7

(Saturday, 10JUL2010)

_It s hard to introduce someone to coke,_ Adam was saying. He had already been doing lines in another room with Jimmy s roommate, another young drug dealer. _Some people just can t let go of the experience once they ve tried it._

It didn t take me long to understand that Jimmy s roommate was trying to make an addict out of me, hence all the free coke. But I have my own qualities, so I wasn t afraid.

I did four lines in each nostril, through a rolled up twenty that had to be set farther up my nose than I had thought reasonable.

It was challenging. While the weed is a depressant, pulling me down from the feeling-too-much numb place, coke is the opposite. The coke simply undid what the weed had done, and I was back to my normal self, lots of words in my mind, a strong curiosity, an adventurous tendency. I felt my heartbeat quickening, and understood what the coke was doing, but it didn t last more than a couple of hours, and I was fine again.

Finally, Jimmy acquired the quarter pound; I paid, then said goodbye to all the potheads I desperately did not want to become, and drove to a parking lot.
I took some time to wrap each ounce well in one sealed plastic bag after another, then unscrewed pieces of my car and hid the bags inside. Then I started the all-night drive home.

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(Sunday, 11JUL2010)

I have this vague idea of getting high as little as possible, as regularly as possible. So I roll nine joints, set my laptop near me, and begin watching television on the fifty two inch plasma I got after deployment.

Mental damage is extra on the mind, the high showed me. Once it s damaged off, the mind is clean again. I didn t know that s how the word 'damaged' worked.

I went downstairs and played the piano well for awhile, as I sipped on Guinness. It was maybe the best I ve ever played.
The high had me wondering about Autism, how my parents told people I had it, how those with Autism develop a very unique perception of the world, and have a strong knack for music.
The thought process never really went anywhere, and the piano music took over.

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(Monday, 12JUL2010) coming down..

In New Jersey I would ve felt dirtied by the experience, but I knew I d write out the true perception, my perception, and this would just be an experience I experienced. The _I_ stays Him.

Writing is my secret supplement. I m supposed to believe the words I write because they re true. If I believed them easily I wouldn t have to write them down. But when I wake in the morning from nightmares I always see the world through a negative lens.
Smoking is the sharpest, quickest way to make the switch, but I can also make the switch with my mind, if I concentrate, and remember the rules, and the world switches to the true one, the perception so different and strong it s like I m now living in a different context, and always have been.

This is what it was like when I was younger .. First out on my own, seventeen and eighteen years old. Sweet freedom. Unsustainable because my way of sustaining it -- not-remembering -- was naturally an immature way of handling things.

The side effect of the negative perception is always Fear. So to make the switch I always have to start with Brave.
It’s a terribly new sensation, to not only acknowledge each example of Being Brave I’ve lived, but to feel Brave on the inside. To feel my Soul on the other side of my skin.

I didn t realize that one word could change your life so completely. It s hard for me to know which word it is: it begins with Brave, but always ends with Confidence.
On the Brave end of the spectrum is a person fighting alone, against all odds, in the worst life has to offer. On the other end is this happy, easy, laughing, person.

I don t have any desire to smoke. It gets easier. And the marijuana I ve acquired is my security, in case something goes terribly wrong. I know that I will not fall into the depths, but will hold on, even if I have to supplement.

It s working.

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I watched Oprah incidentally as I worked. It was about the book Women Food and God. She had a hard time explaining what the book was alluding to.
At one point she tried to explain that holy moment that a human being has with him or herself, where that human being realizes their true self.
My moment was post-deployment, in the throes of the Shifting. I didn t know others had had holy moments, too. I wonder what they were like.

Meanwhile it makes me feel more natural that the human body is set up for the horrific; that it requires that much to self-realize.
I wondered about the people who hadn t self-realized yet, some of which were eating themselves to death because of it. All that pain they are expressing by doing that.

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Tuesday
　
I slept fourteen hours. The electricity went out during a long, violent rain storm in the middle of the night. I have no neighbors, and live in a Frank Lloyd Wright-style château, so it was like being in the Wild, or at Walden.
It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front my face. I had been in the middle of making marijuana tea but without electricity getting high was on hold.
I had to change my perspective a few times in order to remain Brave. When memories come during silence and stillness -- that has always been the worst. I know that it will have to become the best.
People don’t like to reckon with nature. It’s too real. So they have the TV on, or the radio, play and reckon with a game of business or finance or law, but not nature, because it’s too real to be a game. It is scary to be this alone in this much nature.
It’s why people allow themselves to be led. The leader deals with the real world, while the ones who follow have that much of a buffer between it and them.
My perspective switched to Nature being the Real world, and all the rest unReal, and I stayed Brave, like the guy from the film Into the Wild.
I catch myself asking What story are you in? in order that I know how to act. If I simply stay in the correct perspective, I’m always in the correct story.
The true perspective is that I am the Boy and regardless what comes my way I’ll be Brave, because I never had a choice, seems like, whether I know words like Nature, or UnReal, or not.
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When I feel this relaxed my first impulse is to get ready for bed, then go to sleep. Now that I’m this relaxed all the time, I have to think a little harder, learn how to live while not high on self-imposed adrenaline.
I’ve been living with high adrenaline pumping through my veins throughout the House, and the years after, but now I don’t need to be in such a survival-mode. I’m not a kid anymore, I’m an adult, I’ve got this.
Since doing coke I wonder if what I’m going through is the same as what someone trying to lose their addiction to coke is going through -- learning to function while relaxed.
I noticed that when I come down what used to feel like fear feels like pain instead. I feel my heart hurt, I know which new memories caused the pain, and I’m not afraid of the pain. That way it’s like I don’t really come down from the high, my body does instead.
I notice the marijuana has been good for my complexion.
So this is happiness .. Allowing yourself to be happy IS happiness.
The two shifts are a choice I can make while watching TV whether high or not: believe the acting or watch the actors.
In the end it’s like I was repressing desire. It’s the soul’s language but I felt mine might be tainted. I know that testosterone is the hormone of desire. I know my evolutionary properties, and how I am who I am regardless. I have to trust the world to continue molding me into an ever-present Him. That’s a difficult trust to ask of me.
There is no such thing as a machine. Presence is required always. That solves a lot of the mysteries in life.
Maybe that’s why Adam says my highs are so different. I never lose my psyche, or the ability to articulate. I feel like there is a value in presence. He told me he smokes to get inebriated.
__________
　
I got this email from the unmarried of the five sisters, Br___:
Hey.......so I got kinda a weird question for you. Would you like to go to the beach with me June 30 -Aug 1? Just for the weekend .. I'm checking to see if the house we usually rent is available that weekend. It's a 3 bedroom older house, so you'd have your own room. I really need a break from life and I don't particularly want to go with any of my friends (seems like everyone is having drama with their husbands and I'm not feeling drama right now) and I need a break from the family. And I guess I'm a p-ssy cause I don't really want to go by myself. I'll pay for the house, you wouldn't have to worry about that. Think about???
I felt cornered, like I always do concerning her. So I sent her this back:
Sounds cool, I've been in the mood for the beach lately anyway. Meanwhile, I'm gay. I didn't know if you had picked up on that already. If I tell people too late I will hurt people's feelings by accident, while if I tell people too early can seem very not-self-honoring.
She sent this back:
LOL.....r you serious? before i say anything stupid, your not playing a joke on me r u? .. anyway, I kinda had a feeling you were .. I'm cool with that. I really hate labels .. so I don't define myself as gay, straight, or bisexual, but I mostly date women. i just assumed daddy had talked to you about me. does anyone in the family know? daddy? ma?
　
I don’t believe her all the way. I’ve met lesbians before, ones with girlfriends and everything, and have still been hit on them by them. Plus there’s that time when I was helping her dad move her out of her apartment. That night I was to sleep on the couch but then she came downstairs and told me I could sleep in her bed if I wanted to. I declined .. So it’s careful treading.
Now I’m the gay guy even though I’m not. Plus I’m going to the beach with a lesbian who thinks I’m gay. It seemed the only way to handle things, but now feels a little ridiculous.
I’m helping her dad, J__, tomorrow with a landscaping job. I’m going to spend the night at their house tonight so we can start early in the morning. It’s all a bit bizarre.

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