Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

This fine, sunny Saturday afternoon brings with it a topic I'm not usually vocal about; I'm in the exact right mood, as it were, to speak out. Also I am watching Marijuana: A Chronic History on the History Channel right now.

Follow up:

When are we going to legalize pot, already? COME ON. It's ridiculous at this point, people. I should be able to take a hit off Joe's pipe without breaking a Nixon-era law that was based on mis-information to begin with!

Joe will be mortified if he sees this, so good thing he almost never reads me anymore. Don't tell him, Jen. If you ARE reading, Joey, sorry, baby, but do you really think, as you turn 40 in a few weeks, that your parents don't know? Especially your mom? First of all, look at you, you're the poster child for the legalization movement. Secondly, moms know stuff. And if SHE knows, your father knows. They know. Nobody cares. Besides, your smoke is so much less harmful to health than some of the familial levels of alcohol consumption. I mean, you lot can drink, buddy.

But I digress.

I suffer from a menstrual condition that Hub used to call "the evil ovary." Properly known as dysmenorrhea, it just means that I don't only get mere cramps like other women. A lot of other symptoms hit me, too. Well, to be clear, it CAN be "only" cramps, but severe cramps that feel like a dull two-by-four is stuck through my abdomen, like a charlie horse that won't unclench. I am lucky that it is not every single month that my menstrual cycle goes off the rails this way. If it happened every single month I would probably be on some kind of drug, says my doc. Actually, as long as I'm sharing, I WAS on a drug years ago, but I felt that it made me too emotional and crazy so I quit. At its worst, my tummy goes all awry too, veering from diarrhea to constipation. And I get a killer headache that's like what migraine sufferers describe, the kind with sensitivity to noise and light. And the fatigue, ohhh, the fatigue. A few times over the years I have gone to bed for two days. Sometimes all this hits me only pre-menstrual, but sometimes it lasts until I'm all done. During, the amount of blood can sometimes be barely manageable. This condition is actually one of the reasons I'm on this diet, because I think my advancing age and my weight make it worse.

So I take three, four, five of whatever NSAID was advised by the last person I talked to about pain management. I am sure the comments will fill up with more advice and I'll try those, too. I find Motrin to be just okay, Nuprin too, I find Advil to be decent, Tylenol a bit better. Does it actually really work? Eh.

But what can I take that relaxes my spasming midsection, reduces my nausea, dulls my pain, and lets me get some sleep? Cannabis. Mary Jane. Ganja. Green. Pot. Weed. Leaf.

Why's it in the house? That's for Joe's blog, if only he had one. What I have to say about it? He NEEDS it. Listen, we have been together for a long, long time now. I have had to deal with him when he goes through a phase where he doesn't partake, and let me tell you, he can get so incredibly pissy that he's just lucky I don't pitch him off the roof.

You may have seen that Travelers Insurance commercial with the little brown dog that can't relax? He keeps re-burying his bone and fidgeting during sleep? To the tune of Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble"? Lyrics are "Trouble. Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. Trouble been doggin' my soul since the day I was born." That's Joe. His natural resting state is "coiled like a spring." I mean, it's always something. He used to wake up in the morning mumbling random concerns as though it was a grocery list he was trying to memorize. Pushing aside the covers and working on opening eyes on this fresh dawning day, he was all "Hope that check clears. Need contact lens solution. Have to call Rudolfo." I said "All that, already?" How does a person wake up and instantly clench into a stressball, shoulders bunched so they feel like rocks? He can't help it, it's practically genetic. My man comes from a clan of people that are wound so tight that, very early in our relationship, I began to use their last name as an adjective. "Dude, you are getting extremely Kowalski right now, so just back off." Or a verb. "Don't Kowalski me." Or a noun. "Kowalski, keep it up. Say the word 'why' eight more times, go ahead. Ask me 'why' another five times after that."

Heh. That just popped out, but I remember that fight. I ended up walking out and slamming the door. Because he DID ask me "why?" thirteen more times. What happened wasn't a big deal (it never is) but the ratio of "seriousness" to "reaction" was off the hook. One of the locks on our apartment door was acting crotchety about Joe's key one night. We decided not to use that lock, in case it locked us out. The next morning I forgot, out of habit I locked it behind me. At the end of the day when he got home first, it locked him out. I was still at work a few blocks away and about to come home. What a normal person would do might be, for example, go and have a beverage at the pub so directly across the street from us that we can watch their big-screen TVs from our apartment window, give me a call and say "Hey baby, I'm locked out, could you come now? I'm at Tonic." But no. He called me bellowing that he's locked out, what the fuck, why did I lock the door, how could I be so stupid? Bellowing. I kept saying I was sorry, I just forgot, I'll be right there. When I got home he was pacing outside our building in a fury. He started right in on me. Why did I lock the door? Why? Why? But why? WHY? TELL ME WHY. All the way upstairs, all the way inside, yelling, not listening to "I just forgot" or "I'm sorry." He must have gone on for five, ten minutes. "WHY?! What were you thinking! Why!" Fucking hell, there is no why. I fucking forgot, that's all, and anyone would agree that the inconvenience was so minor. Sure I felt bad about locking the door, but had it been me locked out, I would have done that first thing. The "Baby, I'm locked out, can you come now? I'm at Tonic." Which may have been where I went after he hammered at me so long that I slammed the door and stalked out on his crazy ass. Pointless arguing in endless circles? That's not me, I don't play that. That's Kowalski'ing it. Happens every time the men get together -- because it's the men, mostly. His poor mom, she always has that look of "Oh no, not again" when the guys appear to be circling around into an endless loop of arguing. Sometimes I stay to watch. Sometimes I go read a book. And by the way? The fifteen beers they've all had don't quell this "argument" gene, they enhance it. They ALL need a nice, calming herbal remedy if you ask me.

I always tell Joe I can present and defend a medical case that he needs the smoke for his very life, because when he's without it, he is at high risk. Of me killing him.

I'm not an advocate of using weed the way total pot heads do. Getting baked daily and walking around like a dazed idiot is just stupid. So is walking around drunk all day! Not that I don't support weed as a recreational chemical, of course I do. My point is, if you can do endless shots of hard stuff, and smoke unfiltered Camels until you cough up a black lung, then I should be able to take a few hits off the pipe. Next time you're kneeling beside your bed holding your head because, if you climb in, the spins will make you hurl, think about the total lack of negative after-effects of weed. It is just ridiculous that alcohol and ciggies are legal while pot isn't! Would you rather talk to the guy who just did eight shots of Jack, or the guy who just smoked a bowl? Give me the stoner any day of the week. They're relaxed and peaceful and gentle, and they don't black out and puke and pee on themselves. Alcohol is an ugly, ugly drug. Pot just takes the edge off. Find me an police report where a stoned guy killed anyone. Why are we still discussing it? Legalize it, fer chrissakes!

Whether or not you agree with me, I recommend the documentary I'm watching right now, Marijuana: A Chronic History, on the History Channel. It's a good insight. And to finish, I sign off with two quotes from the show.

"If the concept of a gateway drug actually exists, it is without a doubt and without any hesitation: alcohol. And the fact that we sidestep alcohol and its lovely little cousins caffeine and sugar...and go straight to pot and go 'the fourth link in the chain is responsible for the beginning,' is disingenuous at least, and it's an outright lie." (Hal Sparks)

"Cannabis is far less harmful to health than tobacco, and far less dangerous in developing a serious drug habit. It's also far less dangerous than alcohol in terms of causing crazy behavior under the influence." (Mark A.R. Kleiman, Phd)