I met my new connection through my old connection... well not quite, it was more that my old connection's guy had stopped getting those lovely bits of fungi and so i was stuck looking for a new way to procure my medicine (as i like to say)... It never ceases to amaze me they way people trust each other in this line of work, though i've always had some weird aura (for lack of a better word) or vibe that people somehow trusted me, knew i was on the level as they say and not a fucking narc.. form Cowboy Dan to Hippie Jack to Cocaine Mike, there was an inherent trust... i somehow exude the criminal mind... well not really criminal because i don't view it that way, i see my favorite plant and my favorite mushroom as medicinal tools to figure out this mortal coil, yes i could spend hours meditating but modern life doesn't leave much time for that and to be honest my achy old knees aren't exactly primed to sit in the lotus position for hours on end, i'd be stuck that way more than likely... so i one could say i take a short cut... as i was reading both Carl Sagan and Alan Watts at the same time i've been currently vacillating back and forth between nihilism and some warped spirituality... or maybe i've created, something unique, my own brand of philosophy called Spiritual Nihilism, i'll be opening my own storefront place of worship very soon where there will be a chalkboard with all the most relevant wisdom i've culled off bathroom walls scrawled in multi-colored chalk on the board.
So as we slowly crawl toward the decriminalization of these types of organic matter i'm still left to circumvent the law to find the one... it is here where i often dwell on the moral dilemma, well not really moral more societal? if that's the right word... it has been well documented that i once made a living, a damn fine one at that, off the distribution of illicit substances, it's what keeps the economy going and one can find various articles and papers in academia and economics which state as such... the black market is an integral part of the economy and so i feel it's an important part of society... i'd probably just now be finishing off my student loan repayment but the weed game helped me pay it off twenty years early... fuck the bankers... but this business also helps people make rent, pay for food, keep the lights on (as it did for me) and so i happen to believe it's not all bad... it only goes south when people kill each other over it which lends itself to the argument that it should all be legal or decriminalized while the other side lobbies that because of that we need more prisons, more cops, more bullshit... as for now, except for those forward thinking Western states (and some Eastern ones), the former is still subject to the latter... and so i'm left to delve into the "criminal underworld" as the Fuzz would call it, to procure something that helps me think, that clears my mind of clutter and helps me see the truth, or my truth, for lack of a better concept.
If there is one thing i'm somewhat adept at it's stockpiling, like that squirrel or groundhog i often idly watch out my window stocking up for the winter i seem to always keep a stash on hand, slowing my intake until i have a new supply coming in. The lovely thing about mushrooms is that they stay good as long as you keep them in a cool, dry place... in fact i once gave shrooms to a bartender friend years ago, they'd been sitting around for at least of couple of years and i didn't even know if they'd work, so he went on his camping trip and took them and when he came back he told me they were awesome, that they were super strong he could barely speak and that his friends were envious. Live and learn. I stored that info in my mental file of drug-related miscellanea... I met my old connection at his old job where he was a lifeguard, a young kid, we got to talking and we began discussing weed a bit which didn't take long for him to ask me about psychedelics... it's strange how it comes up because i know a lot of people who've smoked weed who aren't that into psychedelics or maybe i should say way into them as i might be classified, but he had questions and so i did my best to answer them. He was just starting to try them and so i used what knowledge i had accumulated to help him out... which in turn led to a mushroom connection... cosmic accidents indeed.
The new batch i picked up where like nothing i'd previously seen in all my years of boomer taking... gigantic mushrooms that apparently were termed medical grade and came from out west where they have actually begun to use these incredible bits of fungus to help people... did i mention they were incredibly strong? of fucking yes they were!! The day i grabbed them i was like a kid on Chrimbo morning who spends all his time looking at his favorite present and is giddy with the anticipation of getting it out of the box and trying it out... so that night i cleared my schedule and got ready for takeoff...
I never have a plan when i go into these things, other than laying/sitting on the couch and watching videos while they kick in and then at some point turning off the lights and letting them run wild. It wasn't a huge dose, roughly over two grams, but goddam!! these boomers hit hard and fast, there is a feeling i get when it's really hitting, a strange and wonderful feeling as if my head is coming apart in the most wonderful way, almost rearranging itself to better function while the mushrooms slip me secrets about various mysteries, questions, answers to problems i'm facing, it's a brilliant thing, at the height of it there is nothing but a beautiful kaleidoscope of nothingness, no thoughts, just a feeling of nothingness and oneness, a yin-yang of nothing and nowhere with everything and everywhere... it makes no sense yet perfect sense and this thing called language really doesn't do it justice... i often catch myself smiling... at one point as i sat up and took a long drink of water, i stood up to stretch and wobbled a bit, the shaky legs of an animal being reborn, i laughed as i found my footing, did my best kung-fu moves and giggled some more... i'd call it the joy of existence but it's not, it's something more and whatever it is there is a peace and beauty to it, there is an overwhelming feeling of empathy and compassion that helps one connect to things in a new way, to understand we are far less important than we think we are and that realization is about as liberating as it gets... abide, dude, abide...
The next trip i actually dipped into the stockpile, two lovely specimens of a different strain, equally good but in a different way and probably not quite as strong and a slightly smaller dose... as previously mentioned, one of the things these mushrooms are known to do is, somehow some way, inject this massive amount of empathy into the subject, as noted before when lying on the couch/bed and dwelling on the mess the BW and i created and my role in it this time it was the one of the boyos, the oldest, who's been a bit of a handful as they saying goes...
The boyo pretty much bottled the whole year both academically and athletically, at this point i just want the kid to be able to take care of himself and to find a way to have a happy and satisfying existence... and so as i sat there this night i thought, i thought a lot about him and his situation and how i could help, i thought a lot about me and what i was doing right and the myriad of things i was doing wrong, i'm far from perfect as a parent and knew i had made mistakes.. the other thing these little bits of fungi do is remind one of how much they love someone, it's a challenge when the arguments and meltdowns drive one insane and it's a hard reality when one must admit that though they love someone immensely at times they don't like that person very much, it's especially difficult when that person is your kid... and so i sat and i thought late into the quiet night... i worked at figuring things out, doing my best to find working solutions...
A few days later as he walked in the door from school, after the previous night of fighting with his mother and i playing referee (sometimes the BW and i reverse roles and she dons the striped shirt) i told him to sit down, of course he didn't want to but i said sit down, we're going to talk about some shit, not yell, not argue, but talk... and so we did... and i explained to him that there is no handbook for this parenting shit and that both i and his mother make mistakes but we're doing the best we can and we do the things we do, things he may not like to do or hear, out of love... that having been through this shit we're trying to give him some advice, guidance, whatever but that ultimately it's his life and he will have to live with his choices, actions, etc... i explained i'd never seen his mother worry so much about any individual on the planet as much as she worries about him and that even though he might not like the way we go about things we're doing it out of the best intentions... doesn't mean we got it right but we're trying... which i stated could also be used as an example for possibly how he could do things... we talked about learning to accept help when it's offered and that if you constantly reject any help sooner or later you won't get any even when you need and ask for it because people won't give a shit any more... i explained it to him as constantly swimming upstream, making things tougher than they have to be, and that sooner or later you go under... learn to accept help i told him, it's not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength... we must have talked for close to an hour... a few days later he walked up to me and told me he'd been thinking about that conversation and he got it, understood what i was trying to say and realized (somewhat) the challenges of parenting and said he'd put in more effort on his end... it was a start...
Now back to the original night... and the call coming in... one of the things that goes into whether or not i take my trip is if the boyos have their night sorted, have a ride home, don't go out, and so on this night it seemed that everything was in order... and so at my usual time, in my usual way, i ate my two lovely shrooms, sat back and waited for the universe to come calling... except the first call i got wasn't the universe, someone needed a ride home because his friend had flaked and though he could walk i didn't want him to at that time due to a lack of sidewalks and streetlights in certain areas and the fact he'd most likely be alone... it was roughly 10:30 and things were just starting to kick off in the synapses, the universe was beeping in on call waiting as i hung up and grabbed my keys...
It was the old rock and the hard place... i could either ask the BW to get him which would immediately arose suspicion and i didn't want to have to tell the boss that i had eaten some boomers cuz then of course i'd be dealing with all sorts of shit, basically harshing my mellow and ruining my trip, and so i took an honest assessment of my faculties, my experience in the field of driving, the short distance on empty suburban streets and decided... fuck it... i'll get him... i'll just drive very carefully.
Full disclosure... i spent most of my wasted youth driving when i shouldn't have been... this is not a boast or something i'm particularly proud of but a fact and i'm fucking lucky... i try to avoid that now though i don't have to worry about the booze so much these days as the ganja...but the fact is i've been known to drive stoned, shocking i know, but as the studies have started to show, the stoned driver is really no worse than the regular driver if that regular driver isn't looking at their cell phone... and all one has to do is take a look around to see that half the people on the road are staring at their phones... mushrooms? well that's a bit more complicated but there are days when i hop the train down to a certain venue to see bands, i sit in the parking lot of the station and gobble my first dose and then jump on the train, have a great time at the show, catch the train back, then drive home... usually i'm on the downside but the remnants of cosmic fungi are still kicking so once again i drive very carefully, two hands on the wheel and all that shite...
I walked out into the cool night air, got in the car, rolled the windows down, tuned in a fine station on the old satellite radio and pulled out of the driveway... the whole time i was giggling to myself and having a conversation with no one, not unlike Billy Idol dancing i was talking with myself, i carefully navigated the empty streets, at one point a bunny sprinted across the road in front of me, i slowed and told the bunny he shouldn't do that shit, that as a friend of his i want to see him live out his bunny days and not end up being shoveled off the pavement by the Public Works dept... i made my way through the quiet streets, past my friends house, past a certain woman's house with a dickhead husband who'd i'd like to gain carnal knowledge of, laughing as i passed knowing that all the the squares would be appalled at my habits, i saw no cars until i had to wait at the lone light at the rec. center parking lot, drove in, smiled as Disaster bounded over grinning, and then drove home, the whole time listening to my young son who was in the process of getting his first girlfriend... the content grin on my face basically said it all...
Yes i know this wasn't the most responsible thing to do but sometimes you have no choice and weighing up the situation i knew i could handle it, i even brought my glasses just in case, though i don't know what they'd do except help me to read texts on my phone, the third eye would help guide me home... and once home i listened as the boyos talked in the kitchen, i took a pull off the weed pen and sat on the edge of the couch smiling, thinking about my sons, i lay back down and listened to music and ruminated on the state of things... shit would work out one way or the other... it always did... so i gazed up at the ceiling and enjoyed the ride...
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