Sorta the least predictable and most annoying of the four occasional themes here are my dalliances with various illicit substances.  95% of the time, it's herb.  Herb (aka bud, weed, pot, marijuana, etc.) is phat.  I fucking love the stuff.  Unfortunately I've got a small problem with control; when I've got access to it, I can't stop smoking it.  A few years ago when I started smoking the shit, I smoked up every night during the weekend, plus the whole weekend, for months and months.  Naturally my grades plummeted and my bank account became a sieve -- put money in, take it out for my weekly eighth and the food that went along with it.  I put on big time weight, and watched my life outside of my bong crumble.  I cleaned up my act, sorta, after I'd been out of school for a few months on indefinite leave.  I was in living in Jacksonville with my parents, and so I didn't' have any access to weed since it was a strange city to me.  Since returning to California in January 98, I've smoked up every now and then.  When I've had access to it, though, I've smoked it like a fiend straight until its all gone.

Weed makes everything seem funny to me.  It also takes my mind of myself and my fucking problems.  Instead, two problems occupy my mind -- one, getting some (always a problem), and two, eating.  I think I'm pretty good at camouflaging my weed use around people who shouldn't know, like Ray's mom.  I'll just sit on the couch and watch TV.  Heh, once when I smoked up at my parents house, I walked into the bathroom to wash my hands, and only when I was drying them off did I notice my dad sitting on the can, looking at me.  That was some scary shit.  Anyhow, I digress.

Beyond weed, my drug use has been fairly limited.  I've done magic mushrooms a few times.  That's some fun shit, although it's pretty taxing on my body.  I've done hash once or twice, although it wasn't much fun.  I've also done ecstasy a few times, although never in the setting it's meant for -- clubs, raves, or social gatherings where other people would be down with it.  I gotta work on that... As of this writing (mid-May of 1999), I haven't done acid, but I'm planning on it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Beyond that, I haven't done shit.  Well, I used to drink like an alky, but I quit around Thanksgiving of 1998.  Haven't had a sip since, assuming you don't count tequila shrimp or liqueur filled chocolates, the latter of which I never really liked anyway.  I quit booze b/c I was turning into an alky; I was drinking practically every night, and not casually mind you.  Alcoholism also runs in my family -- my mom's one, my dad used to be, and his dad died of it.  So, with some prodding and a traumatic personal experience, I decided to quit.  It's been hard on me socially, as my frail social life has basically slipped into a coma since then, but in general I don't regret it.

Ain't never done anything else.  Heroin is strictly off limits.  Cocaine probably is as well -- definitely no crack.  I wouldn't mind tweaking, although my friends are scared of me doing it -- they think I'm hyperactive enough when I smoke bud, so that should give you a clue as to what I might be like on speed.  Peyote, angel dust, sniffing glue...that shit seems unlikely.  It's probably for the best, although I have heard very good shit about Peyote, from my psychiatrist of all people....