The Red Dot(s): Three Forms of Crystal to Get to The Great HIGHway

  
There was too much speed last night between the street racing and the methamphetamine. But I'm not exactly sure the drag racing actually happened although I do have a ruby I stole from some guys earring. I did end up hands and knees on the floor scrubbing with Target-brand Pinesol. That was much, much later after all the lines blurred and disappeared. It was also after a red dot in the shape of a pimple I just had to pop. My friend wasn't too pleased. Who really likes it when a friend obsessively stares at you and suddenly gets up from his seated position on the couch across from you and decides that he has to kiss you and as he is kissing you pops your zit -- the same zit you probably obsessed about in front of the mirror and tried to cover using concealer that made it look cracked and caky instead --  even though you're screaming and pushing him off and your other friends are laughing hysterically? At least I was able to blame it on the speed.

Continue reading.

A Repurposed Coke Bottle and a Few Close Friends

  
I didn't get intoxicated until a year and a half in to my two years of college. It's not that I didn't want to drink or do drugs. It's just that I was more concerned with church and acting and stealing things from stores, convenience and department. I just liked different highs like the kind you get from having the Holy Spirit invade your body and forcing you to speak in tongues. Sure, it seems like an odd way of escape, but it's no different than pull out good ol' Autumn Rose, taking a huge toke from her double-barreled water filtration system, and talking for hours about how the universe is connected. Both, in their essence, are existential. Both are intoxicating. Both are unreal.

It was holy weed from the land of California brought to us by a friend roaming from coast to coast selling joints and telling stories to ear money for his trip that sullied me. I was the only novice out of a handful of comrades sitting in my boyfriend's living room tripping out to Portishead or The Cardigans or some other mid-09's alterna-ish band. The traveller knocked on the door and the contemplative mood ignited momentarily just like a match being struck. He joined us on the couch and began rolling a joint. I was mesmerized by the deftness of his fingers and the gentle wafting green earth smell.

Everyone thought of me as straight-laced. The seminary didn't do much for dispelling that myth. In fact, it outright confirmed that I was dull and a bore, a person comfortable with rules and ritual. On one hand, that is somewhat true. I do have an internal need for order. But chaos and instinct guide my every action. Because of this perception, beers and joints normally passed me by. I didn't really care. My head was crazy enough without added intoxicants.

The joint was passed from lip to lip. My boyfriend looked at me, smiled, and blew a little smoke in my face. I inhaled tasting sage, tobacco, and clove. My foodie palate just beginning, I wanted to taste more. He passed it to me. I inhaled again.

The myths about not getting high the first time or newbies not inhaling deep enough or how weed made you batshit crazy all evaporated in that one long breath. Marijuana reached the bottom of my lungs, and I held it there. Slowly exhaling, a thin stream of smoke made its serpentine escape and danced in the air before finally disappearing. My eyes tickled, my head danced, and I eased back into the couch quiet and relaxed.

"This is what marijuana does? This?" I thought, and then I laughed a small laugh that I thought only I could here, but spilled out of my lips just like the smoke.

My friends started giggling at me, but I didn't care. I just added to their laughter until all of us couldn't remember what started it all. The joint still passed from lip to lip until it and our laughter was extinguished.

Then, our traveller stood up and announced he had one more surprise for us. He swiftly exited the house into the wintry snowy night and returned with a long glass contraption with chambers and flutes and spindly things. A dash of water added to the bottom, and it was set to take us somewhere else entirely. We marveled at its unique form and beauty. Such a thing could easily have had its place in a Chihuly exhibition.

The lighter hit the bowl igniting the tiny green leave as more smoke twirled upward mirroring the abstracted shapes my boyfriend had previously attempted to paint on his walls. I was no longer in his house. I , too, was a traveller riding my high to distant places, imagining California warmth, and a life less ordinary. I was a rebel uniting with comrades and planning some incursion that would never come to fruition. I closed my eyes and felt each fiber of the woven couch between my forefinger and thumb riding its long strands into the cotton of the cushions.

I enjoyed the mixture of enhanced reality and imagination. It was a needed release from the constant clatter of my unaltered hyperactive mind. I was able to ride a thought or an idea until I found another point it connect to. Then, I would explore that point, its edges and boundaries, until the curved circumference broke and unwound into another long line. Another point. Another line.

The glass contraption reached my lips; a lighter already lit; I inhaled again.

Our traveling guest told his tale of the bong. It was a gift or an art project or something of that nature. I don't recall. In a previous life, it was a Coke bottle. The logo stretched beyond recognition, he was the only one who knew for sure whether this tale was true.

The evening ended with a little making out, but not with the boyfriend rather his best friend. He walked in on us and laughed. He was thrilled to see not only my perceptions of drug use open up but also my concepts of relationships. It was that same evening I decided I wouldn't be monogamous. He encouraged a lot of my growth.

I can't recall how the evening ended. Such is the result of pot smoking, time, and distance. It's been fourteen years since that first puff, and rarely have I looked back on it. Now, recording this story, I am glad not only for that evening but also for my willingness to try something new. Risk doesn't come without failure or disappointment or even possibly violence. But risk does stretch one's thinking. That night, thanks to some weed, a repurposed Coke bottle, and a few close friends, I was stretched. And I'm still stretching today.

Late Night Ramen

 
We've had many exploits. A good amount involve booze and drugs. They culminated in almost burning down the apartment thanks to late night ramen. We should have seen it coming. Well...he did. I just ignored it.

It was someone's birthday, and my partner was out of town leaving the door wide open for crystal-laced antics. We had a tiny amount and shared it among the two of us. It wasn't enough, so we chased it with cheap tequila. The music pumped either Janet Jackson, Madonna, or some random disco tune, and we danced through our Castle getting ready to gow out throwing feathers and glitter and leather all over the place. A drag queen exploded.

We left the apartment and began our crawl looking for trouble along the way. She stood across the street in a rainbow-silver mini-dress. It was the same as the one in my closet. Her bright red 5-inch platform heels didn't match. Emboldened by intoxication, I approached, my black mesh sleeveless shirt and black and red boa a perfect compliment to her outfit.

"Hey honey. How are you?"

"What do you want, sugar?"

"We're looking for trouble tonight. Know where we could find any?"

"Sugar, dressed like that touble'll find you."

We laughed, kissed cheeks, and went our separate ways. The search continued.

After a few bars, some dancing, and more tequila, vodka, and Jagermeister, we wobbled from Polk street to SOMA, hopeful our quest would be fruitful there. We prowled the backrooms of My Place and Powerhouse and a variety of alleys each time getting a little more drunk, obnoxious, and belligerent. We were on a collision course leading directly to A Taste of Leather and the man dressed in black, a cap shading his eyes, whispering, "K, e, speed, and coke. K, e, speed, and coke."

We pulled out our wallets and counted our change.

"What will $20 get us?"

"Here," and he handed us a small baggie of something transparent white in small rock form as he took our money. "Have fun." He moved on. We stayed put.

"What the hell is this?"

"Looks like speed. Only way to tell is to do it."

"Who's going first?"

"I will! It's my birthday."

We crushed it up, and it was gone in four quick snorts.

There was more booze, some anonymous backroom sex, and a couple of pinball games. Then, everything closed and we were forced to stagger back to our Castle.

"I'm soooo hungry!"

"Me too. We should've had dinner."

"Let's go get food."

"I'm broke. I spent everything I had on drinks and that random shit we did."

"Ho you feeling?"

"I just want to fucking eat! Other than that I am fucking FANTASTIC!"

"Let's go grab some Thai food from Osha. It's cheap. I'll pay."

"Only if we bring it back here. I don't want to sit in the fucking florescent lights."

We managed to call in an order, pick it up, and bring it back to the apartment. Our feast of pad thai, fried tofu, and larb sat between us; chopsticks in both of our hands.

"This is SO good! I have an idea!"

"Oh god no."

"No really. This will be fabulous. You gotta trust me."

"No...I don't trust you."

"Come on! Come on!"

My goading prodded him further. Our feast turned into a mess. Noodles stuck to my face and sauce dripped from my chin. I qwnr in to the kitchen, pulled out a pot, and filled it with water.

"We need ramen!"

"What? We already have food."

"I know. And what would go better with our feast than some Top Ramen?"

It was one of those ideas that drugs makes good.

"We don't need ramen."

"Yes...I think we do."

I put the pot on the stove to boil. We both promptly fell asleep.

He woke up to the stink of the pan burning some hour and a half later. I was still unconscious. He turned off the stove and went back to bed.

The next morning...

"What the hell were you trying to do to me last night? Did you want to kill us?"

"Huh," was all I could muster.

"Ramen...does that ring a bell?"

"Kind of. I think I amde some last night."

"Uh...You started to make some. You were unsuccessful."'

"Really? I could have sworn we had some noodles," as I pulled one still stuck to my cheek.

"That was pad thai. Take a look in the dining room."

Our feast covered the table and spilled on to the floor.

"Wow. That Thai food was really good."

"Then why did you have to make ramen?"

"Because it was a fantastic idea at the time."

"You forgot all about it! I woke up to the pan burning."

"Thank god you were here."

We laughed.

"Yes, thank someone."

I learned my lesson: never listen to that inner voice that says "make ramen" in the early morning hours. Unless your best friend is there to save your life.

Stolen Playgirls

 
B. Dalton carried Playgirl. I visited frequently and shoplifted copies. I would walk over to the magazine rack and casually peruse Home and Garden, Marie Claire, Vogue, and Women's Day, and when the clerk wasn't looking I'd grab a Playgirl and shove it between the pages of one of the myriad women's magazines. When the clerk turned away again, I would shove it up my shirt or down my pants and move to the sci fi or mystery section. Another ten to fifteen minutes later I left looking dejected that I didn't find what I was looking for, heart pounding hoping I wouldn't get caught.

The magazine was masturbatory gold and got tucked away between the mattress and box spring next to the naked men birthday cards I stole from the drug store. My stash was my fantasy and needed to be hidden between things. They invaded my dreams, and I woke up wet.

This continued until my mother decided to clean my bedroom or make my bed or snoop and found the naked men between mt sheets. She threw them away, confronted me, and I denied the whole thing scared that they would send back to a shrink to become straight like they did in the eighth grade.

"They aren't mine. It won't happen again," I said.

We all lived in denial for a few more years.