I feel utterly intoxicated.

With a hammer and a ladder, we hung my pictures tonight, carefully deciding where to place each one to balance the colours, the orientations, the shapes, and the concepts.

Amongst the wine and the wood, the kids and the colours, we stopped to admire the art in the house. Adrienne dropped by to share her latest graphic poems with us, along with her alcoholic findings. “From The Desk Of” Penelope was written that day, dense and deep, full of details taken for granted. The words must write themselves, I thought.

Misun and I seem to share a kinship through our appreciation of expression, something I’ve never had with my friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but I’ve always felt like they can’t relate to me when it comes to emotions or creativity. As I seem to be the creative brother she’s always wanted, and she seems to be the supportive sister I’ve always needed, we agreed to be adopted siblings.

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In a recent interview, Frédéric said, in his ebullient Parisian accent, that one of the reasons he wanted to open the Salon is to promote dialogue and interaction. Perhaps it’s this hunger for dialogue that connects us. He also mentioned to me he was stressed out about being interviewed; being put on the spot made him freeze up. I told him I had the same problem with pretty girls. “You’re affected by beauty”, he said, something I knew, but not something that everyone understands.

I left, feeling like I was a part of something wonderful, something greater than myself.

One of my daily rituals used to be lighting a joint when I got home from work, and riding off the weed for the rest of the evening. It was the only thing that could relax me; otherwise, I was tense and uptight. I couldn’t just sit and watch a movie, read a book, listen to an album without it because I felt too guilty, as if I wasn’t getting enough done.

For the first year that I quit, I missed it terribly. Not because I couldn’t sleep, not because food became bland, not because music didn’t sound as good, but because I couldn’t calm down. I was always trying to get things done, constantly depriving myself of pleasure to accomplish things without an end.

Following Taoism has changed that. Taoists value becoming as a child. Having no extraneous thoughts, and living in the now.

Unless stopped by adults, children live life to the full, whereas for most adults existence seems more of a near-life experience where we resemble actors rehearsing for a play that never quite begins, instead of playing fully, as children do, in a performance that has no beginning or end.

—Mark Forstater, The Tao

In doing so, I’ve begun to live every day as if it was my last. I don’t worry about running out of my good tea anymore, and just drink it. I don’t feel guilty about doing nothing, about letting my mind wander. I do what I feel like, when I feel like it. I’ve been able to let go. I stopped sweating the small stuff, and started enjoying life.

An ex-smoker once told me that the part he missed the most about smoking was the ritual. The early-morning-coffee or the after-dinner smoke. He felt a lot better after quitting, but if he found out the world was going to end in a week, the first thing he would do is go to the corner store and buy a pack of smokes. I used to think that I’d do the same with weed. Not so, anymore.

Not that I don’t miss it every now and then. There are certain things that can only be experienced through mind-tripping highs. It’s something I’d like to keep for special occasions. When I go to see Darren, or when John comes down, but even those seldom times aren’t worth it anymore. I know I’ll never do it again, but I don’t mind because I know I’ve been fortunate enough to experience it already. The important part is that I’m not dependent on it.

Taoist hedonism has set me free.

It’s coming close to a year now that I ended my affair with marijuana. As refreshing, productive, and lucid as it is to be sober, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss it.

THC has the delightful ability to make everything better: music, food, girls, writing, riding the bus, doing the laundry. There are also things that can only be appreciated after a joint. You don’t see, hear, feel things the same way.

It turned into a lifestyle, a word I like to use because it sounds so much better than “addiction”.

Weekends were straight wake-and-bake, especially if there was a party, a camping trip, or some good old dim sum.

I was a complete light-weight too; it didn’t take much to have me floating for a night. As a result, one ounce of BC hydro would last me more than a year. An added bonus was that I never needed a dealer; there was always some convenient source through a friend of a friend. O Canada, land of the free, the Inuit, and the plentiful bud. I’m sure that Pierre Burton would agree.

Sessions were a habitual provider of great memories (from what my brain was actually able to retain). I still think of Darren at the wheel of the Civic, looking over at me and whispering “Vanilla Sky” as he’d taunt our mortality by letting the wheel drift the car into the oncoming lane. It was at once terrifying and invigorating, something you could only feel after a session in the park. Even a few of my favourite entries were either inspired by weed or written under the influence.

Food was also a big thing. Every meal was like nectar and ambrosia. I never really stopped eating over the course of the day, as I’d have food around me at all times. Pretty soon, I hit a satisfying all-time high (no pun intended) with my weight. Now that I’ve stopped, I lost it all. They won’t even let me donate blood anymore because I don’t meet the minimum weight requirements. This is what I looked like, circa early 2005, and this is what I looked like circa early weekend. How I miss the fullness of my face.

Sobriety is different. Everything is clearer, but toned down. Life gets evened out.

As much as I miss it, I won’t go back to smoking weed again. I had a hard enough time stopping in the first place, and the risk of getting addicted again isn’t worth it.

Instead of the racing ideas and inspiration from when I started, I turned into a zoned-out waste. I’d be completely useless when it came to talking or thinking. I stopped liking myself when I was stoned. My stomach felt like it was slowly digesting a sack of pebbles, and my throat became sore and dry. Even now, I still come across the odd stash of honey lozenges in the back of a drawer.

It was especially scary in the last few months when I could feel my tolerance building up. I was constantly chasing after that head-tripping peak from the early days, smoking more and more, but it’d never last longer than a half hour. The weed would help me sleep, and when I stopped I turned into an insomniac. For a while, the will to do anything eluded me because nothing was entertaining.

Now I’ve quit my vices altogether. No alcohol, no caffeine, nothing. Sobriety is underrated.

I know I’ll never go back to that time in my life, but I sure do miss it.

Exactly one year ago today, I was doing this. Even though the annual party at Chris and Clarmen’s actually starts on the 25th, I really see it as a boxing day party, the way a New Year’s party really starts on the 31st of December.

That night we used the excuse of going to Timmies for all the parents as a way out of the house to have a session. Unfortunately, this meant remembering about a dozen drink orders, something that proves difficult under the influence.

In chronological order:

1. We met up at the house, where Darren’s fingers brave the turtles
2. A session occurred outside, and on the way to Timmies we introduced Chris to Dreamtheater (hence the music selection)
3. An order is made for about a dozen drinks with great difficulty
4. We drove back to play Slap Hand, which is a variation on Slap Jack, except the pile is hit every time the correct number is called (and for increased difficulty we played with +/- rules where the pile is only hit if the number spoken is an addition or subtraction of a different specified number)
5. Darren randomly deals everyone a hand of hold ‘em and plays it through, and this causes me to make fun of his obvious addiction
6. Darren precisely deals a full hand of 13 cards for a game of Asshole, while talking, for which I count my cards in disbelief and finally realize just how much he plays cards

Other signs of how stoned we were:

• Darren and Chris’s voices drop an octave, while my voice raises two (two!)
• I can’t keep my jittery hands under control
• The way Chris says, “Just awesome guys. Awesome.”
• At one point we have to stop to count to the right number in Slap Hand
• I laugh, a lot

This year, today, Lam joined us instead since Darren is off in Las Vegas.

The holidays have finally begun. I got off work yesterday after working 12 hours, when I had to close the lab after doing the year-end archiving (a rather nerve-wracking responsibility). Everything went well though, and it felt as though a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

After traveling 12 hours here by car, John’s in town to spend a few days with Julia and her family, but I have him booked for today. Even before Harold and Kumar came out in the theatres we made a vow not to see it unless it was with each other and we were blitzed out of our skulls. The opportunity has never presented itself until now, so one can easily imagine my excitement.

Tonight he’s dropping me off at Shirley’s, who’s offered to take me in for Christmas since the summer, since she knew I’d most likely be alone otherwise. I’ll be staying the night so I can wake up early with Braden, Julia, and Nicole, who are seven, nine, and eleven respectively, for the normal Christmas mirth associated with the opening of presents. John’s picking me up in the early afternoon for the five hour trip home. When I arrive, I’m off to the other traditional Boxing Day party at Chris and Clarman’s house.

After that it’s Boxing Day shopping with my mom, the only sort of bonding experience we have, followed by a few days of quiet at home, before coming back here for Aaron’s end-of-year bash. All the social interaction isn’t exactly relaxation, but more of a holiday distraction before getting back to the grind for ‘06.

Pat will be looking after the kitties.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrow — it empties today of strength.

—Corrie ten Boom

It started with a single panic attack, at work, in the middle of the day.

Heart racing, difficulty breathing, paralyzing terror, fear that I was about to die.

If you’ve ever had a bad trip off psilocybe, or magic mushrooms, the effects are very similar. Not that I’ve ever had a good one. Half an hour into ingestion, I start to feel nauseated. At the back of my head there’s a creeping sense that something is wrong. My hands start to tremble, my mind feels like it’s shuddering. Eventually, there’s a complete uneasiness in the body, both physically and mentally. Around that time, the body reacts quickly to rid the stomach of whatever is causing these symptoms, and violently ejects them in the form of vomiting. Stems and caps come out as dark brown flecks, and you wonder how eating something so small thing can make you feel so terrible.

It comes without warning, without obvious reason. All you want is to end the attack. To crawl into a corner and hide. To tear off your strangling clothes. To die.

Afterward, you’re not wondering what you’re going to listen to on the way home, or how to get the attention of that cutie in the porcelain department, or when you’ll have time to go buy more shampoo. All you’re thinking about is when the next one will happen. All you’re left with is a bunch of questions and a sense of instability. I have my suspicions, but I’ve chosen not to write about them until I’m certain, something which I believe will come in time. There’s no simple diagnosis, no easy answer.

Recently, scientists have discovered that the word “wheeze” can activate asthma attacks in asthmatics. The mind triggers an associated emotional response, and the body manifests the reaction. It’s the same after a panic attack. Sometimes, people with panic disorder can bring on an attack just worrying or thinking too much about it.

Not that I have a disorder. The fear of an attack isn’t detrimental enough to stunt me socially, and doesn’t prevent me from functioning as what the DSM IV would consider “normal”. It was only a single episode, but habit of constant self-evaluation means that the threat of it happening again is always there. It’s in the back of my mind whether I’m at work, or playing games, or cooking dinner. Every minute of every day becomes a struggle not to think about it. And when you know you feel like dying during an attack, you start to wonder whether it’s worth living at all.

People face this question when they’re diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Told that they have only have a few years left, they live more in those numbered days than they do in their entire lives until then.

They awaken.

The Awakening Series

1. Introduction
2. Cause
3. The Reborn Dreamer

(This took four months to write)

I was kicking back on the couch with John
with the lights out and the music on.

Wut wut.

Anyway, we were stoned out of our skulls and it was Naked As We Came by Iron And Wine. We sat there, listening to the dulcet notes of a lone guitar lead into Sam Beam’s sugary voice, soon to be gently rounded off by his sister, Sara, as the harmony. A summer-morning-during-harvest song, or dancing in the middle of a cool rainfall.

She says ‘If I leave before you darling
don’t you waste me in the ground’
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
one of us will die inside these arms

Eyes wide open
naked as we came
one will spread our
ashes round the yard

And we sat there, listening, remarking to each other about how morbid it all was, yet so beautiful.

Even John was moved, but how could he not be? One of them would die but there was solice in the fact that it would be in the embrace of the other, as if neither one would want to die any other way, doing anything else.

And it felt like, for the first time in my life, John could understand a completely different side of me.

I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am. Would you even believe me, if I told you why?

If I wasn’t so exhausted, wasn’t so achy, wasn’t so mentally drained…but I know they’re all just excuses, and I gave you my word. Would you even understand, if you knew how much I wanted to be there?

This medicine is like a drug, a bad, cherry-tasting drug, that causes drowsiness and lowers my inhibitions.

A photo of Lisa, lying on Trolley’s bed, treating her surface piercing with salt water after a mid-day burn. The light was already coming through the window, but the smoke made the individual rays distinguishable. I’m pretty satisfied with the way the colours turned out, although the picture doesn’t really capture how much darker the rest of the room was. Definitely a very particular mood, like being under a flourishing tree on a sunny summer day, with the cool feeling of grass underfoot.

Lisa is one of those people with which one can spend time without having to worry about running out of things to say. She can do enough talking to keep a conversation going, so as long as the vibe is right, there are no awkward silences. She gave me a super for the first time, and I could barely move afterwards (although this is also partially be due to the hydro I graciously got through Adam). It was a little scary to feel so out-of-control, but everything was comfortable enough for me to keep it together. I was peaking for more than an hour straight, something I hadn’t experienced since I first started, what Scarface would call, “back in the day”.

It’s always interesting to meet someone from a totally different group of stoners. Each group has their own style, rituals, etiquette. One can tell a lot from how someone rolls, how long they take before passing, how carefully they correct runs, or simply how they act when they’re under the influence. The session becomes a way for people to share their traditions with others, to discover the characters of people that may otherwise remain hidden behind the guard put up in everyday life. By taking part, one becomes open in letting others know that one is comfortable enough to even act out of character.

Trolley and I went to get some paint chips. It wasn’t too long since my last session before we left. In the store I was surrounded by colour, a pedestal of floating gradients.

We move in a little over a month. I think I’ll do my room in a dark blue, and two walls of the living room in light beige. Trolley’s thinking either light grey or deep red for his.

Another bus ride back to the apartment today. Hopefully it’ll be under five hours; the ride here was just over the six hour mark due to large scale, poor weather conditions. I’m tempted to bring an extra strength Sleep-Ez to make the ride go by faster if there are any delays, but my experience with one earlier this way has swayed me against it. It was the first time in my life I took a sleeping pill, and I felt almost mechanically, medicinally drowsy. John called me in the middle of sleep, and the only thing I remember is taking the call, and telling him that I had to hang up because I was too focused on staying conscious to listen to anything. For some reason, I’ve always found it extremely easy to stay conscious, but the Sleep-Ez is the first thing that has ever overcome this ability. The only time in my life that I have ever passed out was during a weekend this summer, due to the influence of certain inebriants. The Sleep-Ez would be twice as worse, and if anything were to happen where I need to be awake while travelling, I wouldn’t be able to function.

This is the ritual.

We meet. Usually by Greyhound.

We get stoned. In the car, in the park, or in the apartment.

This is what we’ve been saving for. What we’ve chosen to deny ourselves of, until the present company, so that the experience is more intense. The reason why we’ve withheld for so long.

We introduce to each other what we’ve discovered on our own. Songs. Videos. Experiences.

There is no pride. No bias. No judgment.

We cherish these times. These weekends. These memories.

When we can grow from one another.

Because we’ve grown from ourselves.

Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.

I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.

And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.