I don�t know what to write; I don�t know what to write; I don�t know what to write. Start from the beginning. I drove into Boulder and had a terrible time finding a hotel. Most were full. Finally found one in a hotel not recommended by AAA. It costs a little over $100 per night. It is actually fairly nice though they are re-doing the roof in part of it so there are construction people up there. I�m only staying one night. I can�t afford more. Can�t find a campground nearby. Surely there must be one? Have to move on though to get to Mary�s place. She is expecting me soon. After I put all my stuff in here I drove around looking for a place to eat. I passed a nice coffee shop. And saw the Terrapin Shop just down the street from the hotel. Nice coincidence. Decided to check it out. It�s located not far from the university�s main campus area and a whole lot of hotels. When I asked at the hotel desk, the clerk at the hotel asked me if he could help me find something. I wasn�t sure what he meant, but then later thought maybe he meant could he help me find a pot shop. I guess he was trying to be discrete but assumed that is what I was there for. Lots of people are there for that, apparently. It is now a big tourist thing, the legalized pot. The store looks like any other store. I wouldn�t have realized what it was except that I had googled pot stores earlier to get the names of them. I hadn�t realized one was so close though. The parking lot looked like an ordinary parking lot for an office building or small grocery store. It felt weird walking openly into a place to buy weed. Inside, you have to take a number, which a guy in business attire, white shirt and tie, black pants, shoes, called out the numbers as customers left the back room, and let the people with those numbers go into the room. It felt like being in a doctor�s office. I thought there would be all college kids, but only one looked like he was a typical college age kid � with a broken arm � the rest were all middle aged and probably middle class. One woman was African American, and the rest were white. One biker had long gray hair though he was going bald at the top of his head. He had on leather pants and a t-shirt with scruffy leather boots. He was a bit over weight. When my number was called, I went in the back. The room was like a pharmacy or bakery. There were two big counters and display cases, one on each long wall. The front and back of the rooms were just doors and a short wall with posters on it. The guy on the right side was talking to several people and selling them something. I walked up to the other guy who was dressed in jeans and t-shirt with a rastfa hat. It was kind of comforting � like what a guy selling weed should look like. He asked me if I knew what I wanted. I explained that I had no idea. He laughed and talked about the various strains and options in buying. I went for a pre-rolled joint. I picked a strain that was supposed to be good for inflammation and anxiety. Some strains are best for just getting high, and others, apparently, for medicinal purposes. I left with a sealed, plastic bottle incasing a rolled joint as long as a cigarette but at least twice as wide. It had a cigarette kind of filter at the end of it, too. The bottle had a warning label on it.

Freewriting 2

I can hear Cheech and Chong asay, That�s a joint, man? This is crazy. Pot is now big business for big agribusiness. But that IS better than all that money going to the Colombian and Mexican cartels. How to describe this place and the people? Ordinary, middle class. Mostly white, but not completely. It�s Boulder, Co. The menu is surreal. Who knew there could be so many nuances to pot? It�s like a f�ing wine menu. What�s the floral bouquet, man? Apparently there are nuances and distinctions even in the type of high you can get from different strains of weed. I�m still curious about how these companies managed to get so much weed to sell once the law passed. No way was that all being grown for medical marijuana. They had to be growing the stuff illegally somewhere for awhile. No one wants to talk about that though. I guess it doesn�t matter now since it is all legal. Whatever. It still felt weird walking into that store. I kept expecting people to look at me weird or accusingly. But no one did. It was all pretty ordinary � like shopping at CVS. Actually, I�ve seen weirder people shopping at CVS than I did here. Only people with money can afford this though. It is expensive. I guess it probably is on the black market, elsewhere, too, but you can�t shop for it every day on the black market. I wonder how many people spend too much of their money on this? And how do you deal with the smell?� Tobacco smoke smells really awful, too, and is toxic. I know many smokers who go outside, even in their own homes, to smoke because of that. But you�re not supposed to do that here with weed. You�re supposed to smoke it in your own home, in privacy and not in public. I guess you can smoke it in your own back or front yard, if it is enclosed? What to write � oh, the motorcycle guys were interesting. They looked like hippies from another era. I hope the kid with the broken arm wasn�t mixing weed with another pain killer. That could be bad. If I had a dollar for everytime I�ve smelled weed on a student� I could buy lots of weed! Okay, time to stop.

Freewriting #3

Looking for quotes about weed is not easy. Most of them listed on the quote sites or weed mags are about people commenting on the need for or against legalizing it. There aren�t even a lot of sites with Cheech and Chong quotes.� I wonder about the counter culture. Weed is a big symbol for various countercultures, right? There are the Rastafarians, the surfers, the beatniks, hippies, and I don�t know who all else. Those are just from my era. I wonder what the countrer cultures are in this generation? Emos? Grunge? Do they use pot as a symbol? If only the stuff didn�t smell like skunk. Hence the term, skunk funk. How to describe the building in a way that shows how mainstream it is? How ordinary, middle-class bourgeoisie it has become? Anyway, I wish I could have spent more time in Boulder and gone to more of the stores. That would have made a better essay. Especially if I could have done a formal interview of someone. I rushed through so I could get to my neice�s place in NV. Hopefully I can go back someday because the Rocky Mountains are gorgeous. Once you get to Denver and west and north of that, CO is one of the most beautiful states in the US. (The part between Kansas and Denver, not so much) I might not feel that way if I had to stay there over the winter though. I don�t know .The National Park is gorgeous and fun to camp in. Interestingly, there were signs at the Ranger station and at the entrance to the park telling people that though it was legal in the state, it was illegal to smoke or possess it in the National Park. It�s owned by the Federal government, so it follows federal laws. I wonder how many people have been busted in the park for it? Or if they just kick you out? It would be kind of hard to throw someone in a CO jail for doing something CO considers to be legal. Anyway, I don�t think I�ll discuss that in the essay because it would be a digression, I think. The piece is kind of long already. �I wonder why those clerks/salespeople at the store didn�t want to do a real interview or have their names printed. Nothing they had to say was earth shattering or even new. Maybe they have a boss who is paranoid about media. That business would inspire a certain level of paranoia, I imagine. The upper echelon of administrators at the college where I teach are paranoid about the media, so why wouldn�t a company that grows and sells marijuana be so? Still, I think there is something a little bit wrong there. I�ll never know now though.