I, Stoner

Some would disagree, but it's not easy being a stoner. Sure, lazying about all day, trading off between DVDs of "Cheech & Chong: Still Smokin'," "Half Baked" and "Dude, Where's My Car?", listening to your favorite 3-hour Phish jam and eating a salad bowl full of shrimp Ramen sounds like a walk in the park, but most stoners I know aren't like that. You know, lame.

Rather, I'm talking about the societal pressures, the stigma and the often uncalled for vitriol we as potheads must endure in our everyday lives. No one takes us seriously because we're always giggling. No gay in this town will even look at me once they smell my jacket. And if you come high to work, people want to be all up in your shit like they fucked your mother or something. Really though, is it so wrong to want/need to be high every moment of your life only because the pain of reality is too much to bear? Because last time I checked this was still New York and not bitch-ass, straight-edge faggot loser town.

I recently proclaimed that I was cutting back on smoking the reefa, for the fifth time this month, only to reneg on this promise once the voices started getting a little too real. I'm lethargic, my cough is hacking and usuaully produces some unsightly green mucus and I tend to overeat whenever I'm high, so I thought the obvious conclusion was to relax on the joint tossing. But cutting back's for quitters. Next thing you know, I'm like 5 years sober and a born-again Christian. I've seen those people, and though spending the majority of my life on my knees in polyester sounds enticing, I'll have to pass. Smoking is just too much fun. I have,instead, chosen to accept my fate and declare, I, Stoner. Hey, that's just who I am right now; bitter, cantakerous and sarcastic with a blunt eternally strapped to my inner thigh...just in case.

And I also plan on smoking the smart way. By using a vaporizer, I can preserve my throat. I'm going to start taking vitamins for energy and my overall health. And I'm already on a diet so I'm going to start eating and snacking much better. All in the effort to avoid doing the responsible and logical thing because in the end, I'm gonna get fucked up one way or another. And that knowledge just gives me the comfort I need to fall asleep at night...that and the bong right in reaching distance from my bed. You know, just in case.