Plant that bell and let it ring.

It's been a cool six months since I've smoked any weed. This isn't by choice. I currently live in rural Mississippi, and my only options are buying it from young people that I would otherwise have absolutely no contact with or from a guy my cousin's mother-in-law buys her pills from. He's called "the Tater Man". I ain't buying nothing from "the Tater Man".

 Plus, I'm living with my mother and she's got rules that we will respect. Put simply, my dad passed away a couple of years ago and she turns 71 this year and ain't getting any healthier. Plus, she's taken care of someone - either Daddy or my uncle or my grandmother - for the past 20 years and was apparently at extremely loose ends. I've lost count of the number of people - people I've known all my life or people who've moved into the Valley since I moved out and don't know from Adam's housecat - who've said to me, "Thanks for coming back. We were worried." So far, it's worked for all of us, but back to the topic at hand.

 This is the first time in let's say 15 years that I haven't stayed constantly stoned except when I was on the clock. Good weed, too. I got to a point where I wouldn't mess with any ditchweed, or what they called in New Orleans, reggie. Getting stoned works for me. You know how people will say getting high has a bad effect on them or makes them uncomfortable? Well, I'm the exact opposite. It sharpens the world and brings it all into clarity. What I enjoy straight, I enjoy even more and at a deeper level when I'm high.Same goes for LSD or mushrooms. I don't think I've ever had a bad trip. I've tripped in bad situations, but the trip wasn't the problem.

 One of the many reasons I put off moving home and initially intended to move on as soon as possible was I was worried how the lack of the good smoke would affect me. It really wasn't all that bad, though. I've always been easy-going with occasional storms of gloom and grump, high or not, and that really didn't change too much. I'm not going to lie, though. I would completely whip someone's great aunt for a joint right about now.

 That was last night. This is this morning. I initially started that for the Tumblr site before I realized I was passing on some grade-A Gibberish. So there's that there then. I stayed up most of the night playing Civilization VI. It's really not my sort of game but once I got into it, it was pretty engrossing. I was able to turn Spain into a combination Jewish-Muslim state before I gave in.

 It's 8:30 a.m. and I can feel myself crashing. Luckily, I'm done with the Actual Paying Work for the month, barring requests for rewrites from the Chief. I figure after this month's pay I'll be two-thirds of the way towards the new laptop.

 I wrote this on Twitter but I'll write it here because I think it's a good stroke. In short: if you don't want to "debate" with someone, don't. You don't owe anyone your time, especially if they're not paying for it. Particularly on social media, very few people are arguing from a place of honesty. Most of the time it's just to get you upset so they can mark a "win".

 But here's the thing. Debates, arguments, what have you aren't really meant to win. They're for sharpening your thoughts and clarifying your ideas. It's not a contest, there are no prizes or accolades. You don't owe anyone your emotions and you don't owe anyone the benefit of the doubt. And as for cries of "echo chamber," let's just clear the decks on that right now. First off, anyone who uses that phrase seriously is not worth paying attention to and doesn't deserve your time. Furthermore, if they have Twitter they also have the entire internet at their disposal, just like you do. Because you don't want to waste your time and emotion on some limp-dick jackass who's not going to listen anyway doesn't mean you're in a bubble. Just means you're not going to give your time to a limp-dick jackass.

  You know, I think we'll tie this off here. If something clever comes back around, well... we'll see. We're supposed to have a rainy afternoon and I foresee a lazy day.