It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a strip club. The co-workers of my first job, along with the president of the company, were the ones took me to my first. They made it a point to “initiate” me when they found out I had never been. I still look back on that memory fondly, because I was so young and green, and they wanted to get me over my inexperience.

But it was never something I did with any frequency. You always look at those guys, seating by themselves at the head of the table with a beer in hand, thinking, “Is this better than what you have at home?”

After all, strip clubs are never really about the girls. It’s about being out with your friends, when your parents think you’re at a movie¹. They’re like concerts. You could sit at home and listen to a CD with studio quality sound, but there’s something different about the atmosphere of a live experience.

It’s easy to grow past the appeal of strippers though. There’s no personality there. Even Playboy models have likes and dislikes. The furthest a strip club goes is by saying, “Here’s Porsche, and she used to be an airplane attendant”.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the female figure. But there’s no appeal in a stripper.

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1. Some of them had ringtones set for their home numbers, and just the ring would set off a round of teenage spite [↑]

Cause Trailer Park Boys never give up.

Cause Trailer Park Boys aren’t stuck in the rat race.

Cause Trailer Park Boys smoke weed, drink, and eat cheeseburgers all day.

Cause Trailer Park Boys love kitties as much as I do.

Cause Trailer Park Boys always dream, hope, believe in something better.

Eric, who used to work with me, introduced me to Brant Bjork, and stoner rock in general, about two years ago. It’s a genre that explores delightful repetition, where variations are subtle, but powerfully psychedelic.

[I]t is certainly accepted that the effects of marijuana and the often low or psychedelic riffs of stoner rock complement each other.

—Wikipedia, Stoner rock

I liken the idea to Plastikman’s debut album, Sheet One. Though of a different genre — trance — it features a perforated album cover, an homage to acid tab art, for which the LSD enhances the details of every single minimalistic beat (so I’m told).

While I’ve enjoyed Queens of the Stone Age, who are considered to be influenced by the stoner rock movement (indeed, Josh Homme and Brant Bjork formed pioneering band Kyuss while in high school), the sound is a little more commercial, less droning.

After I heard a few songs by Brant Bjork, I was hooked. I never associated it with a memory, which is what I do with almost all my songs, but it was good enough that I didn’t have to.

At Thanksgiving, during one of my trips through the mall with Andrew and Alex, I resumed my search for Brant Bjork’s solo album by the name of Jalamanta. It was a bigger city, a bigger place…maybe I’d have a better luck. Unfortunately, every music store gave me the same answer; it was an album they didn’t keep regularly in stock.

Alex asked me what I was looking for, the name of the album and artist, and I didn’t think anything of it.

Yesterday, I found a package in the mail. Fragile — CD, it said. Inside was the Brant Bjork CD I’ve been looking for, which they found at an independent music store. Along with the CD was a card made from my Pollen Junkie photo (which was taken in their garden), with a message written on the back.

And as great as it is to finally hear the songs I’ve been missing, as nice as it is to have an original release, it’s nothing compared to the thoughtfulness, the effort they made to find me exactly what I was looking for.

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.

The woman likes to clean.

I mean, I clean my house when I have guests, but every time she would visit, she could go over what I did and get things cleaner. Everything. Like hand-scrubbing the bathtub. Or washing the glass light-fixtures. Or maybe even to going through my freezer to throw out old frost-burned food and odd-looking, pungent-smelling dried herbs with red hairs in them, kept in an air-tight aluminum jar.

Herbs you could roll in cigarette fashion and smoke to alter your mood and change your perspective. About $70–$80 worth, kept in three different Ziploc bags, each with a different strain that I could choose when I felt that my tolerance to one was building up.

There was hydro from BC I bought off Matt. Some that John got for me, with a funny story behind how he acquired it. Some I don’t even remember who gave me.

I wonder what the expression was on her face if she smelled it, or how she would react if she ever found out that I did such things. I doubt she even knew what it was.

It was probably for the best. Even though I quit, I never threw it out.

I don’t think I could bring myself to do it.

Fall approaches. The trees have yet to shift their colours along the spectrum, but the temperature has begun to drop. Even when the air is calm it’s a playful shiver down the spine.

One of my favourite things to do around this time of year, before I quit, would be some wake and bake to start the day. After smoking a joint, I’d open the windows, turn up the music, and let the breeze drift inside. Sometimes I would go for a walk with my iPod before the sun fully showed itself. When the beat was right, the hardest thing to do was not to move my body to the music, to groove embarrasingly, and grind and sing and twirl.

I won’t say that I don’t miss that lifestyle, because it was a way I could view things from a different perspective. My thoughts would run freely on those early autumn walks. Music would sound better. Girls, covering up in sweaters and long sleeves, would look nicer. It was a prescription I would need every week.

The experience isn’t the same until it’s this time of the year. Smothering summer heat dulls the senses. Winter overstimulates them into sobriety, and even after a full bowl, all one can feel is cold. It’s only in the fall, in the perfect weather, that brings one to ones’ senses. The green air, full of that cold concrete smell, gives a rush to the head.

Until I walked outside this morning, with !!! pounding in my ears, I never thought I could feel this way again.

The approach of fall has brought this back to me.

Trolley’s Moving Out

Trolley’s moving out, and taking most of the living room with him. I’ve been pre-occupied with matching two-piece sectionals, clever hidden storage coffee tables, other things that are completely unnecessary in the hunter-gatherer sense of life. Pat’s taking me furniture shopping this Monday, from morning to night. I’ll be in debt soon, going into my line of credit off my house for the first time, but it’ll be oh so worth it.

Father’s Day Without a Dad

Father’s day came and went. I waited until the 3rd Sunday of June to see if my dad would call me first, but he never did, not since the divorce. Not ever actually. It was always my mom who called, and passed the phone to him. We’d make small talk for roughly 30–60 seconds, and he’d pass the phone back to mom. The last time I spoke to him was when I went back home in April. At least my mom called to make sure I was okay after she broke the news. Even she told me to call him, but I don’t feel like it. If anything, he owes me.

A New Paddle

Table tennis at the club ended, as the venue is shutting down until the fall. The only physical activity left for me is the occasional match with Pat at his new place. I bought a new penhold blade, a Mazunov OFF+, and two Sriver 2.1mm rubbers, marking the first time that I started using speed glue with a custom paddle. I’ve only had the chance to try them out a few times, but I can tell that the setup has been perfect for my offensive style. I was apprehensive of getting rubbers that were too thick (2.4mm) and fast, for fear that my footwork wouldn’t be able to keep up, but I’ll definitely consider it once these ones wear out.

Getting Slashdotted

I met one of my life’s goals when I was Slashdotted for my HomeStar Planetarium review. The visits for the first 12 hours nearly jumped to 15,000, but the server handled the load, albeit a little slowly. Something I can cross off my list.

I Quit

Another thing to cross off is quitting the weed. Not for John this time, but for myself. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with marijuana. It’s not the same addiction as other drugs. Dr. Andrew Weil, who’s not a pot critic by any means, describes the problem perfectly in his 2004 book, From Chocolate to Morphine.

Marijuana dependence can be sneaky in its development. It doesn’t appear overnight like cigarette addiction…but rather builds up over a long time. The main danger of smoking marijuana is simply that it will get away from you, becoming more and more of a repetitive habit and less and less of a useful way of changing consciousness.

When I tried to quit before, I’d always tell myself “this is the last day”, but I’d say the same thing every day for months at a time. I’d always need an excuse to stop, but none of the excuses I could come up with would ever work. This time it’s official. I’ve learned all that I can from it, and lost all desire to get burned again. Darren tells me that he’s done too, and when he visits soon it’ll mark the first time that we’ve hung out sober in three years. I’m curious if we’ll have anything in common now.

New Business

There’s been an upturn of business. Through Pat, I got a small website contract for my personal company, and I recently joined a stock photography site to make some extra money off my pictures. I take my camera with me everywhere, and I don’t have to do anything for the royalties if other people purchase them anyway. All that’s left to do now is getting some model release forms signed from people of various parties that I’ve taken. I also bought a book about real estate investments in Canada, in hopes that I’ll soon be able to make my money work for me, instead of vice versa.

A Few Events

Aaron’s Canada Day barbecue is on Saturday. Darren’s coming the next weekend. I’m also supposed to see Shirley at some point, since I haven’t seen her in half a year. I gave her a call two weeks ago, in hopes that I could take her family out for some dim sum, but she hasn’t returned. I’m a little hurt. We barely get to see each other anyway, but it’s hard to blame a mother of three for being too busy.

Not that I have much time myself lately.

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.

I promised John I’d be sober until the next time I see him, which should be in the last week of August, if everything goes as planned.

I had difficulty making the promise for myself. I’ve easily gone cold turkey before, by my own free will, but that was because I was in a relationship. John’s the last person in the world I want to let down. He’s lost enough already, including his mother and his sense of smell.

Sometimes one needs a reason. Sometimes one needs someone for whom to stop.

(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.

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.