It makes me a better lover! My foreplay is gentler, more-novel, and more-expressive; Erections are firmer, longer-lasting, and somehow sparkier; afterglow is more restful, emotional, and gratitude-inducing... Because I smoke weed.

Also it improves my guitar playing... Melodies are crisper and better-supported in rhythmic and harmonic structure, dynamics are better articulated for listeners both closer and farther away, and the finish of the guitar is shinier. For everyone.

I can't say enough about what smoking dope does for the food I cook, for the fashions I wear, for the charities I fund, or for conversations with co-workers. You'll just have to guess.

Yes, I think we can all agree that nothing improves a person's relationships with others like smoking weed.

Any parent who stares at his kids 'in loving awe for 20 solid minutes' is fucking things up.

Housepets, whatever... American are already fucking that up. But not the kids, OK?

So basically boya is saying that he needs 'father's little helper' to help with his connection with his kid... Hate to break it to ya fella, but it ain't you getting better... Or trying to. You are taking a pill to feel.

The closer weed gets to legalization, the less I like it.

Pot always put me to sleep. I never got why people liked it. I never felt any of those so called wondrous effects.

Even the sleepy bit may have been more because people tended to pass it around late in thevening.

I'm either alergic to it, or the only time I tried it, it had something nasty laced with it because it made me deathly sick, and I passed out repeatedly trying to walk just a few blocks home. It was very scary.

Then there was the Troll. I dated him for a while just before and during my battle with breast cancer. He lucked out, because if I hadn't had a life and death struggle on my hands I would have dumped his sorry ass a lot faster. He was a short, butt ugly, dumb as a box of rock weasel that was so convinced of his own superiority that he once told me he smoked pot so the people like me, with "normal intelligence", would be able to understand his brilliance.
He's the same asshat that got owned by my 5yr old in the "You can't say asshole in the car!" episode.
You want to smoke pot, fine. I like to have a drink once in a while, too. I don't make lame excuses or try to justify my occassional mudslide by saying But, Nicer Person!. I'm an adult and should have the right to certain entertaining passtimes in moderation.
That said, when your 12 yr old gets into your stash, don't come crying and DON'T you dare say "I don't understand, I was so careful!" . Kidling knows daddy gets wasted, it's up to you to explain why it's ok for you, and not him. Good luck with that.

Mark Wolfe: I used pot instead of alcohol.

Me: You are a better and more attentive parent because you anesthetized yourself with this drug instead of that one?

Me: Are you still a responsible parent under the influence of either drug?

I know many people who smoke pot who lead very productive lives. I don't know that I agree with the author that it enhances his relationship but I'd have to say that I don't know why people scream about parents using pot but beer or scotch every night is ok.

Also it improves my guitar playing...

Wanna jam?

I know *lots* of lyrics.

Brownie McGee, of Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, said that loving a woman was a bad thing for him because he didn't want to leave her to go to work.

I had the same feeling for my wife when I first got married. It faded. I have never lost that feeling for my children. Didn't need drugs. Being with my children, now in their late teens and twenties gives me the same feeling.

Nathaniel Brandon always said if you need drugs to feel, or not to feel, you needed to do some work.

Fathers who do not smoke pot are buttheads, I see. Give this crowd another decade and they'll want to make pot use mandatory for men. (You think i am kidding and I am totally not.)

> I know *lots* of lyrics.

I bet they all rhyme, too, real tidy-like.

I bet they all rhyme, too, real tidy-like.

There's a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
just like the pictures in the magazine
she found on the floor of the laundromat
a woman with kids can forget all that.

If she comes up pregnant, what'll she do?
Forget the career, forget about school.
Can she live on faith, live on hope
high on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to Just Say No
We can't make it here any more.

J. McMurtry

Yeah. I guess they do.

I can't put my finger on it, but this guy seems to be trying really hard to justify that weed enhances his parenting skills. His examples illustrate why he thinks he's a better dad on weed, but do nothing to prove that his kids are truly getting a better experience from daddy.

I grew up in a family of potheads and I can't say their high provided me with a better experience. Maybe others will express a different opinion, but this dad strikes me as the stereotypical pothead who's clueless to the fact that while he thinks he's made a spiritual connection to the universe and all those around him, everybody else is just thinking "man, is he baked".

Maybe if this guy argued that pain kept him from interacting with his kids (despite an underlying desire to actually interact with them), I would take it more seriously. But his argument gives me the impression that he's not really interested in his kids unless on weed. Which makes me wonder why he had kids in the first place.

> Yeah. I guess they do.

How many n's in "mundane"? Total, I mean?

I always fergit.



> this guy seems to be trying really hard to
> justify that weed enhances his
> parenting skills

Yes, while simultaneously doing a wink / just-kidding / can't-hold-me-accountable-for-this thing.

> he thinks he's made a spiritual connection
> to the universe and all those around him,
> everybody else is just thinking "man, is
> he baked".

Exactly. Exactly.

This reminds me of the Sharon Stone thing.

Fools have moments where they interrupt discussion and proclaim life's mysteries to be solved and its challenges to be answered. And they just stand their with their pants around their ankles, holding their shirts up over their ribs, waiting for someone to respond. And whaddyaknow, they're almost never pleased with what happens.

How many n's in "mundane"? Total, I mean?

You should google that shit.

I always fergit.

You don't strike me as a dumbass, so how is that possible?

Well, ok, there are some words I'll never be able to spell correctly my own self. Restruant is one of them.

Indeed; you should show greater restruant in your admiration of cheese-prose from Tennessee.

Indeed; you should show greater restruant in your admiration of cheese-prose from Tennessee.

Austin, TX.

Don't be ashamed of your ignorance. It can be fixed.

> Austin, TX.

It matters?

(I'll concede that FZ mentioned the place twice, each occasion following a career-highlight guitar solo.)

It matters?

It does.

"We, in the States, also have plenty of well armed body armored policemen moving about among us, but ours tend to ride out of sight in unmarked, air conditioned Chevy Suburbans. I know this, because my band members and I were once pulled over by a white Suburban on I-270 just shy of the Mississippi River, and we got to talk to some members of an Illinois Drug Interdiction Task Force(FYO in Tennessee, the Suburbans are black). We see seriously armed cops in our country. We don't have to bribe them at the scene, but they're all getting federal funding for the continuing war on drugs, so they already have a piece of all of us. What we don't see in our country, is people walking out of the jungle, pedaling carts down major highways, hauling firewood on bicycles, strolling along the street balancing trays of pastries on their heads, going where they need to go with whatever cargo they must carry, by whatever means they have at their disposal.

On first glance, I entirely missed what was different down there."

More: http://www.jamesmcmurtry.com/blog.html

Go sick with that... Enjoy. But if

Y' happen to see the most 
Beautiful girl in the
World...

Choctaw Bingo it ain't, I'll give you that.

FZ

Hmm, I read that and thought, he thinks he's a better parent, when under the influence of drugs, becasue he is amazed by the colors on a pet and can stare at them for a long time.
Hell , there are peoplr out hter who think they are better drivers while drunk, because of the practice, and they don't worry about things like lines on the roads.
He is going from one extreme, ( can't stand his own kid) to another extreme, being able to be outwitted by a 2 yr old.

Can anyone here argue that smoking pot does *not* impair your reaction time, judgement or reflexes? I've known a LOT of stoners, and every single one was, while under the influence, clearly moving slower, having trouble understanding simple statements, and unable to complete simple tasks. And they also thought that this impairment was actually a mind opening enlightenment, to be gloated about because it made them so much more special than non-druggies like me.

I tried it. Once. It made me so sick I fainted, repeatedly, the neighbor who gave it to me left the party without me because she didn't want to get caught with me if something serious happened, and the guy who offered to walk me home took a wrong turn and led me into the woods by the Railroad tracks instead. I will leave it to your imagination what he tried to do, but some really fast talking and a well-timed projectile vomit on his shoes gave me a chance to run, so I'm still alive, and reasonably unscathed.

So, you want to do mind altering substances, I think they should be legal, regulated and taxed, just like booze and cigs. They do actually have medicinal value, which is more than we can say for the others. Pain relief for chronic sufferers is a mcf because of asshat drug warriors sticking it to law abiding doctors and patients.

Please, don't insult my intelligence by claiming they do anything to improve your performance of any task. It's your perception that is warped, not mine, and I see that you are sucking bilgewater thru a crazy straw.

I think kids are boring to be around all the time -- which is why I don't have any.

Ain't that the truth. I babysat for several years and what I mostly remember is how boring it was. Another round of Red Light, Green Light? How fun!

I assume that it is different with one's own children but I didn't have any to find out.

And for the record... "for which he has a prescription" counts for absolutely bupkis.

Well, I enjoy weed, but this dude is full of crap.
My dad is a stoner, and was the entire time my brother and I were growing up. He also has terrible social anxiety and depression and is typically unemployed. I assume that there's a connection between Dad's pot smoking and overall lack of contribution to- um- anything. He was always around, but not really involved. (He didn't even go to my high school graduation. He sat on the porch and drank beer instead.) I know there are "functional stoners" out there, but my father wasn't one.

*However*
On the plus side, for my family, pot helps me tremendously with PMS. But to pretend that it makes me a better mother? Um, no. It just makes me high. That's why I don't smoke it all the time. Plus, I've got to actually DO things... like drive around and go to work and other adult responsibilties.

I've heard that even a small amount of marijuana can impair short-term memory function. It might also affect short-term memory function.

(hope I did the italics thing right!).

Anyone else notice this redundancy? Was it supposed to be ironic?

I think kids are boring to be around all the time -- which is why I don't have any.

Ain't that the truth. I babysat for several years and what I mostly remember is how boring it was. Another round of Red Light, Green Light? How fun!

I assume that it is different with one's own children but I didn't have any to find out.

Posted by: Astra at September 10, 2012 8:47 AM
_______________________________________

The ones I find especially boring are those who, even after they get plenty of exercise, refuse to be read to, no matter which book you choose. (Because, for those kids, listening to a story is so BORRRRING and in their opinion, a truly "loving" parent would let kids play video games nonstop......)

And since there's no guarantee you can raise your kid to be different from that, that's one more reason not to have any.

I'm a 37-year old woman who chose not to have children. I decided this as a child, and I've never regretted it. I think they can be cute in tiny doses, but I'm not interested in raising any.

I've always been surprised at the number of people (men and women) who challenge my position. I get arguments like "who will take care of you when you're old", "doesn't that seem selfish", etc. I don't think raising future caretakers is a particularly good reason for me to procreate, and yes, I guess I am selfish (in that respect). But isn't that more argument that I SHOULDN'T have children? Don't we have enough dip shit parents in the world?

Tangentially related, post-divorce dating has been really weird in this respect. Most guys in my prospective dating pool have kids, and obviously it isn't appropriate to pursue something like that. Oddly, I respected those men, who seemed like very devoted dads, a lot more than the few who didn't have kids (they tended to be really wishy-washy).

I'm not chomping at the bit to get into a relationship, but I've considered that I might need to learn to love cats.

Sorry for the navel-gaze. Today I found out that a woman who FB friended me a couple of months ago is actually a half-sister through my bio-dad (I have no recollection of him). She just started posting pics of me as a baby, little girl, etc., so it was kind of a WTF moment for me.

I'm a 37-year old woman who chose not to have children. I decided this as a child, and I've never regretted it. I think they can be cute in tiny doses, but I'm not interested in raising any.

I've always been surprised at the number of people (men and women) who challenge my position. I get arguments like "who will take care of you when you're old", "doesn't that seem selfish", etc. I don't think raising future caretakers is a particularly good reason for me to procreate, and yes, I guess I am selfish (in that respect). But isn't that more argument that I SHOULDN'T have children? Don't we have enough dip shit parents in the world?

Posted by: Meloni at September 10, 2012 7:41 PM
____________________________

Google on "Breeder Bingo" for all the "reasons" there are for unwilling people to have kids.

As many childfree people have pointed out:

1. If having kids is supposed to be so "rewarding" (a post-Industrial Revolution myth, mind you), how can it be called selfish NOT to have kids?

2. Typically, there are NO reasons for having kids that don't include the sentiment "I want...." I.e., no couple that truly doesn't want children chooses to have them anyway for altruistic reasons, as opposed to caving in to their parents' pressure - or the government's.

"Google on "Breeder Bingo" for all the "reasons" there are for unwilling people to have kids".

Bingo! I got it several times without even needing the free spot in the middle of the gameboard. I even changed gynecologists--twice--because they hounded me year after year about my biolgical clock.

A couple of years ago I participated in a local group called Non-Moms. Basically, we'd get together one or more times per month, to eat, hike, dance, whatever. A lot of moms complained about the group because they felt excluded and discriminated against. Really, there are so many parent-centric groups out there, why did they have to bitch about our single non-parent one?