I had morphine at the hospital once. It was like a blanket woven with fibers made of love, calmness, and warmth. I would love to feel that again, but not a good idea. I can easily understand how someone can get addicted to opiates.
Yep, dangerous stuff. I once had some minor surgery done. Afterwards I was sitting outside in a patient waiting room in a bed waiting for the drugs to stop working.
I brought my laptop and watched some episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was hilarious and super comfortable.
I can never do that again, it’s obviously super addictive. The medical professionals are right in being really strict when giving out opiates in my country.
Apparently people’s responses in this situation are a good indication of their vulnerability to addiction in general.
Anecdotally it makes sense. I’ve had morphine multiple times (after accidents) and found it meh. I certainly wasn’t asking for more. It so happens that I hardly ever drink and I’ve never done drugs of any kind or even wanted to*, despite having no moral objections to them and being around a ton of people who do them all.
*Okay, except psychedelics.
I think it varies by class of drugs (edit: and how they interact with your personality). I’ve used opiates and benzos before and enjoyed myself without feeling like I’d really care to try it again, but I definitely flirted with disaster/addiction with stimulants for a decade plus and alcohol for my entire adult life.
And it didn’t take long; the first time I tried any stimulant, I chased it (and I’ve tried a lot of them).
Psychedelics, on the other hand, I love and in most people there is little to no danger for addiction. I’d go so far as to say that unless you have a family or personal history of schizophrenia, psychedelics are almost a must for understanding or coming to peace with life, death, and society.
A good psychedelic trip is literally life-changing, and even a bad trip is life-changing if you go into it with a decent trip sitter and the attitude that a bad trip is still just showing you yourself and the things you need to work on.
I never came close to describing morphine even half as well as you did. And it still doesn’t do it justice.
Morphine is the best. And that’s what makes it the worst.
I got dilaudid in the hospital after surgery and thought “Hah! What can this tiny pill do?”. Well within minutes I was in a fetal position on a cloud. My wife said I was the nicest I’ve ever been. lol
Yah, I can see the addiction potential there.
Damn, is that one supposed to be that good?
I got some a few months ago. It took the edge off the pain I was in, but I was still far from comfortable. I also had access to a fentanyl drip later, and I don’t really like the feeling of that either. I pushed the button like maybe 3 or 4 times total over the next week, even though it was probably the worst week of my entire life.
Morphine and laughing has have me curious, though. But I guess pain meds just aren’t my vice. Knowing how dangerous opiates are makes me way to nervous to enjoy anything but the lack of (or really just reduction in) pain.
All alcohol is fucking terrible, bar none ever.
Weird to me how 2 of the most popular addictive things just make me feel gross.
Weed though gives me a better version of the alcohol high with absolutely none of the downsides. Never had a hangover, but I would throw up almost every time and had an annoying headache that wasn’t debilitating, but hard to dull.
I’ve never done opiates, but that sounds kinda like just the right amount of alcohol and weed. It’s a tough needle to thread, but I have fond memories of nights drifting off to sleep perfectly content, perfectly warm and comfortable. The brain is tingly and fuzzy, the body almost feels like it’s on the edge of vertigo, in a cozy falling-twisting sort of way; like sinking into an impossibly soft mattress that just keeps going. Warm but not sweaty, calm but not numb, everything exactly as it should be.
I’d like to be able to raise my children again. I think I could do better.
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playing portal 1/2 and celeste for the first time were amazing, obviously still great games but nothing beats your first playthrough
The portals are still the only games I best on release day. I had a feeling of spoilers the first time, and I was so right I avoided everything about portal 2 until I got my hands on it.
The end credits song of the first and the moon shot in 2 memories are crystal clear in my head.
So much triumph was experienced. So much spaaaaaaace to experience it in.
Fresh new set of teeth.
Flying with my father. Flying was his passion and I only ever got to ride with him once. Sadly, he passed several years ago and I’ll never get to go up with him again.
I wanna smoke weed again. I did it one time in school when I got hold of a dealer. Didn’t do it again, dunno why. Now I don’t know any dealers.
Take a field trip to Michigan?
I would rather shoot myself than set foot in America right now
If you come here someone can do the shooting for you.
Lmao I share the sentiment but the delivery was hilarious
There’s a camaraderie with the other soldiers on your platoon that happens when you’re in the military that I’ve never been able to feel with any other group of people since I got out. I would really like to be able to experience that again, but minus the war part.
Graduate school. Well, my first round of it.
During the course of my first graduate degree, I was surrounded by support, great professors, a cohort of other students who were driven, passionate, and colorful, even though we disagreed on several things (and one of them was an actual shitheel), and most importantly of all, a sense that I was learning, growing, and progressing along some kind of meaningful continuum of personal development… As well as being equipped to make some kind of difference in the world, as much of one as I made for myself (went from an uneducated, bigoted farm kid, someone who was already neck deep in neo Nazi stuff and bought into it into, well, pretty much the opposite).
I took that master’s degree and went professional for a few years, but found myself missing graduate school and so I went back for a second Masters. That just wrapped up last September, but the experience wasn’t the same at all.
I felt like I was just being pushed through machinery, going down a checklist, ticking boxes and moving on to the next. I kept thinking that eventually as I went through the motions I would find that an experience similar to the first round of graduate school would develop organically, but it never did. Once I finished the degree, that was kind of it. Have to put up my hands and say that this could well be just because I was really going through a hard time in my life concurrent to that second master’s degree, and that very likely colored my experience quite a bit, but it did just wrap up last year, so I will need some time and distance to be able to reflect on it more objectively and untangle the raw emotional impression from the objective fact.
I’m still wanting to go and get a PhD as an ultimate feather in my cap, but that will not be for a few years. For now, I need some time to work professionally to both save up money and meet some other personal life goals of mine, which I won’t get into too much detail about here.
It could also be that you’re getting older and you’re developing a wider world view. I’ve been a corporate shill for a while now. When I hired in there were a lot of messes, but I was young/optimistic/saw a lot of opportunity and was rewarded when I cleaned things up. Over a decade later, this place is a mess. I’m coming to think that it’s stuck in a rut of process/technical debt and Conway’s law and that even though leadership has been saying things are changing for the whole time I’ve been here, we’re really just getting more entrenched.
Childhood
I aim to kayak West Cold Creek again, and do better than merely survive. I have more experience and better gear, not sure of my strength. (I should note, Florida is the flattest state in the Union, creeks are slow.)
To save you a wall of text, here’s what I wrote the night I got back. Yes, it’s overly dramatic and disjointed. I was disjointed. Now I have an inkling as to why combat vets usually don’t talk about fighting. There’s a sense of, “You weren’t there, can’t possibly understand, why bother?” Wrote this to get my head on track, it helped a lot.
here go if you're interested
Went to conquer the West Branch of Big Cold Creek. Bucket list thing.
Got my neighbor to extract me at the Adventures Unlimited landing. LOL, the plan was to get all the way back to Carpenter’s Park in Milton. Nope. Couldn’t talk to him, sat quietly on the ride, shocked to be out of there.
We get back to my car, young rednecks hanging out under the bridge, jammin’ tunes and drinking beer. Young girl comes running up:
“Oh my god, is that your car?!”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“This is gonna sound so weird but can I give you a hug?”
“Uh, sure…”
SQEEZE
in a rush of words
“Oh my god we saw you take off yesterday AND YOU NEVER CAME BACK and we were talking about who to call for rescue and we thought you might be dead and we didn’t know who to call and oh my god I’m glad you’re OK!”
SQUEEZE
Nobody goes down that creek. Nobody. Even the guys at Adventures Unlimited didn’t know about West Cold Creek. And they WORK on Big Cold Creek! 2-miles of non-stop deadfalls, downed trees blocking the way every 50’, 3 jams in 30’ was the bonus prize. Humped my kayak and gear over-and-under and through dozens. Logs; slippery, mossy, underwater, rotten, floating, covered in spiky branches. Over one and the current slams you into the next, on the wrong side. It gets worse the farther you go.
7 hours, 7 o’clock, 1.8 miles, no strength left, can’t make the main creek. 3 more impasses in sight. Soaked and submerged in West COLD Creek, over and over, for hours. Thinking hypothermia might in the works (sometimes one can’t tell because adrenaline, people die in summer temps), went to strike camp.
South side; solid creeper thorns, impassable, looked North, across the creek. No lie, a patch of sunlight (weird in these thick woods) shining on a flat, elevated position. Barely bigger than my tent. Like God himself pointing His enormous finger, “No you idiot, there!”Dragged my gear up a 45º incline, tied the boat to a tree, pitched camp. Nearly everything in the hull soaked, dry-bags too loose. Clothes and linens dry! Splatted gear all about, got in the tent with dry clothes, warmed, rested, took stock, took a beer. Got gear squared away, hung a clothesline. Like it’s gonna dry. So wet a road flare couldn’t start pine needles. I have created smoke!
Next morning, laid on my bedroll for hours, too sore to move. Heard day trippers, tubers and canoers, yelling on the main creek. People that close. Just gotta get off this tributary. No matter what I can pull the life-vest ripcord, float to a sand bank, await rescue.
OK; Tylenol, cold espresso, trail mix. 1 hour and I’m home free.3 more hours to until I saw Salvation Beach.
Wasn’t supposed to storm but I spent an hour or more hiding when it got bad, 3 storm bands, hanging on tree limbs under banks. Nowhere to safely get on shore, 20sq/ft of any land was a godsend and deserved a stop. Oh, and bailing the kayak with a dish rag after I lost my sponge. “Always carry a towel” is sound advice (Bugblatter Beasts aside), a big yellow sponge is a necessity.
So tired I flipped the kayak for the first time (and that was after I hit the easy creek). Lost my weapon, new and old phones, GPS, monocular, ecig, knife, don’t know what all. One bag but it was the good stuff. Still had survival gear.
I was extraordinarily cautious; one accident could strand/kill me. No getting out without a chopper and sling. Sometimes I wanted to quit, give up and fire a pair of flares at the next helicopter or plane. “How am I going to lever this @^%*! boat over this !#@%$ log with 10 gallons of water in the hull and taking on more!” In a storm, flooding my boat from top and bottom.
One time I grabbed the T-handle on the front and bailed into the swirling green. Don’t care what’s down there, this yak is going over this log. Promptly run over by my own boat. Came up laughing! Beat that one!
4 miles down the main creek I landed at Adventures Unlimited (local outfitter), borrowed the office phone to call for extraction. Looked rough climbing out of there, rain top shredded down the back, covered in bruises and lacerations. Workers at the landing were shooting the bull with me until one guy really had a look, “Do you need help man?” “Yeah, I do. Not with you guys this weekend but I need to call for a ride. Mind if I walk up to the church or cemetery, see if I can get a signal?”
I’m faithful about only testing one bit of gear at a time, way too much new stuff on unfamiliar turf. Many lessons learned. LIFEWATER STRAWS WORK! (Ask me, I could be a spokesman.)
16 Band-Aids/patches on my hands alone. I’m black and blue all over but from the knees down it’s frightful. Thought my legs were tanned and dirty, nope, bruising so solid it’s an even color.
Did I mention the non-stop boat full of spiders? And the big yellow sponge? Fun fact: You can flick banana spiders out with a big yellow sponge. Otherwise grab their leg and yeet 'em.
I’m going back in.
EDIT: Forgot the part where I hit a 5’ wide dead tree blocking the way. Couldn’t pull my gear over it, no way in hell. There was a 12" tall triangular opening on the left side. Held onto to a rotten branch, stomped my kayak under water and through the gap.
I’m really into the whole “man vs. nature” conflict. See y’all. I’m hiking out to see if I can spot that momma bear again.
Watching Arcane.
I know it’s silly, but a bj from one of my exes. It was so good and I’ve been a bit touch deprived lately.
Sex.
I’m 39.
☹️.
Kimberley M., 1998
New Zealand. Beautiful place, and the coffee, OMFG, they really know their coffee there!
