Nicholas and I were talking on ICQ last night. Whenever we couldn't think of anything to say, we just made up a new word. You'd be surprised how well it works.

Not a lot of newsworthy stuff going on right now, but I've decided not to let that stop me from doing an entry. Why should I let my boring life prevent me from writing? I've got a dream, by God, and I can't let such a paltry detail as the fact that I have nothing to say stand in the way of me saying it.

Jaime is in town. I've been having problems finding her. See, part of the problem is all the places she would be are places where I'm inclined to just stay for a few hours.

Thursday, I thought she would probably be with Mia, so I walked down to the bar. Mia said she hadn't seen her. I knew Anne was working, so I decided my next stop could be either the House, or Jay and Alice's. Jay and Alice are closer, so I went there. Jaime wasn't there, but Alice and Yahn and Jim and Jon were, so I stayed. And then it was time to go home.

Friday panned out the same way. I couldn't start looking till 10, so I picked one place (Alice's), and ended up staying there until it was suddenly midnight, and I knew I had to get home.

Saturday, I tried a new tactic. Dante and Bob and Vincent are used to me randomly leaving when they get sucked into their computers, or a cardgame, or pretty much anything they do, actually. Basically, when they stop amusing me, I go elsewhere. (Both Dante and Vincent have talked to me about this. They were worried that I was leaving mad, but it's not like that. I know they like Diablo and Magic. I know that I don't. I don't expect them to stop doing something they enjoy, just to entertain my sorry butt. Sometimes, it is fun, just watching my friends have fun. When it isn't, I go.)

The point is, I could go there, and when Jaime wasn't there, I'd be able to leave. It seemed very important to me, going somewhere, and not staying until bedtime.

I even had a backup plan. I would go there, and not smoke, because Anne had my car. At 11, I could find Anne, and my car, and hang out with her and Jack for a while, because I hadn't done that in forever either. Then, I could go yet somewhere else, and maybe find Jaime.

Damn near everyone was over at Dante's. Jack was there. Jay was there. Jaime was there. Jaime said she was smoked out. ("The last two days, Mia and I smoked enough to take out a third world country!") OK, I thought. This is all falling into place. I definitely have no specific reason to smoke, and a few good reasons not to.

(Damn, this exploding diarrhea style writing is just not doing it for me. At the time, I didn't think the Tau's Not a Party last weekend was worth mentioning, but now I've gotta go back and at least explain it a little bit, because it's tied in with why I didn't want to be stoned around Jack, and thus ended up not seeing him a couple nights this week, when I really should have gone over there. Did I really start this entry by saying I had nothing to talk about?)

(OK. Try to remain focused. I'll backtrack a little, then get on with what I'm talking about.)

(Last weekend, the House did not have a party. It didn't start at 8. No music was played. No alcohol was served. That was the gimmick, you see. They were being all clever-like.)

(As it turned out, it really wasn't a party. There was alcohol, but none of the actives were drinking it. There was music, but little dancing, and no hordes of drunk people dancing. At one point, I was the only person in the lounge with a drink.)

(Jim and all the alums were getting stoned in the library. I was not in the library, because Jack was in the lounge, and I thought it was the more social thing to do, to stay and hang out with him.)

(Eventually, I cracked. He wasn't even drinking, so I reasoned I was already having more fun than him, and I should just go all out. I went into the library. I came out feeling much better. The strobe light started messing with my head. I didn't see much of Jack for the rest of the night.)

(This was exactly what I had known would happen, and why I had avoided the library as long as I did. I felt horrible, most of the rest of the week. Every night I was either too tired to go anywhere, or I was realizing "Aw shit! I'm stoned again! Maybe if I wait an hour, then I can go over there...but I'm going to have to be sober enough to drive, because Jack is going to want to go get cigarettes or food or something, and they don't have a car. There's no way I'll be that sober in an hour. FUCK!")

So, to recap: I'd spent the whole week trying to get my ass over to Jack's place. I'd spent the last two nights trying to find Jaime, and instead, ending up in places where I knew I'd killed my chances of seeing Jack at all. Now it was Saturday, and Jaime and Jack were both over at Dante's, and Jaime didn't want to smoke. It was all good.

People were talking. Smoking just wasn't an issue, because Jack and his oxygen tank were there. "I'm going to do it!" I thought. "I'm going to be social and not stoned at the same time!" Then, someone mentioned Bridge.

"Yaay! Bridge! I can be social and not stoned and BRIDGING! Does life get any better than this?"

Bridge ended up being Jay and me vs. Dante and Vincent, with Jaime watching. In Dante's room. With a pipe. I held out for a good hour. Then Jack took off his oxygen tank, and came in for a cigarette break. He didn't immediately freak out. I wondered where I had gotten the idea that he would.

Then I remembered. The last of his views I had heard on the subject were that it makes you stupid, and destroys your ambition. When he said this a month ago, I thought it was just sour grapes. He was never hardcore, but he was definitely a stoner before he got sick. Somehow, though, especially over the past week, in my mind I had inflated this one anti-pot tirade into him actually being violently opposed to anyone else smoking up. This was clearly not true.

Now my only problem was that I had to be sober to drive my car. It only took me 15 minutes to figure out that if I let Anne keep my car overnight, all my problems were solved. I could smoke. He could get a ride home.

I started smoking. And playing bridge. I realized that I'm really not that good anymore, if I ever was. At one point, I had a whole list of reasons why not to bid this one 5-card suit I had (A2345? Of a minor? Maybe it's better to lie a little, and re-rebid this other stronger 5-card suit instead...) Vincent took one look at my hand, and asked why on earth I hadn't mentioned diamonds. Then I was like, Oh, yeah, right. Five cards. Led by an ace. I knew that. I make like one or two glaringly stupid decisions like that each game lately. I'm not sure if I'm just out of practice, or if I'm really not as good as I think I am. Feh.

So, eventually, Anne showed up. She and Jaime and Dante and I decided to go down to the House. (D. had left Dante's almost immediately. I could be all bitter about how he was faced with the decision of Jack or drugs, and look what he chose, but I really don't want to get into that today.) Anne drove my car.

Anne, Jaime and I ended up playing with paint in the library. I was, as mentioned, stoned, and one of my artiste moods struck. Jaime had decided she was ready to smoke again, so she was stoned. Anne was not. (I'd had a discussion with her about it, and she said in part, it's because Jack can't, but mostly, she had decided she just didn't want to anymore. It was a personal choice for her, but she had absolutely no objections to other people doing it.)

This important. There was absolutely no reason why I couldn't have packed another bowl. But I didn't. We were painting. We found the Tau's art supplies, and went nuts. We started out all on our own corners of one piece of cardboard, but Jaime's picture got too big, so Anne and I moved over to styrofoam plates. It was so much fun. ("Is that supposed to be the Earth?" "I think I need the blue now." "Listen to her! So serious and thoughtful! 'I need the blue now'!") Dante came in, and painted with us for a while, but eventually decided painting styrofoam plates wasn't really Art.

Anne's idea that we hold a contest later to make everyone figure out who painted what couldn't have worked, because everyone in the lounge came in at some point and saw what we were each doing. But there were so definitely three entirely different styles.

Jaime made a real painting, with the background colors all melting together, and this huge mushroom boat kind of emerging out of the blurred colors.

Anne made a lot of small pictures, using the paints like markers. She was making small, easily identifiable things, using maybe one or two colors for each one.

I was lost in color mixing mode. I was trying for a while to turn my splotches of color that I made into abstract shapes of some sort, but I couldn't even stay focused enough to do that. I would start to wonder what my blue blob would look like with just a little of my green blob mixed into it, and end up with a huge greenish-blue blob. Then, I'd add a little white, maybe some different blue... I made some very cool colors, but no pictures. I had about three paint-mixing plates, and one plate that I liked with half a picture and a huge purple mistake. So I tore off the mistake part of it. My contribution to the Pile of Art was 1/2 a plate. But just look at that shade of green...

Last night, I had the same problem I'd had all weekend again. I actually saw Jaime for a few minutes, but I had to do laundry, and she had to visit Scalia. Anne was nowhere to be found. So I went elsewhere, and ended up stoned. Goddammit.

See, it's a tricky situation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being stoned. I enjoy it. I just hate it that when I do, it ends up being all I do that night.

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