Smoked a Sunset Sherb joint. .4 grams. This time I felt the bite. Which is to say the smoke gets all up in my head and starts my mind going like a hamster on a wheel.

There is less alcohol in my system than what is normal for me for this time of day. The emotions are flooding. I am letting what annoys me take over my entire mindset and well-being. This is the bite. I have noticed recently that Group Texts are staging a social media coup of my phone. I am not on Facebook. I used to use Instagram but I quit it early 2024. I am not on Twitter or X or whatever they're calling it these days. I've never used TikTok; never will.

I have this blog, and another blog (JBR.com) and I use Spotify, if that counts as social media. But now my Messages app seems like a backdoor means for sudden social media-like twisters to work their way into my awareness. Larger and larger groups of people. Reactions to this or that. Today, a poll. I'm not cut out for this kind of communication anymore. I'm just not interested. When it comes to texting I find myself ready to go back to the days of dumb phones.

Opting out of these conversations (even though I never opted in) seems harsh. But I also dislike feeling like I need to have a reason to "leave." Now I'm feeling this textbook Sherb bite and the bite is taking me right into this confused, ambivalent headspace. Into the Complaint Zone. Rant and rave. Wasting time, wasting thoughts! Any more to have my peace it feels like I have to throw up walls and then I feel guilty.

My wife is headed out of town but I don't want to go anywhere. I'm happy at home with Nora, who is otherwise partial to my wife, even shadows her. Now that I'll have a chance to bond a bit with the dog, in my wife's absence, I don't imagine I'll want to do anything else. Solitude, if and when I can get it, is a rarity. A scarcity. I won't give it up so easily.

The Sunset Sherb once again has me putting pen to paper. I have finished a beer but I don't have any vodka in me (yet). Perhaps this allows the bite to set harder, truer. So I try to write the bite away. Just putting this mini-diatribe on paper has me feeling better, calmer. I should try to move onto some other topic. And steer clear of the vodka for at least another hour. 17:01...