There Is No Wealth But Life

So apparently I blog too much about sex. This is hard for me to believe, because I hardly think I blog too much about anything. Furthermore, I tend to think of NFP as being a whole lot more about fertility awareness than family planning, and even then I guess I’m just young enough to think that family planning isn’t exactly the erm ehem… exact equivalent of sex.

But whatever. The point is that I clearly need to blog more about Drugs and Rock & Roll. So instead of feeling badly for not publishing the other posts about NFP last week, I am going to feel good about not further hurting my sex:drugs:rock&roll balance. Now, don’t get too excited, I will be hitting “publish” eventually on those horrible posts about NFP sex. But in the meantime, here are my thoughts on drugs.

I know next to nothing about drugs. My ignorance is pathetic. I can’t blame it on homeschooling. After all, there are plenty of people who decide to homeschool precisely because they are high. And that isn’t an insult, it is a statement of fact (though we might as well laugh, because sometimes facts can be clever insults!). No, really. You should meet some of the homeschooling families I grew up with. Fun, fun.

I could, perhaps, blame it on college. I went to one of the least partying schools in the nation and stayed on the opposite side of campus as the dorm where someone was rumored to have smoked a clove cigarette. It was not uncommon for new professors to make drug reference in lectures, only to be met by the very bright-eyed stares of their students. You mean someone would actually stick a needle in himself for fun?!

In any case, I am ignorant. If any aspect of my education had actually turned me into the vaunted “life long learner” then I would probably ask you all to educate me–strictly in hypotheticals, of course. But apparently that didn’t happen, so instead I shall continue to tell you about what I don’t actually know about drugs.

Drugs stink. Literally. Drugs are best in pill form and for the life of me I can’t figure out why only suburban mothers get their drugs that way.

One day after picking me up from the train my husband gave me a warning. Knowing my all-too-keen sense of smell he thought it best to inform me that it smelled as if people had actually been smoking in the apartment stairwell rather than just outside.

“Oh, no!” I responded. “Please tell me it wasn’t tobacco!”

It was not tobacco, so I survived the sticky sweet scent as I hurried into our apartment.

Time went by, and the smoking in the stairwell appeared to become a regular event on rainy workdays. I continued to survive as only a bit of the smell was left by the time I got home in the evening and it was not all that different from people smoking outside.

Eventually our guardian neighbor moved out and with the heatwave came not only a strong scent each evening, but a mess which would in itself be enough reason for me to never smoke.

Then, one Saturday afternoon as I sat at home under the influence of my completely legal, socially approved, pill-form painkillers, I heard people talking.

She said something about going back to their apartment for the bag. HA! I was right, the mess-not-to-mention-SMELL-makers were indeed from a neighboring apartment and coming over to our space to smoke.

And a bag? To someone who knows nothing about these things that sounds like enough to be worth confiscating. More to the point, the fact that they were still missing supplies meant that there would actually be enough time for the police to arrive and catch them.

Of course I realized that my pain-induced stupor wasn’t exactly the best for making decisions about calling the police, so I decided to first call Josh to see whether he thought of something obvious that I was missing.

But I did not even get to my phone before I realized what I was missing.

These people weren’t smoking tobacco. There are crazy legal penalties for smoking things other than tobacco (and straight up peppermint leaves, I hear).

It was most likely that they were invading my space because they had already been caught in their own apartment building. And if they were on good terms with the police they wouldn’t be so annoying about hiding inside. And there are crazy stupid legal penalties for repeat smokers of things other than tobacco and peppermint.

Ultimately, calling the police would mean participating in an unjust system. And yes, the injustice of someone else going to jail because they annoyed me with their smell and mess is worse than the injustice of me having to deal with their mess and smell because their life stinks and is a mess metaphorically. Though, you must agree that being subjected to such smells is positively unjust, right? Ehem.

In any case, I am Catholic. And that means that even when I am incredibly grumpy and annoyed I am not allowed to forget about the basics of justice. And justice in many situations means avoiding encounters with unjust laws and questionable law enforcement officers.

So I sat back and congratulated myself on my clear thinking. Look at me! My drugs are not only legal, they also allow me to make reasonable decisions without even having to call my husband!

Since then I have gotten experience with such noxious scented drugs that my days are entirely filled with pondering how on earth someone could enjoy that… and what I will do if it does actually turn out to be a mini-meth lab outside my door. That would at least be something to round out my blog with more drug posts, right?

Now if only I could figure out what on earth there is to say about Rock & Roll other than the fact that I am pretty sure it is just another name for oldies.

So tell me, what is so wrong with blogging about sex all the time? Or would you really rather talk about drugs?

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