I’m not a woman who watches football for fun. I mostly just watch when I’m high, and then start thinking of other things—of gods and men and war, how games are modern-day battles, with strength and grit all on glorious display, like Grecian epics (or tragedies, in the case of last night’s Buccaneer’s kicker, who couldn’t make the field goals that would have altered the outcome of the game).

In my slightly stoned state, I began comparing the rampant concussions in the NFL to ancient fighting pits, warrior against warrior, teams of soldiers battling before throngs of blood-thirsty fans, hungry for victory but hungrier still for their enemy’s defeat.

It’s such a guy thing, I thought. War. Sports. I can only seem to get into the game when I imagine it to be something else, when I ascribe some meaning that probably doesn’t exist.

But then again, how could there not be meaning to such a large and lucrative pastime? It means something when its players take a stand against injustice and shine their spotlight on issues bigger than themselves.

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I’ve always viewed alcohol as the drug of the insecure. A way to shed inhibition and become a looser version of yourself. You, askew. The “you” you want to be, but can’t quite achieve on your own.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m all for a glass (or bottle). It’s just not my drug of choice.

I much prefer the introspection of marijuana. Creeping into the weird and winding corners of my brain. Finding comfort there, along with other dear friends: Humor. Peace. Gratitude. Time. Always, time. Where marijuana slows it down, alcohol speeds it up. Nights lost or completely blacked out.

Those rare moments have always left me rattled. Horrified of what could have been. I could have been raped. I could have been killed. I could have driven home drunk and killed someone else.

I say this not to judge the drinkers. I get it. I’ve done it. I’d just prefer to spend my St. Patrick’s Day smoking green instead of wearing it at the bar.

I loved him before the drugs. Sitting in the corner of Mr. Perrone’s 9^th grade Honors English, we’d pass each other notes, handfuls of which I still have saved in a frayed, decades-old Victoria’s Secret box. There are snarky one-liners about the class know-it-all; the fear we harbored for the wobbly barstool upon which our fat teacher would sit; the exchanges that said nothing and everything about life at 13.

When I try to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with Mr. D, I return to that classroom. We had finished the first half of The Odyssey, and from his precarious perch, Mr. Perrone asked us which of Odysseus’ challenges had been the most dangerous.

“The Lotus Eaters,” Mr. D whispered to me. It seemed an odd choice, only a few small pages about a flower that forever trapped its willful victims, certainly less exotic or action-packed than some of the other stories in the epic, and my face must have reflected my bemusement. He smirked and added, “It’s the only one I read.”

When the know-it-all raised his hand to make the same argument—something about hopelessness, loss of willpower, how those who ate from the flower abandoned desire for all else—I fell madly in love with Mr. D’s smile, the free-of-arrogance, I-told-you-so expression that said, “So what if I got lucky? I’m right.”

Shortly after our initial drunken kiss some 11 years later, after we went from being friends to being more, I asked Mr. D if he, too, knew the moment he loved me.

“We were in the cafeteria,” he said, going into explicit detail of watching me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as I devoured what must have been a very delicious popsicle. “That’s the girl I’m going to marry,” he joked, and we both started laughing.

We didn’t share another class until senior English, and our casual connection continued through college. We’d hit the bowl in his dorm, exhaling pot smoke into an empty water bottle filled with dryer sheets to mask the smell. Once, I accompanied him and his girlfriend on a blunt ride behind campus, grabbing the closest available beverage to soothe my throat, only to gag as the gin-laced juice seared its way to my stomach.

We went to parties in the seedier parts of the city. He taught me how to hock loogies and download music from the internet. We took statistics sophomore year, our first shared class since high school, though he’d eventually fail the course and drop out. After that, it was years before we saw each other again.

When we did, it was at my wedding. Newly single, Mr. D came alone and caught the bouquet. At 22, I had married a former pothead who smoked with me on our first date but never touched marijuana again. The sex was mediocre. When a friend once asked what it was that I saw in him, I apparently replied, “He has Mr. D’s sense of humor.” She’d remind me of that after the divorce, after Mr. D and I became “more,” after my corny remark of always loving him and after the chorus of duhs from our mutual friends.

We were potheads that first year, but Mr. D was more, and I didn’t realize just how debilitating more could be. He knew. He had called it eleven years before, in freshman English.

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Mr. D says I have a tendency to project my stress onto our relationship, and he may be right. Sometimes when we smoke at night, I find myself unable to get comfortable in his arms, or on the couch, or in the bed. I just sit there, anxious and tense, wondering why I can’t relax, which compounds the growing feelings of inadequacy that mar my Groundhog’s Day existence, where every day is the same, and I never feel good enough at home or at work, and I wonder if I’m arrogant for wanting more for our life, or ambitious for dreaming too big.

I told Mr. D that I was sorry if I take my woes out on him, and he said it’s okay, that at least I don’t express it on the kids, or at my job, or with my parents. And then I wondered, is that marriage? Is that what we do for the ones we love? Absorb some of their stress while they get their shit together?

If so, I’m grateful for it. If not, I’m tipsy from the wine, and these are all thoughts for an essay on another day.

This is the start of an essay for a longer day, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about. Mostly because of my last essay on Gwyneth.

“Well, it’s not like she’ll ever see it,” Mr. D said after I posted it.

“No, she might,” I replied. “She knows about the blog.”

An hour passed. I felt anxious about letting my bitch flag fly so flagrantly.

“Do you think she’d be offended,” I asked Mr. D.

“Probably.”

I thought about it for a minute more. “Well, it’s not like we’re good friends. Plus I ruin friendships all the time.”

Mr. D laughed. “And now you know why.”

Thathu, my grandfather, has been ready to “pack off and go” for decades, his morbid fascination with death just part of his 92-year-old charm.

Back when he was healthy enough to make the days-long flight from India to the US, he would sit on the sofa with our mutt beside him, pondering which of the two would “win the race.” Not sure what exactly he meant, but our dog died 11 years ago.

He likes to wrap up in a blanket and moan, “Yenna mo pandra da.” (“Something is happening to me.”)

His children describe him as a crafty old man who always gets his way. He has no qualms resorting to blackmail.

When he came to Minnesota to meet his youngest grandchild in 1991, he spent a few hours alone with the crying baby before threatening to jump in the lake.

He once screamed, “You’ve given me AIDS” in the middle of the hospital ward, as terrified patients wondered what the fuck was going on. My grandfather didn’t/doesn’t have AIDS.

He hates all religion and thinks Islam is a scam. Upon being introduced to his daughter’s pious Pakistani friends, he offered some unorthodox advice: “I tell my children, ‘You’ve left behind a shit place.’ But you’ve left behind a shittier place. Now that you’re in America, forget all this non-alcoholic nonsense you learned in Karachi.”

Thathu could toss ’em back.

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Thanks for checking out HighMom.com!

First, I just wanted to ask a quick favor. I am trying to keep this blog anonymous for as long as possible–and despite my level of inebriation, I really am not trying to get fired from my job. If you could refrain from using my name as it relates to this site, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks so very much.

Second, I am very curious to our experiment. Can you comment in this post and let me know how much was in your tip jar during the open bar portion of the event, and how much was in there when it switched to cash?

Also, is your manager a total dick? He struck me as one, but I could be mistaken.

Anyway, thanks again for the fantastic service! Hope you had a great rest of the day.

Warmest wishes,

HM

Why are writers and stoners my favorite people? Writers are very much in their own heads. Or the process of writing is about being inside your own head. How do you want to say something? How do you tell a particular story? To write is to think about an idea, over and over, to make it meaningful in some way, to parse out the significance. “Now that I understand the significance of everything that happened.”

For stoners—or at least for this particular stoner—I think weed is about very much the same thing. Moments just making sense. Unique insights and perspective.

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