OTTAWA — I just remembered I am supposed to be writing.
I am stoned on legal weed, which finally came into my hands this morning after six days of waiting. Thank you, government!
It is a different thing to get high alone — to get high alone for work reasons, right after question period. I’m sitting at my dining room table, drifting off every now and then to examine the patterns on my stuccoed walls or to focus, intensely, on the album I am listening to, the one that Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett collaborated on. It would be a different thing to get high with the two of them.
The first thing you notice, after opening the cardboard box, which is just a little too large for your knapsack (backpack? knapsack? backpack?) … uh, you notice how much packaging there is. Tape. Crumpled-up papers. A box with government warnings and the logo of the licensed weed producer. A plastic bottle inside with a child lock cap that reminds you of Advil.
“She’s so easy,” sing Courtney and Kurt, repeatedly. Such a good album. This song has been on forever. Time stretches out. I’ve smoked a sativa-heavy hybrid strain called “Super Sonic,” which is supposed to make you feel creative rather than sleepy. On the Ontario Cannabis Store website, it’s described as having “a strong, earthy, sweet aroma, reminiscent of Quantum Kush.” I don’t know what Quantum Kush is but maybe our prime minister can explain it? (Remember that time? Anyway.)
The first time I tried weed was outside someone’s house party, towards the end of high school. I couldn’t have imagined then that one day I’d be smoking grass I bought from the government as part of my work day as a political writer. “Hey guys guess what I’m high for work,” I type to a group of friends, presently. (Use of “presently” makes me feel like Jane Austen, or something, which, who can really define literature?) “Mon weed arrive pas coliss,” one of them shares. (Roughly translated as “my weed hasn’t arriving, goddamn it.”)
Tyler Dawson sends a meme that is a yellow balloon, labelled “My endless puns,” just absolutely shattering an arrow screaming towards it labelled “Groans and dirty looks from my friends.” I am glad that he, unlike some of my other colleagues, Maura, appreciates my puns. More like Tyler Dawesome.
It feels a little bit like being underwater, when you’re moving around. It feels like your limbs cut the air in a different way. Like you’re more attuned not just to your visible surroundings but to the air itself. It’s pleasant, sort of like the warm glow of having had two or three drinks, except more sloth-like. Did you know sloths can swim? Look up this swimming sloth.
There’s an episode of Bojack Horseman where he visits the land of the fish, and has to wear a fishbowl of air on his head. And then he can’t snack because of the glass. I’m getting a snack.
(But, like, I smoked an appropriate amount of weed for me, based on my existing experience. Be safe, kids!)
(Kids: don’t smoke.)
My cat smelled the weed and didn’t seem to like it very much. After a moment he turned away and tried to swat the package. I click on a link in a press release that takes me to “Dr. Kramer’s Cannabis-for-Pets 101 webinar.”
I finally picked up my shipment of two grams, which cost $27, at the post office Tuesday morning. Canada Post tried to deliver it yesterday, but I wasn’t home — the OCS didn’t notify me of the shipment until the middle of Monday night. As I type, it’s been almost a full week since I placed my initial order, late last Tuesday. If I wanted to buy from a dealer or at an illegal dispensary, I could’ve gotten high within 24 hours of then.
The morel of the story is this is not about mushrooms. The “more all” of the story is: all, all, all, all, all.
Just, Courtney and Kurt are so good.
The moral of the story is that legal pot seems to be pretty legit, like, in both senses of that word. But, at least in this province, you have to wait for it. Slow and steady. The tortoise won the race, but maybe it’s because the hare got high, cared more about the journey and stopped for a nap?
Credit: www.thechronicle-online.com
