- My shoes are blindingly white,
I don't know if you can see them.
I was afraid of what teenagers would say online
if they saw my regular sneakers,
so I bought them one hour ago.
I wish I wasn't like this, but I am.
I'm very very anxious by nature,
I'm a very anxious person.
I am trying to fix that, I'm trying to alleviate that,
I started smoking weed recently,
any weedheads in the house?
Sort of, it was a bit of a doomed excursion
since I thought cool people who smoked weed
called themselves weedheads.
So off to a pretty rocky start.
In New York all my friends are driven, accomplished
women in media,
and all my friends in LA are, what's the word?
Unemployed male podcasters.
So a lot of them have access to weed.
And I hit one of them up
and he was like, oh yeah this is great,
I can't wait for this,
let's do an edible together,
I got this new edible fresh from the dispensary,
it's like a mist but also like a breath spray
and you spray it in the back of your throat,
you get high, it's kinda like a body high,
not a heady high.
I'm like yeah, yeah, I'm a weed girl,
yeah awesome, okay.
So I go over, and we take the edible,
and if you're not familiar with taking an edible,
it's pretty simple.
You ingest the edible, and then you wait
anywhere from an hour and a half
to the rest of your life
for your most toxic memories
to just like drop kick you in the back of your throat
and send you on a sweet little roller coaster ride
of your most present anxieties
and all the worst things you've ever done
to the people who loved you the most.
So I'm a little bit anxious about this,
but my friend, he's a pretty good friend
as good of a friend as a man can be,
and he's like let's go to a diner.
We'll take your mind off this,
let's just go to a diner, we'll eat some food,
we'll hang out and it'll be great.
So we head to this diner,
and I'm like okay yeah, chill chill I can do this,
I'm a weed girl.
And you know what, he's right, he's right.
We start to eat, we're joking, it's great,
I'm forgetting all about the edible
and then boom, it hits me.
I am weed girl.
I am as high, maybe the highest I've ever been
in my entire life, I am so high
and it's incredible.
I love every single thing that I am currently experiencing.
I'm eating a plate of french fries right now,
it tastes like rock and roll, it tastes like music.
And all I wanna do is experience more,
we get another round of food.
We get a third round of food.
We're at the jukebox picking tunes,
we get a fourth round of food
and I have like two milkshakes, one in each hand.
We're making jokes with the waitress, she hates us,
you know, it's perfect.
It's absolutely perfect.
And I'm like more, I need more,
and so he's like let's go for a drive.
We go for a drive, we're cruising down the highway,
I'm sticking my head out the window like I'm Air Bud,
it's glorious.
And then all of a sudden it hits me,
I am in the most excruciating physical pain in my life.
And not just like oh you smoked a little bit of weed
and you got a little sick.
No like my chest is constricting, I'm sweating,
my vision is blurry, my hands are shaking
I feel so deeply ill.
And I realize in this moment
that I am experiencing cardiac arrest,
I'm sorry, people are laughing,
it's actually very serious,
I have a really serious history
of cardiac illness in my family,
but even more so, I've confirmed this
because I made a Quora account while I was in the car,
and I asked is cannabis cardiac arrest?
And no one answered in two minutes,
and so I knew that that meant
that the good people of Quora were leaving me alone
to wrestle with my own mortality.
They were giving me in my last moments
just a shred of dignity
so I could face the end like an adult.
And I'm heartbroken by this,
like I'm heartbroken by my own impermanence,
but I'm also so sad because I don't wanna die.
And I don't wanna die of weed.
I don't want my mother to have to come and find me
in the morgue and as she's weeping
just completely broken
as she waits to identify me she hears
yep, roll her in, the first girl to die from weed.
I don't want that for my family,
that can't be my legacy, it's heartbreaking.
And I'm spiraling out about this,
I'm so anxious, I'm so sad about this,
and I realize I'm not just thinking it to myself
I am saying it out loud,
and I'm not just saying it to my friend
I am on the phone with first responders,
and they are on their way.
So my friend has to pull over in the middle of the highway,
we're just like on the bank of a highway somewhere
and suddenly I'm on the ground,
I'm just splayed out on the ground,
just lying down on the ground.
And he's pacing because the optics
aren't very good for him right,
like if the first girl ever to die from weed
is just like a black girl at the hands
of an unemployed white podcaster,
it's pretty brutal.
That's a really brutal headline.
So this goes on for some time,
and then the first responders finally show up
and they are three of the hottest
physically widest men I've ever seen in my life.
Three men just a wall, so wide.
And one of them comes up to me
and is like hello ma'am, how's it going?
Can you tell me what's going on?
And I'm like yeah absolutely, it's pretty simple,
I am experiencing cardiac arrest,
we don't have to get into it
I can send you the link to my Quora account later,
all you need to know is that I'm an avid learner,
I'm well educated,
and I've seen multiple seasons
of the hit Fox series House.
I know how this works.
You look at me, you think I'm crazy,
you turn around to leave
then all of a sudden blam I'm splayed out on the ground.
Now you have to rush me to the hospital
and you're the arrogant EMTs
who ignored the pleas of an ailing woman,
now Doctor House has to solve my mystery illness
for 41 to 49 minutes save commercial break
while he battles his own heartbreaking opioid addiction.
And the EMT is like okay,
and I'm like not a word from you
'cause time is of the essence right now.
If we can't rush me to the hospital it's no worries,
we'll just bust this bad boy open
do an open heart surgery in the middle of the street.
I've also watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy okay,
I got a pen in my back pocket,
we bust that open.
A little tracheotomy thing in the street.
I'll sign a DNR right now, I don't care, I'll sign it.
He's like okay,
thank you for that.
I personally don't believe
that you are experiencing a heart attack.
And I'm like okay, well we have two different opinions,
let's see what Doctor House has to say.
He's like also it will cost you $900 dollars
if we drive you to the hospital.
And I'm like that, more on that, more on that.
He's like listen, how bout,
how bout I just take a listen to your heart,
and we'll listen to your heart together
and we'll see how that sounds
and then we can move on from there.
And I'm like okay that sounds good.
And so he goes and he gets his stethoscope
and he puts it in his ears,
and as he goes to place it on my chest
he puts a hand on my back
and when he does that
I let out the biggest burp
I ever burped in my life.
I had gas.
I had gas because I ate like a high person
and he burped me like a baby in the street.