Getting High on Life

My therapist told me that I don’t need to smoke because I’m already high on life. This, of course, makes me want to do a lot of drugs.

I’ve never taken shrooms before, but I’m beginning to think it’d be a life-altering experience. I predict that it’d take me down either the “Dark Timeline," as it were, or a Redemption Arc– not that I need redeeming. Currently, I need a shower. But that’s immaterial.

People do a lot of drugs in Colorado. The other day I noticed a poster in town advertising a shroom café. I believe the premise is that you take a bunch of shrooms with strangers (maybe via tea?) and then sit in a coffeeshop with them. Personally, this sounds like my worst nightmare. I already find coffeeshop socialization to be a dreadful affair. People go to coffeeshops simultaneously to be alone and to be seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if those who frequent coffeeshops also like tanning in a public park or pornography. Can you imagine what that crowd would be like if they were all on shrooms? The nightmarish visuals of small talk, of matcha lattes coming to life, and of all the mismatched chairs suddenly starting to look like a legitimate aesthetic truly would make me violent. I would argue that those who are deranged enough to spend $7 on a cup of coffee and a seat at a small table that is– let’s face it– ultimately fucking ugly and uncomfortable really don’t need to take psychedelics. I write this as I sit in a coffeeshop, of course, but I’m not insane. My coffee was $6.

My roommate keeps pushing me to attend an Ashram, which, to her and now my understanding, is a gathering of a similar vein. With this, however, you take the drugs, form a large circle, and then dance or “move” or “feel the fuckin whatever of it all.” I don’t imagine I’d do too well there either. Aside from my internal dialogue that’d lead me to question whether everyone there was a pervert– a question I ask myself daily– I’d be totally distracted by all the crochet tops and shoelessness. It’d ruin the experience. I think I’d be better off taking the shrooms and watching from afar. Though, perhaps that’d make me the pervert.

I went to a cannabis dispensary when I first got here under the assumption that it would be like shopping in one of those knick-knack boutiques. You know, the ones that sell candles and linen shirts and scarves and shit nobody needs? You sort of just walk around, pick stuff up, engage in light conversation with the salesperson, and leave with a trinket you will most certainly forget about? Right, so I figured shopping for weed would be a similar experience. Turns out, I was wrong (nobody is surprised). It was more like going to Subway ten minutes before closing. That is to say, nobody wanted me there.

After showing my ID, I entered the back room with a woman who weighed 90 pounds and had most likely smoked more that afternoon than I had in my entire life. “What can I get you?” She asked, bored. I explained to her that I had never “shopped for weed” and was very excited. It appears she was not. I think she thought that I meant that I had never smoked weed before, as opposed to bought it legally. I was immediately deeply uncool and began asking all the wrong questions. She gave me a few suggestions, and I obliged, knowing damn well that without her guidance I’d end up shoeless in a café with a slew of randos.

I understand that most people who do drugs really enjoy them. They’re a great, convenient device that’ll help you pass the time and forget all of the reasons you’re deeply unhappy. Drugs are sort of like an iPad in that way. I don’t have any problems with drugs. My hesitation to engage with them more fully is really due to drug culture, which blows. Aside from the obvious harmfulness of addiction and abuse and crippling debt, people who do a lot of drugs tend to be really fucking annoying. Maybe that’s why I find so many people in Boulder really fucking annoying. Because they’re on drugs. Or, alternatively, because I need to be.