(to be sung in the tune of "Happy Birthday")

Happy Birthday to Max
He's now too old for JAC
But he can buy a gat
Happy Birthday dear Max

You Know You're a Pothead When...

You think the song "Truckin'" by the Grateful Dead should replace the national anthem. Your music collection is worth more than your vehicle. Your bong is taller than your dog. It takes you more than 30 minutes to roll a joint. You set your wedding date for 4/20. You take off April 20th every year and treat it as a holiday. You spent your last bit of money to score some herbs and don't have enough gas money to get home but you don't care. You start every sentence with - uhhh!. You eat at Taco Bell more than 8 times a week. You go to the corner store and the clerk automatically tosses a pack of rolling papers on the counter. Your bong gets washed more than your dishes. You sell your car for gas money You are the only tobacco smoker in the room and you look at the cigarette in the ashtray and ask, "Is that my cigarette?" You're eating something on your way home thinking about what you're gonna eat when you get home! Every cylinderical object you see, turns into plans on a new smoking device.... Just to be religous, you observe 4:20 in every time zone. Someone has ever come up to you on the street and said "Hi" and you said "Yep." You have smoked pot before 8 o'clock in the morning. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other pothead friends.

My inhibitions slip away with my convention.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I began reading Finnegan’s Wake, and it took me two solid hours to realize that I didn’t know what the hell was going on in the story, and that I probably never would. I want to understand what it all means, want Joyce himself to give me a translation. Then again, I suppose it would lose most of its beauty; to translate is to desecrate, after all. And anyway, my mortal mind just couldn’t take it. It’d be like Zeus revealing his glorious god-self to me and my frail heart stopping at the sight of it. Art is divine, and the artist a shaman--exposing, in brush strokes and syllables, little glimpses of infinity. He thinks in symbols--his hallowed visions.

India is within.

I feel fine. I’m damn young, not fat, not ugly, not stupid; what reason do I have to be less than confident? And why should I give a fuck what people think? I can’t conjure up any answers, so I guess that means I’m content. It at least means that I’m thinking logically. And that’s a very good sign, my friends.

"Don't disturb me now, I can see the answers;
'Til this evening is this morning life is fine..."

"...I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these
States, I press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long
accumulated within me..."

I am Hercules--that murderer; Oedipus, blind.
I am infamous, searching for Theseus,
Whom I shall never find.

(This is a true story)

This life is a duality. No, not like yin and yang; there is no harmony in it. Heaven yesterday, hell today. I have only two emotions, and for those that lie between, I've got a brilliant array of masks. My house is all dry wall--no paint today--and none of those shadowboxes or charming trinkets. But there is a small room, way in the back, all spring-washed and fragrant with extinguished candles still emitting little smoke signals. The focal piece is now gone, however, so I don't much like to go inside. It too will become barren, gray, all-shade, lest it is upkept. And I fully intend to get to it, once I've roamed all the lonely hallways, discovered each trap-door. I only hope that it's not too late then; for, then I shall have a regret.

"And you know you're never sure, but you're sure you could be right, if you held yourself up to the light"

If you want to know how many relationships you can fuck up in one week, ask me.

I don't know what I want right now.

You don't believe in personality disorders. You think that they were just invented for those not strong enough to cope with reality. And you never deem anything true unless it written in big bold block letters across the face, like swirls in cartoon eyes. But there are millions upon millions of books and essays and documentaries dedicated to psychology and psychological disorders. It is a science; studies have been done--many, in fact. Yet you refuse to accept it. (Do you also think that the world is flat?) But I may very well have such a sickness, and probably do, and I'm certain that it's mostly your fault. What can I do, though, but keep carrying this cross of your creation.

And that is just one small part of it, one comparatively insignificant complaint.

Candle flames flicker--
Dancing, sinuous,
Opium incense aglow,
There's an orange-bowl offering--
Seven perfect suns,
And wooden beads,
On a red string,
At the Enlightened One's bent knees,
As he stares--stone--into infinity,
The beating of his heart
Now one with the gentle cosmic hum
That I am so aware of,
In this moment

Sleepless,
I wonder--
To what world have you ascended?
And what Voodoo priestess
In what Haitian ville
I could sell my soul to
To resurrect you;
What alleyways our minds would wander;
What divine equations we could solve...

And then I sink
Into hot sleep
And see your face
In a dream
On the surface
Of a murky pool

I never want to wake

"Hitler was better looking than Churchill, he was a better dresser than Churchill, he had more hair, he told funnier jokes, and he could dance the pants off of Churchill." --the Producers

I had fantasies of living a life parallel to Anne Sexton’s or Sylvia Plath’s. I dreamed of a quiet, yet—somehow, somewhere—slightly off, childhood, and an absent father. I always thought that I’d go to some prestigious New England university like Barnard or Columbia or Wellesley, feeling a bit misplaced and terribly disillusioned among those red bricks, and so much wealth. I’d write beautiful, sad poetry, win a few competitions, get published in school newspapers and journals, and eventually graduate to the world of feigned smiles, an unhappy marriage, and art incomparable. I wanted that life. Perhaps, I am too often romantic and histrionic; I’m vaguely disappointed that I’m doomed to be happy and stable, and I fuck things up as much as possible.

I'm only eighteen and already burned out. Perhaps that's not quite fitting. What I mean to say is that nothing is satisfying. I want to move to Nepal and live as a Buddhist monk in some deep cave in the side of a mountain. I would study the ways of Zen and spend my days and nights in a meditative trance and eventually reach liberation from this fucking world. I'm just so tired of everything. I'm tired of doing drugs all the time. I'm tired of being a girl and girlfriend and daughter. I'm tired of having friends. I'm tired of trying so hard to be so goddamned impressive, but maybe that's because people are seldom impressed. I'm tired of not having friends. But I guess there are times when I really like the lifestyle and all the parts I play. Sometimes, believe it or not, I like spending an hour curling my hair only to have some drunken asshole hold it back while I vomit in a random toilet or trash can or parking lot or yard. Maybe I'm manic depressive. Then again, I could just be a fucking hypochondriac. A few months ago I thought I was experiencing the beginning stages of Parkinson's disease. So I guess I'm just bringing this all on myself?

Yes, you motherfuckers, I do drugs occasionally. I admit it. It was incredibly stupid to lie about it for so long; in lying, I only made it appear as if I were ashamed and I didn’t fool anyone. I only lied because I knew that you narrow-minded bastards would react as you are. My life is not “going down the drain.” To all of you who think it is: what proof do you have? I am still as intelligent as I have always been, I earn the same grades that I did prior to my drug use, I still have many interests and goals, and I am a damn good president. You are all such close-minded conformist pussies. Also, I have not compromised any values. Is it not possible that my values have changed? Perhaps I have become more open-minded and have stopped buying into prejudices. Maybe I have met someone who disproved all of the bullshit theories that were imposed upon me by an intolerant society. You have no fucking idea! And anyway, I’m not fucking addicted to PCP. I smoke pot. Drink occasionally. Big deal.