4:21

Okay so I always wanted to do this experiment I'm going to lay out before you in a few seconds, right here. I do it all the time in my mind anyway, so it's time to go public. This is a thought I normally get only when I'm high as (what's the highest thing I can think of right now - a satellite? Is that actually within the limits of height? Where does altitude end? Maybe it's where our gravitational field ends?) the atmosphere, yeah. Otherwise I wouldn't really pay it this much importance. I hope you're prepared for a TLTR, because this is going to take some time.

I guess you might have noticed by now that I am a bit high. Only a little bit, though. And that's the whole idea of the experiment - to see where I end up after having reached tonight's limit in terms of bakedness. And I believe that limit will also be the end of this post. I want to find out whether I'll be able to coherently deliver my thoughts on what I think happens with our thinking when we smoke pot. So here we go. Puff, puff and puff again.

To properly kick this off with a side-thought, I noticed that there's not many places where you can hear people talking about the positive effects smoking weed has on your way of thinking. Stumbling upon a good comedian who has a thing or two to say about this is not that rare, but their insights are often kind of eh. There are a couple of great ones though, and most of them belong to one man. Every time I watch Joe Rogan talking (he even has a series of podcasts, check) about how he writes most of his material while high, I chuckle on the inside. Stand-up comedy is definitely one of the best ways to market controversial ideas and Joe Rogan is an expert salesman/dealer. And don't even get me started on the whimsicality Eddie Izzard or the fuzz Mitch Hedberg give out. (By the way, did you know about the Hashashins?) It feels pretty good when a great comedic PR shares your own faltering insights on life as a pothead to the world (sigh, they're not your own after all).

Even if the comedian is talking to a vast audience and to all the viewers who will ever watch that video, you know you are being given preferential treatment. This is targeted banter, my friends, and we react to it like fucking meerkats, ears wide open, standing perfectly still, sometimes signaling the other members of the group with our elbow. Those jokes have been written for you and the likes of you, likes that belong in this case to the other 21 million European weekly users. I know because I read this report. And that's a low number, not to mention it's been steadily decreasing for the last 5 years. The club gets more and more intimate as the very young crowd manifests a clear preference towards alcohol and hard drugs. Oh. Well.

Do we all feel this cerebral closeness to (almost all) fellow pot smokers? I think yes. It starts out when you're a teenager, but it slowly loses its power as an individualistic statement and develops into the permanent nod+grin of approval. Remember when you used to exchange subway glances at 5 A.M. with total strangers who looked as wasted as you did? Or when you listened to songs about pot and sang along to the chorus with your whole honest heart? Yeah. Nod. Grin.

Now, where was I. Is this working? It must be, I'm getting a lot of things I want to talk about and the only words I can think of to express them are stuff, awesome and you know what it's like when. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY HERE. So you know what it's like when you're finally in a place you always wanted to go to, you're so excited about what's going on there and you try to take in everything at the same time? And it's so good you can't imagine a better place on Earth? That's exactly how I feel all the time when I'm high. I guess this is the great reward behind getting yourself high: having the capacity to notice everything that goes on AND getting to think about it too, because you know, life is longer. If you have an imaginary attention deficit like I do, more power to you, you'll finally be able to stop multitasking. It's true that you'll mostly be thinking about things that wouldn't normally interest you, but who knows, maybe they should. Everything should interest you.

Even if you find yourself in the middle of a boring conversation, you don't give a shit because you have your formidable stream-of-consciousness keeping you real company - the best way ever to keep yourself (and, if you can still talk, others) entertained. And isn't it really great when you find out about someone you've just met (and whom you were having the boring conversation with) that they smoke weed too? It totally changes the way you relate to that person. Suddenly you're all like "hey surely these people must watch the same shows I do", and whaddayaknow, you're right, they do. Pot is such a perfect interesting conversation starter.

And since we're talking about entertainment, that is where the magic manifests itself best. My personal favorite show to watch while baked is "Bored To Death". Or is it "Curb Your Enthusiasm"? Come to think of it, I feel like that about most of the (awesome, Jewish) comedy shows I watch when I smoke, they all bring me something new. And I'm aware that 'something new' is nothing more than extra dopamine and endorphins - you know, the same stuff sex, touching objects in museums and empty beaches provide you with. If these hormones are responsible for the giddiness, what's responsible for the multi-layered, multi-angular perspectives? I'm a complete ignorant and I haven't even been as far as wikipedia to look into this properly, but I think it mostly has to do with how smart we are (and how much smoking experience we have).

According to me, most people only smoke to act all stoned and take in nothing but stimuli; only long-term users who live the high on a regular basis go exploring. I think you have to learn how to smoke right. I'm pretty sure most people don't even realize there's two very separate cognitive processes going on in their happified braincells: one is very contemplative, quite overwhelming and (I suspect) the source of the adjective "stoned" itself; the other one is simply enhanced day-to-day awareness. The difference between our normal, everyday perceptions and their stoned version is like the difference between a VHS rip and a Bluray rip of the same movie.

We are ridiculously aware of the unintended, the open pores, the involuntary gestures, the secondary plot-line - and that's where the funny and the interesting come from. Too bad they're not very useful, these insights, but I like to believe they just kind of hang out together in our subconscious and at some point they join forces and reach a higher purpose, whatever that might be. And maybe the sharp feeling of sudden enlightenment you sometimes get comes from mixing the two processes, swinging from one to the other back and forth, from awe to reason, from wonder to realization until understanding is achieved. No? No?

I can almost bet everyone I consider 'normal people' think they're a bunch of idiots with a curious mind. And we must be at least a little bit smart, all those new angles and witty commentaries are, after all, our own. Of course, that's not the only reason why we're smart. But are we smarter on pot? We must be. Just think about the little comedian you become when you smoke weed, cracking jokes, trying to extract sense from nonsense, unlocking the achievements of the mind... He must be onto something, not only on something. We're an interesting crowd, albeit a socially counterproductive one. Probably because we generally feel like clever ignorants, forever disappointed with humankind, we tend to stick to our own. And if there's many of us, that leads to creativity. If there's one or two of us in isolation, that basically leads to critical thinking, useless insight and a strong lack of motivation.

...

Next morning:

And that lack of motivation got to me and I obviously fell asleep after a session of instant gratification hosted by a delicious fruit salad.

Okay so was this boring or what? No, seriously, it's so stony it barely makes me want to re-read it.

Note to self: don't ever do this again, it's terribly embarrassing.

Conclusion to experiment: some people, even if they think they're smarter when they're stoned, must try not to forget how fucking stoned they are.

Moral of the story: -

The last drop

Dear Munich,

I am writing this letter not to your people, but to you. I'm not waiting for a reply, since that would be like waiting for the gods to answer my questions about the crappy chain of coincidences in my life. I hope you're aware that you were my first. Misfortune, that is. Never have I felt so happy to break up with someone as I am right now, breaking up with you. I know you don't care, you miserable piece of shit city; I had to put up with your disinterest, your intolerance, your disregard, your lifelessness, your fucking annoying general ignorance for far too long, but now it's over, bitch.

Decency would make me end this letter here, but hey, you took that away too. Look at me not embracing your green pastures and blissful peace, you village. Fucking anhedonia, that's what you gave me. Do you remember when you were luring me in with all your culture and history and architecture? Of course you do, you misanthropic dolt. When I couldn't take you anymore, I went to see other parts of the world and saw what they had to offer in terms of cultural satisfaction; you, my friend, are an agrarian joke. I gravely deluded myself (and I don't feel ashamed of admitting it) when I thought you were truly noble. The fuck you were noble, you medieval beer guzzler. It would be cruel of me to get into your historic past, so I will avoid acting lousy, unlike you did all this time.

You know what my favorite place is? The Zoo. You know why? Because I feel more human there than downtown. Do you know how many times I simply wanted to hang out with your people? Do you know what each and every meeting did to me? It made me loathe people. It made me think everyone is the same. It made me label human beings and made me think I had this weird superiority complex that killed off any form of bonding. And it's been more than two years with you, I'm sure you have at least an idea about the number people I've met during this time. How exactly did you manage to clone everyone?

And I tried, you know, I really did try. I wrote you stories, I glorified the few things you got going on, I even accepted your irate detachment after a while. I was okay with you ignoring my existence because hey, this was an arranged affair after all, it's not like we chose each other. It's not like I ever really loved you, you deceiving hussy, but you almost had me on my knees begging for your affection. I felt I was entitled to a little bit of it, instead I had to put up with years of cold, with months of rain, with emotional thunderstorms every evening. You never, ever made me happy. Maybe because you have no clue what happiness really is, since you don't have the capacity to give or receive any kind of love.

There isn't a thing I like about you anymore. I hate your fancy car parades, your stupid public displays of glamor, your idiotic hobbies. I'm so glad your neighborhoods are taken over by immigrants, I hope their Middle-Eastern spirit will feed on your empty soul like dung-beetles feed on crap. Oh and no wonder you changed your stupid slogan in 2006, even you realized you're very, very far away from being a cosmopolitan city and even further away from having a heart, you tin bucket. And what did you change it to, you great pretender - "München mag Dich", Munich likes you. Let me revise that for you: Munich likes you, not. Because this is the type of humor you'll laugh at, you impassive tool.

So I'm leaving you forever, and in my mind, I'm already gone.
In case you think I'm biased, what do you think about these people's thoughts on you? Or these? What about one of your own?

I really don't care what happens to you, so the only thing left to say right now is

so fucking long.

I recently had to renew my passport because, well, I had no choice. And when it comes to choices, especially as a Romanian citizen and especially when dealing with legal matters, things tend to get pretty unilateral. So I was given the option to choose between a biometric passport, valid for 5 years, or its temporary, old-fashioned cousin, valid for only one year. They both come at the staggering price of 100 euro, which is pretty unjustified, considering most EU countries ask for half the price or less. I'm quite sure you know (or at least you heard of) certain people saying that 'e-passports are the death of privacy because chips are easy to hack = so much easier to get your identity stolen'; I guess this is debatable, since biometric passports are not as easy to forge = less human trafficking, right? Or at least in theory. Actually the only certainty is that the forging of electronic passports will make some people really rich. But anyway, it's not my total loss of privacy that bothered me (since, apparently unlike most people, I am aware I'm just a number which can easily be traced, if necessary, therefore my freedom as an individual is a big fat lie anyway)- what really pissed me off was the fact that I was deliberately told not to smile.

I asked why, of course. The explanation was "it's the rule", and it came from a very cranky consulate official, so I gave up pretty fast. I later looked into the matter online and it seems that "ideally, a targeted passenger's face can be scanned electronically and compared against a database of legally obtained passport photos. Passport applicants must also sweep any hair away from their faces, place their eyeglasses on the tip of their nose, and face completely forward with a neutral expression. Smiling in passport photos can distort the subject's eyes and change the relationship between biometric points."

Damnit, biometry, why do you make my life miserable? Why can't you be more advanced? For the next five years I'm stuck with a stupid grimace on my face, because I tried to bend the rule a little and I smiled a goofy smile; now my mouth is slightly crooked and I will keep on looking stupid in my pass photo, to the sheer amusement of all those bored airport employees. But maybe this crooked smile will completely confuse the software (!!!) and, just in case I'm caught on camera trafficking cocaine through orphan kittens, they will never, ever match my REAL grimace to the one in my passport.

News balance of the day

The annoying: "President Obama upheld a presidential tradition and pardoned the official White House turkey yesterday in Washington."

Now isn't that a harsh word for this innocent, self-sacrificing fowl? Did the turkey offend anyone? Did he help spread disease? Well then why does it need official forgiveness? The verb 'to pardon' means :to release (a person) from liability for an offense, to remit the penalty of (an offense). That turkey is no person is it? Does he have free will? I sure hope not X 2. So instead of pardoning the feathery fellow why not adopt him? Let him off easy? Excuse him from dinner?

No, wait. Why does this 'tradition' exist in the first place?

The agreeable: "London Bridge Tower will soon be the UK's tallest building and as is customary for modern skyscrapers, has a nickname based on its shape - the Shard. It will join the Gherkin, the Razor and the Filing Cabinet, with the Cucumber and Cheese Grater to come."

Don't you just love it when people poke loving fun at their environment? I guess this is pretty much contemporary, since back in the days all buildings were like Chinese schoolchildren - same size, serving the same purpose and a bit yellowish, so I guess people referred to them as numbers. I think everything on the street should have a nickname, because when I point at 'this' or 'that', the exact object I'm talking about never seems to be clear to my conversation partner. So, besides the Filing Cabinet and his friends, there's the KFC bucket on a stick, the Eyesore, the Milk Carton, the Sugar Shaker, the Flask, the Cat Tower, the Torch or the Plunger. So basically anything you have in your kitchen at any time can serve as an inspiration for a future skyscraper. Sweet. (I'm anticipating a Rolling Pin.)

God-zilla

See, that's what I call good churchy entertainment; it was about time to get demiurgic with all those nativity plays and crucifixions (crucifictions?), they were so supersesded; I mean seriously, those stories are like 2043 years old already.

I've always asked myself if Christian Darwinists (sigh) think that god was first a chemical reaction then some bacteria then an amoeba and so on THEREFORE that's why he created the human race in his likeliness THUS ??? evolution. Saying that god 'created' evolution is basically saying theistic science is a form of Buddhism, since they both think god is nature and that the origin of material life is one. Come on, you adept Christian experimentalists, admit that you CANNOT, JUST CANNOT agree that you've been wrong for such a long long time, mostly because realizing you are wrong in the middle of an argument is the worst feeling ever.

I'm so amazed at finding out that the Vatican's Observatory actually looks out for alien life forms - well if this is not proof of that incapacity I was talking about earlier, what is? And if they do find them first, they will dunk their ectoplasm in water three times, thus granting them immediate access to the Kingdom in the Sky, because hey, everything that has a soul deserves that, besides every other animal in the Kingdom of Nature besides us.

The German Pope, who is of possible alien origin, recently realized he should maybe consider the possibility of other children of god and their ways of sinning AND he added a couple of extra commandments to Moses' tablet (since back then they didn't have crystal meth or the like) AND he agreed to people using condoms, literally insulting god in the face by deciding to pile up millions of future Catholic little souls at the gates of purgatory, doomed to remain forever unborn.

The need for acquiescence is overwhelming inside the Christian kingdom of god and obviously this is the last flap of wings for this hairy raptor, because if he's not going down, he's going extinct.

WTH NORTH KOREA

Dear political people,

calling that whole region Asia Pacific was a really good joke to begin with.
Australia's the only APAC state that managed to wear a hoodie and sunglasses throughout all these years. Their kill is silent. But the yellow race is such a madcap; these North Koreans, they kill like hyenas and make a coordinated show out of it too. They howl and wail and brag but in the end they're still starving. The last red army on the planet both softens my heart and boggles my mind.

A personal theory regarding this fetus international conflict is that the dear leader was sick n' all, hallucinating, you know, and since that's something that could easily piss off anyone, in a moment of nauseated drowsiness he pushed the nuclear attack red fucking button (only apparently he got it confused with another one since he only managed to delifen two sailors). While doing this he probably said something like 'all your sea base are belong to me'. He thought he flippin' owned them. The only thing he did own was fish in the water.(Get it, the sea bass? Yeah.)

So what I think is that Apple should sponsor the US Army with about 20 million Iphones and then the army should drop them all over NK and install a bigass satellite and give free internet access to everyone. That should stop the famine and the controlled ignorance. It'll be like that scene in Soylent Green, when the old guy gets to see tapes with green grass and flowers and deer and shit before getting chopped up, wrapped and fed to his neighbors. Mass hysteria is definitely the best tactical move.

Yours truly,
An ignoramus who comments beneath 'serious' articles

Nerdboner

I've been having the secret hots for a character for quite some time. I dream of seducing him, slapping this red ponytail against his wrinkly forehead, vibrate the hammers in that big piano of his. Ugh wet dreams (my boyfriend knows about), right on! It's perfectly new&astonishing to me - I never ever had fantasies (which I shudder to even think of, the thought itself is embarassing) with imaginary people. It's guilty, it's sickening, it almost makes me feel angry about myself. And I'm very aware that I'm not attracted to Mr. Laurie himself, but to his television persona, the foul-legged, cynical, superhumanly intelligent misantrophe who invalidates everyone and they agree with him. He, this outerwordly sadist, is just so sexy that my mind needs to fuck him. There you have it, another example of the classical female 'I don't care what he does/ looks like/not even whether he is real or not as long as he makes me laugh and gives it to me hard (in my mind, like Eddie Izzard said)' syndrome.

On a deeper and more sexually appeased analysis, I observe some common traits between him and another fictional man I'm hugely attracted to - yes it's Sherlock Holmes. So it looks like I'm desperately fascinated with unreal intelligence and self-denial (mostly of feelings of compassion towards human kind, although I've always found Heathcliff a complete brute, so there's the exception). I like these men because, had they been real, I'd chicken out and faint in their presence. If they would touch the back of my neck with a fingernail, I'd hyperventilate instantly. I would just not dare TALK to them. I'd rather engage in submissive sexual dramatization. I would mute myself, ready to please them quietly. Ah, the allegory. I'm so glad I'm convinced no one like this actually exists. (Do they?)

This is psychologically crooked, it's bewilderingly stupid but it is a replacement for the first thrills of past dates. Just like I rejoyce in my friends' new romances, I emulate passion on what I know is safe territory. Because as unhealthy as it might sound, it is still both safe and sound. Like honey, overthinking stuff or the internet.

And then I go and spoil it all by reading something about the character development, just to tease myself a bit more. A great big part of Dr. Greg House is based on Holmes indeed, but his other side, his dark, occluded side is based on the detective from Touch of Evil - you know, the obese Orson Welles. The fascinating fat man with a walking cane, who nails an old Marlene Dietrich and commits illegal hybris. I'd fuck him too, with my intellects. But only a part of him. It's so great that I can specifically choose which one. (I'd mostly concentrate on his gaze and open lips.)

I'd also fuck Stephen Fry's voice, Attenborough's brain and Michio Kaku's body, but not that little Jew who wrote the character portrayed by Hugh Laurie. I wouldn't even go near the screenwriter, because as brilliant as he might be, he is real. And real is not exciting at all to a comitted woman.

I'm such a hypocrite, I despise all the other 70 million House fans just because they are so many. Actually I have a problem with my own self-esteem, since I expect me to choose more wisely, not fall for someone who is so annoyingly popular. So what really annoys me is my own gullible self. Thing is, my boyfriend has this primetime nerdboner too, in his own, manly way. Every Tuesday evening we long for him like Pavlov's dogs (I'm pretty sure he had more than one). And as much as I'd hate myself for allowing this, I really, now not secretely anymore, like it.

(And really despise it at the same time.)