Marijuana

Marijuana

I wrote a piece on why people drink. So I thought that I might as well write a piece on why people smoke pot. Or really why I smoke pot, because I just assume that most people do it for the same reason that I do. I'm sure that there are many reasons to smoke, but here's my attempt at an answer that encompasses the many different reasons.

The reality of life is a hard thing to deal with. Sometimes you look at your life and you weren't where you planned to be at. Things didn't work out with that girl, or I'm working a dead end job, or my grandmother is nearing the end of her mortal existence. These are things that are just hard to take. Some of them you can change, and some of them you can't. But even the things that you can change can sometimes take a lot of time. And what are you supposed to do in the interim? While you're reality becomes more and more difficult to deal with? You change your reality temporarily.

I remember an episode of "South Park" where they did an excellent job of explaining what it is that marijuana really does to you. It makes you okay with doing nothing. Not to say that this is a positive thing, because it is usually better to do something. But sometimes that is just what you need, to be alright with doing nothing.

You come home from a long day at work, customers complaining, bosses getting on your case, your monitor explodes. It can all be a little bit frustrating. And it doesn't stop until you reach the age of retirement (thanks to Bush it'll end up being like 90). So you sit down, smoke a bowl, and suddenly you don't feel frustrated anymore. You sit there content to just watch a little bit of television, read some comic books, and spend sometime in a warped reality.

Now, I make it sound as though pot is merely a coping mechanism, which is not true at all. At least not moreso than anything else. Because as the THC enters your brain causing dopamine to be released ("I'm high as a kite") and that wierd membrane develops that causes you're synapses to fire at a slightly slower rate ("I forget words") all you're doing is finding a way to take your mind off of the worries at hand. The same could be said for people that go to the movies. They sit their for two hours, or three if you like Peter Jackson, and let themselves become enveloped in an alternate reality until the credits roll. They forget about their lives for that time and it is wonderful. And people have all sorts of things that they use to escape reality, just for a small time.

So it comes down to this. Marijuana is just another way of enjoying our short time here on Earth, and also a way of dealing with the times that make existence seem unbearable.

Drinking and Freedom; my first post-collegiate essay

Freedom and drinking

I am a drinker. Everybody knows this. Not everybody understands why I drink. Especially since I was such a good Mormon boy. But it has to do with freedom. Freedom is a powerful thing. Something that many people take for granted. But freedom is something that is scary, for so many reasons. But I think that the biggest reason is that it leaves us to make our own choices, our own decisions.

I come from a good Mormon family. None of my siblings drink or smoke. There has never been a drop of alcohol brought into to my parents place that wasn't brought by me (or the people that I associate with, but that kind of just me through proxy). The thing is that it isn't really a choice any of them made. Their choice was their religion. Once they decided that they wanted to stick with their religion they didn't have to make that decision. They follow the rules of the church. By making one choice they forgoe the necessity of making so many others.

I am no longer a good Mormon boy. I chose a different path. I chose to be a drinker. I chose to be a smoker. Nobody made me. Nobody even pressured me. And maybe I made that choice because as soon as I didn't have my religion to make my rules anymore I needed to have something else to help limit my possibilities.

When a relationship ends it seems to be that people tend to drink. People say that it is to drown their sorrows (which may be true but I think it's more). What has just happened is that they were just handed back their freedom. All of the sudden any girl that you meet is a potential candidate for your next girlfriend. You know that because you're relationship is over you are going to have to look at all of these different people and decide on just one. It's a pretty heavy proposition.

But you may be asking what drinking has to do with freedom at all. People drink to forget, or to have a good time, but really they drink so that they don't have to make choices. As your alcohol intake increases over the night you begin to lose inhibitions. In the beginnning they are mostly there and you act like you normally would. (I apologize but I'm going to make an attempt at a psychoanalytic reading here) As you continue on you begin to lose a sense of your ego. It shrinks, replaced by a more powerful id. Even the superego begins to take a more subservient position. It is no longer you that are making the choices for the night. You begin to merely react to what is happening around you by pure instinct. I once had a professor in college explain the id to me. He said it's that feeling you get when you look at a girl and want to just tear off her clothes and have her right there. It is only the ego, (roughly you're own sense of right and wrong), and the superego (everyone else at the party knowing that it's not alright for you to just do that right there) that stops you. Once you drink it is the id that has taken over. It is why people wake up in the morning with the feeling they would rather gnaw their arm off and run away than wake the beastly girl up. It is why you get with an ex after a night of hard drinking when you never would have when you were sober. It is why people run around downtown Portland on a spree of destruction. Because they have freed themselves of having to make decisions. Their one decision, to go out drinking tonight, decides the rest for them. The loss of inhibitions is also a loss of choice.

So freedom, and drinking, are a perfect match. We have a freedom in America, and a long history of alchol abuse. Although some of the forefathers wanted us to be a wine-drinking nation (yeah, that's right, Thomas Jefferson wanted us to be more like the French) others have had beers named after them (Samuel Adams). When people were moving west, and they had to drop weight from their wagons and carts they knew that it was preposterous to choose to lose the alcohol. They would throw out family heirlooms and priceless possessions first. Only at the last moment, when they had to, it was no longer a choice, would they get rid of the alcohol. And like any American would, instead of just throwing it out, they would have giant parties that would last until all of the alcohol had been consumed. Crazy debauchery always ensued.

So next time you go out drinking, just remember, all that you're doing is stopping yourself from dealing with the pain that comes with making decisions. And being a true American.

New Year's Eve; or Bored and On Hold

Disclaimer: Me and my friends do bad things. Then, after all the bad things have happened I write them down because I think they make good stories. Some people may not be happy with how they are represented here, but that's too bad because it's my story. Plus stories aren't too fun when people are careful with their words.


I awoke early that morning. I had managed to get to bed before midnight the night before; and it was a Friday too, it was almost mind-boggling to get to bed so early. But I awoke and began to be productive. I spent the early part of my day doing laundry. Boring, but clean clothes are good to have. Anyway, I was just keeping myself busy until it was time to start the preperation for the party.

Dennis showed up at about noon and was trying to rush me along, but I made him wait until I was done with laundry before we could start. I mean, people weren't really going to arrive for this shindig until at least 8 pm, so why rush me at noon? I finished my laundry, took a shower, and then got dressed in my party clothes (there'll be more on this later). After Dennis had showered and changed as well (and he was rushing me?) it was finally time to head to the liquor store.

At the liquor store there was a line that wnet all around the store, but at least this year the line stayed in side the store. We got a fifth of Jager 1/5, a half gallon of vodka, a fifth of Kahlua, a fifth of Bailey's, a half gallon of rum, a half gallon of gin, some Kahlua chocolates, four shot glasses, and a pack of cigarettes. There may have been more, and there propbably was, but that's all that I can remember. That cost us about $150.00. Not exactly chump change but hey, we needed liquor for the party.

Our next stop was a bank so I could get some cash out and give it to Dennis; he was being generous enough to put the hotel rooms on his card so I figured I should try to reimburse him as soon as possible. And then we made our way downtown in an attempt to meet up with Will. When we made it to his place we called him, but he wouldn't answer his phone, so we decided that we should go grocery shopping instead.

Now at Safeway, a store that I truly dislike but I'll leave that for another time, we began to shop for various items. First was beer and mixers, and then came the food. All in all we spent about an hour and $70.00 at Safeway. We then attempted to push the cart back to our car, but they have that fancy shopping cart theft prevention device that makes it so the cart won't roll if you try to take it across the street. I thought it was pretty lame, we had every intention of bringing the cart back when we were done with it. Instead Dennis and I had to carry a case of Pabst each, then 4 2-liter cokes, 2 2-liter tonic waters, 2 bottles of champagne, a whole bunch of food. Well, it was a pretty damn annoying trip to the car, we both had to take a break half way and readjust our bags. We had an hour until it was time to check into the hotel so we had a quick bite to eat and then decided to go check in a little early.

I wish I had a copy of the party waiver that they made Dennis sign, but I don't. It basically said that you wouldn't throw a party of more than six people to a room (that meant we were allowed to have twelve) and if you broke the rules they would kick you out and still keep your money. So we headed upstairs to check out the rooms.

A small aside: I experienced the most narcissistic moment of my entire existence when we were first walking out of the elevator towards our room. There was a mirror across the way and I was looking at myself in my suit jacket and tie and nice pants and I'd shaved that day (still had the mustache and goatee, but no annoying sideburns). All I could think was, "My God, you're a slick looking motherfucker." It was difficult for me to stop staring at myself. And I know you're gonna think that that is horrible, but hey, I did let you know that this was the peak of my narcissism. Usually I look into the mirror and try to do everything I can to get away from the image, or at least I don't care what it looks like. I think me and suits is a kind of scary combination. I'm going to have to be careful in the future.

When we entered the first room I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It was much smaller than I expected, and the two full beds took up way too much room. But then we decided to go to the other room. It was adjoining, the desk clerk had told us that they weren't, but we still had to go around to get into the room. Any disappointment that I felt from the first room was made up for when I walked into the second room. This room was on the corner of the building and was much larger. To give us even more room later on we took apart one of the double beds and placed it on top of the other one. It made for a very bouncy time, but I digress because that happened later. After checking out the rooms, and making sure that the door connecting the two rooms would stay open (thank you hotel stationary), Dennis and I began to bring up the supplies. It only took us two trips, well three because we missed the party platter but Dennis did that way later in the night. We took a while to fill up both bathroom sinks with ice and put the Jager and champagne in them. Dennis put plastic bags over the smoke detectors so that the cigarette smoke would not set them off, I thought that it was both funny and very safe, especially since a fire seemed entirely possible on this type of night.

After setting everything up Dennis took a nap and I watched Tommy Boy. I called a couple of people, and Dennis would get the occasional phone call as well. I have to say that it was a fairly boring two hour period. So I'll just skip to the part where people began to arrive.

Abel showed up with one of his friends from work, I'm not sure of his name but I think he was a Brandon. It was at this point that we moved the bed to have room for a dance floor. We broke into the booze to really get our night started. Will and Desi showed up a little bit later, Desi seemed to be a big fan of the giant bed that we had built, it seemed like she was up there for most of the night, although I do remember being in other spots as well. After this the details begin to get fuzzy, so I'll just tell it in the order I remember things rather than in chronological order because I'm too lazy to do the research.

Throughout the night there were a lot of people that showed up, as far as I remember everybody came before midnight. There was well, too many people to list, and people were constantly coming in and out of the party, but that's how parties go. Anyway, let's get to the highlights.

One girl, Jennifer, got so drunk that at one point I turned around and she was laying against one of the beds in the smaller room. Her shirt was up around her head and I think she was laughing. Later in the night her and some guy spent considerable time in the bathroom. Other people were not very happy because someone was in the other bathroom at the same time. I thought it was funny.

Arun gave Abel a call, and a mission, to drink a drink for every letter in his full name. Arun Chandra Srivastiva. 21 drinks. And Abel did it. There were a couple of times where we weren't sure whether or not he would, but he did it. He also spent the majority of his night in his boxers. He would have been full on nude, and in the middle of the hallway, if it hadn't been for Dennis. Instead everybody had to settle for watching Abel attempt a backflip, I wasn't actually there for that. His attempt did not work, and everyone said it looked like it hurt really bad but Abel said he had no back or neck pain in the morning, so go figure. He also spent a considerable amount of time wrestling his friend, I could of swore his name was Brandon. Later Brandon passed out, before midnight. He woke up with a ridiculous amount of writing on him. I'm sure he was just glad that we didn't have any permanent markers. But back to Abel. I remember at one point he was dancing with the beautiful Ann, which reminds me that I too was dancing with a beautiful girl (but more on that later). All in all I think Abel enjoyed himself, and helped everyone else to enjoy the party. One more quick note, he barely remembers the New Year happening (admittedly he was about 17 drinks deep at this point) but also because he was in the restroom skiing with Dennis and Aaron. It would of been really funny if Cream was playing in the background. Oh yah, what a party.

Hmm, now how about me. I had a great time. But as I think back on it although I enjoyed myself immensely it would be ridiculously boring to recount the things that happened to me. They're only exciting from my perspective, and not from yours. Besides, it's party of a story to be told at a later time.

Back to more highlights. How about when Morningstar (how's that for a name with some meaning) tried to fight Kalei. In retrospect that shit cracks me up. So Kalei, Jessie, and I were laying in bed talking about Christmas when all of the sudden Morningstar jumped up. "You talking shit bitch?" Dennis jumped up just as quickly and blocked her from bum rushing the bed. We were all taken aback at this. I'm still not sure what Morningstar thought she heard, but I swear to GOd that I was in the middle of talking about my family's love of boggle, and Christmas boggle tournaments, when she flipped out. Eventually Dennis kicked her out because she was just looking to cause trouble. It'll probably be a while before she comes and hangs out again.

After Morningstar had left Dennis was having problems sleeping so he decided that it'd be fun to mess with the rest of us. He basically went on for two and half hours with skeet jokes. Skizzle on your bizzle, and then he rams his phallus shaped pillow at your butt. Hide and go skeet, laying next the bed and then jumping up so he could hit us with the pillow while he yells "Skeet skeet skeet" over and over again. Skizzle on your fizzle (he kept hitting me in the back of the head, so not so much my fizzle as headizzle). He built a fort, basically threw a mattress on top of Kalei, Jessie, and I and then jumped on top of it. The craziest thing was that none of us could stop laughing. It was friggin' hilarious. After a while though, he finally quieted down and we got to sleep.

In the morning I woke up when Abel came and slapped me on the ass. Damn that hurt. It took us a while to finally clear out of the room. A bunch of us went out to breakfast at IHOP, then we went home. After breakfast I went to go buy some books (alright they were comic books). When I got home everyone was passed out in various positions around my apartment. You know it's a good night when so many people are passed out that two guys are having to share a couch.

Anyway, that was it. It's my favorite New Year's Eve party so far. But I'm sure that they'll only get better.

Happy New Year

So it was a good year for me. I went to so many concerts that it'd take too long to list them all. I'm working for the banking industry instead of a hotel and got a signifacant raise in the process. I got a new roommate out of an old friend and a new friend out of an old roommate. I don't have a girlfriend, but I still got a kiss as the New Year struck. I finished writing a novel; hopefully I can say I got it published when it's time to do my recap next year. I had an inexplicably fun summer with a little bit too much partying and not enough sleeping. I've begun to follow sports again, and found an amazing columnist in Bill Simmons. I've played enough video games to make me both proud and ashamed at the same time. But what can I say except I love video games. I was introduced to some really amazing pieces of fiction. From television to movies to graphic novels and good novels of the literary sort. I've met so many new people, sometimes it ended well and sometimes it ended poorly, but mostly they didn't end at all. Got to hang out with some amazing girls, and sometimes they hurt me and sometimes I hurt them, but I savored every moment positive or not because I knew that I was experiencing life. But the most important thing to me was that I truly enjoyed the year of 2005. So thank you to every that accompanied me on that leg of life, and I'm excited to experience the next one with you all.