A funny way of looking at chemicals is:
In war there's all the politics, patriotism or revenge, whatever. The more evenly matched opposing forces are, the more a potential victor would have to supplement his physical forces with military wile to ensure victory. Then, hostilities subdued, this victor can regroup. He continues in this way, exchanging troops and tricks for each success, until a more cunning (or more powerful) opponent devours him and takes his place. This is all very organic. It's like supplementing yourself with caffeine to stay awake or mdma to stay happy, whatever maneuvre the terrain calls for, you've gotta stretch those forces out just long enough until you can find that period of calm and regroup before heading off conquering again. And, while not everybody's made out for warfare, everybody is made out of chemicals.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
It's Not Like I Was Ever Telling A Different Story
Andrew James Bolton
English 204
Mr. Christian Winn
17 September 2008
Djarum Blacks, Rev.
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as nowadays I can’t help feeling put on the spot during the forced meetings that take place within. I exhale slowly as the mirrored doors open and sit back to let everyone else leave before lighting a Camel Menthol and pushing through the double doors leading outside my dorm. Stepping down the stairs there appears at my side an acquaintance who greets me by name while I just call him Man, glancing down to watch my footing on the ice, or to avoid conveying my memory lapse. Just a few months ago I was more than anything excited to meet people as an incoming freshman at Boise State, but it seems my new friends are always most excited for introductions moments after I’ve gotten stoned and disinterested.
Today the grey Autumn feels more than ever like a transition, not an actual season, with piles of snow buried below plant matter, slowly decomposing in the gutter. We begin our shivering trot toward the Student Union Building for another nondescript campus meal, and I notice him pinching between his thumb and forefinger a black clove cigarette. In high school, before I’d determined my preference through experience, I already knew them as The Goth Kid Cigarettes. They spark brightly as one drags on them, then leave the tongue feeling strangely numb. The smoke is somewhat less offensive but far more intrusive than that of a standard tobacco cigarette, and for me paradoxically reminiscent of both gingerbread and excess. My companion and I walk, engaged as an automatic response in our ritual education complaints, and I squint to soften the trail of clove smoke that blows into my eyes.
In the weeks following my high school graduating class’s Commencement I found myself trying to decide on classes for the coming semester, still lacking the confidence of one who has a plan. Going to college was for me the preferable choice after graduating because it gave me a goal, however nebulous. I felt little internal anxiety over deciding a career mostly because the actual work required to get me to school had already been done by my parents over the course of my youth. More than anything I found myself concerned with finding ways to cope with the barrage of cliché expectations from people I hadn’t felt close to for years. Attempting to sum up what I could already tell was going to be at least a year of confusion just never appealed to me. I knew before anything else that come the end of break I would be leaving Idaho Falls, and I had a euphoric sense of disconnectedness from responsibility. It was essentially the last summer of my youth.
*
I’ve avoided cloves since climbing from the rubble of the night I first tried them, when I awoke coughing up bits of the pink and brown lung butter deposited from an entire pack. Smoking cigarettes in general was still a novelty to me, and I had bought the cloves earlier that day as a novelty for the evening. A neighborhood friend Josh whom I’d known nearly all my life had invited me to come hang out and smoke at the fire pit in his parents’ backyard. I lived within a few blocks and long boarded over around ten o‘clock, the sun still barely lighting the sky from below the horizon as I closed the gate to his backyard behind me. A glass patio table had been pulled out to accommodate the already numerous guests, and as I approached it I could see two of my friends around it, silhouetted against the fire behind them. John and DeWitt were rolling a joint as I sat down next to them and lit a clove. “Yo dawgs. What’s up?”
John glanced up and said “Hey man,“ then continued concentrating on rolling. Dee was giving his standard huge smile, relaxed in a patio loveseat, said “’Sup dawg, ha ha. There’s beer in that cooler over there,” he pointed toward the fire, “Blue Ribbon.” He held his up as evidence.
*
It was always interesting during that summer to see how many people I recognized at any given gathering, and to try to remember where each would disappear to in a few short months. It wouldn’t come for more than a few, partially because it just seemed so unreal at this point. There were hardly any specific memories I could call on to distinguish each person, so melded together had my early life become at that point. I’d known some of them my entire schooling career. Recognizing that I was unlikely to really know most of those around me in only a few years had also led me to a state of detachment from everyone but those whom I had just joined. I had found an aspect of mutual trust in the relationships formed with these cohorts due to the inherent (though truthfully slight) risk in our indulgence that took a quick hold on my emotional availability, and it was with them I found myself feeling most comfortable.
*
Now equipped with an audience, I generously wasted only a few minutes settling in before lighting my first clove, dragging hard to passively show off the sparks. It attracted immediate attention, and I was forced to explain, to my blithe delight, the many details. I am still young enough that this conversation could happen today.
Dee asked, “Well, but wait. How could they put black powder in the paper? Wouldn’t that be like, way bad for you?”
I sniffed. “Well obviously they don’t put in enough for it to be bad for you, dude, they wouldn’t get any customers if they did. It’s economics! Also, smell them.” He was forced to consent his skepticism in the face of the holiday cheer I wafted his way, and I went on. “They make your mouth feel like you ate a bunch of banana Runts after a while, because of the cloves, and the clerk at Tobacco Connection told me she only smokes them when she has a sore throat.”
“What, it‘s like a menthol then.”
“Dude, no, it’s like Novocain.” I gave them each one, and John announced he’d completed his joint.
*
Most of the people who frequented the same gatherings I found myself at were tolerant of, but we still generally smoked away from the main group. Josh had just returned from a beer run and made his way over to our group with a few cans of Pabst.
“Hey guys… probably you could just smoke under the tramp. Neighbors won’t see you.” He stepped over to the fire pit while we found dry patches of grass. Josh had one of the king-sized trampolines, the kind you don’t realize are larger than normal until half of your body slips between the springs. John and I settled under on the side facing the fire, with Dee again silhouetted. We watched him light it from across the way and and crawled across the fourteen foot circle to pass it to John.
Josh returned a moment later with Colin and Mark, who brought a second joint to the circle and sat down. It’s a nervous habit, but I wiped my lips on my sleeve before either was near enough to me for anyone to notice; the folkway of clockwise progression in the sharing of marijuana was under way, and it’s not uncommon to keep on eye on those taking hits, if only out of repressed avarice. I also have the unfortunate tendency to leave spittle on social joints, and only seconds later Colin was telling me to pay attention as he shook it near my face. We worked out a two puff pass and in a few minutes they were done, and our meeting disbanded.
*
At this point I took it upon myself to assume the graciousness of our host with another beverage and a warm seat by the fire. Smoking tobacco immediately after marijuana for some reason seems to amplify their effects, and I lit another clove. I knew most of those around the fire, but was mostly just looking for a place to get warm. It was that time of year, people were just overly curious about the most minute associate’s future. I buffeted their questioning with the same prepared lines I gave to my father’s friends at church.
“Where are you going to school?”
Smiling, I replied, “Boise State actually, and mostly because…”
“Why?”
“…Uhm. Because my major is fairly common and my parents are helping me with my funding, so I’d rather just stay in state to keep the cost low.”
“Oh! What are you majoring in?”
“Train Driving, a minor in Spelling.”
“What?”
*
It was unfortunately never possible to let it end at that, as in my preparations there were no further questions to be asked. When I was pressed for some sort of response that could be found more ‘legitimate’, I would give them whichever answer seemed most likely to appease them; lying to these long-time peers was no different at this point from lying to old religious strangers. Telling them I hadn’t declared a major would just result in more of the same unnecessary pity. I understand that it‘s all just formality, but that doesn‘t make it less of a waste of time. I was also aware that most of them were unsure of what their goals really were anyway.
*
I have found that in different peer groups there come to exist memes which are particular of the members’ knowledge and experience. The general understanding is that nobody is fretting as to the validity of any one over another, but that as with most harmless myths you’re better off just playing it safe. The most common of these little bits of cultural exchange are a pair which endearingly rhyme, the first being “beer before liquor, never sicker” (or alternatively, “throw up quicker”), the second simply the same rule reversed. Throughout the course of the evening I began to wonder whether there were a similar rule which could be applied to the combination of alcohol and any other substance, and that I perhaps ought to have already known it if it existed. These are the thoughts we would forget if there were no irony.
*
As with the natural progression of such social events, things more or less repeated themselves in varyingly humorous ways until around two in the morning. I had embraced the anesthetic quality of the cloves as a sort of tickly mouth euphoria and surpassed the issue by ensuring that there were none to be had the following morning; I’d given out five, smoked thirteen, and broken one. Both the nicotine content and the price had been unsatisfying, and I was fully aware of my desire to enjoy a Camel the following morning. I smoked the last two while long boarding lazily home and deposited the box in the gutter half a block from my house, where I took a deep breath and paused, staring at it for a moment. I noticed suddenly that my mouth was filling with hot saliva completely of its own volition, and I gave in to the expulsion, finding satisfaction only in my privacy. Stumbling through my frustration I cleaned my teeth and fell slowly asleep.
The numbness departed fifteen minutes after I’d smoked the last clove, and as it did so I could already feel how raw the back of my throat was. Only after nights like that do I recall being impartially impressed by the strain of a deep breath, the feeling of breaking through a silk webbing inside my lungs with really only the force of my will to aid. In the morning when I would wipe the dry mucus from my eyes I’d find myself coughing up an entirely different form of the same stuff for at least an hour. To this day I’ve never let it bother me, claimed it as my own through such misnomers as lung butter, and unpredictably I’ve found comfort in the lack of certainty in such simple matters as my hypothetical educational future. Not being bound by any self-created goal prevented any question of success or failure to mar my experience, in turn facilitating the desire to move beyond the life of the town I had grown up in. Seeking order in what was mostly chaos, I’ve managed to convince myself that any decisions which I make that in retrospect I regret are simply another aspect of the transition I’m experiencing between young adult to responsible adult. Those are, of course, the categories.
--
And so, that's sort of how it happened. I mean, I got drunk.
I only really edited it to flesh out some stuff, and make it look better... whatever, dudes.
English 204
Mr. Christian Winn
17 September 2008
Djarum Blacks, Rev.
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as nowadays I can’t help feeling put on the spot during the forced meetings that take place within. I exhale slowly as the mirrored doors open and sit back to let everyone else leave before lighting a Camel Menthol and pushing through the double doors leading outside my dorm. Stepping down the stairs there appears at my side an acquaintance who greets me by name while I just call him Man, glancing down to watch my footing on the ice, or to avoid conveying my memory lapse. Just a few months ago I was more than anything excited to meet people as an incoming freshman at Boise State, but it seems my new friends are always most excited for introductions moments after I’ve gotten stoned and disinterested.
Today the grey Autumn feels more than ever like a transition, not an actual season, with piles of snow buried below plant matter, slowly decomposing in the gutter. We begin our shivering trot toward the Student Union Building for another nondescript campus meal, and I notice him pinching between his thumb and forefinger a black clove cigarette. In high school, before I’d determined my preference through experience, I already knew them as The Goth Kid Cigarettes. They spark brightly as one drags on them, then leave the tongue feeling strangely numb. The smoke is somewhat less offensive but far more intrusive than that of a standard tobacco cigarette, and for me paradoxically reminiscent of both gingerbread and excess. My companion and I walk, engaged as an automatic response in our ritual education complaints, and I squint to soften the trail of clove smoke that blows into my eyes.
In the weeks following my high school graduating class’s Commencement I found myself trying to decide on classes for the coming semester, still lacking the confidence of one who has a plan. Going to college was for me the preferable choice after graduating because it gave me a goal, however nebulous. I felt little internal anxiety over deciding a career mostly because the actual work required to get me to school had already been done by my parents over the course of my youth. More than anything I found myself concerned with finding ways to cope with the barrage of cliché expectations from people I hadn’t felt close to for years. Attempting to sum up what I could already tell was going to be at least a year of confusion just never appealed to me. I knew before anything else that come the end of break I would be leaving Idaho Falls, and I had a euphoric sense of disconnectedness from responsibility. It was essentially the last summer of my youth.
*
I’ve avoided cloves since climbing from the rubble of the night I first tried them, when I awoke coughing up bits of the pink and brown lung butter deposited from an entire pack. Smoking cigarettes in general was still a novelty to me, and I had bought the cloves earlier that day as a novelty for the evening. A neighborhood friend Josh whom I’d known nearly all my life had invited me to come hang out and smoke at the fire pit in his parents’ backyard. I lived within a few blocks and long boarded over around ten o‘clock, the sun still barely lighting the sky from below the horizon as I closed the gate to his backyard behind me. A glass patio table had been pulled out to accommodate the already numerous guests, and as I approached it I could see two of my friends around it, silhouetted against the fire behind them. John and DeWitt were rolling a joint as I sat down next to them and lit a clove. “Yo dawgs. What’s up?”
John glanced up and said “Hey man,“ then continued concentrating on rolling. Dee was giving his standard huge smile, relaxed in a patio loveseat, said “’Sup dawg, ha ha. There’s beer in that cooler over there,” he pointed toward the fire, “Blue Ribbon.” He held his up as evidence.
*
It was always interesting during that summer to see how many people I recognized at any given gathering, and to try to remember where each would disappear to in a few short months. It wouldn’t come for more than a few, partially because it just seemed so unreal at this point. There were hardly any specific memories I could call on to distinguish each person, so melded together had my early life become at that point. I’d known some of them my entire schooling career. Recognizing that I was unlikely to really know most of those around me in only a few years had also led me to a state of detachment from everyone but those whom I had just joined. I had found an aspect of mutual trust in the relationships formed with these cohorts due to the inherent (though truthfully slight) risk in our indulgence that took a quick hold on my emotional availability, and it was with them I found myself feeling most comfortable.
*
Now equipped with an audience, I generously wasted only a few minutes settling in before lighting my first clove, dragging hard to passively show off the sparks. It attracted immediate attention, and I was forced to explain, to my blithe delight, the many details. I am still young enough that this conversation could happen today.
Dee asked, “Well, but wait. How could they put black powder in the paper? Wouldn’t that be like, way bad for you?”
I sniffed. “Well obviously they don’t put in enough for it to be bad for you, dude, they wouldn’t get any customers if they did. It’s economics! Also, smell them.” He was forced to consent his skepticism in the face of the holiday cheer I wafted his way, and I went on. “They make your mouth feel like you ate a bunch of banana Runts after a while, because of the cloves, and the clerk at Tobacco Connection told me she only smokes them when she has a sore throat.”
“What, it‘s like a menthol then.”
“Dude, no, it’s like Novocain.” I gave them each one, and John announced he’d completed his joint.
*
Most of the people who frequented the same gatherings I found myself at were tolerant of, but we still generally smoked away from the main group. Josh had just returned from a beer run and made his way over to our group with a few cans of Pabst.
“Hey guys… probably you could just smoke under the tramp. Neighbors won’t see you.” He stepped over to the fire pit while we found dry patches of grass. Josh had one of the king-sized trampolines, the kind you don’t realize are larger than normal until half of your body slips between the springs. John and I settled under on the side facing the fire, with Dee again silhouetted. We watched him light it from across the way and and crawled across the fourteen foot circle to pass it to John.
Josh returned a moment later with Colin and Mark, who brought a second joint to the circle and sat down. It’s a nervous habit, but I wiped my lips on my sleeve before either was near enough to me for anyone to notice; the folkway of clockwise progression in the sharing of marijuana was under way, and it’s not uncommon to keep on eye on those taking hits, if only out of repressed avarice. I also have the unfortunate tendency to leave spittle on social joints, and only seconds later Colin was telling me to pay attention as he shook it near my face. We worked out a two puff pass and in a few minutes they were done, and our meeting disbanded.
*
At this point I took it upon myself to assume the graciousness of our host with another beverage and a warm seat by the fire. Smoking tobacco immediately after marijuana for some reason seems to amplify their effects, and I lit another clove. I knew most of those around the fire, but was mostly just looking for a place to get warm. It was that time of year, people were just overly curious about the most minute associate’s future. I buffeted their questioning with the same prepared lines I gave to my father’s friends at church.
“Where are you going to school?”
Smiling, I replied, “Boise State actually, and mostly because…”
“Why?”
“…Uhm. Because my major is fairly common and my parents are helping me with my funding, so I’d rather just stay in state to keep the cost low.”
“Oh! What are you majoring in?”
“Train Driving, a minor in Spelling.”
“What?”
*
It was unfortunately never possible to let it end at that, as in my preparations there were no further questions to be asked. When I was pressed for some sort of response that could be found more ‘legitimate’, I would give them whichever answer seemed most likely to appease them; lying to these long-time peers was no different at this point from lying to old religious strangers. Telling them I hadn’t declared a major would just result in more of the same unnecessary pity. I understand that it‘s all just formality, but that doesn‘t make it less of a waste of time. I was also aware that most of them were unsure of what their goals really were anyway.
*
I have found that in different peer groups there come to exist memes which are particular of the members’ knowledge and experience. The general understanding is that nobody is fretting as to the validity of any one over another, but that as with most harmless myths you’re better off just playing it safe. The most common of these little bits of cultural exchange are a pair which endearingly rhyme, the first being “beer before liquor, never sicker” (or alternatively, “throw up quicker”), the second simply the same rule reversed. Throughout the course of the evening I began to wonder whether there were a similar rule which could be applied to the combination of alcohol and any other substance, and that I perhaps ought to have already known it if it existed. These are the thoughts we would forget if there were no irony.
*
As with the natural progression of such social events, things more or less repeated themselves in varyingly humorous ways until around two in the morning. I had embraced the anesthetic quality of the cloves as a sort of tickly mouth euphoria and surpassed the issue by ensuring that there were none to be had the following morning; I’d given out five, smoked thirteen, and broken one. Both the nicotine content and the price had been unsatisfying, and I was fully aware of my desire to enjoy a Camel the following morning. I smoked the last two while long boarding lazily home and deposited the box in the gutter half a block from my house, where I took a deep breath and paused, staring at it for a moment. I noticed suddenly that my mouth was filling with hot saliva completely of its own volition, and I gave in to the expulsion, finding satisfaction only in my privacy. Stumbling through my frustration I cleaned my teeth and fell slowly asleep.
The numbness departed fifteen minutes after I’d smoked the last clove, and as it did so I could already feel how raw the back of my throat was. Only after nights like that do I recall being impartially impressed by the strain of a deep breath, the feeling of breaking through a silk webbing inside my lungs with really only the force of my will to aid. In the morning when I would wipe the dry mucus from my eyes I’d find myself coughing up an entirely different form of the same stuff for at least an hour. To this day I’ve never let it bother me, claimed it as my own through such misnomers as lung butter, and unpredictably I’ve found comfort in the lack of certainty in such simple matters as my hypothetical educational future. Not being bound by any self-created goal prevented any question of success or failure to mar my experience, in turn facilitating the desire to move beyond the life of the town I had grown up in. Seeking order in what was mostly chaos, I’ve managed to convince myself that any decisions which I make that in retrospect I regret are simply another aspect of the transition I’m experiencing between young adult to responsible adult. Those are, of course, the categories.
--
And so, that's sort of how it happened. I mean, I got drunk.
I only really edited it to flesh out some stuff, and make it look better... whatever, dudes.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Fall of 2008 (or, Chumpsgiving)
Andrew Bolton
Writing Creative Nonfiction
Christian Winn
8th Dec 2008
Fall Of 2008 (Chumpsgiving)
I ended my time after high school in Idaho Falls with less friends than I’d had at almost any other point of my life, but feeling more confident in my friendships than I had in a long time. I’d had a pretty static daily routine the summer before my Freshman year at BSU, and spent a large number of my days in the company of long-time friends Colin and Ryan, smoking with the former and playing videogames with the latter; it was predominantly because of these friendships that I decided to move to Boise over any other college town. The last thing I wanted to deal with on top of harder schooling was attempting to make new friends, and maintaining some connection with my home town and youth provided me with a great deal of comfort. Ryan and I were going to school while Colin lived with his aunt and uncle and worked at Hotel 43 as a desk clerk. Already upon moving to Boise it felt strange that even though we had relocated to a fairly different city and were focusing on a new period of our lives, I could still call them up or walk to their house to find them doing the same things we’d done for the past three years. There were very few among the other Freshmen I met while living in Towers that year whose chief priority was education, so uncertain as we were as to what we ought to apply ourselves to, and life felt like the sort of summer camp Disney would never make reality shows about.
It only took Colin a short time to grow weary of his workplace’s haughtiness and in early October he moved to Bend, Oregon. While the distance was more than manageable, my beloved and tuition-paying mother and father had announced to me that for my first year away from home they would prefer if I didn’t have a vehicle to distract me from school. I also had decided of my own volition not to get a job so that I could instead take three honors courses a semester, which made both my promises and my desires to vacation from Boise feel hollow. I never managed to make it over there, and Colin returned to spend another summer in Idaho, primarily because we were all aware that it might have been the last time most of our high school friends were in the same place. In early August I drove the two of us to Boise and he took a bus back to Bend.
My parents had insisted I not drive my car back to Idaho Falls over this Thanksgiving break, in case the weather unexpectedly turned. It didn’t, and it was only with a small amount of bitterness that I dropped the seventy dollars to secure a seat on the shuttle home. But my mother has always been something of a worrywart when it comes to traveling, and they enjoyed driving me to Boise. It had become something of a routine vacation for them since the middle of the summer, when I began to despair in my search for housing in the fall. Ada County seems to have a zero tolerance policy for petty criminals, and I had received my first misdemeanor violation in May; finding an apartment while I had no rental history and so recent a run-in with the enforcers became increasingly difficult as I searched online from Idaho Falls. Most of the people I had met during the previous school year had solved this problem before being kicked out of the dorms, but because I was to spend the summer at home I had slacked off.
My father had, unbeknownst to me, began what ultimately proved to be a fruitful search for any potentially fitting and economically logical property to house me. We found the townhouse while on one of our many trips early in the summer, and after completing the transaction it became a project my parents relished working on. Not having my car in Idaho Falls over the break meant they again had to come to Boise, and they made certain to ask me how different aspects of the house they’d previously put work into were getting along. All of their fuss had made me uneasy from the beginning, as they certainly would not have felt as much pressure to make the investment if I’d had the sense not to transgress a scant few months before. Going to school was also still something I considered somewhat temporary, something to keep me active while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have parents who planned for helping me financially with school, but that they actually purchased a house to help me achieve a sane studying environment has only made me feel more pressured to commit to one area of study. That they have invested so much into my schooling already also has led them to fear anything that could potentially set me off course, and so rather than make them fret I decided to stop telling them. As long as I’m healthy and make it through school satisfactorily they don’t need to worry about me.
We pulled up to the townhouse around four in the afternoon the Friday following Thanksgiving, and my parents left to check in to their hotel. My roommate Tessa had decided a few weeks before that she would move out to her mother’s house to help support her for a few months, and when I got upstairs she seemed surprised to see me, apologizing for not having moved all of her stuff out yet. I ignored it and went into my room to feverishly reorganize, taking beer cans out of the garbage to hide in the dumpster out back, slipping my pipes into the plastic shelf my Sunday school youth director gave everyone in the graduating class of 2007. Undoubtedly I should already have known what jobs around the house we were planning on getting accomplished during this visit, but through repetition all of the visits began to blur together and I was primarily determined to avoid any altercations.
From the beginning of the semester communication with my roommates slowly became less fluid. My parents as landlords eventually ended up dealing more directly with them than I, despite that they were both friends from the previous school year. There was no way I could have known my relationship with Jim and Tessa would become so tense while they hid their arguments behind hushed tones or closed doors, perhaps in a failed attempt to not make me feel surrounded by it. It got to the point where very little genuine conversation took place, and I would return from work to a house more tired than I. Still, I had offered to help her get organized during the days before break and she had insisted it was no problem. They might have lived in the same building as I, but even to say we interacted on any deeper level than greetings would be pushing it.
I drove to meet my parents an hour later at The Bonefish Grill downtown. Surprisingly inside they were playing music one would only expect to hear in a hipster Portland coffee shop, and the experience would have been exceptional even if I hadn’t made certain I was stoned enough to enjoy anything. I returned home to company in the form of Tessa and her friend Brittany, but spent most of the night packing up a small supply of clothes and toiletries into my backpack, which I then hid in the garage closet before calling Colin.
“Andy, hey, what’s up big guy?” My dad used to call me big guy and ever since Colin heard so he’d taken up the name, mostly because I’m half his size.
“Not much, just… livin’ the life.”
I’d recently taken to following that statement up with a literal description of my life, but telling him about homework, pot, playing Fallout 3 and reading Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road just didn‘t really seem applicable, despite that I would’ve said as much to anyone else. “Are you in Bend?”
“Yeah; dude, I’m so drunk. Chumpsgiving.”
“Whoa, yeah, that’s right. Uhm. So I’m going to be there tomorrow and Sunday. Just so you know.”
“Dude. Fuck yes. Good. But, I gotta go. I love you big guy!”
As long as I’d known them Ryan and Colin had been members of the Belegarth foam sword fighting group God Squad. Several times a year anywhere from a hundred to several thousand sword fighters would get together for events, and Chumpsgiving was a smaller, God Squad-only weekend gathering. The majority of the days were spent sleeping until noon, then fighting until the sun went down, at which point they’d begin drinking until everyone fell asleep. Ryan was busy with his family over the weekend, but I had gotten my friend and co-worker Mike interested in seeing Colin and just getting out of Boise by mentioning Oregon‘s notoriety for low weed prices, and we agreed to leave Saturday morning as soon as we were able to do so without alerting my parents to our plans.
Sure enough, the following morning my father woke me up determined to help me repair the computer desk we purchased second-hand from one of his co-workers. The keyboard slider part was completely broken, but he had brought the proper hardware to repair it. It took him about two hours to complete that while my mother and I worked on cleaning up a transmission fluid spill in the garage; I’d had my car’s radiator replaced before driving to Boise in August and they apparently had forgotten to apply clamps to the proper hoses. The whole time I was extremely antsy while Mike continually sent me text messages asking for updates on our situation, and there was zero opportunity to enjoy even a cigarette at the townhouse while my parents were there. It wasn’t until eleven-thirty that they felt they had accomplished as much as they needed to before heading out. My dad always asks me how I’m doing financially right before he leaves, and gives me a twenty if I say anything remotely implying a need. This school year I’d been mostly turning him down because I’ve had work, but today I said, “I have about fifteen dollars and get paid on Tuesday, so, you know… I should be alright.”
“Well. Why don’t I… you know, just in case.”
On the one hand I felt guilty for accepting more money from him, but I knew I would need it for gas, and I reasoned with myself that being less stressed about money would allow me to focus more on getting through the rest of this semester. Not that I was planning on studying before returning to school on Monday, but there’s only so much stress I can allow myself to feel at one time, and this vacation was a sudden enough plan as it was. Besides, Tessa and I had cleaned the house for one of the first times before break began, and my parents were more pleased than ever with its appearance.
Before going to Michael’s I loaded a bowl and sat down on the family room couch. Tessa was carrying a load of stuff to be moved to her mom’s house down the stairs, and I invited her to smoke with me. For a second it seemed like she was going to say no, and I added, “Unless you have work or whatever, I just thought since you’ll be moved out by the time I get back…”.
She glanced down and dropped the bag, laughed a little and said, “Yeah, alright.” It was nice to at least get to hang out with her one last time while Jim was in California, because she was much more upbeat, and they truly had both been good friends of mine before we lived together. I felt that she was going to take the opportunity to fill me in on what was happening with her and Jim, but all she told me was that she was sort of looking forward to living with her mother because it would help her better understand what she wanted. Getting her stuff out before Jimmy returned Sunday evening from Carlsbad was a priority for her, and all I could say through my ignorance of their situation was to wish her luck in speedy packing, then feel like a jackass as I pulled my car out of the garage a few minutes later.
At Mike’s we smoked another bowl before getting into my car and pulling onto I-84. While driving stoned is still legally considered driving under the influence, for long trips I have found that it makes time go exponentially faster, and it‘s definitely a matter of opinion as to whether or not it’s any harder. We did get lost, but it was as a result of following our Google Maps printout directly. Getting real directions was only a matter of asking a customer in a Weizer, Idaho gun-slash-antler store, and by swapping drivers and sleeping during the other’s shift we were able to arrive in Bend around six-thirty. Colin’s house was also fortunately easy to find, it being in a trailer park just off the state highway exit, and we pulled in within a few minutes. Leaving our backpacks in the car, we rang the doorbell.
Colin’s roommate Manny opened the door. I’d never met Manny, but I knew it was him because he’s the only black member of God Squad, and because he said, “Colin, your little nigger friends are here.” He meandered off into the house, grinning, and we followed him to where around eighteen people were crammed into a kitchen, family room, and Colin’s bedroom. As soon as he saw us Colin bombarded us with a bear hug and ushered us into his room.
“Andy, this is Bishop, Kurgan, Dyse and Lloki - guys, we’re gonna smoke now, so…” he trailed off, staring at the four of them and shaking his head. I’d heard all of their fighting names before from stories Colin and Ryan had told of past events, and I introduced myself somewhat meekly as they filed out. Our reception to the house had jolted me a bit, and I was feeling somewhat out of my element, so it was nice to be able to hang out with just Colin and Mike. He filled us in on their plan for the evening while almost blindly packing a bowl with one hand.
“So hey big guy, how’s it goin’, how was the drive? …Good, that’s good. Oh my god man, we have so many people here. I guess Shino’s having a keggar tonight at his house, in like an hour. The rest of the fighters are there. Fuck.” He looked down for a second at the hit or two he’d spilled on the carpet, and rubbed it in as he said, “You bring bud?”
“In the glove box, yeah.”
“Save it. We’ll leave as soon as everyone else gets out of my house.” He passed me the pipe.
Colin walked back out to mingle with his guests, and I was spared having to begin memorizing a bunch of one time use names by asking to check the internet. Instinctively I logged into my email account. That I was so out of the loop as to be first informed of my roommates ending their relationship through a social networking website made me feel numb. I wasn’t even surprised, just sorry for them, the resent I had felt for their cutting me off replaced with a vicarious anxiety. I thought heavily about sending Jim a text message just giving him some support, because it truly required thought, and ultimately decided against what felt like meddling at so late a stage. I logged off, walked over to Mike and suggested we go to smoke cigarettes.
We’d just lit them when everyone else suddenly took our cue and piled into their cars. Colin came out and sat with us on the porch while we smoked, telling us about his Chumpsgiving experience so far. I flicked my cigarette into the street and we hopped back into my car.
It was only about a five minute drive to Shino’s house, which Colin described simply as having “a history. There’ve been fighters living there for like twelve years, it’s crazy.” The first thing I noticed was the piano out on the front porch, tagged but still apparently tuned. Inside on the base floor all of the walls met the ceiling with a curve. Even the inner corners were curved, and with the dim yellow lights it felt like a cave. Beyond the kitchen there was what looked like a fold-up staircase down to the basement. They had somehow gotten two beds and a beer pong table into this cellar as well as the keg, which they just now tapped, and we got in line to listen obediently to the name of whichever local brewery provided the draught and take our fill before heading back upstairs. Mike and I followed Colin down a narrow hallway at the back of the foyer, then up an abrupt and equally narrow twisting staircase. The upstairs consisted of a hallway ending in a small dark bedroom, with a closet and a toilet-only restroom set into either side.
I wound up spending the majority of the night in this bedroom, leaving for only short periods at a time to refill my cup or smoke a cigarette. It seemed whenever I would find myself getting interested in dancing or having a legitimate conversation Colin would show up with another of his friends and ask me to go smoke another bowl with him. The room had a thoroughly comfortable, minimalist vibe to it though. Tapestries hung on all the walls and the two corner tables opposite the bed had legs that formed several lower surfaces below the main ones, each with different objects centered below. Staying there just happened as a result of various different people filtering in and out midway through a bowl, and offering to match us up for our generosity. I had stored upwards of twenty names and was just going over them with some whimsical satisfaction when I realized how drunk I was. Looking at Michael, whose head was in his hands, I decided it was a good time to leave. Colin managed to find someone to drive my car back to his place, and the last thing I remember is trying to fall asleep while Manny beat my legs with a pillow and yelled at me to get my feet off of his furniture.
The next day was far more relaxed. We woke up before anyone else in the house with various types of hangover, and immediately followed Colin’s suggestion for biscuits and gravy at a nearby breakfast-only place called Sargent’s Café. The chief flaw in my planning had been that Michael and I failed to realize that even in Oregon, businesses treat Sunday a little bit differently. It struck me as simply unintuitive to find all three of Bend’s major pipe shops to recognize the Sabbath. We ended up being forced to look in a corner gas station mere blocks from Colin‘s, where both Mike and I managed to talk the cashier down five dollars before each purchasing one of their overpriced pipes. We then walked to a nearby park, where we met the rest of the fighters who’d far overslept us at his house, and he began to change into his fighting garb.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“We’ll fight until four or so.”
I immediately laid down on the grass and fell back asleep.
I awoke when Colin sat down next to me, right at four. “You hungry guy?”
“Uhm. Yeah man.” I pulled myself up and shook my hair, popped my neck, stretched. “What’s food?”
“Well, it was Chumpsgiving, so leftovers?”
“Yeah, we’ll do leftovers.”
Going to Washington or Oregon has always represented to me an excellent opportunity to pick up anything pot related, and neither Mike nor I spared any expense for this trip, though that certainly hadn’t been my purpose. Even though I had known from the beginning that I would only get to spend a day and a half there if I wanted to get back to Boise in time for school, the simple act of going there and experiencing what Bend and life for Colin in Bend were like simplified things. While we ate turkey and watched television I looked down and saw an Xbox with Fallout 3’s case on the ground beside it. I suddenly remembered seeing a copy of The Road when I first arrived, in the bathroom Colin shared with Manny.
We were walking out the door, ready to leave when I asked him, jokingly, “Does it seem like Post-Apocalyptia is taking over America’s collective subconscious? What is with all this post-nuclear war entertainment out there all of a sudden?”
He laughed and shook his head too. “The world’s coming to an end big guy. Drive safe!” And we nearly did, though a semi going the opposite way on the two-lane state highway attempted to pass the vehicle in front of him and literally ran us off the road for a few moments. Michael had been driving, though, so we survived. I managed not to mention the fears my mother had had earlier in the week.
Seeing things in Colin’s life that like the previous year mirrored the things in mine only served to point out to me that I hadn’t hardly gotten a chance to talk to him about anything in my life during my visit, as I’d hoped to. I’d missed him greatly since August, particularly after I ended up living in such an oddly unsettling environment. With almost none of the people I’d come to care for over the summer living in Boise this fall, I had looked forward to the trip optimistically as an opportunity to talk with a close enough friend that I could maybe figure out what was really getting under my skin. But I could tell that even though we rarely talked on the phone, we weren’t really becoming distant, and that brought me comfort too, if not any sort of solution.
Michael wanted to drive the whole way home after we’d nearly been killed, and I decided to just continue sleeping. I dropped him off at home and pulled into my garage around eleven. Walking in through the back door I caught Tessa and Britney again, on their way out. The basket on Tessa’s bike held a box filled with the books of hers from our community bookshelf. I again offered to give them a ride but she declined, saying as she closed the gate behind her that it was her last load and she had to make sure she got her bike home safely.
She’d left one of her nagchampa incense sticks burning, and the house was just as spotless as before I left, so there was nothing to do but start a load of laundry and sleep. Monday morning I woke up too late for class, not having realized how tiring travel is through the haze we’d constructed over the whole trip. For the first time since I‘d moved into the townhouse in August I had the place to myself, and I spent most of the day letting my new housing circumstances sink in. Jim’s flight was to come in from Las Vegas that evening around midnight, and though I enjoyed the house being so clean his return would be worth it. Living with a couple had been a mistake from the beginning, but with just the two of us there would be far less competition for either space or attention, and I looked forward to the rest of the semester as though starting my relationship with him anew.
Around six in the evening on Monday my father called me.
“Hey Andrew, how are you?
I didn’t mention waking up late, as was my custom. “Pretty good, the desk has been working well.”
“That’s actually one of the things I called you about. I’m glad to hear that; so did Tessa move out then?”
“I guess so… she still has some of her stuff strewn about but I think packing up was hectic for her, so I’ve been trying to tell her not to worry about it. I guess she broke up with Jim last week.”
“Yeah, she told us that when we talked to her over the internet on Thursday. You know how those things go, though….”
“That I do.” I wasn’t affected by the information, almost expecting him to have already known at this point. “Anyway, Jim should be home tonight so I’ll maybe get to hang out with him.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late. Make sure you get your homework done.”
“Haha, I know Dad, thank you.”
“Alright big guy, I’m gonna go then. Glad things are going well. Love you,” he said.
“Thanks, I love you too.”
I hung up and went outside to smoke a cigarette, waiting for Jim’s call to go pick him up and wondering about it still feeling like I could just walk over to Colin’s and find him playing Fallout, or smoking a cigarette in his own back yard.
Writing Creative Nonfiction
Christian Winn
8th Dec 2008
Fall Of 2008 (Chumpsgiving)
I ended my time after high school in Idaho Falls with less friends than I’d had at almost any other point of my life, but feeling more confident in my friendships than I had in a long time. I’d had a pretty static daily routine the summer before my Freshman year at BSU, and spent a large number of my days in the company of long-time friends Colin and Ryan, smoking with the former and playing videogames with the latter; it was predominantly because of these friendships that I decided to move to Boise over any other college town. The last thing I wanted to deal with on top of harder schooling was attempting to make new friends, and maintaining some connection with my home town and youth provided me with a great deal of comfort. Ryan and I were going to school while Colin lived with his aunt and uncle and worked at Hotel 43 as a desk clerk. Already upon moving to Boise it felt strange that even though we had relocated to a fairly different city and were focusing on a new period of our lives, I could still call them up or walk to their house to find them doing the same things we’d done for the past three years. There were very few among the other Freshmen I met while living in Towers that year whose chief priority was education, so uncertain as we were as to what we ought to apply ourselves to, and life felt like the sort of summer camp Disney would never make reality shows about.
It only took Colin a short time to grow weary of his workplace’s haughtiness and in early October he moved to Bend, Oregon. While the distance was more than manageable, my beloved and tuition-paying mother and father had announced to me that for my first year away from home they would prefer if I didn’t have a vehicle to distract me from school. I also had decided of my own volition not to get a job so that I could instead take three honors courses a semester, which made both my promises and my desires to vacation from Boise feel hollow. I never managed to make it over there, and Colin returned to spend another summer in Idaho, primarily because we were all aware that it might have been the last time most of our high school friends were in the same place. In early August I drove the two of us to Boise and he took a bus back to Bend.
My parents had insisted I not drive my car back to Idaho Falls over this Thanksgiving break, in case the weather unexpectedly turned. It didn’t, and it was only with a small amount of bitterness that I dropped the seventy dollars to secure a seat on the shuttle home. But my mother has always been something of a worrywart when it comes to traveling, and they enjoyed driving me to Boise. It had become something of a routine vacation for them since the middle of the summer, when I began to despair in my search for housing in the fall. Ada County seems to have a zero tolerance policy for petty criminals, and I had received my first misdemeanor violation in May; finding an apartment while I had no rental history and so recent a run-in with the enforcers became increasingly difficult as I searched online from Idaho Falls. Most of the people I had met during the previous school year had solved this problem before being kicked out of the dorms, but because I was to spend the summer at home I had slacked off.
My father had, unbeknownst to me, began what ultimately proved to be a fruitful search for any potentially fitting and economically logical property to house me. We found the townhouse while on one of our many trips early in the summer, and after completing the transaction it became a project my parents relished working on. Not having my car in Idaho Falls over the break meant they again had to come to Boise, and they made certain to ask me how different aspects of the house they’d previously put work into were getting along. All of their fuss had made me uneasy from the beginning, as they certainly would not have felt as much pressure to make the investment if I’d had the sense not to transgress a scant few months before. Going to school was also still something I considered somewhat temporary, something to keep me active while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have parents who planned for helping me financially with school, but that they actually purchased a house to help me achieve a sane studying environment has only made me feel more pressured to commit to one area of study. That they have invested so much into my schooling already also has led them to fear anything that could potentially set me off course, and so rather than make them fret I decided to stop telling them. As long as I’m healthy and make it through school satisfactorily they don’t need to worry about me.
We pulled up to the townhouse around four in the afternoon the Friday following Thanksgiving, and my parents left to check in to their hotel. My roommate Tessa had decided a few weeks before that she would move out to her mother’s house to help support her for a few months, and when I got upstairs she seemed surprised to see me, apologizing for not having moved all of her stuff out yet. I ignored it and went into my room to feverishly reorganize, taking beer cans out of the garbage to hide in the dumpster out back, slipping my pipes into the plastic shelf my Sunday school youth director gave everyone in the graduating class of 2007. Undoubtedly I should already have known what jobs around the house we were planning on getting accomplished during this visit, but through repetition all of the visits began to blur together and I was primarily determined to avoid any altercations.
From the beginning of the semester communication with my roommates slowly became less fluid. My parents as landlords eventually ended up dealing more directly with them than I, despite that they were both friends from the previous school year. There was no way I could have known my relationship with Jim and Tessa would become so tense while they hid their arguments behind hushed tones or closed doors, perhaps in a failed attempt to not make me feel surrounded by it. It got to the point where very little genuine conversation took place, and I would return from work to a house more tired than I. Still, I had offered to help her get organized during the days before break and she had insisted it was no problem. They might have lived in the same building as I, but even to say we interacted on any deeper level than greetings would be pushing it.
I drove to meet my parents an hour later at The Bonefish Grill downtown. Surprisingly inside they were playing music one would only expect to hear in a hipster Portland coffee shop, and the experience would have been exceptional even if I hadn’t made certain I was stoned enough to enjoy anything. I returned home to company in the form of Tessa and her friend Brittany, but spent most of the night packing up a small supply of clothes and toiletries into my backpack, which I then hid in the garage closet before calling Colin.
“Andy, hey, what’s up big guy?” My dad used to call me big guy and ever since Colin heard so he’d taken up the name, mostly because I’m half his size.
“Not much, just… livin’ the life.”
I’d recently taken to following that statement up with a literal description of my life, but telling him about homework, pot, playing Fallout 3 and reading Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road just didn‘t really seem applicable, despite that I would’ve said as much to anyone else. “Are you in Bend?”
“Yeah; dude, I’m so drunk. Chumpsgiving.”
“Whoa, yeah, that’s right. Uhm. So I’m going to be there tomorrow and Sunday. Just so you know.”
“Dude. Fuck yes. Good. But, I gotta go. I love you big guy!”
As long as I’d known them Ryan and Colin had been members of the Belegarth foam sword fighting group God Squad. Several times a year anywhere from a hundred to several thousand sword fighters would get together for events, and Chumpsgiving was a smaller, God Squad-only weekend gathering. The majority of the days were spent sleeping until noon, then fighting until the sun went down, at which point they’d begin drinking until everyone fell asleep. Ryan was busy with his family over the weekend, but I had gotten my friend and co-worker Mike interested in seeing Colin and just getting out of Boise by mentioning Oregon‘s notoriety for low weed prices, and we agreed to leave Saturday morning as soon as we were able to do so without alerting my parents to our plans.
Sure enough, the following morning my father woke me up determined to help me repair the computer desk we purchased second-hand from one of his co-workers. The keyboard slider part was completely broken, but he had brought the proper hardware to repair it. It took him about two hours to complete that while my mother and I worked on cleaning up a transmission fluid spill in the garage; I’d had my car’s radiator replaced before driving to Boise in August and they apparently had forgotten to apply clamps to the proper hoses. The whole time I was extremely antsy while Mike continually sent me text messages asking for updates on our situation, and there was zero opportunity to enjoy even a cigarette at the townhouse while my parents were there. It wasn’t until eleven-thirty that they felt they had accomplished as much as they needed to before heading out. My dad always asks me how I’m doing financially right before he leaves, and gives me a twenty if I say anything remotely implying a need. This school year I’d been mostly turning him down because I’ve had work, but today I said, “I have about fifteen dollars and get paid on Tuesday, so, you know… I should be alright.”
“Well. Why don’t I… you know, just in case.”
On the one hand I felt guilty for accepting more money from him, but I knew I would need it for gas, and I reasoned with myself that being less stressed about money would allow me to focus more on getting through the rest of this semester. Not that I was planning on studying before returning to school on Monday, but there’s only so much stress I can allow myself to feel at one time, and this vacation was a sudden enough plan as it was. Besides, Tessa and I had cleaned the house for one of the first times before break began, and my parents were more pleased than ever with its appearance.
Before going to Michael’s I loaded a bowl and sat down on the family room couch. Tessa was carrying a load of stuff to be moved to her mom’s house down the stairs, and I invited her to smoke with me. For a second it seemed like she was going to say no, and I added, “Unless you have work or whatever, I just thought since you’ll be moved out by the time I get back…”.
She glanced down and dropped the bag, laughed a little and said, “Yeah, alright.” It was nice to at least get to hang out with her one last time while Jim was in California, because she was much more upbeat, and they truly had both been good friends of mine before we lived together. I felt that she was going to take the opportunity to fill me in on what was happening with her and Jim, but all she told me was that she was sort of looking forward to living with her mother because it would help her better understand what she wanted. Getting her stuff out before Jimmy returned Sunday evening from Carlsbad was a priority for her, and all I could say through my ignorance of their situation was to wish her luck in speedy packing, then feel like a jackass as I pulled my car out of the garage a few minutes later.
At Mike’s we smoked another bowl before getting into my car and pulling onto I-84. While driving stoned is still legally considered driving under the influence, for long trips I have found that it makes time go exponentially faster, and it‘s definitely a matter of opinion as to whether or not it’s any harder. We did get lost, but it was as a result of following our Google Maps printout directly. Getting real directions was only a matter of asking a customer in a Weizer, Idaho gun-slash-antler store, and by swapping drivers and sleeping during the other’s shift we were able to arrive in Bend around six-thirty. Colin’s house was also fortunately easy to find, it being in a trailer park just off the state highway exit, and we pulled in within a few minutes. Leaving our backpacks in the car, we rang the doorbell.
Colin’s roommate Manny opened the door. I’d never met Manny, but I knew it was him because he’s the only black member of God Squad, and because he said, “Colin, your little nigger friends are here.” He meandered off into the house, grinning, and we followed him to where around eighteen people were crammed into a kitchen, family room, and Colin’s bedroom. As soon as he saw us Colin bombarded us with a bear hug and ushered us into his room.
“Andy, this is Bishop, Kurgan, Dyse and Lloki - guys, we’re gonna smoke now, so…” he trailed off, staring at the four of them and shaking his head. I’d heard all of their fighting names before from stories Colin and Ryan had told of past events, and I introduced myself somewhat meekly as they filed out. Our reception to the house had jolted me a bit, and I was feeling somewhat out of my element, so it was nice to be able to hang out with just Colin and Mike. He filled us in on their plan for the evening while almost blindly packing a bowl with one hand.
“So hey big guy, how’s it goin’, how was the drive? …Good, that’s good. Oh my god man, we have so many people here. I guess Shino’s having a keggar tonight at his house, in like an hour. The rest of the fighters are there. Fuck.” He looked down for a second at the hit or two he’d spilled on the carpet, and rubbed it in as he said, “You bring bud?”
“In the glove box, yeah.”
“Save it. We’ll leave as soon as everyone else gets out of my house.” He passed me the pipe.
Colin walked back out to mingle with his guests, and I was spared having to begin memorizing a bunch of one time use names by asking to check the internet. Instinctively I logged into my email account. That I was so out of the loop as to be first informed of my roommates ending their relationship through a social networking website made me feel numb. I wasn’t even surprised, just sorry for them, the resent I had felt for their cutting me off replaced with a vicarious anxiety. I thought heavily about sending Jim a text message just giving him some support, because it truly required thought, and ultimately decided against what felt like meddling at so late a stage. I logged off, walked over to Mike and suggested we go to smoke cigarettes.
We’d just lit them when everyone else suddenly took our cue and piled into their cars. Colin came out and sat with us on the porch while we smoked, telling us about his Chumpsgiving experience so far. I flicked my cigarette into the street and we hopped back into my car.
It was only about a five minute drive to Shino’s house, which Colin described simply as having “a history. There’ve been fighters living there for like twelve years, it’s crazy.” The first thing I noticed was the piano out on the front porch, tagged but still apparently tuned. Inside on the base floor all of the walls met the ceiling with a curve. Even the inner corners were curved, and with the dim yellow lights it felt like a cave. Beyond the kitchen there was what looked like a fold-up staircase down to the basement. They had somehow gotten two beds and a beer pong table into this cellar as well as the keg, which they just now tapped, and we got in line to listen obediently to the name of whichever local brewery provided the draught and take our fill before heading back upstairs. Mike and I followed Colin down a narrow hallway at the back of the foyer, then up an abrupt and equally narrow twisting staircase. The upstairs consisted of a hallway ending in a small dark bedroom, with a closet and a toilet-only restroom set into either side.
I wound up spending the majority of the night in this bedroom, leaving for only short periods at a time to refill my cup or smoke a cigarette. It seemed whenever I would find myself getting interested in dancing or having a legitimate conversation Colin would show up with another of his friends and ask me to go smoke another bowl with him. The room had a thoroughly comfortable, minimalist vibe to it though. Tapestries hung on all the walls and the two corner tables opposite the bed had legs that formed several lower surfaces below the main ones, each with different objects centered below. Staying there just happened as a result of various different people filtering in and out midway through a bowl, and offering to match us up for our generosity. I had stored upwards of twenty names and was just going over them with some whimsical satisfaction when I realized how drunk I was. Looking at Michael, whose head was in his hands, I decided it was a good time to leave. Colin managed to find someone to drive my car back to his place, and the last thing I remember is trying to fall asleep while Manny beat my legs with a pillow and yelled at me to get my feet off of his furniture.
The next day was far more relaxed. We woke up before anyone else in the house with various types of hangover, and immediately followed Colin’s suggestion for biscuits and gravy at a nearby breakfast-only place called Sargent’s Café. The chief flaw in my planning had been that Michael and I failed to realize that even in Oregon, businesses treat Sunday a little bit differently. It struck me as simply unintuitive to find all three of Bend’s major pipe shops to recognize the Sabbath. We ended up being forced to look in a corner gas station mere blocks from Colin‘s, where both Mike and I managed to talk the cashier down five dollars before each purchasing one of their overpriced pipes. We then walked to a nearby park, where we met the rest of the fighters who’d far overslept us at his house, and he began to change into his fighting garb.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“We’ll fight until four or so.”
I immediately laid down on the grass and fell back asleep.
I awoke when Colin sat down next to me, right at four. “You hungry guy?”
“Uhm. Yeah man.” I pulled myself up and shook my hair, popped my neck, stretched. “What’s food?”
“Well, it was Chumpsgiving, so leftovers?”
“Yeah, we’ll do leftovers.”
Going to Washington or Oregon has always represented to me an excellent opportunity to pick up anything pot related, and neither Mike nor I spared any expense for this trip, though that certainly hadn’t been my purpose. Even though I had known from the beginning that I would only get to spend a day and a half there if I wanted to get back to Boise in time for school, the simple act of going there and experiencing what Bend and life for Colin in Bend were like simplified things. While we ate turkey and watched television I looked down and saw an Xbox with Fallout 3’s case on the ground beside it. I suddenly remembered seeing a copy of The Road when I first arrived, in the bathroom Colin shared with Manny.
We were walking out the door, ready to leave when I asked him, jokingly, “Does it seem like Post-Apocalyptia is taking over America’s collective subconscious? What is with all this post-nuclear war entertainment out there all of a sudden?”
He laughed and shook his head too. “The world’s coming to an end big guy. Drive safe!” And we nearly did, though a semi going the opposite way on the two-lane state highway attempted to pass the vehicle in front of him and literally ran us off the road for a few moments. Michael had been driving, though, so we survived. I managed not to mention the fears my mother had had earlier in the week.
Seeing things in Colin’s life that like the previous year mirrored the things in mine only served to point out to me that I hadn’t hardly gotten a chance to talk to him about anything in my life during my visit, as I’d hoped to. I’d missed him greatly since August, particularly after I ended up living in such an oddly unsettling environment. With almost none of the people I’d come to care for over the summer living in Boise this fall, I had looked forward to the trip optimistically as an opportunity to talk with a close enough friend that I could maybe figure out what was really getting under my skin. But I could tell that even though we rarely talked on the phone, we weren’t really becoming distant, and that brought me comfort too, if not any sort of solution.
Michael wanted to drive the whole way home after we’d nearly been killed, and I decided to just continue sleeping. I dropped him off at home and pulled into my garage around eleven. Walking in through the back door I caught Tessa and Britney again, on their way out. The basket on Tessa’s bike held a box filled with the books of hers from our community bookshelf. I again offered to give them a ride but she declined, saying as she closed the gate behind her that it was her last load and she had to make sure she got her bike home safely.
She’d left one of her nagchampa incense sticks burning, and the house was just as spotless as before I left, so there was nothing to do but start a load of laundry and sleep. Monday morning I woke up too late for class, not having realized how tiring travel is through the haze we’d constructed over the whole trip. For the first time since I‘d moved into the townhouse in August I had the place to myself, and I spent most of the day letting my new housing circumstances sink in. Jim’s flight was to come in from Las Vegas that evening around midnight, and though I enjoyed the house being so clean his return would be worth it. Living with a couple had been a mistake from the beginning, but with just the two of us there would be far less competition for either space or attention, and I looked forward to the rest of the semester as though starting my relationship with him anew.
Around six in the evening on Monday my father called me.
“Hey Andrew, how are you?
I didn’t mention waking up late, as was my custom. “Pretty good, the desk has been working well.”
“That’s actually one of the things I called you about. I’m glad to hear that; so did Tessa move out then?”
“I guess so… she still has some of her stuff strewn about but I think packing up was hectic for her, so I’ve been trying to tell her not to worry about it. I guess she broke up with Jim last week.”
“Yeah, she told us that when we talked to her over the internet on Thursday. You know how those things go, though….”
“That I do.” I wasn’t affected by the information, almost expecting him to have already known at this point. “Anyway, Jim should be home tonight so I’ll maybe get to hang out with him.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late. Make sure you get your homework done.”
“Haha, I know Dad, thank you.”
“Alright big guy, I’m gonna go then. Glad things are going well. Love you,” he said.
“Thanks, I love you too.”
I hung up and went outside to smoke a cigarette, waiting for Jim’s call to go pick him up and wondering about it still feeling like I could just walk over to Colin’s and find him playing Fallout, or smoking a cigarette in his own back yard.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Penny Seibert's Psych 101 Extra Credit Kick You In The Face
Describe four ways that your personal experience affects the way you interpret the world around you.
1)I had one really great friend for some of my more formative years, ages 13-16 or so. When he moved away, I realized I had become far too dependent, and spent several months experiencing internal turmoil determining a solution. Since then I've always had trouble allowing any one person to get to know me too well.
2) I've "lost" some friends to drugs, especially when I was younger, and it really led me to believe that "drugs" as a general idea were bad (to use a general term). I also more recently have made some friends through drugs. Recognizing the variability of this belief helped me to understand my own worldview; I have trouble terming anything as good or bad when everything is so impersonal.
3) My childhood was loosely based around standard Christian tradition. Largely, I went to church on Sunday and celebrated Christmas, Easter, etc. Yet the very general laissez-faire approach my parents took to this aspect of my life allowed me the freedom to see, from within the religious mindset, the lack of congruency between belief and practice. I remain unconvinced!
4) Both of my brothers graduated from High School at least Cum Laude, with myself graduating maybe optimistically at a 3.2; both of them also left college after two successful 4.0 semesters to pursue other interests (musical), but I left home thinking I would impress my parents and stick it out.
Well. Here I am.
1)I had one really great friend for some of my more formative years, ages 13-16 or so. When he moved away, I realized I had become far too dependent, and spent several months experiencing internal turmoil determining a solution. Since then I've always had trouble allowing any one person to get to know me too well.
2) I've "lost" some friends to drugs, especially when I was younger, and it really led me to believe that "drugs" as a general idea were bad (to use a general term). I also more recently have made some friends through drugs. Recognizing the variability of this belief helped me to understand my own worldview; I have trouble terming anything as good or bad when everything is so impersonal.
3) My childhood was loosely based around standard Christian tradition. Largely, I went to church on Sunday and celebrated Christmas, Easter, etc. Yet the very general laissez-faire approach my parents took to this aspect of my life allowed me the freedom to see, from within the religious mindset, the lack of congruency between belief and practice. I remain unconvinced!
4) Both of my brothers graduated from High School at least Cum Laude, with myself graduating maybe optimistically at a 3.2; both of them also left college after two successful 4.0 semesters to pursue other interests (musical), but I left home thinking I would impress my parents and stick it out.
Well. Here I am.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Djarum Blacks (For Workshop)
So I wrote all of the "pieces" below (in time that will become a more comfortable word to me; right now it feels oddly pretentious?) during the first month of my Writing Creative Nonfiction class at Boise State. My professor, Christian Winn, suggested that of them he would like to see the Djarum Blacks one expanded on the most... he wanted it to be more narrative, essentially, wanted me to show him what my friends were like and more of what I was seeing and smelling, etc. Pull you into it more. He's totally right, and that whole sentence about christmas in the last iteration was definitely the product of a lack of interest in the way I was taking it.
I prefer this take by far, although I am under the impression we'll be given advice on how to make it even better. Which will be exciting!
----------------------
Djarum Blacks
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as I can’t help feeling put on the spot during the forced meetings that take place within. Exhaling slowly as the mirrored doors open, I sit back to let everyone else leave first, then light a Camel Menthol cigarette just before pushing through the double doors leading outside my Freshman dorm building. Immediately at my side is an acquaintance from the dorms, pinching between thumb and forefinger a black clove, smoked probably only as a matter of distinguishment. The cigarettes themselves spark brightly as one drags on them, then leave the tongue feeling strangely numb, causing me to find it difficult to take anyone who smokes them seriously. Their scent is intrusive and unique in a different way, paradoxically reminiscent of gingerbread, undeniably delicious, and for myself always nostalgic. Instead of joining my companion actively in our almost ritual education complaints, I go on autopilot, a borrowed drag assisting my internal reminisce.
I hadn’t had a black in at least several months, had actually avoided them on purpose after coughing up black and red lung butter in the rubble of the morning after I purchased and consumed my first hard pack. To fault the clove may be somewhat hasty as the potential for confounding variables was great, so I should note it may simply be memory assigning the blame, if only to classify the particular early June evening in question. I had the fortune to arrive at just such a time when the empty semicircle of discomfort could be seen around whichever surface was being used to roll marijuana cigarettes. This had come to be a nice signal for the few of us who recognized it within our group, one composed of those allegedly confused souls still remaining in Idaho Falls after the Commencement of the rest of our lives. Social tolerance ran high by necessity, and most had even come to appreciate our different perspective.
Closing the gate gently behind me, I made my way to the glass patio table and sat down among my peers, taking scope. It was always interesting during that summer to see how many people I recognized at any given gathering, and to try to remember where each would disappear to in a few months. There were hardly any specific memories I could call on to distinguish each person, so melded together had my early life become at that point. Recognizing that I was unlikely to really know most of those around me in only a few years had also led me to a state of semi-detachment from everyone but those whom I had just joined. I had found an aspect of mutual trust in the relationships formed with these cohorts due to the inherent (though truthfully slight) risk in our indulgence that took a quick hold on my emotional availability, and it was with them I found myself feeling most comfortable.
Equipped with an audience, I generously wasted only a few minutes settling in before lighting my first clove, dragging hard to passively show off the sparks. It attracted immediate attention, and I was forced to explain, to my blithe delight, the many details. I am still young enough that this conversation could happen today.
Someone asked, “But how could they put black powder in the paper? Wouldn’t that be like, way bad for you?”
I sniffed. “Well obviously they don’t put in enough for it to be bad for you, dude, they wouldn’t get any customers if they did. It’s economics! Also, smell them.” He was forced to consent his skepticism in the face of the holiday cheer I wafted his way, and I went on. “They make your mouth feel like you ate a bunch of banana Runts after a while, because of the cloves, and the clerk at Tobacco Connection told me she only smokes them when she has a sore throat.” It wasn’t even the attention that struck me so much as watching how quickly people absorbed and accepted information that could somehow possibly be useful to them. I passed a few out and our attention turned to more pressing matters.
In the backyard of the host, a childhood friend named Josh, was a king-sized trampoline - the kind you don’t realize are larger than normal until half of your body slips between the springs - and with a dry lawn we endeavored to sit beneath it. By this time hospitality had found its amorous way to my belly in the form of none other than that particular drought which allegedly won a blue ribbon so long ago, and I cracked a second open (careful to chug that foam!) as I settled into the circle. There was a small fire pit on the opposite end of the rectangular yard where sat a number of acquaintances chatting, and with my back to them I was able to watch across the fourteen foot circle to where Dee lit and passed the first spliff. It’s a nervous habit, but I wiped my lips on my sleeve before it was near enough to me for anyone to notice; the folkway of clockwise progression in the sharing of marijuana was under way, and it’s not uncommon to keep on eye on those taking hits, if only out of ubiquitous (but rarely recognized) avarice. I also have the unfortunate tendency to leave a social spliff more moist than before my hit, and only seconds later Colin was telling me to pay attention as he shook it near my face. The larger the circle, naturally, the more drastic the cigarette’s atrophy, and after a second had burned its way around it became apparent that the meeting was disbanding.
At this point I took it upon myself to assume the graciousness of our host with another beverage and a warm seat by the fire. I was again solicited about the cloves, and took part in another to drive home the interest. Predictably those conversing with me soon ran across the same line of cogitation as I had earlier entertained, and I buffeted their questioning with the same prepared response I would give to my father’s friends at his church.
“Where are you going to school?”
Smiling, I replied, “Boise State actually, and mostly because…”
“Why?”
“…Uhm. Because my major is fairly common and my parents are helping me with my funding, so I’d rather just stay in state to keep the cost low.”
“Oh! What are you majoring in?”
“Train Driving, a minor in Spelling.”
“What?”
It was unfortunately never possible to let it end at that, as in my preparations there were no further questions to be asked. When I was pressed for some sort of response that could be found more ‘legitimate’, I lied as easily to the people I’d grown up with as to those who’d watched me grow, knowing that one area of study was universally as good as another. I didn’t fault them their formalities, and instead looked to the topic as an exercise in creativity, as well as keeping a straight face. I was also aware that most of them were lying too.
Within different groups of a society come to exist memes which are particular of the members’ knowledge and experience. Among those who are of an age to be reasonably called hooligans are some guiding principles which seem intentionally uncertain. The general understanding is that nobody is fretting as to the validity of any one over another, but that as with most harmless myths you’re better off just playing it safe. The most common of these little bits of cultural exchange are a pair which endearingly rhyme, the first being “beer before liquor, never sicker” (or alternatively, “throw up quicker”), the second simply the same rule reversed. Throughout the course of the evening I began to wonder whether there were a similar rule which could be applied to the combination of alcohol and any other substance, and that I perhaps ought to have already known it if it existed. These are the thoughts we would forget if there were no irony.
As with the natural progression of such social events, things more or less repeated themselves in varyingly humorous ways until noticing my near-empty box of cigarettes became less alarming than the mere distance I was to take on in my homeward travels. I had embraced the anesthetic quality of the cloves as a sort of tickly mouth euphoria and surpassed the issue by ensuring that there were none to be had the following morning. Both the nicotine content and the price had been unsatisfying, and I was fully aware of my desire to enjoy the first cigarette of the following morning. I smoked two while long boarding lazily home and deposited the box in the gutter half a block from my house, where I paused. I noticed suddenly that my mouth was filling with hot saliva completely of its own volition, and I gave in to the expulsion, finding satisfaction only in my privacy. Stumbling through my frustration I cleaned my teeth and fell slowly asleep.
The numbness departed fifteen minutes after I’d smoked the last clove, and with its passing was revealed to me in the most passive of ways the bounty which I was to reap. Only after nights like that do I recall being impartially impressed by the strain of a deep breath, the feeling of breaking through a silk webbing inside my lungs with really only the force of my will to aid. In the morning when I would wipe the dry mucus from my eyes I’d find myself coughing up an entirely different form of the same stuff for at least an hour. I never let it bother me, claimed it as my own through such misnomers as lung butter, and unpredictably I found comfort in the lack of certainty in such simple matters as my hypothetical educational future. Not being bound by any self-created goal prevented any question of success or failure to mar my experience, in turn facilitating the desire to move beyond the life of the town I had grown up in. Seeking order in what was mostly chaos, I’ve managed to convince myself that any decisions which I make that in retrospect I regret are simply another aspect of the transition I’m experiencing between young adult to responsible adult. Those are, of course, the categories.
I prefer this take by far, although I am under the impression we'll be given advice on how to make it even better. Which will be exciting!
----------------------
Djarum Blacks
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as I can’t help feeling put on the spot during the forced meetings that take place within. Exhaling slowly as the mirrored doors open, I sit back to let everyone else leave first, then light a Camel Menthol cigarette just before pushing through the double doors leading outside my Freshman dorm building. Immediately at my side is an acquaintance from the dorms, pinching between thumb and forefinger a black clove, smoked probably only as a matter of distinguishment. The cigarettes themselves spark brightly as one drags on them, then leave the tongue feeling strangely numb, causing me to find it difficult to take anyone who smokes them seriously. Their scent is intrusive and unique in a different way, paradoxically reminiscent of gingerbread, undeniably delicious, and for myself always nostalgic. Instead of joining my companion actively in our almost ritual education complaints, I go on autopilot, a borrowed drag assisting my internal reminisce.
I hadn’t had a black in at least several months, had actually avoided them on purpose after coughing up black and red lung butter in the rubble of the morning after I purchased and consumed my first hard pack. To fault the clove may be somewhat hasty as the potential for confounding variables was great, so I should note it may simply be memory assigning the blame, if only to classify the particular early June evening in question. I had the fortune to arrive at just such a time when the empty semicircle of discomfort could be seen around whichever surface was being used to roll marijuana cigarettes. This had come to be a nice signal for the few of us who recognized it within our group, one composed of those allegedly confused souls still remaining in Idaho Falls after the Commencement of the rest of our lives. Social tolerance ran high by necessity, and most had even come to appreciate our different perspective.
Closing the gate gently behind me, I made my way to the glass patio table and sat down among my peers, taking scope. It was always interesting during that summer to see how many people I recognized at any given gathering, and to try to remember where each would disappear to in a few months. There were hardly any specific memories I could call on to distinguish each person, so melded together had my early life become at that point. Recognizing that I was unlikely to really know most of those around me in only a few years had also led me to a state of semi-detachment from everyone but those whom I had just joined. I had found an aspect of mutual trust in the relationships formed with these cohorts due to the inherent (though truthfully slight) risk in our indulgence that took a quick hold on my emotional availability, and it was with them I found myself feeling most comfortable.
Equipped with an audience, I generously wasted only a few minutes settling in before lighting my first clove, dragging hard to passively show off the sparks. It attracted immediate attention, and I was forced to explain, to my blithe delight, the many details. I am still young enough that this conversation could happen today.
Someone asked, “But how could they put black powder in the paper? Wouldn’t that be like, way bad for you?”
I sniffed. “Well obviously they don’t put in enough for it to be bad for you, dude, they wouldn’t get any customers if they did. It’s economics! Also, smell them.” He was forced to consent his skepticism in the face of the holiday cheer I wafted his way, and I went on. “They make your mouth feel like you ate a bunch of banana Runts after a while, because of the cloves, and the clerk at Tobacco Connection told me she only smokes them when she has a sore throat.” It wasn’t even the attention that struck me so much as watching how quickly people absorbed and accepted information that could somehow possibly be useful to them. I passed a few out and our attention turned to more pressing matters.
In the backyard of the host, a childhood friend named Josh, was a king-sized trampoline - the kind you don’t realize are larger than normal until half of your body slips between the springs - and with a dry lawn we endeavored to sit beneath it. By this time hospitality had found its amorous way to my belly in the form of none other than that particular drought which allegedly won a blue ribbon so long ago, and I cracked a second open (careful to chug that foam!) as I settled into the circle. There was a small fire pit on the opposite end of the rectangular yard where sat a number of acquaintances chatting, and with my back to them I was able to watch across the fourteen foot circle to where Dee lit and passed the first spliff. It’s a nervous habit, but I wiped my lips on my sleeve before it was near enough to me for anyone to notice; the folkway of clockwise progression in the sharing of marijuana was under way, and it’s not uncommon to keep on eye on those taking hits, if only out of ubiquitous (but rarely recognized) avarice. I also have the unfortunate tendency to leave a social spliff more moist than before my hit, and only seconds later Colin was telling me to pay attention as he shook it near my face. The larger the circle, naturally, the more drastic the cigarette’s atrophy, and after a second had burned its way around it became apparent that the meeting was disbanding.
At this point I took it upon myself to assume the graciousness of our host with another beverage and a warm seat by the fire. I was again solicited about the cloves, and took part in another to drive home the interest. Predictably those conversing with me soon ran across the same line of cogitation as I had earlier entertained, and I buffeted their questioning with the same prepared response I would give to my father’s friends at his church.
“Where are you going to school?”
Smiling, I replied, “Boise State actually, and mostly because…”
“Why?”
“…Uhm. Because my major is fairly common and my parents are helping me with my funding, so I’d rather just stay in state to keep the cost low.”
“Oh! What are you majoring in?”
“Train Driving, a minor in Spelling.”
“What?”
It was unfortunately never possible to let it end at that, as in my preparations there were no further questions to be asked. When I was pressed for some sort of response that could be found more ‘legitimate’, I lied as easily to the people I’d grown up with as to those who’d watched me grow, knowing that one area of study was universally as good as another. I didn’t fault them their formalities, and instead looked to the topic as an exercise in creativity, as well as keeping a straight face. I was also aware that most of them were lying too.
Within different groups of a society come to exist memes which are particular of the members’ knowledge and experience. Among those who are of an age to be reasonably called hooligans are some guiding principles which seem intentionally uncertain. The general understanding is that nobody is fretting as to the validity of any one over another, but that as with most harmless myths you’re better off just playing it safe. The most common of these little bits of cultural exchange are a pair which endearingly rhyme, the first being “beer before liquor, never sicker” (or alternatively, “throw up quicker”), the second simply the same rule reversed. Throughout the course of the evening I began to wonder whether there were a similar rule which could be applied to the combination of alcohol and any other substance, and that I perhaps ought to have already known it if it existed. These are the thoughts we would forget if there were no irony.
As with the natural progression of such social events, things more or less repeated themselves in varyingly humorous ways until noticing my near-empty box of cigarettes became less alarming than the mere distance I was to take on in my homeward travels. I had embraced the anesthetic quality of the cloves as a sort of tickly mouth euphoria and surpassed the issue by ensuring that there were none to be had the following morning. Both the nicotine content and the price had been unsatisfying, and I was fully aware of my desire to enjoy the first cigarette of the following morning. I smoked two while long boarding lazily home and deposited the box in the gutter half a block from my house, where I paused. I noticed suddenly that my mouth was filling with hot saliva completely of its own volition, and I gave in to the expulsion, finding satisfaction only in my privacy. Stumbling through my frustration I cleaned my teeth and fell slowly asleep.
The numbness departed fifteen minutes after I’d smoked the last clove, and with its passing was revealed to me in the most passive of ways the bounty which I was to reap. Only after nights like that do I recall being impartially impressed by the strain of a deep breath, the feeling of breaking through a silk webbing inside my lungs with really only the force of my will to aid. In the morning when I would wipe the dry mucus from my eyes I’d find myself coughing up an entirely different form of the same stuff for at least an hour. I never let it bother me, claimed it as my own through such misnomers as lung butter, and unpredictably I found comfort in the lack of certainty in such simple matters as my hypothetical educational future. Not being bound by any self-created goal prevented any question of success or failure to mar my experience, in turn facilitating the desire to move beyond the life of the town I had grown up in. Seeking order in what was mostly chaos, I’ve managed to convince myself that any decisions which I make that in retrospect I regret are simply another aspect of the transition I’m experiencing between young adult to responsible adult. Those are, of course, the categories.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Djarum Blacks (LessRealButMoreRealistic)
Exiting an elevator has come to be a point of relief for me, as I can’t help pointing out how awkward the forced meetings that take place within make me feel, either through simply saying it or sheepishly avoiding eye contact. I slowly exhaled as the mirrored doors opened and sat back to let everyone else leave first, then lit a cigarette just before pushing through the double doors leading outside. Immediately at my side was an acquaintance from the dorms, pinching between thumb and forefinger a black clove, smoked probably only as a matter of distinguishment. The cigarettes themselves spark as one drags on them and leave the tongue feeling strangely numb, which is why I find it hard to take anyone who smokes them seriously. I was reminded of the insistence with which I would promote their scent’s similarity to that which flows nebulously from the kitchen to waft and awaken my brothers and I on a winter holiday, and the stark contrast between that image and the chaotic experiences I can only associate the cigarettes themselves to distracted me from the actual content of my companion’s conversation.
I hadn’t had a black in several months, had actually avoided them on purpose after coughing up black and red lung butter the morning following smoking a whole pack. The night hadn’t been stressful in any emotional sense, only in that way which comes with the attempt to ride out a poorly planned evening. We had the fortune to arrive near the end of that period after the opening and introductory drinks had been mixed and before the different cliques split off around the fire pit. It was fortunate because this was also the point at which the empty semicircle of discomfort could be seen around whichever surface was being used to roll blunts. This had come to be a nice signal for the few of us who recognized it within the group of dudes cobbled together from those confused souls still remaining in Idaho Falls after high school which we drank beers with, most of whom came to appreciate our different perspective from a comfortable distance, and it wasn’t until about an hour later when I realized that our arrival time had predicted a poor order of consumption. I had at this point already smoked at least half of the pack and put away a tenth of my body weight in that particular draught which allegedly won a blue ribbon so long ago, when I was suddenly vomiting on top of the cigarette I’d just lit. As with the mythological correct order for drinking beers and liquor, there is a correct order to attaining a stable mixture of different intoxicants, and in my haste I‘d broken it. After suffering the consequences I simply gave up for the night, and during the long ride home I smoked the last eight or so in a recovery state, drunkenly depositing the box in the gutter a block from my house.
It wasn’t even the events of the night that bothered me, they simply served to give context to my distaste for those harsh pseudo-cigarettes. I had felt more personally offended by how I’d been inspired to speak of their seeming healing abilities just the night before, when mere hours later I awoke rubbing dry mucus from my eyes with one hand while the other caught an entirely different form of the same stuff.
I hadn’t had a black in several months, had actually avoided them on purpose after coughing up black and red lung butter the morning following smoking a whole pack. The night hadn’t been stressful in any emotional sense, only in that way which comes with the attempt to ride out a poorly planned evening. We had the fortune to arrive near the end of that period after the opening and introductory drinks had been mixed and before the different cliques split off around the fire pit. It was fortunate because this was also the point at which the empty semicircle of discomfort could be seen around whichever surface was being used to roll blunts. This had come to be a nice signal for the few of us who recognized it within the group of dudes cobbled together from those confused souls still remaining in Idaho Falls after high school which we drank beers with, most of whom came to appreciate our different perspective from a comfortable distance, and it wasn’t until about an hour later when I realized that our arrival time had predicted a poor order of consumption. I had at this point already smoked at least half of the pack and put away a tenth of my body weight in that particular draught which allegedly won a blue ribbon so long ago, when I was suddenly vomiting on top of the cigarette I’d just lit. As with the mythological correct order for drinking beers and liquor, there is a correct order to attaining a stable mixture of different intoxicants, and in my haste I‘d broken it. After suffering the consequences I simply gave up for the night, and during the long ride home I smoked the last eight or so in a recovery state, drunkenly depositing the box in the gutter a block from my house.
It wasn’t even the events of the night that bothered me, they simply served to give context to my distaste for those harsh pseudo-cigarettes. I had felt more personally offended by how I’d been inspired to speak of their seeming healing abilities just the night before, when mere hours later I awoke rubbing dry mucus from my eyes with one hand while the other caught an entirely different form of the same stuff.
FrapFrapFrapFrapFrap
Outside the sun shines brightly, one of those last sunsets you can enjoy as the prolonged summer in Boise finally begins giving way in the dark to the cold waiting but a month, maybe two more before it will render our back porch wet and uncomfortable. In the meantime I reheat some frozen pizza, still unwilling to deal with the fact that I finally have a kitchen to eat like my parents did. Our hookah is smoking from another bowl loaded too full, something I’m also still adjusting to being lord over. My roommate Jim is inside listening to something I can’t quite make out over the white noise I suddenly notice coming from the continual crunch of blackened dough, and I smile in recognition of my greater desire to close my eyes and sink into the strangely deep, rustic aroma of old mozzarella. I swallow and it catches, and I have to force it down with some orange soda. It takes me a moment to catch my breath before I set down the crust and step inside to catch the last verse I’ve suddenly found to be worth ending a narrative to enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)