5:22 p.m. - November 17, 2001
toke
Fine, goddamnit, fine, I'm updating, but not because I want to or anything. And definitely not because I realized again last night that although I'm most decidedly not straightedge, the only reason I might turn out to be is because I'm too chicken to take a toke.
Or maybe I'm just picky. It seemed to me that last night wasn't worth it; traipsing around in the proverbial underbrush looking for someplace to curl around our silly makeshift popcan bong (I know, I know), where we wouldn't get caught. My father, later, mad a valid point: 'Policemen have better things to do than worry about a bunch of teens sucking suspiciously at empty Coke cans. Like stop people from killing each other'. Well, okay, but that's not how my friends saw it. We found a park. We sat in it, with the exception of ::miss i don't want to mess up my pants on the wet ground::. Then they thought it was too suspicious. So we traipsed some more through south Evanston, until we finally just went to ::miss this is TOO a shirt::'s house and told her parents we were gong o be meditating and burning incense. I find it hard to believe they didn't know better, since by the time it started burning we fucking REEKED, but either way, I yet again felt pathetic. What kind of experience was this supposed to be, huddled, paranoid, in a corner room trying to be quiet so nobody could hear us? Isn't pot supposed to relax you?
I sat on the floor, and watched, because I simply could not bring mysef to put my mouth to the opening of that can and suck in the lovely smoke; not because the smoke was bad, but because the setting was bad, and the method was bad, and I wasn't interested in getting high in a cramped space with five people I, admittedly, don't fully trust, in a room hiding from offending siblings and parents. I read a magazine while they all sucked it down. No offense, seriously, none at all, to those who might have been there who might be reading this, but I was fairly disgusted.
So we all walked home, haltingly, swaying, commenting on the kettle full of dogs or the runaway lighter, or the car shining a flashlight or the lenghthy spitting of gum, and it was fun, the walk home, but doesn't this just reek of the norm, the teen gaggle trying drugs for the first time, giggling and huddling in a room? And everyone, honestly, don't deny it, pretending to be much higher than they actually were? The setting made my nose wrinkle, involuntarily maybe, maybe as a result of my unparalleled pretension, which is a beaten subject, but it did.
Went home, 1:00 am, stood in my father's doorway until he woke up and started coughing again. "Next time my friends and I want to smoke up, we're doing it in our backyard," I said, point-blank.
"Do what you want," he said. "I don't know anything about it."
"So we can?"
"Whatever."
I love my father. My backyard, calm, open, is a perfect setting, it might even make it enjoyable, even (gasp) worth it. I should be able to find out if I'm chicken or just picky about the 'perfect' setting. After all, it is just drugs. I've never been drawn by them. But if they're there...*shrug*. Another phrase well put by my dad: 'What's the big deal? Why are you all so up on getting fucking high? It's really not that big a thing.'
Exactly.

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