Posts tagged with "intoxication"

hair of the dog

I wish Trolley was here so we could play Starcraft 2 like we did when we lived on Island Park. I’d set up my lap­top in his room — he’d have a beer and I’d have a joint — and we’d spend hours against some com­put­ers in Warcraft 3. Or he’d surf the web and lis­ten to music while I wrote in this blog, shar­ing the apart­ment with his kit­ty and mine.

Those were the sum­mers of No Motiv and Coheed and Cambria. The win­ters of Bel Canto and The Dears. I remem­ber being hap­py then.

I wish Aaron and Trolley were here so we could get real­ly, real­ly drunk, even though I don’t drink any­more. Only when I wake up in the mid­dle of the night, and all the thoughts I’ve been push­ing into the back of my head come claw­ing out, leav­ing me with a rest­less mind. I pour a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks and prac­tice scales until the alco­hol makes me fall asleep again.

One time, we went to the Honest Lawyer to cel­e­brate Aaron’s birth­day. In our drunk­en haze, we thought it’d be a good idea to order some piz­za when we got back to my apart­ment (there was a pizze­ria right out­side the side door). Aaron hurled in the gar­den rocks as we were wait­ing for the order. We brought him in, and gave him a pil­low and tow­el cause he want­ed to sleep in the bath­room. He told me lat­er, “I only get that drunk when I’m real­ly depressed”. Sounds good to me.

I wish my friends were here so we could drink like the old days, when we were between school and work, and women.

Hanging Party

I feel utter­ly intox­i­cat­ed.

Reading poems around the piano

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.

Thumbnail: Poem reading
Thumbnail: My fruit and body series wall
Thumbnail: Old fashioned side-table
Thumbnail: Akio
Thumbnail: A hammer and a poem
Thumbnail: Old style heater
Thumbnail: Frederic and Akio
Thumbnail: Nicole Beaumont artwork
Thumbnail: Akio on the ladder
Thumbnail: Wine, ice, and salad

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.

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.

A Year Of Sobriety

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”.

Between 2004–2006, I’d only be sober for about nine hours on week­days.

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.

Maybe I was just get­ting old­er, but near the end, the side-effects start­ed tak­ing their toll on me.

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.