#13: On Hope, Hemp + Healing: New Moons, New Intentions + the Jewish New Year in the New Abnormal
Plus: Stoner and The City // Weed Witching Season + Potent PSLs // Dope Moms In Modern Weed History // Martha Stewart Blisses Out // Remembering Why The Beats Sucked // Fuck You, I Love You
Vol. #13
Astromotional World Update: Hello, From New York’s West Village
The More You Know: Dope Moms In Modern Weed History
L’Shana Tokah: Weed Witching Season, Potent PSL, Apples, Honey, Spice + Everything Nice
Recipe: On Eggs, Toast + Tea
Stoner and The City: On Hope, Hemp and Healing//Fuck You, I Love You
Ways to Support The Weed Witch
Hi! I know these are tough times, but if you like what you’ve read and are able to support a subscription or share with a friend, it helps support original content.
Dear coven,
Hello from my new apartment: a little pied-a-terre studio nestled in New York’s historic West Village. I am smoking a joint as the sunlight streams through my window, reflecting on all of the things I am grateful for in this tiny 9x12 overpriced-yet-underpriced 150-year-old rent-controlled West Village Weed Witch Cave.
I have finally unpacked and organized my space, clearing the air and giving it a sense of home. It’s a new Virgo moon, so everything is in order. Somehow, I have even adjusted to the fact that I am living roughly six feet from an impressively tiny kitchen that includes what barely constitutes a refrigerator and very limited counter space. “Is this charming or Stockholm Syndrome?” A little bit of both, thank you very much!
Taking some moments to appreciate the softness of the newness of it all and creating a sense of routine. Walks to the Hudson River and around these historic homes. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has this amazing interactive map of Now and Then where you can learn all about incredible storied history.
There is a lot of history here with forward-thinking intelligentsia, leftist Irish organizers and The Beat Generation. The latter obviously have the most notable drug-addled romanticized artists in history that are worthy of mentioning for New York’s celebrated historic cannabis counterculture, even though most of them were talented, but annoying misogynists and creeps drinking themselves to death at the White Horse Tavern. (That bar had its liquor license revoked back in July for violating social distancing protocol. Also, Jim Morrison used to hang out there and you know how I feel about The Doors).
Here are 20 Transformative Women of Greenwich Village because I would always rather highlight unsung radical feminists.
At some point during all the chaos of soul searching while releasing a travel book during one of the most complex periods in recent human history, I went back and forth about whether I loved or hated my own self-indulgent “On The Road” life from last year up as a travel writer up until I got stuck with all of this *gestures at everything.” I’d say I’m split!
Between trying to figure out CDC information while listening to the death rattles of restaurant, travel and hotel industries, museums and academic institutions, and crushing economic landscape, it sort of made it hard to tell what the future of anything was going to be.
It seems like everyone became consumed with the past to make sense of the present in hopes of trying to see about shaping the future in a slightly more optimistic direction? When history is in the making, it’s not so pretty or cohesive in the moment. That’s what retrospective CNN documentaries are for!
Obviously, I’ve been thinking a lot about New York, its infamous drug-induced counterculture and my new neighborhood in relation to myself, my past and my future. Which is why it should be noted again, firmly, that The Beats were assholes. As a result. I thought it would be cool and feminist to try to live like one for the hell of it. You get treated differently when you write for men’s lifestyle. I liked that. Sort of like how Jonathan from Queer Eye is doing the universe’s work across America, so I guess we’re on the same mission. I even have Jonathan’s tired under eye baggage from S1.
After leaving my own trail of “On The Road” destruction to live like a Kerouac, it is safe to say that while I lived beautifully, recklessly and dick-ishly. I forgot how to live ironically. At least unlike Kerouac, I didn’t live creepily or misogynistically! Maybe I did? I didn’t mean to! It’s so hard when you’re trying to “have it all” while also being called a bitch. It’s like, am I crazy, a bitch or just a girl who dared to dream?!
Like any good writer, I appreciated the subversive drug-addled prose and the open road. You watch Johnny Depp glamorizing Hunter S. Thompson and think: “Why is it always men? I don’t have any kids. I have nowhere to be. I like partying, traveling and living in a solipsistic vacuum. What’s stopping me? There are all of these digital nomads out there, surely I can be one.” This was both kind of empowering and also horribly dick-ish. I decided I’m OK with the the fact I was a dick and lived that way. At least I tried! Check—onto the next thing!
I found this note to myself from a long time ago that says, “Nobody cares about your study abroad experience, Carly.” I figured I’d give it one last hurrah at 34 since I had been , and if I’m lucky, a future pied-a-terre in Paris with quirky observations about being an American in Paris on NPR segments. That’s my real American Dream!
Back in college, I formed an impromptu two-person feminist band called “Ovarian Trolley” for a Rock Against Rape concert hosted by the Feminist Majority that was happening in tandem as the local conservative group was auctioning off an AK-47 on the campus quad. I was reading a lot of Bukowski and Henry Miller at the time. “On The Ovarian Trolley” was the chapter opener for Miller's Tropic of Capricorn, essentially a commodification reference about taking a spin on a woman's body (too bad it's so terribly dehumanizing; certainly excellent use of prose). Either way, I figured I ride my own Ovarian Trolley every day; seemed like a good name to grab.
Turns out, it wasn't an original idea to do this: a feminist band from San Francisco has three albums from the ‘90s including some songs about moons and weed. Still, having an enormous fake blood soaked tampon pillow on stage was pretty punk rock. Here is one of their songs for your listening pleasure. (Objectively, I liked it better than their song “Weeds” which you can find here).
Anyway, over the past 9 months, I learned that karma is a bitch and being a self-involved piece of shit will always have really awful repercussions and a long road towards Chase credit card bills to settle, but the good news is that I can always get a dead-end job I hate. The end. Can’t win ‘em all.
To me, that's continuing to promote people, places and things that bring me joy and have value without buying into this bullshit Madonna-whore narrative about good vs. bad. That’s my lifestyle concept, is continuing to “live beautifully with uncertainty and change.” Pema Chodron has that book. I’m working on finishing a different one, but high five to Pema who inspires me. #namaste
The More You Know: Dope Moms In Modern Weed History
Hey, did you know that 51% of cannabis users are women and 1 in 3 are parents? Not sure why there are still so many judgy parents at the local PTA meeting considering most of them are probably privately toking up. I went through the D.A.R.E. program about three times. I turned out fine.
Here are a few dope moms who have been trying to help destigmatize cannabis judgment in the parenting community: legendary eponymous cannabis woman brand Jane West, Shonitria of Blunt Blowin’ Mama, Rachel Burkons of Altered Plates Hospitality, Jamela Zahra of High How Are You?, Kathryn of The Stoner Mom, and 20 celebrity moms. Activist moms FTW.
I also love this list of academic/activist moms on Leafly, including Dr. Marsha Schuchard, PhD, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Paige Figi, Shona Banda, Ann Lee, and Ana Álvarez.
Also: Queen Martha Stewart, who just released a CBD gummies line and claims she pops 20 of them to get high in the New York Times. (I actually do love that pate de fruit necklace and how blissed out she looks, even though I know she is absolutely not just getting high off CBD. Decided I’m happy for Martha living her truth as a stoner and am looking forward to test driving her gummies for an official verdict).
L’Shana Tokah: Weed Witching Season, Potent PSL, Apples, Honey, Spice + Everything Nice
(Pictured: An idyllic autumnal fairyland that I want to get lost in. Photo: Stefan Widua via Unsplash)
Tonight is a new moon, as well as Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—followed by Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. L’shana tokah! Also, I kind of love that I finally got it together to send my 13th newsletter on a Friday where all of these things intersect. Lucky #13 to turn it around!
According to Christian extremists, they think this will finally be the rapture and the second coming of Christ. A little pedestrian and outdated, in my opinion. But listen, if I need to start Carlyianity, then so be it: the mother, daughter and Holy Grand Matronly Spirit. It’s not like I chose to be Chosen. But here we are. Please don’t crucify me!
If I die, donate all future proceeds to the National Abortion Fund. Their annual Tacos or Beer Challenge ends on September 20, so there’s still time to donate. I prefer prioritizing red states because they usually need these funds the most. Having volunteered as an escort in Jamaica, Queens, where no one should possibly give a fuck about this, I can’t even imagine dealing with this in a community where it’s widely looked down upon with shame. Here’s some intel on how to become an escort in your local community.
If you’ve been waiting for 2020 to be over, this is a great time to set some intentions and start over. Apples and honey are symbolic of healing and hope. Here is a guide for the perplexed. The autumnal equinox is also approaching on September 22.
I recently picked up an adorably festive and witchy cinnamon whisk from Trader Joes, as well as pumpkin spice biscotti. In the latest issue of Kitchen Toke, I highlight Topher Jacobs of The Hawaiian Alchemist on cannabis tinctures, including one iteration with pumpkin spice. This made my editor eye roll, which is fair because it is kind of the iconic symbol of basicness that I think it’s funny for that reason. Peter Dukes, who invented the PSL, is always called to task every year to speak out on the R+D process behind this that has divided the nation over another ubiquitous Starbucks beverage over whether we love or hate flavor and meaning.
(TJ’s biscotti is pretty good, by the way, satisfying my seasonal craving. Also, Kitchen Toke is now selling hemp-infused honey, which feels appropriate for Rosh Hashanah. You can also make this at home using decarbed cannabis and honey. Leafly has a great recipe here).
(Photo: Heather Barnes via UnSplash)
Admittedly, it feels like everyone is ready to erase the past several months, struggling to decide which traditions we want to hold onto and what to let go. I am. No one wants to think about all the things that happened since I first started writing this newsletter as lockdown hit New York City. It was pretty traumatizing.
While everyone is in a rush to return to some sense of “normalcy” and everything looks “normal” outside, I find myself shaking myself to remind myself that the last several months were real, then tenderly caressing it and putting it back into place with the other painfully delicate parts of myself I have lived through that I don’t want to think about every day. Was I ever “normal” and do I aspire to be?
Consider this issue a declaration of my own intentions, laying to rest some of my feelings since starting this project and where I see it going in a state of transformation.
At the beginning of this year I made a firm statement of intent: I wanted to use the internet to get everyone offline.
Oddly, I succeeded in some ways. Most people I know have digital fatigue and are checked out. Every time I open my inbox, I find myself deleting half of my messages without reading them, just to reclaim some of my headspace and time. 95% are people trying to solicit me on something.
My favorite troll is to ask a very innocuously blunt question that reminds them to be a human being. I don’t mean it to be an asshole, just a reality check so they don’t become too complacent.
It’s important to remember that things were not, and are not “normal.” Even the news is sometimes at odds with itself over bizarre oxymoronic facts like there is somehow less joblessness claims but also less jobs—which probably explains all the rampant homelessness.
When we hear and see uncomfortable things, we often try to shut them down. Boundaries are very important. On the other hand: it is really challenging to maintain a sense of decorum when you are desperate and overextended. We’re not always at our best when we’re afraid and vulnerable. I have empathy for many people going through a hard time because it manifests in different ways.
Resilience is the determination to keep moving forward even when everything and everyone challenges you on this.
There is a lot of desperation here. Maintaining composure, human dignity and autonomy is a privilege, and people frequently forget that when they are inundated with other things. (Is this my Instagram quote meme?!)
It’s fair to say things are pretty bad when Met employees are having to start a mutual aid fund considering they have a $3 billion endowment and somehow still couldn’t make it work. Artists are coming for The Whitney, too. On the other hand, Sophia Amoruso is showing up in my Facebook feed as a “content creator” trying to sell me on “The Side Hustle Bible” so I guess that’s where we’re at now. Folks like Sophia and Kim K can’t get jobs at Walmart when they’re not hawking underwear or side hustle bibles. I really like her cool blazer though! Should I start making motivational memes for social media?
(But what if I’m afraid of losing money AND my potential?)
Collective grief, pain and trauma make me uncomfortable because I have experienced unseen trauma before. A lot of that anxiety and childhood trauma from housing insecurity resurfaced the past couple of years, while piling on new forms living through one of New York City’s most painful periods in history. I have been forgiving myself and others because this period brought out the worst in a lot of people—as well as some of their best.
Engaging myself in raw forms of community-based activism during Phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 required confronting a lot of fears. I felt compelled to make myself essential when I was deemed non-essential. This is the only time in my life when leaving my house, stepping on a train, driving a car, flying on a plane, speaking to a stranger and learning to trust in myself again when I kept getting told what to think, say or believe by technology is still a radical act. I also hate virtual signaling. I feel like people should just do shit because it’s the right thing to do.
As a result, I found myself looking for distractions online, only to be met with resentment about what I was/wasn’t doing or saying online. This annoyed me. I felt both so seen and unseen at the same time, even though the only person judging me was myself. Somehow, I felt held me to this higher standard of performance from complete strangers, while completely disconnected from individuals who I was more intimately and loyally connected with. It was painful.
Then I remembered something: Having a fascist with zero emotional intelligence or moral compass in office trying to deny reality as it is all happening means that no one can catch a moment to breathe and therefore makes everyone resent one another over things they cannot control. We are angry at each other, while you’ve got deluded billionaires making self-driving cars under Las Vegas, with everyone playing into this fantasy in hopes of being part of the future where they relinquish some of that money into something useful, like housing, food, community services, improved public transit and national transit. You know, that kind of stuff. I guess we’re all kind of at these peoples’ mercy now until they ship off to the moon or wherever they’re building these spaceships for, so whatever.
Point being: Please register to vote.
On Eggs, Toast + Tea
(Pictured: Two perfectly imperfect soft boiled eggs, toast, a ceramic mug filled with green tea, a shell filled with two ashed joints, a stick of palo santo and a golden hemostat roach clip. Photo by Carly Fisher of The Weed Witch)
Moving to a new neighborhood with a different vibe has allowed me to breathe, but in a way where things are so “normal” that it makes me wonder if we were ever living in the same reality. The sense of familiarity I have here is one of my own: creating a simple sense of home through acts like tending to a small herb garden in my window and slowly cooking again. Eggs, toast and tea in the morning; smoke and incense at night.
I am a big fan of my Instant Pot, which makes the eggs perfectly gummy with just the slightest run. Five minutes to myself is a luxury that I afford myself every morning to start my day: Two eggs in a steamer basket at 4 minutes on high, quick release, then run under cold water.
While this is cooking, I toast one slice of French sourdough from Hudson Valley bakery chain Bread Alone, which I slather with Plugra butter and preserves from Bonne Maman. I am partial to European butter because it tastes better and I am a James Beard nominated snob. I will never apologize for loving high-quality foods ever. I just want you all to have it, too, which requires giving a shit about where everything in your life comes from so we don’t have wildfires destroying California and biblical floods all over the South.
I slice the eggs and lay them out haphazardly, sprinkling with one of my many salts I collect (I love this earthy smoked salt from Newfoundland that I picked up at Spice Trekkers the Jean Talon Market in Montreal last year) and finish with a crack of fresh pepper. Occasionally, I’ll top it with a few rosemary or basil leaves from the small herb garden I have growing in my windowsill.
Eggs, Toast and Tea
2 eggs
1 cup water
1 slice fresh sourdough bread
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon jam, your choice
Fresh herbs
Salt
Pepper
1 cup tea, your choice
Place eggs and water in Instant Pot, setting to 4 minutes on high pressure. Use quick release function, remove and run under cold water or place in an ice bath. If making on the stovetop, drop eggs into a saucepan filled with boiling water and cook for 6 minutes, removing quickly and running under cold water or place into an ice bath.
Toast bread until slightly brown, then top with butter, jam, salt, pepper and herbs. Serve with tea. Enjoy.
I am waiting on a bathroom patch kit to arrive so I can repair the rust on the bottom of my bathtub. Taking baths is very important to me, along with wrapping myself in a robe, putting on a face mask, doing my nails, making art and jewelry, and watching movies with a joint. After being terrified that I was going to die most days for the first 8 months of the year, I finally figured out what was really important to me, and it was those things. And friends and family, of course. I actually developed a stronger relationship with my family somehow throughout all of this, even though we are still dysfunctional (Told you: I’ve got the Sedaris retirement plan on my mind).
Lately, I have been experimenting with blue lotus, which is a legal, gentle psychedelic that helps manage anxiety, sleep, lucid dreaming, and libido. This past week, I revisited the Chinatown tea shop where I got the blue lotus flower for a story I am working on. I mentioned this in the Chinatown Weed Witch story of Vol. 9b, which I recognize now was helped me down from an anxiety attack. Kind of embarrassing, but Fergie once peed her pants and had to keep performing on stage while it was immortalized forever in photographs so whatever. We’ve all suffered in one way or another.
Since moving into my new place, I've found the blue lotus is much more natural and gentle without the brain fog the next morning. If you're sensitive to CBD and appreciate it as a functional anxiety remedy vs. getting blasted on dabs, this simple method of lacing a nice glass of wine with a magical flower helps me feel more centered.
Recently I have started making blue lotus tinctures that I'm planning on rolling out in small batches.
Stoner and The City: On Hope, Hemp and Healing
In attempt to “get back out there,” I tepidly tried twice to dip my toe into the world of online dating, once again dealing with the same breed of overly aggressive shitty men from before. I spent about two days giving moments of my precious time to some dipshit who first referenced John Cusick standing outside a window with a boombox as romantic, followed by “a joke” about his role as an IT manager at a hedge fund giving him the power to hack into Ina Garten’s phone and track her location at any time. I blocked him, then felt sad this is the world we live in now.
When I think about how painful my last break-up was and why it was so hard to let it go, I honestly think it’s having dealt with the trauma of being disrespected so many times that the vulnerability of allowing oneself to feel can often be too much. You try to laugh cycling through humans, hoping one of them will be the person you eventually just get annoyed at for trivial bullshit like nagging to take the trash out and having zero awareness of the small ways in which they have been cared for until you're ready to die alone.
I wanted to be cared for in that way, and was grateful to have a roommate do this for me the past 8 months. I feel stronger because of our time together as we clapped out our windows, felt the constant rumble of helicopters and the updates from NPR until lighthearted debates about ethics in cricket returned to the air. We both had to resolve the severance of holding onto feelings attached to emotional distance.
The idea of giving my body away again casually isn’t really a priority right now because it means if I’m not enjoying it, I’m not doing it for myself. In the ways I miss human touch, I miss the feeling of caring for someone else. Likewise, I feel grateful to not have to share physical and psychological space with anyone that isn’t myself right now. A lot of my friends have been trapped with kids, tense domestic situations with partners, and aging parents. Being alone truly is its own kind of privilege sometimes. Mainly, I miss oysters and champagne with friends.
(Pictured: Street art in Bushwick, New York. Photo by Carly Fisher of The Weed Witch)
Here are 21 common responses to trauma
Replaying the memory, nightmares, flashbacks, fear and anxiety, anger, sadness, guilt, feeling numb, trying not to think about the event, avoiding things related to the event, difficulty trusting people, believing the world is extremely dangerous, blaming yourself for the trauma, thinking about how you should have handled things differently, seeing yourself as weak or inadequate, criticizing yourself for reactions to the trauma, feeling constantly on guard, seeing danger everywhere, being easily startled, difficulty sleeping, loss of interest in sex.
I check in regularly with friends. Rest assured that a lot of people are not OK and just dealing with what’s in front of them: their kids, their routine in the jobs they know how to do, or for my friends on the West Coast, maintaining some sense of normalcy while being surrounded by smoke and flames in the worst air quality of the world as our President sits tweeting that they didn’t sweep the forest floors so they should be responsible for their own FEMA, or whatever bullshit he’s made up today.
I wanted to put aside everything important happening in cannabis right now because I want to rebuild my sense of community by starting with myself. To me, there are a lot of ways in which cannabis has always been apart of my life, but mainly, it was a very personal act in my sense of home. Rebuilding this sense of home and routine has allowed me to rethink what “cannabis culture” means because that’s such a sweeping generalization and I feel so detached from it in the ways I am still trying to sort out where I feel attached between the online and offline worlds.
When I hear of people who don’t take the implications of COVID-19 seriously, I think of the 32,000 people we lost in one month. That was more than 9/11. In March, I remember people hoarding hand sanitizer, N95 respirators and masks in hopes of making a buck. After trying to find legal resolution by donating these supplies, they will always be marked with the shame of choosing to respond this way in a terrifying global crisis.
Eyeballing it, I’d say 50% of New York is adhering to these mask rules. When I think about the amount of men who could barely show up with a condom in the Before Times and the level of trust needed to assume they would get tested, the idea of trusting someone to get tested for COVID or how they are as an individual who adapts to crisis troubles me. I’ve been tested twice.
My reckless behavior included volunteering, smoking a few joints with people, and leaving my anxiety so unmanaged that I ended up cycling back into the world the type of uncontrolled emotional chaos I kept absorbing.
This past year, I have been doing a lot of healing. Weirdly, I am in such an amazing place right now that it feels like my first moment to actually sit down, grieve and move forward. Rosh Hasnanah and Yom Kippur are valuable markers to me in this way, as yahrzeit candles are symbolically lit during Yom Kippur, as well as other high holidays, including when you sit shiva (the period of mourning after a death).
The declaration I made at the beginning of the year mainly stemmed from unresolved, poorly timed and executed behavior on both of our ends. I'm not angry with him anymore or anyone, especially not at myself. That's what I'm severing this year: from last Rosh Hashanah, his birthday, the Pisces moon, and a year since all of that happened. Ultimately, even a casual partner who can't even simply ask, “Are you OK?” is probably someone that is worth your time, which is something I already knew. I don’t know when everything became so transactional with people where we act like feelings aren’t valid or always need to be rational. I'm grateful to the people in my life who helped me without question or judgment.
As far as this newsletter/journal and my intentions, I'm currently still putting together the website that I’d like to be a magazine. I'd like to create an e-store. A beautiful place for friends’ work to live. Figure out how to pay people. Finishing my second book. Get back into living, laughing and loving, while making fun of live, laugh, love memes.
Right now, I am making eggs, toast and tea in my new pied-a-terre that I'm so grateful for just a few steps away from the Hudson River that I wrote a book about. It feels good.
Love,
The Weed Witch
Ways to Support The Weed Witch
Hi! I know these are tough times, but if you like what you’ve read and are able to support a subscription or share with a friend, it helps support original content.