John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.
14:53. Two hours in. I had my doubts. There was not an immediate lift from the Gas Guzzler. Then there was a dip but I rallied nicely thereafter. I was walking around, taking care of small tasks I'd thought about doing in the days, weeks prior but never amassed the necessary motivation.
The Gas Guzzler is acceptable fuel. There is not much bite. I'd call this one a creeper. Early on I felt so downshifted that I was going to lie down and just go to sleep but I never did lie down. I bounced out of wherever I troughed and had a useful couple of hours. Because this strain does not produce a noticeable, immediate headrush I would put in the company of other strains that you will drown out if you are wet with alcohol going into it.
The Gas Guzzler effects are more background body fuel with palliative mental effects. A nice and useful mix but not trippy. If you want trippy get yourself some White Widow or plumb the library of The Sherbs. 14:57...
Smoked an Orange Cookies ten or fifteen minutes ago. Bite. Taking me into the closet to see the skeletons again. Maybe that's unfair, an overstatement.
I was rear-ended on the interstate last week by a vehicle traveling at approximately 60 mph. A vehicle that didn't seem to brake at all before barreling into me and obliterating my car. Strangely I seem to have escaped without serious injury. Which is not to say I feel OK. I have bruises, scrapes, aches and pains, a weird rash on both flanks, my right rotator cuff is torn, and my neck just doesn't feel right.
Putting that memory aside I slipped into...the past, recounting shitty or difficult moments from the past year or two. I don't need to list them. This is a strain review, not a trauma dump. That's what this drug can do to you, though—why some people don't enjoy it. It's not about numbing yourself and forgetting, those are things alcohol can do for you. There is no hiding from the flower. I have zero alcohol in my blood, I'm baked. I'm high, I'm tweaked, and I'm processing events from reality. It doesn't always feel good but something tells me it's important. Like having a dream, except the memories are real and I'm awake. That's why dreams are so alluring. They are ephemeral, quickly lost, forgotten. You can have a bad dream, wake up, and it's not a situation you have to solve, see out, or live with. This is why it's important, to the best of my ability, to have real-life memories I don't mind recalling. Because I can't "wake up" to escape them; I have to live with them. Once I get to this point, the high can be fun, stimulating, assuring, comforting.
And maybe I can get there in a moment here, after wading through, after sifting through the wreck and the dreck. I'm outside. It's warm. I'm hearing the song of a bird I don't know. Or a series of calls. This, br—!
A tick, on my hand, crawling. I make a reflex jerk but it clings on. Then a get a tweezers from the (other) car, remove the tick, and hold a lighter to it. They make a popping sound when they go. It's a cruel, terrible thing to do but no one wants to carry a tick around. They are woefully bad here, in the wood, in western St. Louis County, Missouri. I wasn't even out in the brush; not even out in the yard. Just sitting here in a chair I only recently placed outside the garage. Suddenly, there it was. I wonder whether they parachute out of the trees. I am barely under the canopy of an oak that is beginning to leaf out, its leaves roughly the size of a squirrel's ear. According to old-time rubric, this is the time to hunt for morels but I'd say this year's prime morel season is already behind us.
These Orange Cookies are workable. The bite was firm. I plunged, they gripped. I've progressed through and past that stage of the smoke. Wouldn't it be nice if somehow the act of facing the rubble and climbing through or over it also meant I was clearing the way for some weird, vivid, amusing, memorable dreams later on, when I close these eyes?
The flavor of the smoke was similar to other Cookies-derived strains. Some of that burnt chem flavor but not strong or heavy. A smooth smoke, a steady burn.
I hadn't opened the jar—an AO "super eighth"—until today. Ground some up; the grind was very fine and even; how I like to see it. The bud was a little dry. The jar appeared to be sealed, with an intact wafer seal. I added a moisture pack. I'll come back to the jar in 24-28 hours. There are plenty of jars of flower I open that are dried out to the extent that I will not immediately grind any of the bud, so when I say the bud was a little dry I mean just that. It still had enough bounce to smoke on. I'm pleased so far. There were 4.74 grams of flower in the jar, a typical over-stuff on an Abundant Organics super eighth, listed as containing 4.5 grams. These jars—often offered at the dispensary I've visited on BOGO—are one of the several perks of passing through Arizona. Others include saguaros, mountains, different birds, standard time, and dry air...
Unmoored, but who isn't. Smoked a Peanut Butter Mintz. I've been sneaking sips of tequila, here and there, the last hour. This is gravel we're walkin on, dancin on, grinding and slipping. Make your plans and then unmake them, make the old ones new again!
I make a mistake, lay a bad tarp, the rats get in it, polypropylene shards, big deal, cost me $24, cost the world a few cents. Cost the rats nothing, made them a home for a few months, lucky days. All I did was evict them, threw in the proverbial tarp, no one died, no bombs were dropped, no threats linger, energy prices were unaffected, troops were never summoned. News of this failed tarp affected no one more than me. This is a mistake I can live with, and I have a conscience.
Peanut Butter Mintz from '93 Boyz, bought in Sauget, IL in 2025. Smoked in Tucson in '26!
The Peanut Butter Mintz is a force of nature, a work of art. It gets all up in your head and it has both skills and kind intentions. I watched the menu this was on and I watched it disappear from that menu, time and again. Wisdom is a disappearance, opportunity in return. Are these or are these not steel-cut oats? Your honor I asked this man a question and I would like an answer.
You have ordered the maximum number of value meals but you say you have no plan to pay for them. Kind sir, how do you suggest those meals should be procured, produced, offered, or propounded? Eventually we will have to pay for your mistakes. The sooner the better because by then you will be gone. Should I be so lucky to see the day. If I could expedite, 'twould be a mighty right.
The GMO Sherb is showing out well. This might have been my last joint of it. I can't recall whether I have previously written much about it/on it. I am awake here late at night, or very early in the morning, and I'm feeling very introspective. It's hard to believe I was at Farm yesterday, I left before six in the morning. It's all a blur. I thought I beat the rain but there is no beating the rain. It's like my dad said a couple weeks ago when one of the OG CNAs was trying to get a rise out of him, making faces at him. When she walked away he said, "She fooled me, I fooled her!" That's the last lucid thing I've heard him say. She fooled me, I fooled her. He smiled and he had a glint in his eye.
Damn. This is the Sherb bite for sure. It's like a wild, wary, unpredictable animal. If you can work with it, get it to cooperate, if you can learn how to ride it, it can be a workhorse, a real mule, a carrying agent, a vector, a viaduct, a way. Let's get back to that water in the duct. 12:05, 5.19.26.
Clouds over western Maries County in Missouri on Monday morning.
I'm still awake, back awake, awake again, re-awakened. This is how I wake and bake. Now also under the influence of alcohol aka vodka. It's been one of those nights. One of those crazy, crazy nights. Somehow
My mind wanders, my eyes sting, this box fan drying them out, allergies, May, fighting off any more sleep. I will crash when I crash. I'm on the fourth bucket. These are my best hours. Unbeset, undeterred, undertaker spread the word. I emailed that guy, that writer Connor Greer, but he never emailed me back. I made a big mistake and lost all my friends. Three Mile Island is back in production. If only we'd gone to the river together, made the sharing glass. Instead I got drunk, lost all my friends again. If only they were peonies. They were monarchs. But I wanted them to stay. They were recluse, they were widows, they were a previously unrecognized kind of salamander, peanut shells, ticks in the high grass.
Did you hear that? The weight of a falling branch. Leaves are so the whole tree doesn't have to fall. My dad on the phone, my mom on the phone. A TWA flight to nowhere delayed forever. One blanket two, Sir Crocs a Lot, that little room he carried around with him. Basement, devil, door...
The Grinch Mints tastes better than most. It gives me an immediate rush. Heady.
I'm sipping a Grolsch. I've had about five ounces of vodka over a three-hour span. We watched an episode of South Park. It was the Christmas episode with Mr. Hanky. Heck, maybe there is more than one South Park Christmas episode with Mr. Hanky but this is the only one I've ever seen. I haven't watched much South Park. All these years later, I'm getting caught up.
My mind is wandering from one subject to the next. I was thinking about weekend plans; not having it right. Rabbit holes and worm holes. Now I'm thinking about my tax return. There's a form I should have filled out and included with the return but omitted. 8889, HSA Distribution. Technically it's a distribution to you when you use your HSA credit card for medical expenses, even though you don't actually receive the money. It's a distribution but it's not taxable. It gets zeroed out on the form so nothing carries over to income. Still, I should have reported it. [20:45]
3.52 grams of Grinch Mints from Good Green
Earlier today I smoked a joint of Good Green's Clementine. It lasted strong for 45 minutes, had another half hour of perceptible carry, then buzzed on a background level for another couple of hours at least. I could feel something, and I hadn't had anything to drink.
I did a little typing then read a few pages from a Kenn Kaufman book about birding, Kingbird Highway. On a whim my wife bought me Kaufman's most recent book, The Birds Audubon Missed, at a Barnes & Noble near a hotel we were staying at outside Oklahoma City. I read Audubon, and I liked it but it wasn't a page turner. You'd really have to be into birds to enjoy it. Kingbird Highway is a good read whether you like birds or not. It's as if Jack Kerouac were going to hitchhike around the country trying to see how many different species he could locate in one calendar year. I'll crack another beer and get back into the book...
An early time to smoke for me. But I don't have anywhere to go today. My conception of this strain so far—I've had perhaps four .4g joints—has been that it can provide a lift, some stimulation for getting work done but it isn't too strong. It hasn't been a high-deas strain. The first time I smoked it I did a few small tasks around the house; tinkered with something. I've done some writing about its effects but it hasn't really been a rabbit hole/wormhole strain.
I smoked a joint of Clementine twenty minutes ago. It's damp and chilly outside. We are now under the canopy of a rain dome. There was sleet overnight, then a bit of snow that accumulated only in a few spots, e.g. roof valleys.
The Clementine has given me an immediate lift. I've only had one coffee—five hours ago—and one cup of black tea, more recently. The Clem seemed to lend momentum to the tea, and vice versa. I went and fetched a weeding tool; began to do some weeding, my first weeding of the year. I have been a little hungover but still getting a couple things done: replacing a damaged fence board; swiffing some of the basement floor; mixing a new round of bird food; and, putting a tarp over my woodpile and staking it down.
But I didn't feel so hot. I was slow, heavy, achy, and chagrined. The Clem has me feeling as well as I have all day. I never planned to do any weeding but I had been eyeing some dandelions that were coming in, some winter rocket, and other plants I recognized as being weeds but which I can't readily name. There is some Queen Anne's Lace in places, a plant in the carrot family that you don't want to let go to seed but which will grow a few feet tall, offer white flowers, and attract plenty of pollinators. Anything with a decent flower I want to let flower. Weeds of grass, weeds, weed, flowers and flower. That's what this blog is about, after all.
The Clementine is not a lounge vibe strain. You're not going to burn Clementine only to sit down and watch a movie. It would be miscast in that role. It's in the same ballpark as Blue Dream. If cannabis were coffee...
It's sunny outside but not quite nice. It's cold. Twenty-six degrees, not unheard of for the middle of March in Missouri but we were starting to get used to having some warmer weather. If you don't believe me, ask the daffodils.
In a matter of half a day, we went from warm breezes (gusts) to a line of thunderstorms that were spinning out small tornadoes from Arkansas up to Chicago, to an inch of rain, and then to snow. That makes nearly five inches of rain this month, most of in the last ten days.
There is water in the ductwork below the basement floor in one corner of the house again, for the second spring in a row, only our second spring in this house. I have taken measures to try to keep the water out. It seems like it's a matter of finding the water outside the house, and redirecting it before it can trickle in/pool at that corner of the house. Tales of the Underground, Tales from the Aqueduct.
The Chem Krush is just fine. In previous sessions it felt heavy to me, for a sativa. But those were five o'clock or six o'clock smokes with alcohol involved. I had about a quarter of a gram of grind in this bowl.
There are birds around. White-throated sparrows, Downy woodpeckers, White-breasted nuthatches, Mourning doves, Eastern bluebirds, Tufted titmice, House Finches, Hairy woodpeckers, Red-bellied woodpeckers, Dark-eyed Juncos, Northern cardinals, and an Eastern Phoebe looking for a place to put her nest. All are winter residents except for the Phoebe.
Took a Lost Farm Super Boof live resin gummy half an hour ago at the Chiricahua travel stop along I-10 halfway between Las Cruces and Deming, headed west. My head was already a little tight from dehydration, vodka, maybe the bowl of Strawberry Pines last night, maybe not.
My wife is driving. The trains are running. It's not as hazy now as it was east of the mountains east of Las Cruces. The air over White Sands and Alamogordo was thick. We stayed at the Pine Springs Inn in Ruidoso Downs last night. Like Brook says, the place is a step back in time.
If I had to do it all over again I might give more thought to geology. Rocks. I like rock, and rocks, more and more. I appreciate them. They're part of the earth, a really important part but rocks aren't asking anything from anyone. They're useful. Erosion control, minerals, structural support, roads, drainage. It feels good to be in a place where rock is of interest. In such a place, you will probably find some other beauty. Rocks are possessed of such an unassuming richness.
What's new in geology these days? Looking for lithium for our batteries, looking for rare earths for our phones. Cracking rock open to get at nat gas to power our AI, our social media. Breaking rocks, breaking into the earth so that we can grow closer to our computers and to our phones. To power the new intelligence. To make our lives easier. Progress through powdered rock. Rare earth, it's always been such a powerful phrase. Metals, minerals, like time buried in the ground. Find it, you find a little bit of extra time, while the machines do the work we get to...
It's been at least 2 hours since my second joint of the night, 93 Boyz's Hot Chipz. Tasty! As if it were a fine tobacco or a clove. Djarum. Something you'd smoke even if it didn't have a psychoactive effect—because of its gentle, flavorful taste. This one I don't have much of left, maybe enough for one last bowl. It's a thick, luscious smoke that looks good in landscape light in the dark as rain falls. A pleasurable smoke. And two-plus hour effects. Some couch lock. I had my dog—new dog Nora—snuggling on me, her head on my leg. Where was I gonna go?
We were watching curling, US-Japan, women quads. Then Italy and Sweden. They are long matches. Nine ends, ten ends, eights rocks a side every end. Who's got the hammer? Watching curling and relaxing. Then I did get Nora out, into a misty light rain. She did her business, we came back inside.
I am ready to read and sleep. Not a bad night. The Hot Chipz can go whichever way you want. My ears are ringing a little. Buzzed. House sounds. Light timers click, ratchet, trickle. Air handler blowers whir, one for each heat pump. I could fall asleep to curling but I'll be more comfortable in my own bed. Somewhat elated-happy-content, slightly baked. Tired. A good day. 20:42.
The lineage on this is Runtz x Cheetah Piss.
Awesome grind. Dense, fine, efficient. Not blown out; not seedy, shelly, or puffy.
This was my oldest bag/jar. Not only is there nothing wrong with it but I would buy this again, as it was when I opened it, a year beyond package date. A good at home with the dog on a rainy Saturday strain. 20:43...
Workable. A little fruit. Maple syrup flavor. Smooth smoke, not a spitter. None of that gas/earth/burnt whatever, chems. Maybe that smoothness is the kush, the sorbet.
The Kush Sorbet has carried. 20:55. It never carried me away but it's buzzy—a headband effect, my ears slightly ringing. Newly adopted dog has me worn out but also feeling some warm and fuzzies.
A one-joint night so far. If I fall asleep after reading a few pages, OK. The Kush Sorbet is solid, strong. Not a high-deas strain. An indica, I guess. Was happy on the couch, with Nora. Two TV programs after a pasta bake and some snacks. Ready for sleep. Maybe get some hypnagogic imagery with my eyes closed. That ringing in the ears; after a blast. 21:00...
Weeds of Grass 