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Post 1761, Day 308 of 2016
- 2,134 days since I started this blog -
- 2,134 days since I started this blog -
When I was eight years old, I started to read the 'Golden Illustrated Encyclopedia' (was that its name? after all this time I don't remember). I read every word of every volume. It was there I first heard about marijuana, briefly described as an illegal cigarette that heightens moods and was favored by Mexicans, 'beatniks' and musicians, to their detriment.
I smoked pot for the first time when I was 15, and didn't know much more about it than what I had read more than half a lifetime previously in two paragraphs in a kid's encyclopedia.
At the time, outside of TV caricatures, I had no knowledge of Mexicans. While I had long been exposed to performing musicians, I didn't know anything about the ancillary lifestyle involved, and everything I knew about beat culture was overly romantic reading of a few of the better-known beat poets, and, again, the sanitized, usually comic portrayal on TV. Maynard G. Krebs, I'm looking at you.
At age fifteen, I was a goofy kid, smart but slightly neurotic, always trying to act older and more mature than I was, because most of my classmates were two years older than me, and they were trying to act more mature than they were. I had been consistently failing in my attempt to act older for five years, always behind the curve by at least two years, always willing to risk anything for approval from my peers.
I was clueless as to what maturity at seventeen was, and I was physically and emotionally not even a very mature fifteen-year-old. At that point, too my detriment, I had lived a very sheltered life.
On a not-too-cool Friday night in October, 1965, I was a Senior (barely), hanging out with a few friends from high school, mostly members of the Senior Show (just starting to get in gear) gathered in my friend Steven's basement to listen to some records (Beatles, Stones, mostly jazz, because Steven's older brother was in college and that's what he was into). Steve's family was out for the night.
I think everybody was smoking cigarettes (I had started smoking cigarettes at twelve - again, anything to look older, to fit in). (I wasn't even shaving at twelve years old). Somebody had some joints. I was nearly 100% ignorant of anything about pot, even, at that time, that marijuana, or grass, was called pot. But... I didn't want to look less cool than anybody else, and I wasn't opposed to the idea, and... There was the lure of the forbidden...
So, we all got high. Especially me.
Because it was my first time, and first encounter, I had no idea what to expect. I felt a lot of things, always questioning if I was feeling the way I was supposed to.
Then we heard Steve's parents come home upstairs, and we had to exit through the garage, quickly, because Steve wasn't supposed to have anybody over - let alone five or six friends. And, of course, he was terrified of his marijuana use being discovered.
So we were out in the streets, young, giddy, stoned. I lived nearby, and my parents were out for the evening so I suggested we go to my house.
A big leap for me. I never brought my friends home to my apartment, being afraid that my family would embarrass me, and also because the apartment, mostly maintained by my brother, sister and me, was usually a mess, and because it wasn't nicely furnished.
We were there for about a half hour, listening to the one or two acceptable records (no rock records in my parents' home) when my parents came home earlier than expected.
Most of my friends thought it was hilarious. And my mother was so happy to actually see evidence that I had friends. Here's how rare it was: She went and got her birthday polaroid camera and took a picture. She did not know she was recording my first pot party. Here's the pic:
About twenty-five years ago, I found the old square Polaroid picture in a photo album my sister, the family curator, had saved. It wasn't in great shape and after I scanned it in, I cropped out some distressed areas. You're seeing a blow-up of that crop, which is why the quality is so bad. But that's beside the point, right?
I smoked pot for the first time when I was 15, and didn't know much more about it than what I had read more than half a lifetime previously in two paragraphs in a kid's encyclopedia.
At the time, outside of TV caricatures, I had no knowledge of Mexicans. While I had long been exposed to performing musicians, I didn't know anything about the ancillary lifestyle involved, and everything I knew about beat culture was overly romantic reading of a few of the better-known beat poets, and, again, the sanitized, usually comic portrayal on TV. Maynard G. Krebs, I'm looking at you.
At age fifteen, I was a goofy kid, smart but slightly neurotic, always trying to act older and more mature than I was, because most of my classmates were two years older than me, and they were trying to act more mature than they were. I had been consistently failing in my attempt to act older for five years, always behind the curve by at least two years, always willing to risk anything for approval from my peers.
I was clueless as to what maturity at seventeen was, and I was physically and emotionally not even a very mature fifteen-year-old. At that point, too my detriment, I had lived a very sheltered life.
On a not-too-cool Friday night in October, 1965, I was a Senior (barely), hanging out with a few friends from high school, mostly members of the Senior Show (just starting to get in gear) gathered in my friend Steven's basement to listen to some records (Beatles, Stones, mostly jazz, because Steven's older brother was in college and that's what he was into). Steve's family was out for the night.
I think everybody was smoking cigarettes (I had started smoking cigarettes at twelve - again, anything to look older, to fit in). (I wasn't even shaving at twelve years old). Somebody had some joints. I was nearly 100% ignorant of anything about pot, even, at that time, that marijuana, or grass, was called pot. But... I didn't want to look less cool than anybody else, and I wasn't opposed to the idea, and... There was the lure of the forbidden...
So, we all got high. Especially me.
Because it was my first time, and first encounter, I had no idea what to expect. I felt a lot of things, always questioning if I was feeling the way I was supposed to.
Then we heard Steve's parents come home upstairs, and we had to exit through the garage, quickly, because Steve wasn't supposed to have anybody over - let alone five or six friends. And, of course, he was terrified of his marijuana use being discovered.
So we were out in the streets, young, giddy, stoned. I lived nearby, and my parents were out for the evening so I suggested we go to my house.
A big leap for me. I never brought my friends home to my apartment, being afraid that my family would embarrass me, and also because the apartment, mostly maintained by my brother, sister and me, was usually a mess, and because it wasn't nicely furnished.
We were there for about a half hour, listening to the one or two acceptable records (no rock records in my parents' home) when my parents came home earlier than expected.
Most of my friends thought it was hilarious. And my mother was so happy to actually see evidence that I had friends. Here's how rare it was: She went and got her birthday polaroid camera and took a picture. She did not know she was recording my first pot party. Here's the pic:
 |
| Cropped pic scanned from a polaroid. Notes: I cannot remember the couple at the top left of the photo, but the guy in shades (it was night, and indoors) provided the first joint I ever smoked. I am nearly unrecognizable, bottom center, stoned and freaking out that I'm stoned and my mother is embarrassing me in front of my friends and I'm stoned. Behind me is Adrian, sometime girlfriend and co-star of the Senior Show. Far right lower corner is Margie, who directed the Senior Show and was the Queen of Cool, as far as I knew at the time. At her right is the girl who did props and makeup (can't remember her name now), and to her right is my childhood friend Steve. Behind Steve, lying on the couch is my sister Joan, very happy that I'm embarrassed and uncomfortable. |
Food and Diet
Today's Weight: 203.4 lbs.
Diet Comment
Previous Weight (11/2): 201.4 lbs.
Net Loss/Gain: + 2.0 lbs.
Diet Comment
I don't get it. I don't see where what I ate yesterday would have caused such a dramatic one-day weight gain. A couple of slices of bread that didn't weigh more than three ounces between them shouldn't have had that great an effect.
Food Log
Breakfast
6:40pm:
6:40pm:
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| Omelet with peppers, onion, greens, chia seeds, hemp seeds, feta and parmesan cheeses and bacon. |
Lunch
7:15pm: A Quest bar.
Dinner
Dinner
1:20am: Dubliner cheese and a Quest bar.
Liquid Intake
Espressos: 0; Coffee: 22 oz.; Tea: 0 oz.; Water: 86+ oz. and a nice pour of Jameson's Irish whiskey.
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