LA MOTA

I have a bowl of cereal, a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee for breakfast. It's nine. In my office I reach into the bottom drawer of my desk and pull out the stash. I feel like starting the day stoned. Marijuana takes the boredom out of the moment. It also accelerates me. Sometimes it fills me with too much energy and I want to drink wine and beer and smoke cigarettes, but that is part of a late afternoon spree. I sit in the backyard and puff. A chachalaca tightropes the back fence. Summers in South Texas are tolerable because they're spent in air-conditioning, but there are occasions when one must brave the elements. With no Gulf breezes, the late mornings are the worst time of day. The humidity is suffocating. After sleeping all night in air-conditioning, the body isn't prepared for the abrupt change. I inhale and the rush invigorates me. How many days in my life have been punctuated by pot? It must be my love for baseball that infatuates me with numbers. I've been smoking dope for 40 years. If I've smoked 50 times annually, which like all my personal numbers I consider a conservative figure, I've been stoned 2,000 times. There are worst vices. I have convinced myself that in the long run marijuana has been more positive than negative mentally, but I have no idea about the longterm effects physically. Has it lowered my stress level, thus lessening the risk of a heart attack or a stroke, or has it weakened my lungs, thus increasing my susceptibility to lung cancer or emphysema? I've lived 58 years, which is longer than 99% of the people who have inhabited this planet. And I know that I'm not dying tomorrow although some descendants may read this passage and I will have been dead a century.