My so-called super gooey purple cheese sticky sour kush life...

Earlier this week, while visiting my parents in Palm Springs, my mom and I decided to stop by a dispensary in the area. Being a loyal patient of Harborside Health Center (and more importantly, girlfriend of the GM/co-star of "Weed Wars," Andrew DeAngelo), I hadn't frequented many other dispensaries and was interested in seeing what was available to my parents and friends in the desert. I was careful to enter the small shop without preconceived notions, and instructed my mom to not "brag" about me and my illustrious connections. I very simply wanted to see what other patients see when they enter such an establishment. Plus, I love my parents very much but a medicated brownie was becoming necessary...

Once inside, reception was warm and welcoming, giving us cautious tips on compliant traveling and driving with medicine in tow. But once the owner caught sight of my Oakland address, things turned a little sour--and I don't mean of the "diesel" variety (a little dorky cannabis humor for you).

"Oh yeah, in Oakland you have Harborside and 'Weed Wars' so it's all mainstream there," said the owner, with more than a hint of derision. I kept my mouth shut, steeling myself for what soon became a tirade of disparaging remarks about Harborside's success. Trying to ascertain the source behind the bitterness, and trying to stop the flush from overcoming my face, I calmly replied that Harborside is where I like to go in my hometown, and the owner backed off--just a bit--vaguely acknowledging her onslaught of negativity with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Although the owner was quite helpful and generous with product recommendations after that, I couldn't shake the feeling of being misunderstood and attacked--even subversively. It's a feeling I've grown accustomed to as of late, what with the broadcast of "Weed Wars" and the many hours I've spent online since, scouring critical reviews, blog commentary and endless tweets about the show, about Harborside, and about my beloved boyfriend and his family.

Despite its legal, medical uprising in certain states, cannabis remains a hot-button topic. And because Harborside Health Center is the largest medical cannabis dispensary in the country, it already receives a lot of media attention and public scrutiny. I expect critical backlash from people who haven't been educated about cannabis' medical merits or those who simply choose to hang on to their conservative "all drugs are bad" stance. But what I didn't expect was that the majority of "haters" would come from within the medical cannabis industry itself.

When "Weed Wars" debuted, I obsessed with people's honest and immediate reaction to the show and mainstream perceptions of the industry. Naturally, I turned to Twitter. The majority of tweets were favorable and/or incredulous (mainly in non-medical cannabis regulated states and countries), but of course I fixated on the negative criticisms. And what struck me were the blatant hypocrisies...

"Let's Get High," aka @PokerStoned, who in his profile pic is wearing a green t-shirt with a smiley face smoking a joint, tweeted that "sometimes the people on weed wars don't help the image of a stereotypical pothead." Along the same lines, "Stoner Simpson," aka @PapersNoBlunts, who cites himself as a "verified weed smoker...modern day hippy...smoke something bitch..." tweeted that "this weed wars shit making potheads look bad."

I realize that public figures must regularly face this kind of critique, both good and bad--and none of it has to necessarily make any sense. And it has made me reassess how I judge celebrities in general. But Harborside is not the Kardashians. And it is especially difficult to accept this kind of blind badgering from people within the industry who realize all too well the political and social obstacles they face on a daily basis. Any success, done legally and with beneficent intent for the medical cannabis community at large, should be encouraged within that community. Open discussions, instead of one-sided attacks, will only propel that larger success.

This is somewhat strange for me, as I've never claimed to be a cannabis activist. But I guess I'm reacting to the pattern of social injustices that we often fall into because we're afraid of change, or we're quickly lacking control of our own lives, or we fail to see that someone else's success does not negate our own.

I'm hoping that through this process, I can keep my ears and eyes open, and not be too discouraged by humanity's great law of entropy. Maybe this wasn't my battle to fight, but it's definitely teaching me how to win with grace.

A Night Out...

Tonight I broke free of the confines and rituals of my Oakland locale and left for an exotic night in San Francisco with Elan, with whom I had not hung out in quite some time. He'd wanted to start with dinner and drinks at Morac, a Moroccan restaurant and bar in the Mission, so I'd thought it appropriate to have a pre-night-out cocktail, solo, at the old dive bar Murio's Trophy Room--which had just undergone a Moroccan-influenced renovation--on upper Haight. While I sipped my Bulleit and soda, I was struck by the dramatic transformation Murio's had recently undertaken, and quietly contemplated the ghosts of the grungy, smelly, unpredictable dive bar I had once frequented. Meanwhile, a lovely young couple from Canada struck up a conversation with me about food and travel, culminating with her ultimate meal--on MAUI! At Spago's! (It turns out the couple run this awesome eatery on Vancouver Island.) Eventually Elan showed up shortly after another attractive couple--this time wearing Patagonia sportswear and ordering Pinot Grigio (with ice cubes)--tried to take over the empty stool next to me, and we sped off to the popular, trendy Moroccan restaurant where harried Russian cocktail waitresses took our order and stunningly beautiful, young Persian women at the table next to us lamented their success working at corporate jobs they weren't "passionate about." After Elan and I had our fill of tech-industry gossip, we hightailed it to Sasha's new bartending gig--at the Gold Star--and I marveled at the classroom-inspired cocktail menu, while Gabrielle horrified me with details on the Mission Rapist. I kept one eye on the clock in order to catch the last BART train back to the East Bay (at 12:20! Gimme a break!!) while Elan guilted me on not staying in San Francisco for the evening. After missing the last BART, and instead of taking the two-hour bus back to Oakland, I opted to take a $50 cab ride back to my car at Fruitvale, even though I can barely afford (nor do I know the exchange rate) to make sense. And although I really tried to get it right, not one person said I looked pretty tonight. Not that that's what it's all about but still.

Man at His Best

Still catching up on my issues of Esquire. Just finished reading November's, which made me ride a roller coaster of emotions. The always amazing Tom Chiarella helped me to understand rage and "what a man and his anger are capable of," as well as the profound and dynamic relationship between an aging father and son in his touching personal essay, "Damages." I suffered through my own kind of anger reading yet another profile on yet another grossly wealthy, young, ego-maniacal, "God-loving" basketball player, and instructions on making a prank call. Oh, Esquire... Like all great men I've loved, you are not perfect. But uh... sorry, could you just turn that down a bit? Thanks.

"The Case Against Jogging" inspired me to try high-intensity interval training (at an outdoor swimming pool in 46-degree weather), which unfortunately led to my first cold of the season. I developed a crush on fashion designer Simon Spurr and am convinced that Thespian needs to wear his suits. I was enthralled with Stephen Marche's A Thousand Words didactic on "losing your faith" in the almighty dollar in "What is a Dollar Worth? Perhaps Nothing." He concludes by saying:

But losing your faith, while painful, can also be liberating. The attraction of dollar value, which Marx predicted as the transformation of all "personal worth into exchange value," wasn't the same as greed; it was really just laziness... Losing the dollar as the marker of all value might reveal new possibilities of worth, for people and for things, even for the world.

The article update on Ryan Adams (um, who?) prompted an initially interesting conversation--and ensuing jukebox selections--from a strange man at a bar. But the intellectually stimulating music lesson soon turned into a not-so-subtle boob-stare-a-thon (as they so often do) and I resolved to read the rest of my nude-Rihanna-covered issue alone.

Then I was enraged, aghast and depressed while reading "'There is No Truth,' He Said. The Future of the Written Word, and Liberation of James Frey. With Space Aliens." by the bold and inspiring writer, John H. Richardson. The interview Richardson conducted with the author of the infamous (and untrue) memoir A Million Little Pieces twisted and turned dramatically (and ultimately proved quite illuminating and a little sad) but in the interim revealed a horrific glimpse into a totally Hollywood-centric, multimedia publishing industry that hires factories of fresh-faced (sans actual credit or appropriate compensation other than "the exposure") writers to churn out marketable ideas for page-screen-videogame projects and blurs the lines between "art" and "commerce," "fiction" and "nonfiction," "working writer" and "slave labor," etc. My favorite excerpt:

Frey: I think you're getting hung up on the idea of fine art--I don't think there's any difference between writing fine art and producing genre fiction. I think of it all as part of a larger body of work.

Richardson: That's so funny because when I was a kid in college, we were all militantly trying to collapse the boundaries between high and low--"There's no difference between rock 'n' roll and Milton, so why can't I write my thesis on Elvis Costello?" And, of course, we were right. But somehow that seems to have led to Jersey Shore.

Ah, yes... And because I refuse to post a clip from that effing show that has produced another literary genius, Snooki--here instead is a sweet, sweet classic from a true talent:

'Freedom without limits is just a word.'

Last night Thespian and I watched the early-2011 thriller, Limitless. The story revolves around a struggling writer with a severe case of writer's block whose life is spiraling into nothingness--his girlfriend dumps him, his editor is giving up on him, he's about to get kicked out of his apartment and he seriously needs a haircut and a shave. But then he gets turned on to an underground super-drug called NZT, which enables him to remember every single detail of information that he's observed or experienced throughout his life and he pumps out--literally, overnight--a novel which prompts his editor to leave breathless messages of exalted praise on his voicemail. The drug also acts like an instant makeover so dude was soon looking sharp, glossed, glazed and decked out in finery--which the ex-girlfriend enjoyed to the point of reconciliation. Oh, and he had raucous sex with the landlord's wife.

Laughingly (like, through the tears), I could relate to the guy's immobility at first. I enviously scoffed at the proffering of some mighty drug to ease his writing woes and I might've even drooled a little about those post-brilliant-novel-submission editorial phone calls. But then what does the best-selling, uber-dapper, incomparably smart, sexgod writer want to do with his new superpowers?

Become a senator, of course.

This plot twist left me more depressed than ever. Because what, really, would be the end result to some magic pill that enabled me to be the superhuman writer/devastatingly beatific woman I've always wanted to be? Would I, too, be caught in the maelstrom of ambition, ultimately leading to aggrandized notions of power? And when I finally figure it out, what will allow me to think that I've really "made it"--that I am, at long last, "successful"? Not that this scenario is even close to happening anytime soon, as I can't even seem to find a proper coffeehouse to do this so-called writing I like to flagellate myself with. Apparently, it's the non-writing that I'm preferring to write about these days. Sigh.

Ah, to be a writer~ ain't it grand? And so, I dedicate this song to... me:


Depeche Mode - Strangelove (1987) by clp23

2011: You Snooze, You Lose

The week before Christmas, somebody stole my bitchin' Camaro cruiser. Or, I should say, that week I discovered that it was gone--in all fairness, the evil thieves could have stolen it weeks ago and I'd just been too busy to notice. Although beloved, it was a rusty old bike that I secured with a cheap chain lock since I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to steal it. So when I came upon its now empty space on the rack, I was surprised--and also, not.

Aside from the loss of a stylish yet not too valuable ride (and the obvious pain of having your stuff taken by greedy, hell-bound strangers), the theft struck me a bit deeper because of the realization that I hadn't actually ridden my bike in months. And that for weeks I'd stopped even looking at it on my way to and from my car, thinking that I should go somewhere with the thing that I once so enjoyed.

Naturally, it made me think about my relationship with something else that I had let lapse: the writing. Ever since I left my full-time reporter gig at Pacific Sun--and probably, if I'm being really honest with myself, since I left Maui Time Weekly and days of Holoholo Girl columning four-and-a-half years ago--my writing has waned.

The desire to write has always been there, as I continue to observe every moment with a writer's eye, contemplating the right descriptive words and narrative angle. But when it comes time to the regular documenting of said moments, I've distracted myself with other things I felt were more important. Like, laundry. And walking the dog. Also, shopping. And watching really bad movies recommended by friends. And online research--lots and lots of research--about men's shoelaces and proper blush application and new restaurants in New Orleans and how to poach an egg and the latest celebrity gossip and who is this Tim Tebow person anyway?

I chalked it up to a lack of self-discipline. I suffered endless dinner parties and cocktail hours with friends and family expressing genuine interest in my writerly pursuits, only to provide them with an embarrassed shrug and downcast eyes, some mumbling about being busy doing research...

I've had consoling writer friends suggest that perhaps this is part of the writing process, that sometimes it takes a period of non-writing (and the living of life!) before you can pump out prolific pages of prose yet again. I even went to a tarot card reader, who advised that instead of waiting I should "make room" everyday for "the muse"--that she isn't going come on her own--and that perhaps the topical matter I've written about previously (I didn't tell her I was a reporter! Ooh, damn!) is no longer serving me now. Thespian proposed that we instigate a new "pre-dinner cocktail writing hour" at home, which worked well a couple of times...until the onslaught of attention his own career demanded (and new TV show) took over most of our together time.

And so. Here I am, after 10 months of unemployed freedom. While other friends have written books, relocated for exciting career developments and had babies, I had a book deal that fell through shortly after the second chapter was completed. I had a handful of freelance writing assignments and copyediting work, and helped Harborside Health Center launch their company newsletter. And while it's been its own kind of sloth-like fun, I wasted a lot of time--mostly, a lot of good writing time.

Writing is the most satisfying, mind-opening, soul-expanding, creative thing I've done with my life. And I don't want to one day wake up and realize that, like my bike, it's gone forever.

Complacency is soooo 2011.