When I Started Smoking Weed for Real: On Being, #5
By J. Guzmán
()
About this ebook
When I Started Smoking Weed for Real is volume 5 of the series On Being, a self-referential, metaphysical case history where the author J. Guzmán, as the protagonist Ana, psychoanalyzes her own consciousness throughout Time, uses tools like astrology to facilitate the investigation, and documents the entire process. On Being is a life-long, narrative, archival data set of her life in the form of diaries, whose purpose is to assist astrologers and other researchers in the detailed demonstration of how their respective theories, methods, techniques, and practices function in a real life.
Volume 5 is Ana's documentation of her year 2013, when she was 22 years old. In it she finishes university before leaving for South America. That year Pluto was conjunct her natal Moon. When Venus conjoined Pluto on the degree of her Moon she began a relationship with a man that eventually became unbearably, emotionally toxic, in classic archetypal fashion. That man, called Alex, taught Ana how to truly enjoy marijuana, hence the name of this volume. Yet it was not this drug's influence that she became addicted to. It was Alex's poetic, self-deprecating, cabalistic charm that she began to obsessively consume, even when the mask came off and she found anger, mania, and gaslighting. She found herself chasing the high she got from Alex through rabbit hole portals to the Underworld. But the Underworld sounds sexy only until you go there.
Unfortunately, because Ana started smoking weed for real and didn't know at the time she was writing an astrological, self-psychoanalytic case history, she didn't document all the intricate nuances of her and Alex's relationship in as detailed a manner as was possible. Luckily she saved email correspondence with him. With the help of extensive commentary on the matter by J., the reader can get a clearer picture of what happened.
J. Guzmán
J. Guzmán was born on January 14th, 1991, at 8:42 a.m., in Lewiston, ID, USA. She is the creator of On Being, a self-referential, metaphysical case history where she psychoanalyzes her consciousness throughout Time, uses tools like astrology to facilitate the investigation, and documents the entire process. J is building a life-long, narrative, archival data set of her life for astrologers and other researchers to use to show exactly how their respective theories, methods, techniques, and practices function. J. is the ultimate research test subject. Find out more at https://jguzman.space/, where you can read the introduction to On Being as well as sample diary entries. There you can sign up to her newsletter Nothing I Say is True: Open Letters to Void, where she sends out current musings about a variety of topics every full Moon. You can also find her on Instagram @jguzmanwriter.
Related to When I Started Smoking Weed for Real
Titles in the series (7)
The Thought Thinker is a Loner Girl: On Being, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Loner Girl is an Existentialist: On Being, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Existentialist Craves Nonbeing: On Being, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Loner Girl in London: On Being, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen I Started Smoking Weed for Real: On Being, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Loner Girl en Sudamérica: On Being, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFaso, ¿tenés?: 2015: On Being, #7 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
When I Started Smoking Weed for Real: 2013 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgne: Inside the Mind of a Narcissist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Project Recycle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Love Diaries: 28th February 2014 Meeting Her Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Loner Girl en Sudamérica: On Being, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Love Diaries: Background Details 4 First Impressions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIf I Were Going to Write a Suicide Note, This Is What It Would Look Like Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jealousy Game Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Crush Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy of a Broken Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPretty Girls Love Bad Boys: Rocky Relationships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot Today Not Any Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Godlighted Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSparks in the Archive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPromise to Keep: Promises, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Loner Girl in London: 2011 & 2012 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuarter Life Crisis: Exactly Where We're Supposed To Be Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNothing but the Truth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClaim - Volume 3: Claim Series, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Story is not Unique... My Journey through Domestic Violence into God's Awesome Healing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLesson Learned Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlaying Dead: The Black Pages, #3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lustful Desires - A Romance Blooms: Lustful Desires, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Destiny: When Your Soulmate Finds You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Extraordinary Extraterrestrial Love Lives of Doppelgangers: Love and Aliens, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVampire Iniquity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEx & Drugs: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAddiction: What I Wish I Could Tell My Father Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Biographies For You
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, an Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Molly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Best of Maya Angelou: The Voice of Inspiration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Brothers Grimm: The Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman Who Could Not Forget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected: A Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love," The Unexpurgated Diary (1931–1932) of Anaïs Nin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Albert Camus: Existentialism, the Absurd and rebellion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Baldwin: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Teacher Man: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Writers and Their Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Bookseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for When I Started Smoking Weed for Real
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
When I Started Smoking Weed for Real - J. Guzmán
Also by J. Guzmán
On Being
The Thought Thinker is a Loner Girl
The Loner Girl is an Existentialist
The Existentialist Craves Nonbeing
The Loner Girl in London
When I Started Smoking Weed for Real
The Loner Girl en Sudamérica
Faso, ¿tenés?: 2015
Watch for more at J. Guzmán’s site.
WHEN I STARTED SMOKING WEED FOR REAL
2013
ON BEING
BOOK V
J. GUZMÁN
Loner Girl PressCopyright © 2023 by J. Guzmán and Loner Girl Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For permissions and collaborations contact: j@jguzman.space
You can connect with J. on Instagram @jguzmanwriter, or visit her website https://jguzman.space
Sign up for J.’s newsletter called Nothing I Say is True: Open Letters to Void at her website under the Correspondence
tab! There you can read her ongoing musings about life, the universe, and whatever the fuck.
Although the following narrative is of events that actually occurred, the story itself is only subjective truth. All books in the series On Being are J. Guzmán’s personal experience, interpretation, opinions, and feelings, not the Objective Truth of Absolute Reality. Her aim is not defamation and she understands that every character has their own subjective truth regarding events that occurred, and that others’ perspectives could prove contradictory to her own. Characters’ names have been changed to protect their privacy and reputation.
Preface
When I Started Smoking Weed for Real is volume five of the series On Being, an astrological, self-referential case history. It is Ana’s documentation of her year 2013, when she was 22 years old. If you’ve read up to this point in the series then you, the reader, will have realized that I, J. Guzmán, am the protagonist Ana, and that her writing is mine. If this volume is your first encounter with On Being, you can read an introduction to the series on my website at https://jguzman.space/, or at the beginning of volume one, The Thought Thinker is a Loner Girl. It is not entirely necessary that you start reading OB from volume one, although doing so will give you a clearer understanding of who Ana is.
Most of volume five is abstract, theoretical ponderings that don’t reference explicitly the actual events that instigated the eruption of ideas and poetry in Ana’s mind. Often she wrote while intoxicated, trying to outline the contours of her consciousness in a sort of psychological topographic map built of words. Obviously she failed; it is impossible to show with words exactly what it’s like to be high. Maybe Neptune sextile her natal Mercury explains it. Depending on how wide an orb you use, one could say Neptune was sextile her Mercury for almost the entire year.
2013 is an 11th house profection year for Ana, as a 22-year-old. This makes sense as she suddenly found herself with a lot of friends, something relatively unusual for her. If you profect from her massive 12th house stellium it’d be a 10th house profection year. I’m unsure how that would be relevant, but I bet someone could make a case for it.
Another notable transit lasting for the duration of 2013 was Pluto conjunct Ana’s Moon-Uranus conjunction. When Venus conjoined Pluto, both planets sitting on top of the degree of Ana’s Moon, she began a relationship with a man, who I call Alex, that eventually became quite toxic. Although she came to understand the toxicity for what it was, she still had a difficult time leaving him because of a kind of addictive quality of the relationship that left her feeling obsessive and compulsive regarding her desire to spend time with him. Because Ana didn’t document her interactions with Alex in as detailed a manner as she could have, the true nature of the relationship and all its nuances is not demonstrated fully.
However, I was able to salvage some email correspondence between Ana and Alex, which make their appearance in this volume. I made extensive commentary on one of Alex’s emails to Ana because at the time I believed it was the only one I had saved, and I wanted to demonstrate how shitty a person he was, to put it bluntly. Eventually I was able to find other emails they had written to each other, but I did not make any more commentary on them. I feel that the reader will be able to come to their own conclusions about the quality of Alex’s character based on his words alone. I also feel that Ana’s emails will betray clearly her own nuanced flaws and contradictions without further annotation.
That being said, I will go into more detail here about everything with Alex, just because I can, and because I’m still harboring some bitterness about it all for some reason. It’s not that I think about it often, but when I do I can feel a powerful undertow of resentment and anger there that I don’t have with respect to any of my other relationships. As I write this preface, Venus is retrograde in my 7th house. I feel that it’s no coincidence that I’m publishing this volume and thinking more deeply about this past relationship at this time. I want to analyze and kind of unravel and explore a bit some of our issues, which I think principally came down to a lack of communication and probably a lack of compatibility.
During our time together I would confront Alex about being consistently rude to me, shutting me down, interrupting me, and cutting me off instead of listening to me, blowing up at me instead of having civil conversations about our disagreements, trivializing my feelings, and belittling me. In his emails he justifies his bad behavior, often contradicting himself, instead of apologizing for being an asshole. He’d spend a lot of time explaining why he acted the way he did, but would never change the behavior – and subsequently he’d say that I was being unfairly accusatory. I already knew why he acted rudely, and I didn’t care. I just wanted him to stop being rude, communicate with me like a rational adult, and quit gaslighting me about my experience and perspective. These were chronic issues in our relationship that I was trying to address with him. Instead, he poetically dances around the topics, avoiding saying anything definitive, denying any responsibility, and refusing to take accountability for his actions and mistakes.
Of course I made mistakes, too. Of course I said the wrong things or my tone was rude or I tried to get him to be someone that he wasn’t, or I brought up serious issues at inconvenient times, or I continued arguing when I should have walked away. I apologized when I realized I had hurt him or that I was being unfair, and I tried to understand from his perspective what was going on. Did he do the same for me? Not really. It’s all justifications, excuses, and gaslighting.
It’s hard to communicate with someone that refuses to listen to you. I can try to explain for hours (which wouldn’t be possible as he’d refuse to let me even speak, and the few words I did get in he denied as pure falsehoods that I invented), or write pages and pages of text trying to make him understand that he should treat me with respect. But if he refuses to even consider that he ever did anything rude or disrespectful, or that his behaviors were actively hurting me, then it’s all pointless. I’d inevitably just get sucked into his aggressive arguments because I’d be trying to get him to understand me when he was adamant that everything I was trying to communicate was wrong. It always became an argument. And I am at fault for participating in the argument.
It took me way too long to realize that it’s pointless to try to convince somebody that they should treat me with respect. It’s absolutely futile and you should walk away and never look back and never talk to them again and never try to explain yourself because they will never understand you! They don’t want to understand you! For some reason they’re hellbent on actively distorting what you’re intending to communicate, to the point where you start gaslighting yourself. After all the heated, activated debates, you begin to wonder if what you’re saying actually doesn’t make sense, otherwise how would we have gotten here? Sometimes being a fair, accommodating person willing to try to see from the other person’s point of view bites you in the ass. You end up getting taken advantage of because the person manages to convince you that their perspective is the only one that’s valid. And when someone adamantly insists you’re insane for a long enough time and that your perspective doesn’t make sense, you start to believe it.
There’s a couple incidents with Alex that I remember that characterize our relationship that Ana never references. I want to mention them here for the record because along with being kinda funny in a stupid, bad way, I think they illustrate well the types of situations Ana frequently found herself in with him.
The first is the South Park example. Alex introduced me to South Park. I hadn’t been entirely living under a rock so I knew about it and had seen short clips from different episodes on TV randomly, but I had never seen an entire episode all the way through. So we’d smoke weed and watch them together at his apartment. A few days later after having watched some episodes, something happened that reminded me of one of the episodes we had watched. Unfortunately I can’t remember what episode it was or what had reminded me of it, which is really annoying and doesn’t help my case, but whatever.
Basically what happened is that I told Alex about the thing that reminded me of the episode and how I thought it was funny. He just looks at me with this weird glint of suspicion and distrust in his eyes. He says something like, We never watched that episode together.
I’m completely taken aback because that was not the reaction I had expected at all. I expected him to laugh and know what I was talking about, but instead he’s confused and seems upset about it. I say something like, Yes, we did, do you not remember?
He vehemently denies that we ever watched that episode together, but of course he has seen the episode and knows exactly what I’m talking about. Now I’m confused because the only person I’d ever watched South Park with is him, and it had been just a couple days before that I had seen that particular episode. So it becomes an argument, and I remember him snarling at me and saying, One of us has a memory problem and it’s NOT ME!!
That’s the only thing I remember word for word of the conversation. Everything else is a negative emotional imprint of a memory.
I think this example is perfect because it describes the chronic issues I encountered with Alex. He always made me feel crazy. He made me feel like I had memory problems or experienced the world in a way that was fundamentally wrong or incorrect. Don’t get me wrong, we did smoke a lot of weed together, which definitely has negative effects on my short term memory. Because of that I don’t remember much of the movies that we watched together while high, or the exact specifics of conversations we had. I can’t remember the actual details of that South Park episode and what made me think of it, so even now I wonder if I had been wrong all along and we actually hadn’t watched it together. But I remember that in that moment with him that escalated quickly into an argument, I was 1000% sure that we had watched that episode together. Where else would I have seen it so recently? He was the only person I watched South Park with! Like wtf?? Plus, social media wasn’t really a thing like it is now as I write this in 2023, so I hadn’t been watching Instagram or TikTok reels of short clips where it might have appeared. It definitely hadn’t been on the TV at my parents’ house, where I was living at the time. I didn’t, and still don’t, watch TV alone in my free time.
Another issue regarding this example is that even if I had been wrong and thought we had watched the episode together when we hadn’t, that doesn’t justify you yelling at me that I have a memory problem. Alex could have said, I for real don’t remember watching that with you and it kind of freaks me out that you are sure that we watched it together, because I really feel like we didn’t.
And I could have said, Wow, that’s fucking crazy because I swear to goddess we saw that together. Maybe we are smoking too much weed!
And then we’d laugh and let it go. But instead it became an aggressive, heated moment of tension and activation where he acts like I’m insane and that I need serious help.
Unfortunately, it was like that with everything. Every insignificant thing became an unnecessary argument instead of a simple agreeing to disagree
situation.
The next example is more brief. We were at a pipe shop where they sell bongs and such things that people are clearly using for weed, but as weed was illegal at that time in Idaho (it still is at the time of this writing), you’d literally get kicked out of the shop if you mentioned anything related to weed. And that’s exactly what happened.
Him and I were with his friend who I call Sandra in this volume. She wanted to buy him a bong, I think. At one point I asked her, Why don’t you get one for yourself, too?
Or something along those lines. Sandra says without thinking, Oh, I don’t smoke weed.
Of course the guy working in the shop hears and we have to leave and can’t buy anything. And Alex FREAKS OUT. He has a temper tantrum in the parking lot and is a huge asshole, yells at us, slams the car door when we get back to the apartment, just being a fucking jerk.
That kind of shit happened all the time. All the fucking time he had these explosive, angry outbursts that were totally unwarranted, and I’d confront him about it and he’d never apologize. It was all just excuses and acting like I’m overreacting or being too sensitive.
It’s sad that I didn’t know I was writing an astrological case history at the time. Otherwise I would have gotten the charts of all those temper tantrums and I’m sure it would have revealed some interesting patterns, probably regarding Moon and Mars shit. Who knows, it’s all lost in Time. Ana had no idea what she was writing and because of that she wasn’t diligent or disciplined about it. Fortunately though, I do have the times of the emails that she sent to and received from Alex, as they’re timestamped in her email account. At first I thought maybe the times would be wrong, because you know how sometimes the time zone in your email or other software is wrong if you don’t make sure to set it correctly. However, recently I sent myself an email – to and from that