Tales through the looking glass part 1- The Strip Club

As a sufferer of severe migraines and insomnia I am an advocate for cannabis. However, being afflicted with pulmonary fibrosis, I am unable to inhale smoke into my lungs. Therefore, I must indulge in the only other reasonable ways, through edibles and tinctures. Unfortunately consuming it this way makes it more difficult to figure out exactly how much to consume or when I have overindulged. This occasionally leads to being higher than I anticipated. Now the good thing with cannabis is that you won't die from overconsumption, but you will often become fuzzy, paranoid, sleepy and lightheaded. The resulting feelings make for interesting and often comical (in hindsight mind you) stories. This is the first of one of those stories.

A male entertainer friend of mine had come to town to visit and asked if I would come out to see his show. I asked my roommate if she would like to come with me and she said yes. At the time I had only been in Los Angeles a few months and didn't know anything about the exotic dance scene in the area nor where any club was located. I asked around to a few people and found out the location of the club which was not far from our place. Recently I had bought some edibles and really hadn't used them. I figure this night was as good as any. I broke off a small piece of brownie and ate it. I knew it would take about a half hour to an hour to kick in so I finished getting ready and we left for the club. 

About an hour later as we stood in front of the club I realized I still wasn't feeling anything. I decided to break off another small piece and eat it. I figure it would take awhile longer and the show hadn't started so by the time the show started I should be fine. I found my friend and asked him when he ws going to perform and he said not until the end of the lineup so I was prepared to chill for awhile. 

Another hour goes by and I still don't feel anything and I'm getting bored waiting for my friend to hit the stage. The entertainment so far wasn't that good and I was getting irritated. I decided to hit the bathroom and eat one more piece of brownie so I could push myself through the last bit of this mind numbing show. I come back to my roommate and get a drink and sit and wait. 

Twenty minutes go past and I start to feel a tingle at the back of my neck. At first it creeps up slow and I'm aware that I'm starting to get high. Each minute that passes I realize I'm getting higher and higher and this wasn't going to end well. I feel out of my body. I turn my head to say something to my roommate but I cannot open my mouth and make words come out. In my head I am telling her that I'm starting to not feel well and I need to go but all I can do is look at her. This freaks me out and now I'm panicking which gets my heart racing and make me even higher. I finally get my mouth open to say words to my roommate and she tells me to go walk around and get some water and calm down. I take a walk around the club go to the bathroom and splash water on my face. In the mirror I cannot see my face clearly. Everything looks hazy. I come back out of the bathroom and head to the bar and get some bottled water. I drink down an entire bottle but it doesn't clear my head and I'm seriously scared. I walk back to where my roommate is standing and start watching the performer on stage. I cannot see his face..he seems blurry and distant. As I'm watching I realize as he moves close to the bars around the stage, that he is in fact melting into the bars. One minute I can see him moving slowly towards the bar and the next I see him disappear into it becoming one with the bar in a lava like melt. Seeing this frightens me beyond belief so I turn to my roommate and in my head tell her we need to go before I can open my mouth and say the words we need to go. She looks at me and sees the terror on my face and decides it's best if we leave right then. She walks over and tells my friend that we're leaving and we head out of the club.

Out in the street my roommate is half pushing half dragging me across the street to the car. She pushes me in and gets in the driver seat. I am hyperventilating as we pull off and start to head home. Unbeknownst to me, my roommate is high as well and during the ride she gets lost. We are riding through Los Angeles confused and I cannot keep my eyes open. When I do manage to open them all I can see is a blur of the green lights as we pass through traffic. If we're headed towards home I'm not really sure. I have no clue what time it is or how much time is passing.

At some point we finally reach home. My roommate asks me if I was ok. I manage to shake my head but I cannot move the rest of my body. My eyes are closed and I am slumped into the passenger's seat. She calls someone on the phone and tells them about my situation and apparently they inform her to just leave me there for awhile because next thing I know she's gone. I drift in and out of conscious as she comes back and forth to the car to check on me. I don't know how much time is passing, it could be twenty minutes, it could be an hour, it all blends together in one long continuous minute (turns out later it was three hours). 

Finally on the last check, I inform her I am ready to go into the apartment. I get out the car and manage to walk up the stairs slowly, leaning on the rail the whole way. We get back to my bedroom and I somehow manage to get my jacket and shoes off before I fall across the bed fully dressed. As my body touches the mattress I still feel like I'm falling and falling and falling. I see myself floating in the deep black sky. I can see the stars but I cannot reach out and touch them. Am I awake? Am I dreaming? I am drifting in the night sky floating down for an eternity.

I awaken later and head to the restroom and realize I am still high. This scares me even more and I have a deep philosophical conversation in my head about whether or not I will ever come down and what life will be like if am high for the rest of my life. Could I function like this all the time? What if life was all a series of dreams anyway? What if I've actually been awakened to the real world? Like Neo..was I now outside the matrix? I go back to my bedroom and lay back down and drift back into my wake/sleep world. 

Hours later I awake in time to go to work and realize I am still high, but I'm starting to feel a little bit closer to normal. I know I'm going to have to go to work like this and I'm wondering if I can act normal enough for no one to notice. I get through the day and by the next day I am finally back to normal. All in all in took more than 24 hours for me to come down off a crazy/paranoid/melting strippers/matrix high. I will never do this again...

Until the next time...