Don't really know if this goes here, but I figured since it is all true, and it's pretty confessional stuff, it best fits under "memoir". It's not finished at all, although I guess that's a relative term considering I don't really know where it's headed, if anywhere at all. Any suggestions on what I might do with a piece like this would be helpful. In any event, enjoy: As I looked outside the window, watching the snowfall, there was only one thought that I could seem to fully process. Fuck, am I high. It was January, the New Year had just begun, and with it new beginnings, or so we’re made to believe. In the end though, we still wake up in the same, too-small house, we still go to our shitty, soul sucking, non-important jobs, and we still fuck up. We always fuck up. We smoke too much pot, drink too much beer, we screw people we aren’t supposed to screw, and we do the worst things imaginable to our fellow mankind. Day in and day out, we fuck with them emotionally. Sometimes, for no other reason then the pseudo-sadistic pleasure it brings us. Pranks, we call them. And yet, when the New Year arrives, the slate is supposedly wiped clean. We start that diet we’ve been talking about for the last decade, we quit drinking, quit smoking, become more forgiving, less cynical, more contributing and less parasitic. Until, of course, we don’t. We fall back into our old ways and disgusting habits. Our secretaries start appear cuter and more desirable than ever before, our will power to continue skipping that snack break diminishes, and the cold beer sits mockingly in the back of our refrigerator, never looking quite so good. As I sat on my couch and further pondered the failures of humanity, I took another hit from my bong. I hadn’t ever smoked pot alone before, until Virginia left me. But I couldn’t hit that bong fast enough once she walked out the door I needed to forget and kill the pain, fast, before it killed me. I thought about just drinking myself into oblivion, but I hated just how cliché that would be. The bitter ex-lover who sat alone at bars drinking the night away. Fuck that. Besides, hangovers were such a pain in the ass (or rather, in the head). Instead, I went to the nearest shady, inner-city street corner and bought an eighth of a putrid yellowish-green plant which, in all honesty, bared more of a resemblance to horse crap then it did a plant. But despite it’s lack of appeal to nearly all of the five senses, smoke it I did. And, despite what anti-drug ads might try to tell you, nothing excruciatingly bad happened. I didn’t lose my job, I never ended up in jail, and I paid my bills on time. Of course, my personal hygiene took a hit, as did my social life (whatever was left of it, in any case), and my desire to make contact with anyone at all. All of that said, I was in considerably less emotional pain then I would have been were I sober. I don’t think any substance, however, be it pot, alcohol, or the occasional pill I try, will ever really make me forget Virginia Summers. The love a woman is as essential to a man’s prosperity as is food or water. In fact, some might argue that it is even more so. For, if a man should go without food or water, he will die in a matter of days, and from then on feel no pain whatsoever. If he has behaved himself, he could die perhaps knowing that something better awaited him. However, to lose a woman was a dreadful thing. For a man to lose his true love meant eternal suffering. Unlike starvation, the loss of a lover would not cease to hurt in a matter of days, months, or years. It was forever, until he dies angry, bitter, and alone. And angry, bitter, and alone I was. Although the typical pothead was a peaceful, easygoing type, I seemed to hate everything. Everything reminded me of her. Just looking out the window, watching the snowfall, I was instantly reminded of Virginia. I thought about our ski trip to Vermont. We shacked up in a tiny hotel room, and wound up making love more than we hit the slopes. We got a kick out of calls made by the front desks’ asking us to keep it down due to complaints of the other guests. The rain reminded me of how she loved the stormy weather. We would lie down on the couch and watch the lightning storms from out the window of our living room. I could almost still feel her, holding me tight after an unexpected burst of thunder.
