Looking back, I realize that was probably my first anxiety attack.
The problem with weed is that many of the things it can do to your body (rapid heart rate, dizziness, shallow breathing, dry mouth, paranoia, and dissociation) happen to be the exact same things an anxiety attack does. This is why panic is one of the most commonly reported side effects of weed, right after euphoria and ill-advised Funyun purchases.
I always knew I was “high-strung” as a kid, but I’d never had a full-on anxiety attack until that moment. Of course, I didn’t know what an anxiety attack was, so I just chalked it up to Nancy Reagan being right about drugs.
I tried weed again in college and had a similar reaction, which is why I’d steered clear of it for most of my adult life.
Until the OFW Project, when I decided that smoking weed for work would be a good idea.
At that point, it’d been over a year since the OCD episode that prompted my leaving my host job at Live Wire! and almost a decade since the one before that. As much as I’m a pessimist, I wanted so badly not to have an anxiety attack that I lived in a perpetual state of denial that I’d ever have another one.
Humans are so strange. The things we forget. The things we tell ourselves.
If animals watch a tiger rip their mom apart, they remember that and know they should probably steer clear of the next tiger they see. But not humans. At least, not if the tiger is fun to hang out with in some way, like, say, heroin is.
Anyway, I decided legal weed belonged in the Okay Fine Whatever Project. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I did have a reason. I can’t say it was a good one, but it was a reason.
I’d been creatively stuck for a few months. I’d worked for Live Wire! for eleven years, and I’d written hundreds of sketches. Nothing felt new anymore. I wasn’t compelled to create; I just had to. And not all the joy was gone, just most of it.
The glass was approximately one-eighth full.
And the worst thing about it was that I led a team of writers, so whatever the opposite of inspiring is? I had become that.
I should say that writers’ meetings were sometimes quite fun but were more often difficult for me to manage emotionally. When we began the show, there were writers who didn’t trust my judgment and made it clear to me immediately. (Someone once wrote in an e-mail during a heated discussion about a rejected sketch that he’d “just have to learn to write things that middle-aged women find funny.”)
After that, I always sat in writers’ meetings with a chip firmly planted on my shoulder (pad, ’cause I’m a middle-aged lady), making the later writers pay for the lack of faith the first ones had. I often shut down discussions if they disagreed with me because I was still trying to prove my worth to people who were long gone.
It’s the thing I regret most about my work on the show.
As I write this, I’m sincerely thinking about what I can send those guys to apologize. Does a fruit bouquet say Sorry my own internalized misogyny and misdirected resentment quashed your sense of creative freedom for a decade? Maybe just some gift cards.
I wasn’t all strident and shitty; I did have some skills. I was an adept editor of other people’s work and had a keen ability to imagine exactly how the pitched sketches would play out in front of our fleece-covered-and-left-leaning audiences, a type that I’d gotten to know quite well over the years.
But I was running out of ideas, and I think my co-workers could see the sad quarter inch of water in my glass, and it felt like I was draining their glasses too.
At the same time, I’d been head writer with Luke as host for a year, which was starting to get difficult, as he’d begun to assert himself more than he had initially.
When he first took over as host, he was happy to simply do whatever we gave him, but as the show wore on, it needed to reflect who he was, not who I was, which made perfect sense. He got involved in the writing process, and the show’s material became a little disjointed as everyone tried to bend and twist it around a new voice.
I needed to shake things up.
That’s where the weed came in.
It may not have been the smartest idea, but when something you once loved doing becomes dry and rote, you’ll do almost anything to get that love back. Plus, I was already in the groove of dipping my toe into weird new pools and sensory-deprivation tanks.
Maybe my brain on drugs would be different this time. Maybe I was slowly learning that everything would be okay.
Maybe.
At the time, each Live Wire! show had a theme, and this particular week, the theme was “gonzo.” Weed was legal in Washington State, so I got the idea that as a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism, our entire writing staff should try to write while stoned.
Because no one ever in the history of comedy has written jokes stoned.
But for real, I figured it probably didn’t happen a lot in public radio. Garrison Keillor was still hosting A Prairie Home Companion, and I doubted that he and Peter Sagal were sparking up fatties to write “News from Lake Wobegon” or “Not My Job” on Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
So that’s why we felt at least a little like trailblazers.
Get it? Trailblazers?
I’m super-down with the weed lingo.
I traveled with Jason Rouse, a Live Wire! writer and friend, all the way to Vancouver, Washington (fifteen minutes from Portland), where we purchased a few strains from an adorable little store called Main Street Marijuana.1
The place was packed, with small groups of people being helped by about five weed experts, each of whom was wearing a lanyard with a laminated name tag. It was like an Apple Genius Bar but for sweet Mary Jane.
Reefer. Chronic. Wacky tobacky. Fatty boom blatty. Cat’s gym shoes.
I made that last one up.
There were glass cases in the front of the store that held weed-infused edibles like brownies, truffles, and even weed soda (soda pot?), then different strains in cases along the walls with samples laid out so you could see the buds.
The paraphernalia were in the center of the store for impulse buyers to grab. There were some adorable Kate Spade–looking polka-dot pipes, which made me think that soon we’d have some celebrity cannabis-accessory lines: Matthew McConaugh–bongs. Or On the Bowl Again pipes by Willie Nelson.
As I considered the marketing possibilities, we made our way to the first available salesperson, a woman in a pink hoodie with bright purple hair who, based on her knowledge of the product, was clearly a longtime weed connoisseur.
One thing I love about pot being legalized is that knowing a lot about weed, something that used to make a person unemployable and even prosecutable, is now a skill one can proudly put on a résumé. I imagine this is a distressing fact for people who work for the state agencies regulating pot who have to interview and hire weed experts.
I see you’ve been growing hydroponic weed in your garage for the past fifteen years…you must really know your stuff! [Smiles nervously, digs her nails into her palms to keep herself from calling the FBI.]
We told Lana, our weed genius (or Wenius™2), what we were doing and she recommended a couple of sativas—Blue Dream and Dirty Girl. Sativas supposedly lead to an active, creative high.
I told her I was a pot wuss and had experienced anxiety attacks in the past, and she recommended an indica strain, which was more calming. (“This one totally gets rid of my road rage,” said Lana. How is this something you’re casually telling a stranger and where are the police? said my brain.)
We also picked up an indica/sativa hybrid called Joocy Froot. You know, for science.
As you talk to your Wenius (okay, they’re really called budtenders, but I’d like to offer up Wenius for consideration if budtender doesn’t stick), she writes your order on a sheet, which is then circulated to another budtender to pick up from the back. Like a shoe store but for drugs.
As we stood in the back of the store waiting for our pot that was totally legal, I looked arou
nd and decided that Disneyland was full of shit: This was the happiest place on Earth. All the customers, to a person, looked like wide-eyed kids on Christmas morning.
For me? How did you know?
Well, you’re wearing a Phish T-shirt and you have Legalize It tattooed on your neck, so. Yeah.
Finally, our weed was ready and our budtender asked us if we had any questions.
Talking to him reminded me of going to the pharmacist.
“Have you ever taken Alaskan Thunderfuck before? Side effects include becoming awesome. Also, you should always take it with Totino’s Pizza Rolls.”3
He handed us our bag with a smile and we were off.
It was the strangest experience to walk out of a store with a brown paper bag filled with a previously-illegal-and-still-illegal-fifteen-minutes-away product in beautifully designed little baggies and jars.
To walk in, say, “Good day, fine sir! I would like your finest strain of marijuana, please,” and walk out with what I asked for was a far cry from someone whispering, “Smoke?” to me in Washington Square Park at midnight. There’s something to be said for good lighting and neither party being arrested.
As we left the store, I noticed the font of the logo on the door.
“Ugh. Who still uses Zapf Chancery?” I asked Jason.
“You need to get high and loosen the fuck up,” said my employee.
We got into the car with our booty, never giving a thought as to whether we’d run into the po-po, and drove back to the office, where I filled out an expense report. For weed.
That evening, I went home and prepared a hummus and cheese plate for my workmates who were about to come over to get high and try to write.
Thankfully, my housemate, Shelly, was a weed connoisseur, so she had plenty of paraphernalia for us—pipes, rolling papers, a giant ceramic bong that looked like something you’d see in the hands of a bearded gentleman in a hot tub in the seventies.
My fellow writers—Andrew Harris, Sean McGrath, and Jason, all extremely entertaining men in their mid- to late thirties—arrived and we set out to do our “work.” These guys were all sketch-comedy writers from way back and their banter always sounded like a Quentin Tarantino film without the splattered brains, so I had high (get it?) hopes.
It didn’t go well.
Especially for me.
I started off the night by telling the guys what the plan was: I would write any sketch ideas on a whiteboard I’d brought out, and I would also be transcribing as much of our conversation as I could on my laptop.
Jason, the one who’d driven to the weed store, did the prep work, grinding the buds in a crusher to separate the stems and seeds from the flower, then packing them into the bowl of the pipe, a hollow at the end of the glass with a hole in the bottom. I tell you all of this so that even fellow GAD sufferers, straight-edgers, and/or super-dorks who smartly stay away from drugs know what to picture.
We all took initial hits off our chosen strains and then I tried to initiate a sketch-brainstorming session. These almost never worked at Live Wire!, so ours quickly devolved into a weird, pot-infused work party.
You know those anxiety attacks brought on by the fear that you’re about to have an anxiety attack? Well, if you don’t, they’re a thing. They’re called anticipatory anxiety attacks and they’re dicks. I started having them almost immediately after my first cough-filled exhale.
About thirty minutes in, as the guys were talking about a movie with a machine-gun massacre in it, I went into the kitchen to get more ice. As they described the violent scene, I got a rush of adrenaline that immediately turned into panic. I stood at the counter and worried about the knives in the drawer in front of me. The top of my head tingled. I breathed deeply. I wished they’d stop talking about the fucking movie.
I walked back over to the party and started typing some of the things they were saying. My fingers on the keyboard helped, in the same way drinking water had helped on that first Ethical Slut date. Anything that connected me to the physical world eased the panic. Anxiety can be like an electrified fence between you and reality, so bringing even tiny pieces of sensual reality inside that fence helped. So did eating, writing, wiggling my toes on the carpet. Interacting with other people could also help, so I started writing ideas I heard on the whiteboard and asking questions, even though I couldn’t really process the answers. (Anxiety is loud.) The bonus of doing this was that it made me seem like a normal human being on the outside. Or at least I assume it did.
As soon as the first wave of anxiety hit, a wave of regret and sadness joined it.
Why did I do this? Now I’m going to be anxious forever, I thought. Fuck you, Hunter S. Thompson.
Every time an attack ends, I somehow make myself believe it was my last. And as soon as a new one starts, I’m positive I will never stop having them.
The first one finally subsided, and I thought I might get lucky and not have another one. I decided immediately that I wouldn’t take another hit but that a Xanax and a double vodka would also be a fitting tribute to Hunter.
I had about four more mini-attacks—during which I kept breathing deeply and clawing my way through the layers of adrenaline and intrusive thoughts telling me, for example, that there might someday be a Lifetime Movie based on the night’s horrific events called Deadly Funny: The Courtenay Hameister Story—before the Xanax kicked in, tempered nicely by the vodka.4 A few times, the meeting became one of those movie scenes where the world goes silent and slow and the protagonist can see people’s mouths moving and watch them throw their heads back in laughter, and it’s as if she’s watching her own life like a silent film she can’t get back into.
I breathed more. And more deeply.
The only way to come back from an anxiety attack is to calm yourself down, and the whole reason you’re having an anxiety attack is that you can’t calm down. It’s fucking torture.
But thanks to chemistry and the discovery of fermentation, the torture finally ended after about an hour.
My co-workers remained unaware that anything unusual or unpleasant was happening to me. It’s completely bizarre that what registers as such an earth-shattering event internally can be almost entirely undetectable externally. This is probably one of the reasons mental illnesses are so misunderstood and why people who have them are often not believed or have to prove they’re sick to family members who claim it’s all in their heads. (This is what my grandfather said about my father’s bipolar disorder, and fighting this assertion was difficult because he was technically right about where my father’s disease was located.) In one way, a physical manifestation would be nice so people would be more likely to see anxiety as a “real illness,” but I’m glad sufferers can make it invisible some of the time. Comes in pretty handy.
As I gradually rejoined reality and registered what I was typing, it became clear that this wasn’t the most successful experiment we’d ever run.
I still have my notes from the evening.
Here’s what I was able to capture:
7:50: Jason and Sean both try sativas. I ask how many “tokes” it takes to get stoned and get laughed at. I try an indica due to anxiety, and Andrew tries a hybrid.
8:10: Conversational snippet:
JASON: I don’t trust him. He wrote me a note in highlighter.
SEAN: Writing notes in highlighter is like a serial killer move. It’s like having no eyebrows.
8:50: I have my first mini-anxiety attack and we come up with a theme for our next show: Outsiders and Outcasts. That sends us down a rabbit hole about a remake of The Outsiders starring hip-hop duo Outkast and wondering whether André 3000 would play Sodapop or Pony Boy.
9:30: No sketch ideas yet. Sean asks me to call for pizza. I make Sean call because talking to strangers on the phone makes me feel weird.
9:32: Business idea: A service you call that will call and order stuff for you.
JASON: Need to order something, but feel weird?
ANDREW: Call the Ordering Place!
We add a much-needed step to the process of requesting goods and services!
9:40: Sean finally orders a pizza with no meat…Andrew asks for sausage, which sends Sean into what appears to be an oft-repeated pizza rant:
SEAN: Here’s the thing… I don’t eat pork, and if you get a sausage or pepperoni side and I order a cheese side, your meat is going to encroach onto at least two of my pieces, one on each side, which essentially makes two of my pieces meat pieces, and that’s topping imperialism. Get your own pizza.
9:45: Product idea: The Great Wall of PizzaTM—nonstick metal topping dividers for half-and-half pizzas to protect against topping encroachment. Still no sketch ideas.
9:48: Hot dogs are discussed and I remind everyone to only eat all-beef hot dogs based on something I heard from the last guy I went on a date with, whose father worked for the USDA.
ANDREW: Otherwise it’s only blood vessels and rat penises, right?
ME: Right! Wait, so if a rat’s in there, his whole body would’ve fallen in, but you’re most concerned about the penis being in there?
ANDREW: Well, yes, if you rendered the whole body, the penis would be part of it. But it’d be a delicacy if you ate it on its own.
Shockingly, still no sketch ideas.
9:50: A conversation about expert snipers is under way. Andrew says that snipers sometimes have to account for the curvature of the earth in their shots because the bullets go so far. Jason mentions the film American Sniper.
JASON: Did you see that first scene when he took that guy out? He used the—
ANDREW: Ehhhh! Spoilers! I haven’t seen it!
JASON: How is that a spoiler?
ANDREW: You said he snipes!
JASON: Well, yes of course he’s sniping. It’s called American Sniper. It’s not gonna ruin it when you know he’s sniping. The spoiler would be if he didn’t snipe!
ANDREW: I just hate spoilers.
10:04: I have another mini-anxiety attack and Sean finally has a sketch idea.
SEAN: I heard this thing about Thomas Jefferson, how he claims that for fifty years, the sun never caught him in bed. We reenact that as if he’s cheating on the sun with the moon or something.
Okay Fine Whatever Page 11