Get On My Horse, I'll Take You 'Round The Universe

It is impossible to overdose on marijuana. This is a claim I have always heard, and usually believed since the only people who told me otherwise were the same people who told me one joints was more cancerous than five store-bought cigarettes. In light of recent experiences however, I'm not so sure anymore. I am still convinced it's (at least practically) impossible to smoke yourself to death, but is a non-lethal overdose possible? Consider the following.

Tuesday of last week was, of course, April 20th. To celebrate the day's festivities I didn't expect too much out of the ordinary. Some friends of mine had bought dishes to make cr me brul e, and I assumed we would feast on the Rolls Royce of stoner foods after smoking a few bowls and playing Mario Kart. But before that, I had a typical day of responsibility to take care of. At 2 I went to the dining hall to meet up with my friend Nick for lunch, as I do every day, only to find he wasn't there. I called him to ask where he was and I could immediately tell he was fairly baked and he had forgotten about lunch because of that. Being without a lunch date, I had no option but to join.

When I got there I was told to smoke fast, for we had a magical destination to go to. I did as told, and before I knew it we found ourselves in the parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. We ordered our food, got back in the car, and our mostly sober DD drove to the bowling alley for Andy and I's bowling class (yes, that is a class here) that Nick sat in on. Once we got there we finally got to sample the glory of our Double Downs that had been taunting us with their heavenly aroma the entire car ride. The sandwich is so greasy, it pruned the tips of Nick's fingers. It is so delightfully decadent and delicious, I've taken it upon myself to make my own at the dining halls when they have fried chicken patties available.

Our bowling professor showed up for class about ten minutes late and in all likelihood not sober herself. After saying "it's been one of those days" with a smile, she had the owner turn on the blacklights, laser lights, and 80s music for a round of what they call cosmic bowling. It was like a movie; throwing neon balls down a purple-lighted bowling lane to the sounds of Toto and The B52's. It was at this point in the day we decided that our lives are, collectively, the perfect stoner comedy. Double Downs dipped in mashed potatoes and gravy? High professors? Cosmic bowling? How could things get any better?

After a few healthy rounds of high Left 4 Dead 2 I got a call from two gay friends imploring Nick and I to join them at their house. Never saying no to inebriation, the two addicts journeyed the twenty minutes to sample the very 60's pop art bowl and mid-90's modern art bong and play some Super Mario RPG. Before long other people showed up with more festivities, more pieces, and more sativa. We matched their output by packing a hookah with almost an entire eighth and taking too many drags off it. But the coup de grace of the evening was the product of this strange beast-man, a friend of the happy couple's. He sat like a dog, snapped at moths that made their way into the house, and consistently sniffed the air about him. He's also an excellent cook, working at a restaurant in town and having prepared for the group five (huge) strawberry adorned cr me brul es enhanced with the taste of champagne and the wonders of weed. Eventually the night culminated in an exhausted game of truth or dare where I switched shirts with a woman and massaged said woman's cleavage with an ice cube. I don't know how I willed myself back to my room at 3 AM. The next morning I woke up still very baked and made an honest attempt to go to class before realizing that was simply not possible.

April 20th may have only been a week ago for you, but for me it is months in the past. I did not know it was possible to consume so much pot in one day that it alters your perception of time for the next week. There are people from that night that I have no recollection of other than others telling me about them. moreover it's as if all the events of the bast week are blurred together into one nondescript day; I don't remember what day or what time things happened. It's almost as if my recent life can be divided into pre- and post-4/20. But now I'm regaining a proper sense of time and my academics are chugging along just as strong as they were before (lucky for me, this week is midterm week, not last week). My night of debauchery and the recovery week following it were part startling and part incredible, the kind of college tale that only happens once in an academic career. Nevertheless, I think it may be time for some semblance of moderation to return to my life.

Amerikitsch

A few weeks ago a dear friend of mine learned that one of his in Long Island was recently rendered homeless and is, in her own words, starving. I suppose I should elaborate and say that these two have never met in person; they happened across one another on Omegle and liked each other enough to stay in touch. This was the first time in some time he had heard from his Omegle Princess and in the moment he was afraid he would never hear from her again. To remedy the problem I proposed we each get dressed, meet outside somewhere, steal a car and drive to New York. Don't pack anything, don't tell anyone we're going, just go. Ditch the car in Manhattan before spending a day to just walk around and absorb the sights. Get some coffee in Greenwich Village, then con our way into a hostel for the short term. Get jobs waiting tables at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant paying just enough for food and to help with rent while we live with my art school friend on the West Side. And eventually we'll have saved up enough money to take the three of us--myself, my friend, and his Omegle Princess--to see the Phantom of the Opera sequel on Broadway.

Now, despite the romantic nature of casting off everything and running to New York, we actually stayed here in Athens to tend to our various dry responsibilities that, at the time, neither of us really liked. Even in Athens, the bastion of knowledge and drugs that I so glorify, I find myself getting so tired of the daily affairs of life. Lately it's really gotten me down how routine and ordinary my life has become. Wake up, trudge to class, go to lunch, trudge back to class, come back to my dorm, dick around online, maybe go get high, come back, sleep. When weed becomes boring, you know you have a problem. I've always had my contentions with the clich but I had never noticed it to such an extent in my own life as I have this past week.

Part of the reason I feel so pulled towards people and places I've never seen in person, I think, is because they still have that element of mystery to them. Face-to-face communication is immensely different than anything the internet (or even the telephone) has to offer and without knowing each other in person there's still a shadowed perspective to the relationship. And this isn't to harsh on my friends in Athens or Rockville; (most of) those people are just as cool. Being part of a culture that still very much looks down on making friends through the internet it's a strange feeling when I find myself more attracted to some multiethnic mutt in North Carolina or a fiery ginger in Texas than the Ohioan I am was supposedly dating. Every time we talk I wonder how much different we would be together if they lived just down the street instead of millions of miles away.

In the grand scheme of things I am happy here, really I am. Athens is a wonderful little city and I know some great people here. I joke around and tell people I'm living a mid-life crisis at 19, but when a significant part of me wants to go be a bohemian New Yorker sometimes I wonder how much I'm actually joking. With one exception my classes range from fairly dull to suicidally inane, I have little to challenge me mentally, and I don't know anymore whether it's more impossible to find a (sane) boyfriend or a job in this pissant pseudoliberal backwater. However, my artsy nerve seems to be attempting a comeback, several of my friends will soon be done with their extracurriculars that have so far kept them out of my life this spring, and in the course of a breakup I found out I am a master troll (that's what the asshole gets for stealing my zippo). Through all of this tumult though there is a solid foundation, a something to fall back on if need be. Thanks for oddly being one of the more stable aspects of my life, internet people.

A Series of Open Letters

Of course I could specify who all these people are since none few of them read this blog, but that kind of takes the fun out of it.

Dear 1,

Thanks for the post idea.

Dear 2,

Stop fucking IMing/calling/texting me with nothing to say. "Sup?" does not count as having something to say. If you're gonna contact me, please, have something on your mind.

Dear 3,

Stop trying to tell me what to do with my goddamn life. If you were my boss and you told me to be more friendly to the customers, fine. If you were my teacher and told me to elaborate on a question more, okay. But my personal life is my dominion and nobody else's. Who are you to shoulder in on it and tell me I shouldn't do something? Fuck off.

Dear 4,

I don't know what to think about you anymore. While I enjoy the attention and appreciation (one might go so far as to call it validation) you haven't been around for a few weeks now, for various convenient reasons. I know you say I don't talk to you very much but I feel you're not very interested anymore, and honestly neither am I. I told you I didn't do this long distance shit the very first day I met you.

Dear 5,

Stop fucking up. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone has their slip-ups, fine, but goddamn. You know better. Oddly enough I can't really say I'm worried, but I am bothered.

Dear 6,

It seemed a bit irresponsible at the time but in the long run I think what we did right before break was very healthy for our friendship. Who would have thought sex could actually uncomplicate things (knock on wood)?

Dear 7,

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaked

Dear 8,

As time goes on I find there are fewer and fewer people whom I can spend an extended amount of time with and not wind up getting pissed off at. I don't know if that's a problem with me or with people, but regardless thank you for being someone I can spend hours with and call it a good day. Part of me wishes I had more people like that in my life, but if I did folks like you wouldn't seem as special.

Dear 9,

I know good and damn well you were not born with that face. What happened to it? And I don't mean that in an insulting way (even though you are a complete bitch), it's pure curiosity.

Dear 10,

At this point in our friendship it is glaringly obvious you want my dick. You, however, have a vagina. It's not going to work.