I'm a Ramblin' (Wo)Man

This post kind of rambles, much like my own personal feelings on the issue. Its more observation than decision. There is clearly no correct answer when generalizing something as personal as relationships to such a high level as the behavior of a population.  My observations are clearly not coming from the flyover states…perhaps things are completely different down there…enjoy, such as it is.

Perhaps it’s from watching the torrid restraint and excess of various BBC series (Mistresses, Downtown Abby, Skins), but the topic of sex in love has been on my mind of late. It seems everything is a mish mash these days with too much of one or the other. With very few people wanting the same thing at the same time..much less with each other.  To put it in less vague terms when I look around these days I see the following combinations.

1)      The person who wants love and will forgo sex until they have both pieces together

2)      The person who wants love and sex, and will not wait for love to have the sex

3)      The person who only wants sex and love should never play into the equation

I feel, that in the past love and sex were much more closely tied together. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that casual sex is a new concept!  Prostitution is the oldest profession right?  Clearly, horny teenagers have been groping in the car, tweens have been fervently dry humping during 7 minutes in heaven, and kids have been playing “doctor” since time began.  But there seems to have been a shift in the “grown-up” behavior of sex in love. When I was in high school the pressure was to put out to keep your boyfriend.  Very shortly after, the high school game became putting out to get your boyfriend.  Now, I think, the game is what boyfriend, we just sleep with who we want.   And that “anything goes” mentality is the new adult relationship model that we operate in today. 

In re-reading that last paragraph, even the phrase “love” sounds wrong.  It’s almost like the word “love” should be replaced with “commitment”.  Perhaps you didn’t “love” the person you were banging, but you were certainly committed or invested in keeping that relationship going.  Most likely because the cost of entry to finding another person to sleep with was too high and why not stick with what you’ve got. So what lowered that cost? And is that a good thing? (I’m genuinely asking, I can see both sides)

I cringe at this next section because its exactly the kind of thinking that abstinence advocates point to screaming, “see the downfall of our society is education and access to family planning!”  It’s not you Neanderthals, but we’ll get to that later…in another post.  For now, yes, obviously, the lowering cost of sex is due to the female population having access to birth control and family planning.  We have several  generations of sexually active adults that think Row v Wade is a choice of how to get across a river, not a major battle to gain reproductive control of our bodies.  These women have grown up in a world where birth control is normative and abortions are at least an option if the primary defense fails.  When I was in junior high we were just finishing up the era where three things were absolutely true

1)      The kid with the pager in school was the drug dealer.

2)      The girl on birth control was a sure thing and had slept with everyone on the football team, and most the basketball team too.

3)      The girl who had an abortion told NO ONE, lest she be shunned.

The birth control pill was so revolutionary to our societal identity that its simply referred to as “the pill”.  No one asks, “what pill?”. They know.  Not even Viagra could supplant “the pill” title.  Viagra is Viagra, but “the pill” means you don’t have to pull out.  The pill means you don’t have to weigh the cost of giving up all your hopes and dreams against allowing your libido to override you at a moment’s notice. All hail the pill because it means that we (women) finally have a level playing field when it comes to sex…our cost to play is the same as yours (99.98% of the time).  

Here, take a quick look at this PBS Pill Timeline.  I think you’ll be shocked to see that mainstream acceptance didn’t occur until the 1980s. The 80s!  In the 70s the government was very much still fighting to control access to the pill.  When that battle was settled (80s/90s) the pill was accepted, but it still meant “you were having sex.”  It was a prescription with a stigma. It was meant for older women who wanted no more babies. Not teens that wanted to get freaky.  That is….until the magical blend of horny girls (sex) and shareholders (profit) wanted to work together. Doctors started prescribing it for off label uses – cramps/acne.  Shareholders saw a rise in their profits and teens got access to the goods with saying why they really wanted it.  Parents could remain pleasantly ignorant about the fact that Molly was having sex because that prescription…oh that was for her horrible cramps. Everyone wins.  In the early 90s we witnessed an absolute explosion of teenage girls having apocalyptically painful cramps, that just had to have something done about them. Wink wink, nudge nudge.  Everyone played their parts beautifully.  The teenage girls gave Oscar worthy drama performances insisting on relief from the monthly agony of their period, while the drug companies subsequently jumped through the FDA hoops to make off label uses, acne/cramps, primary label uses.  Suddenly, there was an explosion of pills that were not only contraceptives but also aided in depression (ever meet a teenage girl? We are all crazy. Seriously, pray for a son or take a long vacation through her 14^th through 17^th birthday), skin appearance, cramping, even migraines.  All of which was true, FDA approved…and oh yeah, golly gee - it just happens to still work for avoiding pregnancy, what a qawinky-dink.

Okay so why the uber quick history on the pill’s acceptance into the minor population?  Well, because I believe that was a pivotal moment to our current sexual climate.  Just like Title 9  gave gender-equality in sports, taking women off the sidelines (cheerleaders) and onto the court/field (players), minors on the pill meant girls didn’t have to choose between being “good” or “bad”, they were finally in the game of sexual conquest just like the boys.

All of those late 90s teens are now late 20-somethings.  They grew up in a much more lax sexual climate…coupling without commitment. 

So go back up to the three types of people.  These days I would say that the vast majority of people are twos – probably want love, but aren’t waiting around for it.  Sex is just so easily attained these days, why wouldn’t you partake?  Every study ever done on sex shows the immense physical and mental benefits received from a healthy romp.  Got a headache – have sex!  Depressed – release that dopamine, have sex!!  Blood pressure a little high? – have se…you get the idea.  

In the past I would say that most people were 1s or 3s, which would be fine if we had simply progressed from old to new.  But with divorce putting older people back on the single’s market and single women making their own money and not wanting to settle down, well every type of love/sex combo is out there resulting in a whole lot of confusion about how to proceed.  There are 3s running games on 1s and 2s…we’ve got 1s trapping 3s by getting pregnant…two 2s find each other but mess it up because something better –might- come along. It’s a mess and some days I feel right in the middle of it, as my texts will attest.  Another layer of complexity is that people change what they are over time.  Easy sex is a heady thing and often will drag a person from their natural inclination.  God help the natural-1 who is acting like a 2 if they meet a suave 3. Broken hearted-ville will occur. Its confusing and exhausting trying to navigate these waters.  Especially when the hot bodied 21 y.o. are giving it out left and right because that’s how they grew up.  PLEASE, do not take that as a judgment on their personal choices! Either male or female, if you want it, and that’s your style more power to you.  I’m just saying it makes it harder to find someone because, who wouldn’t be easily distracted by a hot bodied 21 y.o. with a no-strings-attached attitude?? To put a personal note in this, I believe that I missed the opportunity for something real because I was distracted with an easy play thing. Easy play thing was fun and uncomplicated.  Easy fun thing is gone and so is the person who could have been more (good for the woman that snatched him up!).  These days it almost feels as though wanting to be in love is often considered weak.  That makes me sad.  That makes me (personally) think.  Why for so long have I been a 2/3? Am I actually a 1/2?  Why can't I even commit to one box at a time?? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that  I think it takes a strong person to stand up and say, “I reject this easy shit because I’m looking for the real thing,”.   Look at your friends, who among them has gone more than 3-4 months without sex?  Probably not a lot, and we all kind of judge or pity them juuuuust a little bit if they have.

Hmmm, so what is my point here.  I guess it’s this.  Sometimes I feel like, because sex has become such a free flowing commodity, the urge to sacrifice anything to invest into a committed relationship seems to have ebbed.  Why make sacrifices to hang onto this one relationship when it’s so much easier to hang with your friends (chosen family if you will) and rotate a new, fresh, exciting relationship every three months or so?  It’s as though friends are the new family unit providing the emotional stability and support; and the sex/love bit is a seasonal thing.  Relationships are starting to feel a bit disposable. Is that a good thing?  I don’t know.  I can see both sides of the fence on this one if I leave it as a case by case basis of the individual.  But, taken to a high level, I know it’s not a good thing from a societal perspective. Look at Japan and Asia in general.  Women, as a whole, have given a big flippin’ bird to the idea of “must get married and have kids”. As a result they are heading for an economic disaster.   

So there is the spectrum for today’s single woman. She lies somewhere between “no strings fun” and an “economic disaster” in the making. Confusing.  Especially since I can’t even manage to figure out which kind of person I am these days.  I used to be staunchly anti-love, bucket 3!  Recently though, I have gingerly placed myself into bucket 2.  But, like a skittish ferial cat, don’t stare at me too hard lest I bolt back to my “I don’t need anybody, pfffft! Yay bucket 3!” safety zone.  

If you have someone you love and are settled good for you. No, great for you!  Cause apparently you are not only happy, you are preventing an economic disaster…well only if you have kids. If you don’t have kids apparently you are also falling down on your duty, though not half as bad as me.  So get to it…cause somebody has to save the global economy and its not looking like I’m the woman for the job.  ;)
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It's just two inches...until it's not

When it comes to beauty I’ve never put much thought into it.  I was not blessed with any sort of stunning look, nor do people point and laugh at the sight of me.  I’m very much an unremarkable blend of United Kingdom ethnicities resulting in middle of the road everything. When meeting new people I often hear, “you look just like my <insert relationship>!”  A sign of a good mutt is that there are a lot of people that look like you, and they do.   For myself, I would say looks fall comfortably into the lower third of my list of self-identity. I have not, to my recollection, ever had my beauty play a large role in my life. I would attribute my success at jobs, friendships, and boyfriends throughout life to my personality rather to my looks. In short, beyond the occasional hormone-driven burst of wanting to be beautiful just to “see what it feels like” (wahhhh-stomp-stomp) I really don’t consider myself particularly vain.

So I found it an unsettling experience when, due to some medical stuff, a huge chunk of my long hair fell out, and I didn’t react well.

Let me quantify the term “huge chunk”, it’s an oval with a diameter of 4 ½ centimeters (1.78 inches). Something roughly like this (begging apologies for different screen resolutions):

It doesn’t look like a lot does it?…until you find it missing from your scalp.  At which point all jokes about how small two inches are become totally irrelevant and is replaced with the theory that 2 inches is actually the size of small planet. Okay, maybe not a proper planet, more like Pluto. Nonetheless…enormous! Galactic! Suck the U.S.S. Enterprise through a black hole with a Klingon** warship and room to spare, huge. 

**Note: Klingon women are half bald and still bad ass.

Would it get bigger? Would it happen again?  Would it grow back?  Am I dying of something? When I got the answers they didn’t comfort me much.

No. Yes. Maybe. No. (respectively)

Why, upon finding the patch, was my reaction to lose my shit for half a day before regaining composure?  Then knowing this isn’t going to kill me or limit my quality of life in any way, why was I still upset about this? Then it hit me, I had reached a small corner of my identity where my vanity was rooted in physical appearance.  Apparently I love my hair, I put part of my self-identity in my hair.  Much like many other woman love their eyes, breasts, or the curve of their ass, that is how I loved my hair. Put me on the bow of the Titanic, let me spread my arms and scream “I’m queen of the hair!”. Okay, now I’m just getting silly, but you get the idea. Hair is one of the few physical things I am tied to that defines my “beauty”. 

I didn’t think I felt this way about my hair because I have, over the years, chopped it off and donated it to charities (how’s that for ironic?!). When faced with people's sad eyes looking at my shorten locks always said, “what’s the big deal, it will grow back”.  But now…now that isn’t a guarantee. And it isn’t just short. Its gone. It may disappear whenever it wants from here on out.  And that upset me.  Apparently I’m not so casual about my vanity as I thought. Here is your serving of humble pie m’lady.

In post-eureka euphoria I sat back and thought, “this is horrible! Is this how vain women feel all the time? Is this that thing you hear about when pretty girls measure each other up when they walk into a room?”  The horrible feeling, and how vicious of a cycle it could become, was quickly evident and I knew that I needed to resolve this alarmist reaction I was having.  It seems that no good can come from having a primary identifier being linked to physical beauty, or an aspect of beauty, which has a built in expiration date. So me, my hair, scalp, and ego all sat there with a bottle of wine and had a Vanity Summit in my head.

It was a good summit. Everyone got to air their piece and all parties reached a consensus.  It basically broke down into this is just how it is and there is no point in fighting it, or getting upset. It can’t be controlled or predicted so you are going to have to realize that your hair does not define you.  It may enhance you. Others may dismiss you because of it, if they do so that is their prerogative.  If things get bad in the future I’ll bring out the clippers and take back control. But for now, I run my fingers through my hair, touch my little bald spot and think…”it’s just one more thing that makes me, Me.”
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A Weekend of Decadent Decay - Conclusion

Prior Posts 

A Weekend of Decadent Decay – Intro

A Weekend of Decadent Decay - Hash

A short drive from Host’s house we come to Cannabis Cup (http://medcancup.com/los-angeles/schedule/) and even though we are well into the start of it (lunch in the sun was required before attending the festival) the line is literally around the block and its packed inside. We hopefully state that maybe that’s for people purchasing tickets?? But I can see them holding tickets in their hand and have resigned myself that that is indeed the line.  We join the queue and prepare to wait.  But really the sun is shining, our bellies are full, and we can see the shenanigans going on inside…so it’s not going to be that bad. I breathed deep (that always helps around stoners) and stopped looking at ways to increase efficiency of this cluster in front of me and embraced the relaxed attitude of the event. It was a good choice.

Start side note
In general, I really love hanging around stoners for finite periods of time. To me they are a lot like wine…they are all lumped together in one location but cannot, by any means, be classified as the same personality.  When you move past the commonalities of general friendliness and pro-smoke attitude everything diverges.  There are as many kinds of stoners as wines – endless and usually shaped by the land they’ve grown up in. There is no way I could list them all here.  But here are a few classifications that were in strong showing at the festival.  You’ve got your binge “box wine” stoners who are usually young, brash, blazed out of their minds and rebellious.  The “sparkling wine” stoners who are usually female, beautiful, scantily clothed and everything is happy and easy in their life at all times.  The “homemade wine” crowd of earthy intellectuals with an off-the-grid mentality. And then there are the “top shelf wine” stoners…elitist, knowledgeable, and will one-up you on everything regarding weed. They are looking for the finest herb and live in a constant state of buzz, but don’t ever get out of their minds. This crowd will judge the box wine stoners harshly.  Though more rare to find in the wild, the top-shelf is here in FULL force because this is Cannabis Cup and they have come to represent and judge the strains to pronounce “best in show” for the LA weed scene.  All of these groups interacting provides endless entertainment for me at this festival, much more than any other aspect.
End side note

The most notable moments of the festival occurred while waiting in line.  Behind us was a young group of kids that would have looked quite comfortable in the emo-punk riddled streets surrounding UW’s Ave. They excitedly talked about how they had just scored VIP tickets for free from some people that were tired of waiting in line. They talked about this A LOT, as in to every person they saw, they were going for round two cause they were on their way out when they got the ticket! they were going to see the concert now!  Harmless, enthusiastic, and loud.  In front of the emo pack was a lone youth of typical stoner attire, a lot of cotton, ubiquitous knit cap with greasy blonde locks hanging out, hemp necklace, and a sweet gentle I’m stoned smile.  It was about 20 minutes before we started chatting…you could feel him lurking just over our shoulders wanting to speak to someone, anyone, cause he’s a talker and his silence is killing him.  He flashed some hash, to no one in particular, a couple of times like a fisherman casting his rod…any takers? Anyone interested?  Given the number of lit joints I could see just from where I stood (on a public sidewalk), I think everyone was already pretty well supplied. Sorry sweet Hashboy…

Start side note
The Police presence. Negligible. In the hour+ that I was on the sidewalk, one patrol car drove by with its windows up and not even checking out the crowd.  Its very clear that the police took the right attitude on this which was “we know this is illegal cause even if you have your card you can’t smoke in public, but we really don’t want to bother with you as long as you stay civil. We good? Good.”
End side note

Friend is a lovely woman with attention drawing curves and of course Hashboy behind us really wanted to chat her up…so we did the thing that girls do so well when faced with unwanted attention - being nice but not so nice that you get the wrong idea. Problem is, in a line, you can’t relocate.  So we listened to his story (traveled all over, gypsy vagabond type, knows good hash, see hash!, unsubtle boob glances, see hash!, how you doin?, see hash!?), had a couple laughs and exchanges about what brought us to this spot, and then engaged in obvious body language that said we are done, you are becoming too much, oh look at that tree in front of us!!  This of course is an exaggeration but not by much.

In turning our attention forward I found, what I considered, the most entertaining little group of people.  What was clearly two distinct groups had merged into a delightful blend of L.A. chollos and white trash.  I believe the ratio stayed at two joints for six people for most of the time.  Add to this mental picture a skinny white boy (who looked like he had teleported from a Poison concert) who was also downing beers from his backpack and clearly drunk.  Then on top of that add a totally sober Ron Paul supporter canvasing for voters.  YES!! Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a shitshow!! Eeeeeentertain me bee-yawtches!! Here is a photo…cause well a photo is always good.


*Note beer bottle tucked in bag, joint in hand, and of course dude who couldn't be bothered to actually put on his shoes (in the background).

In case you didn’t know, Ron Paul is allll about the legalization of weed, so his supporters were heavily canvasing the area, passing out voter registration, pamphlets, etc.  Without diverging too heavily into politics let me quickly say that I really like some of Ron Paul’s platforms. However, his rabid anti-choice stance (and we are talking about actively trying to roll back Row v. Wade) means that he will never get my vote.  And his socialist leanings on other topics means that he will never pull the conservative female vote (which would back his anti-choice stance).  Add that together and you have a candidate that has alienated ALL the female base and therefore will never be elected. It’s a shame…I think he might be a good president if he’d just stay out of my uterus. Apparently the activist know this because they are steering clear of ALL the women in line, they avoid eye contact and know it is a hopeless cause to try to get our vote.  Watching these sober politicos interact with sky-high and drunk stoners is all sorts of funny because none of what politico is saying is sinking in…but the stoners are so eager for a pro-weed president they are desperately trying to understand.  So they grasp onto the flyer (above) and tuck it into their packs to read later.

Eventually we get into the festival. I have to say it is a bit of a letdown.  We opted not to spend some extra money and get our California cards that would allow us entry into the “smoke” side of the festival, so immediately the festival is chopped in half for us.  The smoke side is tits to ass crowded but they appear to be having a good time. Perhaps there was stuff I wanted to see…but well a big gate and a red wristband stood between me and ever seeing what was over there. The half that is left to us has a smattering of vendors (vaporizers, weed storage, glassware, and some other odds and ends), a strange mix of food trucks doing brisk business (yay munchies!!), and that’s about it.  We cover that in about 30 minutes.  Inside there are only two things of note – the lecture hall and a freaky-deaky art studio upstairs.  We check out the upstairs (cause I kept believing there had to be something MORE to this festival to account for the ticket price) and are smacked with patchouli and know that we have entered - Freaky. Hippy. Land.  A place of rugs and pillows, of vacant eyed “welcome to our space” people floating around in scarves and doing communal paintings of I’m not sure what.  Resisting the urge to go RIGHT back downstairs we looked at the art on the walls for a few moments, waited till no one was seeing if we wanted to join their cult, and bee lined it to the stairs.  The last thing we did at the festival was attend a lecture on growing that was interesting but nothing so structured or informative that I couldn’t have found it on the internet.  It was the basics of growing weed and the pros and cons of each decision point – seeds v. seedlings, outside v. inside, when to harvest, etc.  I liked that it all felt very matter of fact and above board.  During the lecture I found myself hoping that one day, very soon we would move from semi-legal status to legitimate legality.  I envision a time in the near future when we may actually see something like a home listing that lists 2 bed, 1 den, 1 grow room on its MLS entry.  Interesting thought, eh?  Till then the weed culture exists in this hypocritical stage of acceptance but not protected status.

And that is all there was to Cannabis Cup. A fun adventure to try out, but not something I would recommend that people must go do. 

More fun was had back at Host’s house that evening where we sat around, ordered in Chinese food, and basically hot boxed the entire living room.  I slept like a baby that night even though I never took a direct hit/drag/etc…contact high in effect, I’m sure.

The most enjoyable day for me was actually our last day in LA and had nothing to do with weed.  Just a hop, skip, and a jump from LA is Santa Monica and a lovely two mile boardwalk to Venice Beach.  So I spent my last day there.  I could spend many other days there. It was wonderful. Sand, surf, all kinds of people and pets, good food, interesting sights.  My inner kid got to come out and play for the day and she loved it. I will definitely be back.

I grow weary of typing the rest of this story…so I’ve probably already lost you several paragraphs back.  If you are still here, I will finish quickly.  The road trip back up was a bit quieter than the one down, as is always the case.  We left LA in the late afternoon and drove north through the darkness of night, over snowy mountain passes that slowed our return (but damned if I would stop) and returned safely as scheduled back home. 

It was a great little weekend and I returned with a few goodies stashed in my bag and a lot of great moments stashed in my mind.

J Cheers all  J

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A Weekend of Decadent Decay - Hash

We rolled into LA in the pre-dawn hours and, as our host wasn’t up yet, ended up chilling in a nearby park.  The park provided its own sort of entertainment as the sun tried to rise, a group of about 30 senior Asian men engaged in a competitive soccer match.  The morning was wet and gray so sipping McD’s coffee while watching red and blue jerseys hobble about on a field of green seemed just about the right speed for my sleep deprived brain.

I realized Friend and I were having a mild bout of culture shock when the scary looking walled and gated concrete mass that we deduced was a mental hospital/prison turned out to be the local high school. (I hate it when my Caucasian suburban life rears its ugly head.) Some cautious exploring showed us that everything was shut up tight with not a soul in sight (save our trusty soccer friends) and I couldn’t help but hum the chords of Gangsta’s Paradise as we drove up and down the streets of barred and graffiti bodegas.  While some of the graffiti was true art (something I genuinely enjoy seeing) most of it was just ghetto tags laying claims to turf, calling out insults, and all sorts of other things I couldn’t understand cause I didn’t speak “gang”.

A call from our host (we’ll just call him Host from here on out) told us it was safe to come on over he was up. We park, gathered all of our belongings and approached a home that, were it a woman, would have been an aged beauty queen. You could see that the bones of the place once held great beauty but that her glory days had passed.  We garnered a few strange glances from neighbors as we walked up the stairs, past unlevel steps, overgrown plants, soaked couches, stray cats and overflowing cigarette trays into the home.  Inside it was more of the same as the outside…a heady mix of declining beauty and the unusual. My eyes scanned the surfaces taking in each piece and determined the overall décor message was “we care a lot about certain things, and almost nothing at all for everything else….you’re welcome to be here but don’t expect too much.” 

Host was a very nice guy though you could see he had a Bohemian air about him…he was light on details, unfamiliar with the concept of plans, and talkative about the small stuff. In short, very warm and easy to hang with but after 2 days in his house I couldn’t say that I actually know anything about him other than what I could deduce from the contents of his home. We had a small bit of chit chat about the area (ohhh high school you say? Hmmm) and took note of the small things like Friend, who was dressed head to toe in bright red, might want to change her clothes since this was a crypts (blue) neighborhood.  That there was a roommate lurking about but he should be up so don’t worry about noise. His dogs were adorable and endearing so tummy rubs and lovin’ all around, good dogs set me at ease instantly. And then he disappeared and returned with a blow torch.     Just when you started to get comfortable.   I eye Friend with the, “uhhh I’m not doing crack and neither are you right?!” look on my face.  This is a weekend getaway for us, but when it comes to the drugs portion I’m just along as the general observer, light participation if I want and protector of any truly bad shit that Friend may stumble into.  The appearance of the blow torch caused my bad-shit-o-meter to twitch.  

Clearly Host is an expert in the world of weed consumption and we are about to get school.

What happens next is a lesson in smoking hashish (or hash).  The sticky resin is placed in the bowl of a bong, but this bowl has many small holes rather than one larger hole. Then, using the blow torch, a metal rod is heated to red hot and pressed into the bowl causing the hash to burn and from there it’s like a normal bong hit.  A massively strong bong hit. Friend appears to be having fun. Yay Friend! 

After that interesting lesson its time for Host to leave for work and we are just going to kick it until the start of the Cannabis festival in a few hours.  Another roommate shows up (though we had no idea there was another roommate so that was interesting) and we say hello and proceed on our way…off to the main reason we came to LA – Cannabis Cup! 

To be continued…

A Weekend of Decadent Decay (Intro)

Something lovely is happening to me the older I get. The walls of judgment and elitism built by my childhood are crumbling all around me. In fact, the last 5 years or so they have completely fallen away and all that is left is a solid foundation (one could say sense of self) and a pile of stones that served their purpose in my youth but aren’t relevant to my present.  As I step over the rubble of ideology that limited my life experience, I see there is a lot more to life out there that must be witnessed if not experienced hands on.  Such is how I came to find myself in the middle of a crypts neighborhood in LA, with drugs and a blow torch on the coffee table of a rundown craftsman, and some serious trepidation about what I had gotten myself into.

There are images of a panty-less cracked out Lindsay Lohan and bald Britney Spears beating up a car in your mind right now, aren't there? No worries, read on...

This is where I love that I waited a little later in life to expose myself to these things and explore boundaries…I have a strong sense of what is acceptable risk and what is just plain stupid (for me).  The “drugs” are just weed/hash.  The blowtorch is for heating a metal rod that sears the hash into a smoke. The occupants all have their 215 cards and every drug in the house is legal by state standards. The house is what I refer to as decadent decay -  where old burger king masks and trashed couches mingle with original works of art and architecture that sets my heart aflutter. The people (and pets) are the friendliest you could hope to run into. The crypts, they don’t care about you as long as you don’t mess with them.  You mix all that together on top of no sleep from an 18 hour drive and it is my perfect moment of “new experience awesomeness”.   I never know when they will happen, but I revel in them when they do.

A spontaneous road trip with a friend to go to the Cannabis Cup in LA is how I have gotten here.  Let me clarify that while not heavily into the weed culture or consumption, I am a strong proponent that weed has many amazing uses, both medicinally and as a crop, and believe 100% that it should be legalized at the federal level.  It’s a good thing. I’ll go toe to toe (figuratively) with anyone who wants to discuss why legalization of marijuana would be a bad thing for our society. Given this stance, I thought it would be an interesting weekend to go to Cali, meet some new people, get some sun, learn more about weed, and generally enjoy the company of my friend and the open road.  

As usual with life, the things that I thought would be the highlight of the trip were okay, and the notable moments were usually unexpected. 

To be continued…

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Don't look like a jester when making a gesture...

The era of formal communications is dead, would you agree?  The notion of a communication starting with a salutation, date in the upper right corner, and handwritten sentiment appears to have moved into a novelty status reserved for our grandparent's generation, weddings, and holidays card. I’m okay with this downgrading of formality as it was bound to happen with the immediacy of today’s communication tools. Text, Twitter, FB, email, and blogs are all forms of communication that have an agreed upon level of informality built into them.  The most egregious of them, in my opinion, being twitter. I still refuse to get a twitter account because I do not want to be limited to 140 characters when expressing myself.  When I explained that reasoning to an acquaintance he informed me that there was an app for that...an app that would hold the rest of your “tweet” that people could go view and read.   My inner child face palmed, while outwardly I said, “oh cool”.  But truthfully, I don’t get the point of bastardizing language just because we can. Is there a “cool” factor associated with writing in abbreviations and generally rejecting capitalization and punctuation? 
 

Overheard joke:  What’s the difference between screwing a 18 y.o. and a 28 y.o.?  The 28 y.o. old screams “oh my god!” when she comes, the 18 y.o. screams “O.M.G.!”

So why the set up on formality of speech? What point is she getting to? And what’d Twitter ever do to her?!

In a world where “omg ur bff is dtf! brb b!” is understood by a majority of the population I find myself asking just because we can understand shorthand, should that be the default quality level in all scenarios?  Shorthand, born of a necessity to adhere to character limits and mask activities from nosey parents, has crept into more formal communication platforms and I see no end in sight.  Even when writing this little post I have had to prevent myself from shortening words and emoticoning all over the place.  We are the "lol" generation and naturally trend towards informal...where is that new line for how casual we should be?  Its a legitimate question and also kind of my point for this post. This is a blog. This is the other end of the spectrum for “casual” communication and as such should have some sort of editing applied to it before posting. Yes/No? Not so much editing that the conversational, carefree whimsy of blogging is lost, but enough that we aren’t mocking your grammar instead of digesting your words.

To be clear, I’m not talking about an occasional your/you’re, their/they’re kind of mistakes. Everyone makes those, and in no way should our enjoyment of a good blog hinge on 100% adherence to the correct use of grammar.  We all know to just replace the word in our head and continue reading. No harm, no foul. (ß see that sentence. It wasn’t an actual sentence as it lacked a verb, but you knew the intent.)  I’m talking about running across bloggers who have a rampant disregard for any semblance of the written language.  Whose lack of proof reading actually pulls the reader from the enjoyment of the story because they have to figure out what s/he meant. Just a few examples… examples are always good…

As written:          allot, ive,  wont, im  (across multiple posts, multiple times)

As intended:       a lot, I’ve, won’t, I’m 
 

As written:          I like a moron fell…

As intended:       I, like a moron, fell…
 

As written:          women want to be swept off their feet with little jesters like that…
As intended:       women want to be swept off their feet with little gestures like that…

 

All I am saying is if you are going to stand on a soapbox and judge others as being idiots, you had best be sure you don’t end up looking like the fool.

 

Jester: (noun) a professional fool or clown, especially at a medieval court.