZoent!); having roommates; dead bodies in the canals; arson; the dude who smokes drugs outside at the bottom of the stairs next door and coughs his fucking lungs out in phlegmy, bloody glory with every hit of whatever it is he's inhaling; the most weed stores in the closest proximity of anywhere on the planet ever; stoplights and crosswalks; the swamptrashy, slept on the street, pukeswept corner of Windward and Pacific and all its various residents and gnats at 7:30 in the morning; and for that matter the winnebago-dwellers and their irresponsible sewage dumping; not being able to go nude; fluoridated, chlorinated city water; "Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated!"; carrying a Taser or a knife everywhere I go; parking tickets and street cleaning days; televisions from those 80 residences blaring at me; vandalism; the constant walla; the smell of grease and fried starch; poverty; other people's music; gum stuck to the sidewalk; sidewalks; rent control; traffic; tourists; leafblowers; leashed dogs; fake body parts; smog; pigeons and gulls; the smell of "food"; anorexics; the smell of chemical deodorant/perfume/hair or body spray/misc. product; the sound of metal against metal or concrete; unwanted distance-dependent social obligations; during my eensy teensy tiny time off running into the offline segments of ad campaigns I'm working on while walking the streets and thus being thrown back into work (sometimes even on banners pulled by planes along the shore... how crafty!); not being able to see the stars!; the higher proportion of people that completely buy into the standard American health model; the absence of complex wildlife; trash washing up on shore; i look everywhere, and i see, chemical de-pen-den-cy; that dead fishy smell all oceans have; grids, squares, boxes, and lines; heavy police presence; having no space to grow food; having no space to hoop; having no space for my stuff; being watched; being heard.
Things I will not miss about Venice, California: Being able to see 80 residences from my window (not counting the ones I know are there on lower floors - just the ones I can see); living in gang territory (Topanga Crips repreZoent!); having roommates; dead bodies in the canals; arson; the dude who smokes drugs outside at the bottom of the stairs next door and coughs his fucking lungs out in phlegmy, bloody glory with every hit of whatever it is he's inhaling; the most weed stores in the closest proximity of anywhere on the planet ever; stoplights and crosswalks; the swamptrashy, slept on the street, pukeswept corner of Windward and Pacific and all its various residents and gnats at 7:30 in the morning; and for that matter the winnebago-dwellers and their irresponsible sewage dumping; not being able to go nude; fluoridated, chlorinated city water; "Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated! Get your medical marijuana evaluation today! The doctor is in! We have the cheapest prices on the boardwalk! Are you legal? Get legal today! Get evaluated!"; carrying a Taser or a knife everywhere I go; parking tickets and street cleaning days; televisions from those 80 residences blaring at me; vandalism; the constant walla; the smell of grease and fried starch; poverty; other people's music; gum stuck to the sidewalk; sidewalks; rent control; traffic; tourists; leafblowers; leashed dogs; fake body parts; smog; pigeons and gulls; the smell of "food"; anorexics; the smell of chemical deodorant/perfume/hair or body spray/misc. product; the sound of metal against metal or concrete; unwanted distance-dependent social obligations; during my eensy teensy tiny time off running into the offline segments of ad campaigns I'm working on while walking the streets and thus being thrown back into work (sometimes even on banners pulled by planes along the shore... how crafty!); not being able to see the stars!; the higher proportion of people that completely buy into the standard American health model; the absence of complex wildlife; trash washing up on shore; i look everywhere, and i see, chemical de-pen-den-cy; that dead fishy smell all oceans have; grids, squares, boxes, and lines; heavy police presence; having no space to grow food; having no space to hoop; having no space for my stuff; being watched; being heard.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Hot Bean on Bean Action
Drug of choice? If you define choice as a free acceptance of the consequences of a decision – then I’ll have a double mocha with soy milk. That perfect trio of beans has to be the most delicious drug delivery system ever – even more so than Diet Cannabis Cola.
I am not a caffeine addict, and I don’t think I ever really have been. I’ve enjoyed it for days on end, but I’ve never had trouble giving it up because I never went too far with it for too long.
I love the rush. There’s a perfect level of tolerance – once every three weeks or so - where a cup of coffee will send my mood through the roof for the day. If I wait too long it either gives me the jitters and keeps me up all night or does nothing for me. If I do it too often I’m left tired and with a comedown.
The –ine family and I have a complex relationship. Novocaine and I don’t speak anymore – I had 5 mercury fillings drilled out of my skull and replaced with their non-toxic alternatives, all without going under the influence of anesthetics. My distaste for them has kept me away from Ketamine so far.
Cocaine is a trashy lover I see once every few years and afterwards I am left feeling dirty and distant.
Amphetamines are useful for nothing but cleaning the house.
But caffeine and its friends in tea and mate and chocolate – these are action drugs. These little helpers allow me to accomplish real things. I can be productive in every aspect of my life under the influence of a double soy mocha. It’s almost worth the endocrine disruption and the inhibition of the absorption of calcium and Vitamin C.
The most wonderful thing about coffee is that all of society agrees with me. It’s a drug I can buy anywhere, do in public without stigma, and with friends. Would that the rest of drugs were treated thusly…
I am not a caffeine addict, and I don’t think I ever really have been. I’ve enjoyed it for days on end, but I’ve never had trouble giving it up because I never went too far with it for too long.
I love the rush. There’s a perfect level of tolerance – once every three weeks or so - where a cup of coffee will send my mood through the roof for the day. If I wait too long it either gives me the jitters and keeps me up all night or does nothing for me. If I do it too often I’m left tired and with a comedown.
The –ine family and I have a complex relationship. Novocaine and I don’t speak anymore – I had 5 mercury fillings drilled out of my skull and replaced with their non-toxic alternatives, all without going under the influence of anesthetics. My distaste for them has kept me away from Ketamine so far.
Cocaine is a trashy lover I see once every few years and afterwards I am left feeling dirty and distant.
Amphetamines are useful for nothing but cleaning the house.
But caffeine and its friends in tea and mate and chocolate – these are action drugs. These little helpers allow me to accomplish real things. I can be productive in every aspect of my life under the influence of a double soy mocha. It’s almost worth the endocrine disruption and the inhibition of the absorption of calcium and Vitamin C.
The most wonderful thing about coffee is that all of society agrees with me. It’s a drug I can buy anywhere, do in public without stigma, and with friends. Would that the rest of drugs were treated thusly…
Thursday, April 15, 2010
S.B. 420
This week I tender my resignation as Secretary and CFO of a mutual benefit non-profit organization with the purpose of enhancing the access of patients and caregivers to organically grown medical marijuana through collective, cooperative cultivation projects in California
I am thousands of miles away and my prescription will lapse in just under a month. I step out of the world I never wanted to be in with some reluctance due only to the uniqueness of the experience.
I remember arguing with the ex-boyfriend about whether it was a good idea for us to go into business together both times that we drove an hour to sign papers with the lawyer. Screaming fights in the car: “WHY DO YOU BRING THIS UP NOW?!” “WELL ISN’T IT BETTER THAN NOT BRINGING IT UP AT ALL?!”, all smiles and gentleness and agreement when there – papers signed, and silence for the ride home. The lawyer looked like a Southern Baron, young, sloppy features, ill-fitting, white, three-piece suits. All fake wood, fake marble, fake leather office. So close to Los Angeles
Now I’m still literally paying for starting businesses I know are a bad idea with people I know won’t make good business partners, which is certainly better than paying in time for starting a semi-legal business in a Red county. Best that I got away when I did.
Having the binders and the books and the scrips and the papers help, but in the end it’s still up to the cops and the county. Generally the ones on the bottom end, the ones that don’t sink money into lawyers and shields, are the ones that get busted. Still, even though rarely - sometimes it’s all on a grudge or whim. The ex goes to City Council meetings, introduces himself to the Sheriff and makes whatever contributions he can. More power to him.
Say what you want about the ex-lover – he grew some decent medicine. Most of the people we served were genuinely and sometimes gravely ill. Making medicine is a depressing business, even more so when you are addicted to the product. This thing I use to destroy myself helps others.
All y’all in the business: keep growing weed. For I sure as fuck ain’t gonna do it again, but I’ll smoke up yours on occasion.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Blood Messengers
Every 26 days I'm astonished to find myself undergo a complete change in personality across all the strata of my being. It's as if the body has a sci-fi memory-erasing dealio to use on me and wipe the record of this clockwork happening completely clean, each and every time - for the entirety of my fertile years.
I feel the natural shift of my body more acutely the older I get. I would never call it "PMS". It's the cycle of life, my hormones are well tuned, and yet I still feel the notes, the bars, the melody, but not the whole song. Dampening them for ill-timed life experiences is draining. I pity the women that have to do it all the time. And perhaps the men, vibrating out a hormonal wavelength of their own. A wavelength which admittedly usually entices me the last week of my cycle and pierces my heart and all my senses once I start to flow. I want to curl up somewhere warm and cozy, protected, and bleed – uninterrupted.
Hormones feel so much deeper than neurotransmitters. Blood messengers. With drugs that work on the nerves/brain some part of me always knows I'm under the influence, there is a detachment. Hormones are complete. They feel realer than reality, like a burst of truer truth - signposts that show me how I really feel. I trust them as I do my own blood. I wouldn't betray them.
But they aren't functional. They lead me into a sensitivity that doesn't fit the world with all it's sharp edges and textures. I'm too curious to live in their revelations. Still, I let it come over me for the time that it's there. I act according to it's demands: horny, grouchy, extreme, manic – isolationist and then let it all go when it leaves, without shame – or, apparently, memory. I surf the cycle. It's animal, it's fun to exhibit without supression. I'm female.
I feel the natural shift of my body more acutely the older I get. I would never call it "PMS". It's the cycle of life, my hormones are well tuned, and yet I still feel the notes, the bars, the melody, but not the whole song. Dampening them for ill-timed life experiences is draining. I pity the women that have to do it all the time. And perhaps the men, vibrating out a hormonal wavelength of their own. A wavelength which admittedly usually entices me the last week of my cycle and pierces my heart and all my senses once I start to flow. I want to curl up somewhere warm and cozy, protected, and bleed – uninterrupted.
Hormones feel so much deeper than neurotransmitters. Blood messengers. With drugs that work on the nerves/brain some part of me always knows I'm under the influence, there is a detachment. Hormones are complete. They feel realer than reality, like a burst of truer truth - signposts that show me how I really feel. I trust them as I do my own blood. I wouldn't betray them.
But they aren't functional. They lead me into a sensitivity that doesn't fit the world with all it's sharp edges and textures. I'm too curious to live in their revelations. Still, I let it come over me for the time that it's there. I act according to it's demands: horny, grouchy, extreme, manic – isolationist and then let it all go when it leaves, without shame – or, apparently, memory. I surf the cycle. It's animal, it's fun to exhibit without supression. I'm female.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Homeland Security
God Bless America. I love the open road. I am traversing 3000 square miles at my leisure, watching the states roll into one another and the dramatic crests and troughs of the landscape of the United States of America. Freedom of movement is one of the purest ways to experience the elusive American concept of freedom.
At dusk I am on the I-8 – between Yuma and Tucson, heading East. The traffic slows to a standstill, we move forward inches in fits and starts. After twenty minutes of this I see signs “Caution, Working Dogs Ahead”. It becomes clear that this is a border patrol checkpoint. I know I’m over 50 miles from the Mexican border, probably closer to 100. I’ve passed a few checkpoints today, took photos of a guy in handcuffs with six men in olive uniforms standing over him, his car open and the contents splayed over the ground in front of him. The last time I traveled this way there were none of these, Homeland Security didn’t exist ten years ago.
Desert tents line the highway and have been fashioned into makeshift tollbooth style coverings over the lanes. There is a middle eastern look to the scene, right down to the uniforms. I wonder if it’s purposeful – if the designers of Homeland Security are emulating the enemies in the War on Terror. Perhaps subconsciously we feel our tax dollar funding is justified in this process.
As I approach the small stop sign, I see they are circling every car with search dogs. I keep an eye on the young German Shepherd that does his duty on my Yaris. I move the rearview as he walks behind the car to make sure there are no blind spots. The dog then moves on to the car behind me.
I’ve seen the CheckpointUSA videos. I know better. But when the young black agent stops me I roll my window all the way down. I have been through three of these checks earlier in the day, and was waved through as soon as they saw the color of my skin.
He asks me “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”
“Yes.”
He makes eye contact with another agent, who has checked my license plate. I see the other agent nod. I’m in Arizona. I have California plates. I must be a criminal.
“Are you the registered owner of the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
I own a new car. I must be a criminal.
“Please pull over to secondary” The agent points at the tents on the right side of the road. I love how it sounds so official, but is really just the gravel shoulder of a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. This is my last chance to say no.
I don’t. I know I am carrying nothing. I’m slightly curious about the process. I drive the ten feet to the shoulder. They direct me to park underneath a tent with bright lights set up at all four corners. Three agents surround my car, two white, one Mexican American.
The tallest white agent asks “Are you the registered owner of the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Please step out of the car.” I want to say no. I want to start the engine and drive away. My curiosity is ebbing away. I step out of the car.
“Where are you headed?” he asks.
“Bisbee, Arizona.” I answer.
“Please step under the tent.”
“I’m already under a tent.” I reply. My patience is wearing thin. It seemed like a fun game, it’s seeming less and less fun by the minute.
“Please step under that tent.” He points to a tent with a park bench under it. I walk over and sit on the bench. I look at my car. The Mexican American agent removes a dog from a cage and has it circle my car. The dog looks uninterested. While this is occurring the first agent asks again:
“Where are you headed?”
“Bisbee, Arizona.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Los Angeles.” I’m coming from LA. I must be a criminal.
“That’s a long drive. Why are you going to Bisbee?”
“I have a friend there.” The other white agent walks over to us.
“Where are you headed?” he asks.
The other agent answers “She’s going to Bisbee.”
Whitey #2 asks “Where is that?” like he doesn’t believe it exists.
I answer, like a smartass: “It’s in Arizona. The state we’re currently in.”
The agent chuckles and retorts “All I know is Yuma to Tucson”
The Mexican American agent joins us.
“Where are you headed?”
“The moon.” I answer, having lost all patience with their efforts to trick me into mismatched answers.
“We’re going to need to search your vehicle, if that’s okay.” The Mexican dude says awkwardly and like he’s embarrassed. I would be too in his shoes, he’s clearly only one generation away from being on the other side of the line. I stand up. I say the line I’ve been waiting to say for ten years:
“I’m sorry, I don’t consent to any searches.”
He dashes my brave stand in one sentence. “Well, we already have probable cause.” he says insecurely in his slight Hispanic accent. “The dogs have indicated that you have either hidden persons or narcotics on board, and it's obviously not hidden persons, so...” He expects me to finish his sentence with an admission.
I laugh. The three of them are not laughing. I shrug – and sit back down.
“I don’t consent.” I repeat. The Mexican agent is already halfway to my car. He opens it. I think of my Taser lying in my bag on the front seat. They don’t find it.
I look down the line briefly and hear a guy with a thick Indian accent refusing his search. I see people of color, people with accents, and another person with dreadlocks. I realize I’m being profiled. I have dreadlocks. I must be a criminal. I know the dogs have not reacted to my car. Trying to block my view, the second white agent plants himself between me and the car, and the first one between me and him, and begins rapidly firing questions at me.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Internet marketing.” I crane my neck around him to keep an eye on my car.
“Do you work for a big company or a small one?”
“I have my own company.” He stops at this and looks at me quizzically. He was expecting me to be a deadbeat. He’s realizing he’s incorrectly profiled and is wasting his time. I’m realizing he’s more poorly trained than any police officer I’ve ever encountered, and that the standards for his employment are lower than any rural Sheriff’s department.
“How did you get into internet marketing?”
“How did you get into Homeland Security?” He is silent. I continue. “Look, I really need to watch him search my car.” I get up and move closer to the car. The Mexican American agent is surprisingly ginger with my possessions. He has the dog on the leash, and the dog is inside my car. I’m afraid that they will plant something. I realize that these are Federal agents, should they “find” anything on me I am facing Federal mandatory minimums. I am less attentive to following questions.
“Why does it say that on the back window of your car?” he asks.
“It used to say ‘LOST BLACK CAT’ and it had my phone number. Now it just says ‘LOST’ because I like it that way. I lost my cat.”
“Did you ever find it?”
“No.”
“Why do you have all those things in your car?”
“Because I’ll be on the road for six months. How long does it take you to train those dogs?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He realizes I am done answering questions and stops asking them. When they open the trunk I open my mouth.
“I have fragile computer equipment in the trunk.” Hearing this, they don’t even bother to empty the trunk. I am grateful they aren’t abusing their power as much as they could. My three file boxes, suitcase, and laundry basket are on the ground outside of the car. They search them one by one by hand and with the dog and place them back into the vehicle. Eventually the agent gets to my box full of vitamins, herbs, spices, and oils. He doesn’t bother to open any of the pill bottles. The Mexican agent and white agent #2 pull out my organic basil, parsley, and oregano and wave the bottles under the dog’s nose before holding it up to the light. The sun has set. The sight of the two of them scrutinizing my organic herbs makes me burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“What’s so funny?!” the first white agent narrows his eyes at me. I grab my keys out of his hand.
“Nothing is funny about this at all. I believe in open borders and decriminalization, yet I’m still paying you to do this ridiculous shit.” I say. I walk towards my car. “Am I free to go?”
“Yes. Get out of here.” says white agent #1, in a tone more bored and frustrated than angry. The second white agent has moved on down the line. The Mexican agent is putting the dog back in his cage. I get in my car, start the engine, and peel out.
That night I feel dehumanized. I feel my rights as an American citizen have been ripped from me. I thought it was meaningless, but as it sinks in I feel deep emotional chords being struck. I feel degraded, invaded, violated.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searches, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The joke’s on them. It’s the first time I’ve traveled without drugs in over a decade. I am a criminal.
At dusk I am on the I-8 – between Yuma and Tucson, heading East. The traffic slows to a standstill, we move forward inches in fits and starts. After twenty minutes of this I see signs “Caution, Working Dogs Ahead”. It becomes clear that this is a border patrol checkpoint. I know I’m over 50 miles from the Mexican border, probably closer to 100. I’ve passed a few checkpoints today, took photos of a guy in handcuffs with six men in olive uniforms standing over him, his car open and the contents splayed over the ground in front of him. The last time I traveled this way there were none of these, Homeland Security didn’t exist ten years ago.
Desert tents line the highway and have been fashioned into makeshift tollbooth style coverings over the lanes. There is a middle eastern look to the scene, right down to the uniforms. I wonder if it’s purposeful – if the designers of Homeland Security are emulating the enemies in the War on Terror. Perhaps subconsciously we feel our tax dollar funding is justified in this process.
As I approach the small stop sign, I see they are circling every car with search dogs. I keep an eye on the young German Shepherd that does his duty on my Yaris. I move the rearview as he walks behind the car to make sure there are no blind spots. The dog then moves on to the car behind me.
I’ve seen the CheckpointUSA videos. I know better. But when the young black agent stops me I roll my window all the way down. I have been through three of these checks earlier in the day, and was waved through as soon as they saw the color of my skin.
He asks me “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”
“Yes.”
He makes eye contact with another agent, who has checked my license plate. I see the other agent nod. I’m in Arizona. I have California plates. I must be a criminal.
“Are you the registered owner of the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
I own a new car. I must be a criminal.
“Please pull over to secondary” The agent points at the tents on the right side of the road. I love how it sounds so official, but is really just the gravel shoulder of a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. This is my last chance to say no.
I don’t. I know I am carrying nothing. I’m slightly curious about the process. I drive the ten feet to the shoulder. They direct me to park underneath a tent with bright lights set up at all four corners. Three agents surround my car, two white, one Mexican American.
The tallest white agent asks “Are you the registered owner of the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Please step out of the car.” I want to say no. I want to start the engine and drive away. My curiosity is ebbing away. I step out of the car.
“Where are you headed?” he asks.
“Bisbee, Arizona.” I answer.
“Please step under the tent.”
“I’m already under a tent.” I reply. My patience is wearing thin. It seemed like a fun game, it’s seeming less and less fun by the minute.
“Please step under that tent.” He points to a tent with a park bench under it. I walk over and sit on the bench. I look at my car. The Mexican American agent removes a dog from a cage and has it circle my car. The dog looks uninterested. While this is occurring the first agent asks again:
“Where are you headed?”
“Bisbee, Arizona.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Los Angeles.” I’m coming from LA. I must be a criminal.
“That’s a long drive. Why are you going to Bisbee?”
“I have a friend there.” The other white agent walks over to us.
“Where are you headed?” he asks.
The other agent answers “She’s going to Bisbee.”
Whitey #2 asks “Where is that?” like he doesn’t believe it exists.
I answer, like a smartass: “It’s in Arizona. The state we’re currently in.”
The agent chuckles and retorts “All I know is Yuma to Tucson”
The Mexican American agent joins us.
“Where are you headed?”
“The moon.” I answer, having lost all patience with their efforts to trick me into mismatched answers.
“We’re going to need to search your vehicle, if that’s okay.” The Mexican dude says awkwardly and like he’s embarrassed. I would be too in his shoes, he’s clearly only one generation away from being on the other side of the line. I stand up. I say the line I’ve been waiting to say for ten years:
“I’m sorry, I don’t consent to any searches.”
He dashes my brave stand in one sentence. “Well, we already have probable cause.” he says insecurely in his slight Hispanic accent. “The dogs have indicated that you have either hidden persons or narcotics on board, and it's obviously not hidden persons, so...” He expects me to finish his sentence with an admission.
I laugh. The three of them are not laughing. I shrug – and sit back down.
“I don’t consent.” I repeat. The Mexican agent is already halfway to my car. He opens it. I think of my Taser lying in my bag on the front seat. They don’t find it.
I look down the line briefly and hear a guy with a thick Indian accent refusing his search. I see people of color, people with accents, and another person with dreadlocks. I realize I’m being profiled. I have dreadlocks. I must be a criminal. I know the dogs have not reacted to my car. Trying to block my view, the second white agent plants himself between me and the car, and the first one between me and him, and begins rapidly firing questions at me.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Internet marketing.” I crane my neck around him to keep an eye on my car.
“Do you work for a big company or a small one?”
“I have my own company.” He stops at this and looks at me quizzically. He was expecting me to be a deadbeat. He’s realizing he’s incorrectly profiled and is wasting his time. I’m realizing he’s more poorly trained than any police officer I’ve ever encountered, and that the standards for his employment are lower than any rural Sheriff’s department.
“How did you get into internet marketing?”
“How did you get into Homeland Security?” He is silent. I continue. “Look, I really need to watch him search my car.” I get up and move closer to the car. The Mexican American agent is surprisingly ginger with my possessions. He has the dog on the leash, and the dog is inside my car. I’m afraid that they will plant something. I realize that these are Federal agents, should they “find” anything on me I am facing Federal mandatory minimums. I am less attentive to following questions.
“Why does it say that on the back window of your car?” he asks.
“It used to say ‘LOST BLACK CAT’ and it had my phone number. Now it just says ‘LOST’ because I like it that way. I lost my cat.”
“Did you ever find it?”
“No.”
“Why do you have all those things in your car?”
“Because I’ll be on the road for six months. How long does it take you to train those dogs?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He realizes I am done answering questions and stops asking them. When they open the trunk I open my mouth.
“I have fragile computer equipment in the trunk.” Hearing this, they don’t even bother to empty the trunk. I am grateful they aren’t abusing their power as much as they could. My three file boxes, suitcase, and laundry basket are on the ground outside of the car. They search them one by one by hand and with the dog and place them back into the vehicle. Eventually the agent gets to my box full of vitamins, herbs, spices, and oils. He doesn’t bother to open any of the pill bottles. The Mexican agent and white agent #2 pull out my organic basil, parsley, and oregano and wave the bottles under the dog’s nose before holding it up to the light. The sun has set. The sight of the two of them scrutinizing my organic herbs makes me burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“What’s so funny?!” the first white agent narrows his eyes at me. I grab my keys out of his hand.
“Nothing is funny about this at all. I believe in open borders and decriminalization, yet I’m still paying you to do this ridiculous shit.” I say. I walk towards my car. “Am I free to go?”
“Yes. Get out of here.” says white agent #1, in a tone more bored and frustrated than angry. The second white agent has moved on down the line. The Mexican agent is putting the dog back in his cage. I get in my car, start the engine, and peel out.
That night I feel dehumanized. I feel my rights as an American citizen have been ripped from me. I thought it was meaningless, but as it sinks in I feel deep emotional chords being struck. I feel degraded, invaded, violated.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searches, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The joke’s on them. It’s the first time I’ve traveled without drugs in over a decade. I am a criminal.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Tequila and Cocaine
The Dust. The Heat. The Extremity. The Desert City. The Tequila. The Cocaine. The Shark.
For my 12th consecutive year as a Black Rock City resident I drank tequila and snorted cocaine every day. I promptly stopped upon return to the default world. I didn’t use weed and was THC free for three months before so called it “My first sober Burning Man”.
I don’t drink. I don’t use cocaine. I criticize others use of both.
The first few times I tried cocaine were in the bathroom on a film set, curious because of everyone else's rampant use. I found it less effective and euphoric than caffeine, and bothersome in its duration and comedown.
Once I visited the Medicine Man and he sold me weed, gesticulating excitedly about politics and spirituality. He was more amped than I’d ever seen him and I kept looking at him quizzically. Picking up on this, and looking as though he knew better but wanted to let me in on a secret – he told me he had some cocaine that no one had seen since the 1980’s. I refused at first, but he persisted that I should at least look at it.
The one time I’d bought my own gram of cocaine it was a dull powder, like baking soda. That’s what I was used to seeing - even at the best Hollywood parties. I walked into his private back room and there was an ornate, gold encrusted alter, with tiny drawers containing spoons and straws. The top of the small chest of drawers was mirrored, with mirrored walls on three sides set at 123 degree angles. On top of Old Smokey was a fist-sized rock of cocaine. It shone and glistened – reflecting the light in the room in all directions – as pure as driven snow. My jaw dropped. I accepted his offer of a line. He chipped it off of the rock and handed me one of the straws, sterile and wrapped in paper. I unwrapped it and bent down towards the mirror, eye to eye with the rock of Gibraltar. It was so bright I felt my pupils down aperture.
I got it. The euphoria, the openness, the feeling of being on a manageable dose of MDMA with no comedown, no negatives – just pure enhancement. When the effects of my line had exhausted he offered me another, but I refused. It was my first positive experience with cocaine and I was satisfied. I felt that I understood the decades prior with more clarity – and I never accepted an offer for cocaine again until Burning Man 2009.
Something about the psychic and physical space of Black Rock City alters the way drugs affect people’s bodies. For me, the drugs I choose there are a different set than I would when not there.
I had two buddies, one for tequila, one for cocaine. My tequila friend mixed me organic tequila margaritas with organic agave-sweetened mixes of different exotic, all natural flavors (blackcurrant, meyer lemon, blood orange, and pomegranate). I enjoyed getting drunk with my friend, it bonded us in our travels and experience there - though we spent considerable time apart We had stopped at three BevMo’s on one day and back again at one of them on our way out – as the beginning of our pilgrimage. We carried nothing illegal but were loaded down in hundreds of pounds of liquor and beer for ourselves and others.
Agave is a friend of mine. I avoid sugar as a poisonous drug, but occasionally I’ll turn to agave’s sweet nectar to tickle the tooth and tongue. I never tolerated alcohol well, until I discovered that it is all about quality, and that I take well to agave. I can handle my tequila. As Little Brother would say "It's not alcohol, it's tincture of agave." The alcohol made me feel keenly adjusted to the desert city. Aware of myself, aware of my place, aware of my surroundings – present.
My cocaine friend brought four grams to last us the week. It was mediocre, but I was so boozed up and he was so tripped out that it didn’t matter. It just helped me stay the course. I was surprised to find that the drug that Burning Man is lengthened the duration of cocaine considerably, so that a few lines would get me high for hours at a time.
The cocaine made me feel immortal, and heightened awareness even more combined with the tequila, adding a glow to the city. I floated along on air and confidence. Often it made me annoyed with others that didn’t. I realized how often I look down on those not as sharp as I am, and I how I chase those that are sharper.
The others referred to their vaporizing sessions as “safety meetings”. My cocaine friend and I referred to our sessions as “danger meetings”. We would meet in secret. We’d use a full-length mirror furnished by Wal-Mart laid across both of our laps, and rolled up hundred dollar bills. During the peak of the cocaine high question each other with animation as to why this particular substance is so taboo in the circles we find ourselves in. Clearly MDMA is more damaging to the body, and everyone around us was rolling on E – but cocaine is poo-pooed and maligned by the same pseudo-hippie crowd.
Each day I would consume around a half liter of organic tequila and five or so lines of cocaine. I became a queenpin. Confident and arrogant. Output centric. On the few days I wore my shark costume I felt perfectly suited.
The Black Rock Desert doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’ll tear you apart, the alkaline seeping into your skin and causing lesions, filling your lungs and giving those that stay out there long enough a lung disease similar to silicosis. Tequila and cocaine were my Popeye’s spinach. I triumphed, I transcended. There was no sloppiness – every move was precise. I was filled with a present invincibility, and available to all. I was reliable, on time, full of integrity. I gave pep talks, I was a shoulder to cry on, I was a leader and a sorcerer. I looked down my nose at all the uncontrolled debauchery and wonderment. I was controlled. I was certain. I was drunk and high.
I had always believed I could never be an alcoholic or a cocaine addict, drunk or cokehead, boozer or fiend. I had never drank or snorted cocaine two days in a row in my life until this week. I now realize that with habitual use I can accomplish addiction to anything – I just need to put my mind to it.
For my 12th consecutive year as a Black Rock City resident I drank tequila and snorted cocaine every day. I promptly stopped upon return to the default world. I didn’t use weed and was THC free for three months before so called it “My first sober Burning Man”.
I don’t drink. I don’t use cocaine. I criticize others use of both.
The first few times I tried cocaine were in the bathroom on a film set, curious because of everyone else's rampant use. I found it less effective and euphoric than caffeine, and bothersome in its duration and comedown.
Once I visited the Medicine Man and he sold me weed, gesticulating excitedly about politics and spirituality. He was more amped than I’d ever seen him and I kept looking at him quizzically. Picking up on this, and looking as though he knew better but wanted to let me in on a secret – he told me he had some cocaine that no one had seen since the 1980’s. I refused at first, but he persisted that I should at least look at it.
The one time I’d bought my own gram of cocaine it was a dull powder, like baking soda. That’s what I was used to seeing - even at the best Hollywood parties. I walked into his private back room and there was an ornate, gold encrusted alter, with tiny drawers containing spoons and straws. The top of the small chest of drawers was mirrored, with mirrored walls on three sides set at 123 degree angles. On top of Old Smokey was a fist-sized rock of cocaine. It shone and glistened – reflecting the light in the room in all directions – as pure as driven snow. My jaw dropped. I accepted his offer of a line. He chipped it off of the rock and handed me one of the straws, sterile and wrapped in paper. I unwrapped it and bent down towards the mirror, eye to eye with the rock of Gibraltar. It was so bright I felt my pupils down aperture.
I got it. The euphoria, the openness, the feeling of being on a manageable dose of MDMA with no comedown, no negatives – just pure enhancement. When the effects of my line had exhausted he offered me another, but I refused. It was my first positive experience with cocaine and I was satisfied. I felt that I understood the decades prior with more clarity – and I never accepted an offer for cocaine again until Burning Man 2009.
Something about the psychic and physical space of Black Rock City alters the way drugs affect people’s bodies. For me, the drugs I choose there are a different set than I would when not there.
I had two buddies, one for tequila, one for cocaine. My tequila friend mixed me organic tequila margaritas with organic agave-sweetened mixes of different exotic, all natural flavors (blackcurrant, meyer lemon, blood orange, and pomegranate). I enjoyed getting drunk with my friend, it bonded us in our travels and experience there - though we spent considerable time apart We had stopped at three BevMo’s on one day and back again at one of them on our way out – as the beginning of our pilgrimage. We carried nothing illegal but were loaded down in hundreds of pounds of liquor and beer for ourselves and others.
Agave is a friend of mine. I avoid sugar as a poisonous drug, but occasionally I’ll turn to agave’s sweet nectar to tickle the tooth and tongue. I never tolerated alcohol well, until I discovered that it is all about quality, and that I take well to agave. I can handle my tequila. As Little Brother would say "It's not alcohol, it's tincture of agave." The alcohol made me feel keenly adjusted to the desert city. Aware of myself, aware of my place, aware of my surroundings – present.
My cocaine friend brought four grams to last us the week. It was mediocre, but I was so boozed up and he was so tripped out that it didn’t matter. It just helped me stay the course. I was surprised to find that the drug that Burning Man is lengthened the duration of cocaine considerably, so that a few lines would get me high for hours at a time.
The cocaine made me feel immortal, and heightened awareness even more combined with the tequila, adding a glow to the city. I floated along on air and confidence. Often it made me annoyed with others that didn’t. I realized how often I look down on those not as sharp as I am, and I how I chase those that are sharper.
The others referred to their vaporizing sessions as “safety meetings”. My cocaine friend and I referred to our sessions as “danger meetings”. We would meet in secret. We’d use a full-length mirror furnished by Wal-Mart laid across both of our laps, and rolled up hundred dollar bills. During the peak of the cocaine high question each other with animation as to why this particular substance is so taboo in the circles we find ourselves in. Clearly MDMA is more damaging to the body, and everyone around us was rolling on E – but cocaine is poo-pooed and maligned by the same pseudo-hippie crowd.
Each day I would consume around a half liter of organic tequila and five or so lines of cocaine. I became a queenpin. Confident and arrogant. Output centric. On the few days I wore my shark costume I felt perfectly suited.
The Black Rock Desert doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’ll tear you apart, the alkaline seeping into your skin and causing lesions, filling your lungs and giving those that stay out there long enough a lung disease similar to silicosis. Tequila and cocaine were my Popeye’s spinach. I triumphed, I transcended. There was no sloppiness – every move was precise. I was filled with a present invincibility, and available to all. I was reliable, on time, full of integrity. I gave pep talks, I was a shoulder to cry on, I was a leader and a sorcerer. I looked down my nose at all the uncontrolled debauchery and wonderment. I was controlled. I was certain. I was drunk and high.
I had always believed I could never be an alcoholic or a cocaine addict, drunk or cokehead, boozer or fiend. I had never drank or snorted cocaine two days in a row in my life until this week. I now realize that with habitual use I can accomplish addiction to anything – I just need to put my mind to it.
Relapse/Relax (215 III)
I leave the partner on the winter solstice. Quit growing dope, quit the relationship, and move out, all in one day. I stay with friends in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has a higher number of dispensaries per capita than anywhere else in the state. At present time this means over 500 medical marijuana establishments, more than Los Angeles has of Starbucks and Coffee Bean combined. The City was delinquent in following the 215 guidelines to set zoning regulations for medical marijuana pharmacies – and so they bloomed. Once Obama stopped federal intervention, they became a thriving market force that blocks the Mayor and City Council’s efforts to curb use in various ways. At present it’s only a city block’s walk in any direction to come across a weed shop.
Knowing that this might not last, feeling the pain of a life empty of the lover/partner/friend – and prescription in hand – I go to town. Wandering dazedly from shop to shop, buying a pre-rolled joint or a gram off of their menu of dozens of choices. Rating them, experiencing them, delving into the sativas, indicas, edibles, tinctures and more. I smoke openly on the street – so do enough others that I feel absolutely secure. I watch the sunlight glinting on the waters of the Pacific, I take photos of Los Angeles oddities, I feast on the deli section of Whole Foods, I miss appointments and lie to friends, and I am deeply medicated.
At first it is like meeting a long lost friend. That part of me that the cannabis brings out. She’s a beautiful woman, the Green Diablolita – so opposite and complimentary to her sisters in trinity – Blue Diablolita and Red Diablolita. After enough months off and a good enough relapse – I realize that addiction has robbed me of the best parts of the drug. With habitual use the creativity and sensation enhancement fades – and all I am is mildly dull. I feel it necessary to maintain continued sobriety to accomplish long set-aside goals. This abstinence leaves out that part of me that I am so used to maintaining and managing in the world, and having back the developmental under-the-influence of THC self that I have built over a ten year period is empowering and fun. I know, in the end, that the Middle Way is the only way. However, I can honestly say I’ve yet to find mine. Perhaps all life is a strife for that perfection.
After a while – all I feel is dull. So I quit again. And then relapse. And then quit again. And then, one day: I feel at choice. And I sit down … and write.
There are a range of weed shops. I enjoy the simple ones – and have noticed that often the quality of their product outdoes the flashy places. I walk up to the door. I ring the doorbell. I’m buzzed into a holding area and a security guard behind plexiglas verifies my prescription by phone (or just by my license and patient number, if it’s not my first time). Then I am buzzed in or led in to the main area where there are clerks behind a glass case. What if alcohol were sold like this?
I find myself gravitating towards the places with live plants. There are specials on a board, there is a menu on the wall with a dozen selections each under Indica, Sativa, and Hybrid – and there is a full range of edibles from ice cream and vegan gluten-free cookies to fruit-roll ups to pizza. There are lounges to vaporize, there are lounges to smoke. The prices range. I usually by $15-$25 grams or $10-$12 joints, because I can, because they take credit cards, and because I never want to try the same Kind twice. And OH is it Kind – Cali weed of the finest quality a highly competitive market can produce. Knowledgeable salespeople who can tell you exactly how it was grown, what products, where.
I flashback to a decade ago when there were none of these shops and I had to spend hours getting marijuana at first from a friend of a friend (always missing a bud for each stop down the line) – then from a string of drug dealers that connected me to crime. The sheer legality of it all is wonderful, not having to jump through hoops any more ridiculous than referring to weed as medicine and never talking about sharing in the shops – very freeing. I laugh at the accuracy of the DSM definition of cannabis dependence through the lens of prohibition. In the end – this is what it takes to get me to lose interest in getting high. Take the chase away, and I’m not smitten anymore.
After a few weeks of this I am done. It was worth it, it was great – but I’ve had my share.
Los Angeles has a higher number of dispensaries per capita than anywhere else in the state. At present time this means over 500 medical marijuana establishments, more than Los Angeles has of Starbucks and Coffee Bean combined. The City was delinquent in following the 215 guidelines to set zoning regulations for medical marijuana pharmacies – and so they bloomed. Once Obama stopped federal intervention, they became a thriving market force that blocks the Mayor and City Council’s efforts to curb use in various ways. At present it’s only a city block’s walk in any direction to come across a weed shop.
Knowing that this might not last, feeling the pain of a life empty of the lover/partner/friend – and prescription in hand – I go to town. Wandering dazedly from shop to shop, buying a pre-rolled joint or a gram off of their menu of dozens of choices. Rating them, experiencing them, delving into the sativas, indicas, edibles, tinctures and more. I smoke openly on the street – so do enough others that I feel absolutely secure. I watch the sunlight glinting on the waters of the Pacific, I take photos of Los Angeles oddities, I feast on the deli section of Whole Foods, I miss appointments and lie to friends, and I am deeply medicated.
At first it is like meeting a long lost friend. That part of me that the cannabis brings out. She’s a beautiful woman, the Green Diablolita – so opposite and complimentary to her sisters in trinity – Blue Diablolita and Red Diablolita. After enough months off and a good enough relapse – I realize that addiction has robbed me of the best parts of the drug. With habitual use the creativity and sensation enhancement fades – and all I am is mildly dull. I feel it necessary to maintain continued sobriety to accomplish long set-aside goals. This abstinence leaves out that part of me that I am so used to maintaining and managing in the world, and having back the developmental under-the-influence of THC self that I have built over a ten year period is empowering and fun. I know, in the end, that the Middle Way is the only way. However, I can honestly say I’ve yet to find mine. Perhaps all life is a strife for that perfection.
After a while – all I feel is dull. So I quit again. And then relapse. And then quit again. And then, one day: I feel at choice. And I sit down … and write.
There are a range of weed shops. I enjoy the simple ones – and have noticed that often the quality of their product outdoes the flashy places. I walk up to the door. I ring the doorbell. I’m buzzed into a holding area and a security guard behind plexiglas verifies my prescription by phone (or just by my license and patient number, if it’s not my first time). Then I am buzzed in or led in to the main area where there are clerks behind a glass case. What if alcohol were sold like this?
I find myself gravitating towards the places with live plants. There are specials on a board, there is a menu on the wall with a dozen selections each under Indica, Sativa, and Hybrid – and there is a full range of edibles from ice cream and vegan gluten-free cookies to fruit-roll ups to pizza. There are lounges to vaporize, there are lounges to smoke. The prices range. I usually by $15-$25 grams or $10-$12 joints, because I can, because they take credit cards, and because I never want to try the same Kind twice. And OH is it Kind – Cali weed of the finest quality a highly competitive market can produce. Knowledgeable salespeople who can tell you exactly how it was grown, what products, where.
I flashback to a decade ago when there were none of these shops and I had to spend hours getting marijuana at first from a friend of a friend (always missing a bud for each stop down the line) – then from a string of drug dealers that connected me to crime. The sheer legality of it all is wonderful, not having to jump through hoops any more ridiculous than referring to weed as medicine and never talking about sharing in the shops – very freeing. I laugh at the accuracy of the DSM definition of cannabis dependence through the lens of prohibition. In the end – this is what it takes to get me to lose interest in getting high. Take the chase away, and I’m not smitten anymore.
After a few weeks of this I am done. It was worth it, it was great – but I’ve had my share.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Attack of the Clones (215 II)
I unpacked the truck into the grow house – and at once the lover became my boyfriend, housemate, and business partner. His mental illness may have colored the process – but I hated growing weed. Hate it.
Beautiful and ebullient life, sacred plants with their happy leaves that look like hands – reaching up to artificial lights in an indoor environment, with forced air and ventilation, the sound of fans and AC, and often a screaming madman impacting their growth with his wrath.
I dreaded 8:00. The lights would snap on, and I’d descend into the underground plant jail to mix water, organic fertilizers, and adjust the pH. I’d water the plants, tie up those of them that drooped, water the veg room if needed, and as we grew in soil I would transplant anything that needed it – all rarely to his satisfaction. I’d then clean the rooms, and empty the trays from the water that had runoff. I regretted being tied to this nightly task, the loss of freedom far outweighing any money made – and from where I sat we made no money, just kept sinking further into debt on my credit cards as the lover obsessively updated the room in preparation for expansion that never seemed to happen at a pace rapid enough to justify the expenses.
One of the only parts of the job I enjoyed was getting out of the house to fill up the four 5 gallon jugs at the nearby grocery store water station – a joy that was taken away from me when the partner convinced me to invest in a reverse osmosis machine. The other task I withstood was trimming, despite the partner screaming at me that I did it too slow, or was cutting too close or too loose when there was no discernable difference between his work and mine.
I quit smoking, eating or vaporizing weed. After ten years of almost daily use – I was done. And he raged at me for that – for treating the job like a job, for only caring about the plants for how much money they would bring in, not for how they would get me high.
Before the partner convinced me to invest in a clone machine (and aquarium chiller to keep the water at the correct temperature) – we reached a few plant number emergencies due to the partner’s inability to see into the future and my novice gardening skills.
I was always happy to volunteer to leave the house on grow room related activities; any time we needed supplies from the hydro shop or clones I’d eagerly run the errand.
And so – the first time I stepped into a medical marijuana pharmacy I was months sober and not there to buy the finished product – I was there to buy clones.
I savored the process of buying clones. I luxuriated in the elitism of having my prescription verified and being buzzed passed security, of learning the lineage of the different strains, of using a magnifying glass to determine any insect activity – and being educated on how many days from soil to flowering to finishing. Most of all – this was the only area of our grow operation that I had any control over. The clone menus would be posted online, but often when I arrived at the shops the selection would be entirely different from expected. In the end, it was up to me to choose the varieties and the individual mini-plants.
The satisfaction of carrying my tray of sensitive plants, less than 8 inches tall, nestled in rockwool and innocence, and placing it on the front seat of my car and driving them the two hours to their new home was immense. Every step of this process was legal. I had no fear of being stopped or questioned by police officers; I would often take my prescription out of my wallet and lay it over the plastic dome covering the plants to prevent them from wilting in the baking Southern California sun.
It was through this that I came to accept Proposition 215. Though in my eyes I was not and am not a legitimate medical marijuana patient – I AM a legitimate gardener. I am qualified to plant a plant, and to oversee its growth. It’s my God-given right. That there is no other way to legally do this with cannabis made me accept the law, and accept my caretaker role, and be deeply thankful and profoundly proud to be a Californian.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
215 I
I am sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room. This is no ordinary doctor’s office – it’s one of the network of Medicann offices, and I am here to get a prescription for medical marijuana.
Why am I here today? After railing against the idea for so long? After claiming I’d rather be a criminal than a patient? Because I have a moving truck sitting in the parking lot – ready to be unpacked into a grow house.
The wait is quite ordinary; I am not seen until an hour and fifteen minutes after my appointment time. There are about ten people in the waiting room with me, and from what I can see it is a constant stream of people – and this is not a day that the office accepts walk-in patients. As I wait, I observe the process.
There is a receptionist who copies each patient’s California Driver’s License when they enter the office, takes prior records relating to the condition, and hands out forms to fill out. When the forms are completed and returned to her with a $150 payment, she does some paperwork and attaches them to a clipboard which she puts in a plastic sorting thing hanging outside the doctor’s office. The doctor spends at least fifteen minutes with each patient. When the patient exits the office, the doctor takes the next chart and calls the next patient in. The patient returns to the receptionist and has their photo taken, and is issued an embossed prescription including a photocopy of their license, and a photocopy of that which they are instructed to carry on their person at all times. The laminated card for which the photo is taken will be sent in the mail. A pamphlet listing nearby medical marijuana providers is included in the packet handed to the patient.
After filling out my form where I admit to vaporizing a gram of marijuana a day to deal with neck pain, and rate the “side effects” of its use on a 1 to 10 scale of discomfort (I give the munchies a 10) – I am offered coffee, tea or water, which I refuse. I overhear that the doctor I am to see today is the founder of Medicann, and cycles from office to office in the network. I feel lucky.
The waiting room is clean, but not sterile like other doctor’s offices. It’s painted a pleasant, light forest green. There is a running fountain in the corner, and plenty of windows. Instead of magazines there are pamphlets educating patients about other alternative healing options – acupuncture, massage, nutrition. I am happy to see these and find it ironic considering that the doctor I am about to see is an M.D. - not an alternative practitioner. I also find it encouraging that the average stoner seeking their scrip will be educated about these modalities.
The other patients range in age and size and class and race and the visibility of their illness. The girl before me comes out of the office. It’s the day after her 21st birthday and she has just woken up - she asks the receptionist if she can go home, get made up, and put on a bra before her photo is taken. The receptionist acquiesces.
It’s my turn. The doctor calls my name. He is a light skinned black man with a few small dreadlocks running down the length of his back. He looks healthy. He is not wearing a white coat. I walk into the office and take a seat. He goes over my chart, and is so impressed by the letter written by my massage therapist he asks me if he can have her name and number, which I provide. He hands me back my chiropractic records, telling me that he only needs one piece of paper because the folders get very thick and won’t fit in the file cabinet.
He then asks me to stand up and turn my head and raise my arms and other ridiculous and ineffective ways of checking on my neck. I thank the State of California for turning us all into liars who perform elaborate dances and speak in jargon while fully knowing that it’s a farce.
It is true that my neck only turns so far in one direction, and that I suffer from neck pain. It is not true that marijuana helps in the slightest, it only makes it worse. I keep this fact to myself.
He tells me I should look on the Americans for Safe Access website for details on my rights as a medical marijuana patient. He says that I may use my medicine anywhere – but if I am in a motor vehicle I must stop, pull over to the side of the road, sit in the passenger seat if I’m not already there – and take the keys out of the ignition. In the next sentence he tells me that it is illegal to drive under the influence.
He educates me that I can use “medicine” in a balm form to soothe the muscles in my neck. I genuinely did not know that before he told me so. I still haven’t tried it.
As a punchline, he comes to the part of the form where it asks the name of my M.D. I wrote “n/a” on the form.
“I see you have no Medical Doctor”
“No, I’ve just used massage, chiropractics, and yoga to handle the pain. I guess I should find one.”
“In Heaven’s name no. You are already doing everything you should be to treat your condition.”
“Ok”
“DO NOT find a Medical Doctor, you do not need one. We just want to give you drugs.”
Monday, March 16, 2009
Somnambulastories
-I-
They are all drifting in and out of sleep in the icosahedron. Curled in this Platonic solid she falls asleep, drifts in and out, finally rests her long body. Then it’s up, wiping the sleep from her addict eyes and to the Seroquel and Ambien, one is never enough for the sleepless. The next morning when the camper near her tent wakes her before her time she screams at them all and cries about the weather. Awake, but in a trance – she is four, she is free, irresponsible, petulant, and cranky. She is unable to react to any emergency, a gawking, hollow, sleepwalking, six-foot-one burden.
-II-
She is self-medicating PTSD with five fingers of support, Seroquel, Ambien, Xanax, a muscle relaxant, and an even stronger sleeping pill. She isn’t a burden, just slightly low integrity due to grogginess which she cuts with caffeine. While accepting any pharmaceutical and alcohol she rails drunken against the rest one night as they lounge in the icosahedron. “You’d be out doing things if you didn’t do drugs all the time” – the rest, having used cannabis and intermittent N2O, can’t say anything in response to that and are too high to point out her hypocrisy, sensing her fragility. She tries to take her super-strong sleeping pill to sleep away the heat of the day, but it doesn’t work, leaving her a dopey mess – but with the presence of mind to stay inside her friend’s tent.
-III-
He’s driven a car hit by a drunk driver that killed his fiancé and unborn child. He’s shot and killed a man that broke into his home, protecting his second wife and two children. He’s survived brain cancer, cocaine addiction, MS, and public battles with and against the union and the energy company for whom he’s worked his whole career. He survives his third suicide attempt – swallowing a box and a half of Seroquel in a remote location on the coast, parked where the tide is sure to take him out. Randomly an officer finds him, he is helicoptered out with a pulse of 36, yet still has the presence of mind to grab the breast of the nurse with the air medical services, ironically a company called “REACH”.
-IV-
She’s lied about her life for the last seven years, kept everything from everyone, lived in a lie off of her boyfriend, and is steeping in unpaid bills. The pressure builds up, hints are leaking, but no one knows anything until she disappears for three days. She’s found by the police, a few blocks from her home, locked in the trunk of her own car, dehydrated but alive. The last thing she claims to remember is being on the coast in the same remote location, swallowing a box of Seroquel dissolved in a bottle of wine. The police write it off as a suicide attempt and she is not examined for foul play.
-V-
I’ve never taken sleeping pills. They seem evil. Perhaps responsible use of them is just invisible, because all I’ve seen are nightmares.
They are all drifting in and out of sleep in the icosahedron. Curled in this Platonic solid she falls asleep, drifts in and out, finally rests her long body. Then it’s up, wiping the sleep from her addict eyes and to the Seroquel and Ambien, one is never enough for the sleepless. The next morning when the camper near her tent wakes her before her time she screams at them all and cries about the weather. Awake, but in a trance – she is four, she is free, irresponsible, petulant, and cranky. She is unable to react to any emergency, a gawking, hollow, sleepwalking, six-foot-one burden.
-II-
She is self-medicating PTSD with five fingers of support, Seroquel, Ambien, Xanax, a muscle relaxant, and an even stronger sleeping pill. She isn’t a burden, just slightly low integrity due to grogginess which she cuts with caffeine. While accepting any pharmaceutical and alcohol she rails drunken against the rest one night as they lounge in the icosahedron. “You’d be out doing things if you didn’t do drugs all the time” – the rest, having used cannabis and intermittent N2O, can’t say anything in response to that and are too high to point out her hypocrisy, sensing her fragility. She tries to take her super-strong sleeping pill to sleep away the heat of the day, but it doesn’t work, leaving her a dopey mess – but with the presence of mind to stay inside her friend’s tent.
-III-
He’s driven a car hit by a drunk driver that killed his fiancé and unborn child. He’s shot and killed a man that broke into his home, protecting his second wife and two children. He’s survived brain cancer, cocaine addiction, MS, and public battles with and against the union and the energy company for whom he’s worked his whole career. He survives his third suicide attempt – swallowing a box and a half of Seroquel in a remote location on the coast, parked where the tide is sure to take him out. Randomly an officer finds him, he is helicoptered out with a pulse of 36, yet still has the presence of mind to grab the breast of the nurse with the air medical services, ironically a company called “REACH”.
-IV-
She’s lied about her life for the last seven years, kept everything from everyone, lived in a lie off of her boyfriend, and is steeping in unpaid bills. The pressure builds up, hints are leaking, but no one knows anything until she disappears for three days. She’s found by the police, a few blocks from her home, locked in the trunk of her own car, dehydrated but alive. The last thing she claims to remember is being on the coast in the same remote location, swallowing a box of Seroquel dissolved in a bottle of wine. The police write it off as a suicide attempt and she is not examined for foul play.
-V-
I’ve never taken sleeping pills. They seem evil. Perhaps responsible use of them is just invisible, because all I’ve seen are nightmares.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Medicine
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Watching over-the-counter drug commercials targeted towards young mothers I am present to the classification of health problems by symptom and the idea of a drug as medicine.
“Mommy – I have a cough.”
“Here baby, here’s medicine for your cough.”
(thin strips for accurate no deviation from the median dosing each time! For the average child, that never grows, that never wavers, is always constant… For the mother that has no instinct or knowledge, that cannot measure, that has disempowered herself to consumer guidelines…)
And so the mother gives her child a drug to suppress her immune system, which reduces congestion, makes her cough go away, allows the pathogens a deeper hold on her young system, interferes with the long term functioning of her liver, immune, respiratory, and digestive systems and prolongs the duration of her illness.
Mother’s milk – the great deliverer of medicine. Compassion, nutrition, protein, chemistry, and toxicity.
What difference then, from the shaman that disempowers himself to the spirits? The medicine woman that listens to the plants? They and the mother pass down cultural ways of being around health, ways of being that demand participation, community, industry. Human instinct is to seek healing outside oneself. We’re all looking for that white coat.
The microscopic unknown of our own squishy and complex physiology terrifies us, and we’re in constant pain from dying. Sickness is fear and pain. We’re all dying. We’re all sick. We’re all afraid.
With each year that passes modern culture gains sophistication in a way that makes our illogical attachments to industry propaganda-seeded ideas of medicine more glaringly absurd.
Even the ones still plugged-in, drinking the kool-aid, unexamined, are keenly aware of the appalling humor of a list of prescription drug side effects that comes with every advertisement. Medications, not medicines. None of us believe in these singularly, but as a whole we lead our lives by them.
Popping a pill, symptom suppression, the convenience of a reactive attitude towards health – waiting until we get into the accident to get the bodywork - these aren’t medicine. Perhaps neither as a whole are food, herbs, supplements, psychoactives – all of which contain toxicity. What is medicine?
Is it what heals you? Or is it what takes the pain away? Is it outside you, or inside you? Where is the line between use and abuse? How proactive and additive about health can we be before losing time and pleasure to the pursuit, thereby subtracting from our health?
I don’t have the answer, but as the best medicine man (“drug dealer”) I’ve ever had used to say: “Medicine is anything that makes you happy.”
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mendo
I’m on a ranch in Mendocino County. I traveled here on winding roads. Winding roads through rugged beautiful country, redwoods and grey skies – through pocket-sized towns that make obvious the dominant industry, head shops, hydro shops, healthy restaurants and hippie goods sprinkled among the basic supplies for rural life, coastal life.
Winding roads of history, odd connections, the path of who knows who that brought me here. Am I proud to be here? In this most illicit yet gentle of places?
Every place I move I find my way to the heart of – in Los Angeles it was Hollywood work and parties, running with the Crips, skipping around the underground art and music scene and meeting the personalities – the Dennis Woodruffs, Angelynes, and minor celebs. It was the psychedelic underground, the buyer’s market – the path of least resistance funneled me down the whirlpool to the center of the mayhem of the place. Los Angeles… El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula. No apologies.
And in the Bay Area – I find myself at NASA/Google parties and having tea with gay activists, visiting soup kitchens in Berkeley and working for venture capitalists and progressive writers/speaker/event/ television/radio personalities, learning the healing arts from the masters and of course… steeped in the weed culture – all this mind you without trying, without wanting, without choosing it. I just slide blindly to the peaks and troughs of the place – hoping Francis of Assisi wouldn’t be offended.
I’d rather not know what grows on this ranch. I ignore it, I tune out the talks of business as much as possible and pay attention to conversations of anything else. He is a surfer, she is a horsewoman. They are in their fifties, with a daughter in college. The ranch has a dozen or so horses on it and when the lover and I arrive she is exercising them in the pouring rain, one after another. The surfer watches her down in the arena from the window of the cozy main house, near the wood-stove.
“Look at her, out there, still riding. That woman was a warrior in a previous life.”
I remark. “I was probably a cleric in a previous life.”
“Everyone has their place.” He says. I take that as permission to write this entry.
The house is that of any other simple, rural hippie family. There is a giant vegetable garden, greenhouses, and chickens to make fresh eggs. Spiritual and political decorations and fridge-pinnings remind me of dozens of homes I’ve been in. This one is different, I remind myself. This one is a grey area, I remind myself. Twenty years ago, it was completely illegal. Now it may very well be legal via medicinal marijuana. I don’t investigate whether laws are broken or amounts exceeded. I just assume they are.
When she comes in she and I talk about the Dalai Lama, paganism, nutrition, and animals. The lover and he have gone off to do business. I don’t go to the business room, in another outbuilding nearby. I don’t have a prescription, and don’t want to put anyone at risk.
When they return my lover, eyes wide and hands waving, rants about medicinal laws and suing – passionately making a violent case for the medicine he abuses. We pass around a joint. It’s okay. I pretend to like it more than I do – to be polite. It’s organic – but other than that I don’t have much to say about him as a grower. He makes exquisite hash.
The lover and I go to the beach for an hour. The surf is large and the wind bites. He throws sticks to his dog. We smoke a joint of a few different kinds of weed mixed with hash. We become inquisitive children, small as blades of grass, meandering the short path back to the parking lot as if it’s a trail of epic adventure. We look at rocks and ladybugs and play until the automobile brings us back to adulthood.
The lover has set up a third party deal, but the young punk hasn’t called. There is much talk of business in front of me, and a phone call about wine and vintages and bottles and prices. I grimace. Afterwards, though, when they go into yet another outbuilding to make hash – I choose to accompany.
They are making hashish with a set of eight twenty-gallon bubble bags. With each bag the screen gets finer. The process is simple, in a large rubber trash bin they use a drill with long handled mixer attachment to agitate the plant material and ice water mix for a few moments, then they pour that into another bin fitted with the bags. Every bag they squeeze the water out of, scraping the results from the last two bags into a glass baking tray with a credit card.
The surfer chops the hash in the tray throughout – singing to himself “my hash is better than your hash, my hash is better than yours.”, and joking about his long-abandoned cocaine days as he cuts and remixes lines of the golden blonde powder. He takes some ribbing for his job of fluffing - people allude to the pornography position. FluffStar. I try to estimate the price of the tray, and figure it must be somewhere around $20,000 wholesale – could be up to $40,000 street value.
The hashmakers try to come up with a name for the product and I shut down my marketing mind, thinking of all the famous blondes I’d name my own hash after. My lover talks about it being a worthy bagful and they pin that as the name – Worthy Bagful.
Later we eat an organic vegetarian dinner, prepared by him. My lover and I are grateful and well-fed, and we all sit down to watch some DVDs. The last time I was here we went out to the movies – the theater offered organic popcorn with optional toppings like nutritional yeast or spirulina.
The conversation is usually about the law, the local crusty old growers, and stories of good times. Politics, pop culture, horses, and surf dot the speakscape. I note that my lover is passive aggressive, embarrassed by the mentor attitude of the surfer.
We sleep in another outbuilding, outfitted for guests, with an outhouse. Snuggled under the blankets we drift away quickly in the dead quiet. This place relaxes him, and he makes contact, throughout the night. It’s unusual for the lover to show affection, but here and at my home he loosens a little.
In the morning they take two hours to weigh out a few pounds, which the horsewoman and I find amusing. I find sisterhood with her, both of us having chosen to risk it all and be constantly slightly annoyed to be around men that are in the trade. We'd both prefer the men do something else. We'd both be hypocrites to complain; we're both stoners.
As we pack the truck full of weed, hash, and cold hard cash - the lover points out electrical details to the surfer, who despite years of experience apparently still doesn’t understand electricity. The lover traces a path from the transformer to yet another outbuilding, rattling amps and watts off. A horse whinnies and we take that as a cue to leave. They both hug us goodbye, and off we go – winding our way out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I try not to think about it.
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