The Stoner Chronicles

Last week I went on a little jaunt to Amsterdam. I've subsequently spent the weekend feeling like a complete and utter zombie. A zombie that felt imbued with sense of knowing about the universe as a whole but a zombie nonetheless. Too much luxuriating in your stoner hippie side can obviously never lead to a good place (c.f. every single stoner you've ever met) but from time to time I like to go there and revel in it, especially as it's been quite a while (well, like, five weeks or something, but since I have no concept of time five weeks to me can feel like anything from three days to six months) since I've indulged my love for the jazz cigarettes. I was pretty much the only one smoking out of a party of four and boy did I smoke. Smoking as much as I did, and in that amount of time, takes a serious amount of dedication but although I may have no commitment skills to speak of, for pretty much everything (thanks mom and dad!), I can commit myself very nicely to getting wasted. Even though I was in a group, because I was the only one partaking in that particular narcotic, I felt somewhat removed from the rest of the party. For me, that wasn't a bad thing as I love the head space I get into when I'm smoking alone. It's like I'm able to disassociate myself from everything that's going on around me and observe all the dramas, and power plays, and behaviourial motivations from a different place. A place that I'm connected to but not really a part of. Like, I'm watching a tv show where I really understand all the characters. I just get it, all of it. Everything presented in front of me, all the things playing on my mind, all the little bits of information I've taken in at some point regarding myself... it all comes together and the bit of my brain that normally stops all these revelations from making their way into my consciousness are delightfully (yet shambolically) laid out in front of me for me to, metaphorically, pick up and play with. I can really wrestle with those issues and turn them over to get a better view of them from all the conceivable angles. It's as if I've been trying to find a better view of a spot on my back and no matter which way I turn in front of the mirror I can't quite see how bad it is, but then it suddenly occurs to me that if I manoeuvre a second mirror into a certain position, and turn on the bathroom light, everything is illuminated.

Now, I have to admit. I don't know how accurate or profound my observations actually were. Whilst I know all my thoughts felt strikingly obvious and intellectual at the time, there are worrying gaps in the story that suggest I was less an erudite Byronesque figure and more 'Lindsey Lohan'. For instance, I know we ended up in a restaurant on Tuesday night but I can't remember how we got there or what time it was when we dined. I can remember the table we sat at as it made me think I was in a 1970's New York bistro - all mahogany and glass and chrome. I can also remember a fair chuck of the conversation that was had but I don't think I took part in a lot of it, rather just listened with a dazed and confused look upon my face. I also recall excusing myself to go to the toilet, but then there's a blank all apart from a flash of a turquoise room and me laughing at a hand dryer. I must have got back to the table at some point as I know we ended up back at our hostel where things come back into focus a little more. I know for definite that I watched the two boys playing the most intense game of Snap ever witnessed. They were doing 'Arthurian Rules' for a lot of it (which I've sure you're all familiar with) so we had to contend with 'the courtisans rebuke' and 'the handmaidens decree' which would cause cards to go to the 'well of contention' until as such time as someone won the next hand and could liberate them from their prison. Like I said, the most intense game of snap ever played. Many things have happened to me in my life, and will (hopefully) continue to happen but I know for a fact that if I manage to reach the age of 97 I will never again be able to look at a deck of cards without thinking of that snap game.

Little glimpses like that into what state I was in suggest that it wasn't quite as profound an experience as I'd convinced myself it was. I don't think Sartre, or Foucault, or Derrida ever got a fit of the giggles whilst drying their hands because; 'dude, I've just realised how fucking stoned I am... how funny is that?! Oh dude, I'm talking to myself... how funny is THAT??!!' Or sat, enraptured (but again giggling), whilst two young men made up a load of shit that passed as rules for Snap. At least, I can't imagine they would.

The good thing is that I walked away from that vacation feeling refreshed and bubbling with story ideas. Before I went I'd been feeling quite uninspired by life. Sometimes I reach a point where I feel like I'm putting more energy into waiting for something to happen that sparks me off rather than going off and finding stimulation. This is usually because I've been spending way more time in pubs (or, more honestly, on facebook or youtube) than is necessarily healthy rather than reading and writing like I feel I'm supposed to be doing with my free time. See, I read this Stephen King quote that goes; 'read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that you cannot expect to become a good writer'. Now, I've never actually read a Stephen King book. I couldn't tell you why exactly except that maybe there are some things which are too ubiquitous and my indie-fied brain takes an immediate blocking stance on anything that has gained too much popularity without me being involved (by which I mean 'knowing about it'... my version of 'being involved' is a little more laid back than the rest of the world's definition) from the start. However, that's neither here nor there. Dude sells a lot of books so he's got to know what he's talking about, and it makes sense anyway... if you want to be a writer then, you know, write. Don't spend every evening in thrall to the virtual delights the modern world offers us. Just. Write. And if you want to be a good writer then you're going to have to spend a little time getting to know different writing styles by which ye shall need to read. And not just read the synopsis of the recorded 'Strictly Come Dancing' episode you'd saved on Sky+. Proper reading from proper books (like, you know, Gossip Girl... which I just finished in two hours... the greatest two hours of my life might I add. Damn straight).

So, I tell myself all of that. I look at the post-it I've blu-tacked to my wall that tells me that. I ponder it a while and then I go back to looking up Michael Cera interviews or rifling through the photos of people on social networking sites that I have a crush on and who don't give a shit about me, and I wind up feeling guilty that all these chunks of time are just drifting up and away from me and into the ether.

Wait, what was my point? Oh yeah. The drugs... they may have made me feel all fired up again but they don't seem to have helped with the 'actually producing constructive work' thing. For one, my handwriting when I'm high is atrocious. For another, the actual words I write when I'm high are atrocious. So I've got all these ideas floating around and have been left feeling all creative but I'm seemingly unable to channel it, which is even more frustrating than having no ideas in the first place. I keep approaching the short stories I've typed up with a sense of foreboding. I read the first few sentences, decide it's shit and go spend ten minutes having a pseudo-conversation with red dog about why it's fine to have a cup of tea when you're eating soup (she is vehemently opposed to the idea and thinks it's too much liquid in one go). (We debate this often). I just hate the fact that I know what I've got to do, I even go as far as planning what I've got to do, and yet I just let the that time slip away again and again. You know that cliche about being your own worst enemy? It's yet another cliche we can add to the list of cliches that I'm already living.