by emmaburns
It seems safe to say that UVM is a weed school. Coming into my first on-campus semester, I knew that UVM was going to have a pretty heavy cannabis presence but I did not understand just how heavy. As someone who does not partake myself, I’ve learned that there’s a lot I don’t know about sparking up. To clarify, I’m not like some judgemental shrew looking down on people for their deviance or whatever, it’s just not my thing. I went to a performing arts high school in NYC (basically like High School Musical but with hard drugs and kegs in the bathroom) and almost all of my friends smoked, so I considered myself somewhat in the know. But now I’m here, in a suite with a bunch of self-described stoners, and holy shit are there levels to this thing? I did not know that people could be this intense about it and it straight up felt like a culture shock the first few days I was here.
First off, I just found out about t-breaks which I had never really considered but when I think about it makes total sense. Also, all the different ways to get high seem incredibly overwhelming to me. With alcohol, you drink enough and you’re drunk, there’s not much to improve on. But with weed, there are like 3,000 different ways to ingest it and apparently all different types of being high. Like certain things will get you more or less high even if the amount of weed stays the same? My friends at home were all about the joints, so being around mostly bongs is weird as hell. Why are they so phallic? When you’re using them do you think about dicks? I feel like most people have to be thinking about dicks right? I like seeing the different stickers people decorate their’s with though, it’s like a cute personality thing. And I’ve definitely gotten acclimated to the smell because it used to give me massive headaches but at this point, I barely even notice it (which will come in handy I guess).
Do high people know how difficult they are to read? I genuinely cannot tell if half the people I talk to are annoyed by me, angry with me, really tired, or just high. It’s like an exercise in anxiety every day; just move your face more, please! I think half the time I hang out with people I spend hours trying to figure out if they hate me before landing on it was probably just weed. Another fun new anxiety I unlocked is that people will be able to like intrinsically sense that I don’t smoke and collectively shun me (which I know sounds ridiculous but I’d like to see you talk sense to anxiety). But despite the prevalence of weed everyone has been really chill about my lack of interest, I haven’t had to really deal with the “just try it” people or the “you’re so brave for living your truth” talks (which honestly after a while gets way more uncomfortable than the “just try its’”).
At this point, I’ve just kind of accepted that most things about weed are probably going to go over my head. I’m not sure how I ended up here, but I’m here now and at least I’m getting some useful observations out of it. You pot-heads are endearing in your passion and when you’re not stressing me the fuck out you’re also very funny. Keep doing your thing, and I’ll be here cheering from the sidelines. And if you feel so inclined, hit me up if you want a drink; I can make some sick cocktails.
PS: Dicks truly are present in all mind-altering substances if you look hard enough.
Categories: April 20th 2021, emma burns, reflections