2003-11-16|10:03 p.m.
The past few days have been quite a bit for me. I didn�t do as well as I had hoped on the last couple papers I wrote. But I should say� one of the papers, I think, was graded unfairly. The single critique was a stylistic one which I never thought I would face (he seemed to like my content itself enough to compliment). I had always been taught to use direct quotes as infrequently as possible in order to show my reader that I had a grasp of the readings myself. But the TA wanted to see more and gave me a B-.
This all means that I have to go in this week to discuss a reconsideration of my grade. Being both shy and less likely to fight for personal ambition, I hate doing this. In fact, I never have before. And it�s worse that it is over a B-. Who fights a B-?! I do apparently, because I have to pull an A in this class to get my GPA back up into the 3.5 realm.
Plus, I just hate Bs. They are the grade given to some minor flaw that I should have noticed and changed. This is why I am sad about the other paper I got a B+ on. Ugh.
And the third class I wrote a paper for hasn�t returned the grades. I don�t want to see that one because I turned that one in late and will have to see what I earned be docked for tardiness. Shame on me!
In other news, I tried pot again and for the first time in my life felt something. Too bad it was too much of something.
I was hanging out with K, a guy who takes his pot smoking seriously, this last Wednesday. And as I watched him smoke as he always does when we hang out, I asked him if I could try it again. I had told him of all my previous experiences and how none of them seemed to have any sort of affect. This had buried some sort of deep ambition within him and he jumped at the opportunity to throw all that he had at me to get me high. And it was successful.
I took two hits off a pipe he had packed earlier and felt nothing. Then, he packed a new bowl and told me to take the first hit. So, I did. And in one instant I felt a wave of disorientation. Sitting in the chair, it felt as if my eyes rolled back and I was about to fall though I could tell my body hadn�t moved.
I then sat on K�s bed as he told me the story of his own first time getting high and then started to play some music on his guitar.
I observed things change into what I have broken up into three stages of my first high. The first was the most enjoyable and involved a heightened sense of awareness of both my thinking process and physical sensation. The second was disappointing compared to the first as I felt my senses become one dimensionally focused. The third was at times scary and at others aggravating as I noticed myself black out periodically and lose sense of time.
The first part was amazing and had that been the only part of the high I would probably consider trying it again. But since it wasn�t I am not sure I will. I should say, I think it was always something I only wanted to observe more than anything and with that done so might be my adventures in it. But back to the first stage�it was enjoyable to center on what I could think and feel. Not to imply that while I was thinking I came up with anything profound. It wasn�t so much ideas/concepts but instead focus. If I thought about my foot feeling the comforts of warmth and the bed it rested on it was intensely enjoyable. If I focused on the belt on my pants digging into my side it was exaggeratedly painful. And without saying too much, I found ways to make it stimulating in other ways just by simply focusing on particular areas. I was amazed to feel things in this new way and I spent a good hour toying with it in my mind. And the focus meant that the other parts/feelings were less acute. So, I could simply ignore the more painful and return to it only when I chose to do so. I was very much in control of my high.
And then that changed as I went into the second phase of my high where I felt things get very one dimensional and not in a way that I could control as easily. I�d fall in and out of a feeling of sobriety and get lost in ideas or concepts. And since I knew that I was high and heard of others� similar experiences, I simply knew not to take any of the ideas too seriously. I�d dwell on things of my life and begin to panic and then somehow surface back again to reality. But what was most interesting was that I could only follow contrasting ideas one at a time. My normal thought processes are pretty multi-linear as I assume most people�s are. You can toss between the idea of going to the movie with your ten dollars or the idea to save it for gas for next week to see friends. You can weigh costs and benefits and still notice that you�re in a room and maybe even consider noise and distance and warmth. Sensations are still there. With the first phase, I could notice these things but could also ignore them. In the second phase, if I thought about drinking a glass of water all I could see was the water and the glass and nothing else existed to me. It would take a particularly jarring noise or action to return me back to other ideas (unless of course I was returning to a period of what felt like soberness and this would happen about every five to ten minutes and last for about three minutes in a cycle). I was disappointed in my inability to be in control of this part of the high but was still interested in what I could observe.
This could not be true for the third part of the high. As the above cycle became known in my mind I began to find that I was losing a sense of normal time. I�d not remember something seconds after it happened but would remember it several seconds after but as I did this remembering I think it stopped me from observing what was happening in the present time and the cycle would begin. It was like watching the movie of what happened over and over and never getting to actually observe or control the present time. Something obviously worked enough for me to function and talk to K and then phone AN to come pick me up because I did all that, but remembering it now it seems like time was spliced into increments of consciousness and unconsciousness and I had little control over a lot of it. This became scary at times and then simply became annoying and I limited myself from speaking as I noticed that whatever I had said moments before wasn�t worth allowing myself to say in the future which I couldn�t observe as it happened anyway. Does that even make sense?
It was really good stuff I think and I took way too many hits.
I met a really nice guy on the internet, D, who knows a friend of mine who happens to be dating a friend of his coincidentally. D is a Marine and was nice enough to invite me to the Marine Corps Ball that I went to last night. I have much to say about it and pictures and since I don�t have those pictures with me at the moment, I am noting here and now that I will talk about it in the next entry.
Since the ball was last night I didn�t get much sleep and so I managed to sneak off today and sleep in the breakroom for almost an hour. I guess that was a messed up thing to do to my co-workers, but for the most part I really make up for it while I am working. I tend to put tons of effort into things without really noticing. I just like to do a good job.
The best thing about work was this little girl that came in with her mom. She was about two feet tall with brown curly hair and her right cheek had a unicorn painted on it with face paint. She would wander not far from her mom and ask her to buy her �lipstick,� which was basically anything that looked like a tube. Most of the time she was wandering there was a bit of snot peaking out of her nose and her lip looked wet like she had been licking it off. Kids are sort of disgustingly cute in this way to me.
She�d stare at me a lot and after she got comfortable she�d smile and wave every time she�d pass where I was working (putting away go-backs). At one point she came up to me with open arms which until her mom scolded her seemed like she was going to give me a hug.
My favorite part I have saved for last though. It was when she began making up and singing a song about being in the store that made me giggle uncontrollably. Of course, I didn�t let anyone, especially the mom, hear me. The girl�s song had a line about �a toe nail� and �a brush with color� which I took as putting on nail polish.
Little kids make me really happy. But not in a way that makes me want to start producing them. They just make me happy to see, hear, and know that they exist.