Ex-roomie bae was technically both our ex roomie, since roomie bae moved into the house I used to live in, with her, after I moved out. For the summer. Right before moving in with me.

“I mean…” I said. “What about this storm though?” peeking through the blinds at the cloud cover.

I hadn’t left the house all day, save for out onto the covered stoop every hour or so, to smoke. Roided up on the last of my roids, doing job apps.

“Well I was thinking,” she said. “Wanna drive over? In your truck? Haven’t driven in your truck yet I wanna drive in your truck.”

“Shooot,” I said, first getting stressed about this idea, before going Hey, why tf not.

While roomie bae bustled around the downstairs living/kitchen area, I tried to do what I used to to ex bae.

What I did to all my female friends/lovers.

That is, ramble my unformed thoughts about some new idea, treat her like my sounding board, and then, once I’d finished, had nutted (intellectually), sit there and wait for her to tell me my ideas were in fact fully formed.

My most recent idea had to do with an idea I’d stumbled upon revisiting Terence McKenna.

About how I’d been weeded almost my entire time in LA, but was now out of trees, was roided, and only had tobacco to smoke.

Thinking about how keyed up I was.

How this of course had negative aspects, re stress levels, etc.

But how the ’bacc-y, the lack of weed, also had me reading faster, thinking clearer.

I was more myopic and more aggro, but this also allowed me to bang shit out.

To home in on what had to be done and do it.

It made me think of this McKenna quote, from Food of the Gods (1993), which stated that, while

Cannabis occurs in both a male and a female form…it is the identification, care, and propagation of the female of the species that is the total concern of the grower interested in the narcotic power of the plant…

The resin is the exclusive product of the female plant…

Not only do males not produce a usable drug, but if the pollen from male plants reaches females, the females will begin to “set” seed…will cease their production of resin.

A task V and I did a lot the season we worked up in Humboldt was Big Leafing. Throughout the growing cycle, but especially late, nearing harvest.

The goal was to maximize the buds/flowers, or female components. The parts one trimmed, smoked, and sold.

The nugs.

But there were also the leaves.

The infamous pot leaf.

Dre’s 2001 (1999) cover.

These, like McKenna said, were the ‘male’ components.

While they didn’t have pharmacological value, they did have implications for the bud during the growing process.