Andrew J. Lederer

'cause I've been in the flat alone for most of the day and for several hours had windows open on every floor, removing residual intoxicants from the environment and flooding the room with real outside air tainted by nothing more than, perhaps, the massive London fire that today took down a probably-toxic former bus garage and was all over the news.

Feeling the strength of my own pure thoughts once again rising within me, I closed one of the windows, in the process breathing in an unhealthy dollop of ashtray smell, perhaps even the ash itself.

Now, I wonder -- is all the THC gone from discarded marijuana ash?

Are we left with carbon alone?

Because, if not, I may have, surging through my system, a long-lasting, impactful dose of brain-altering chemicals more like what you get from pot brownies than from the second-hand inhaling of a spliff.

Thank goodness I'm not doing Old Rope tonight as I expected to. My every spontaneous, non-noose-holding utterance would be of uncertain origin and legitimacy, potentially informed or even generated by cannabis.

Of course, I was looking forward to O.R. as Phil will be back tonight and it's always fun but I guess the date was never officially confirmed. Tiffany had said it was open and I texted back that it was good for me but there was never any, "then it's set," and I didn't seek final confirmation 'til today, through Facebook.

I can see she read my note, but I ain't heard nothin', so I'm under the covers, beginning a night I expect will be composed of pot ash-tainted quasi-solitude, (There actually is something called potash, isn't there? I wonder what it is.)

I'm doing Fat Tuesday tomorrow, though. Hopefully, the psychoactive ash will have completely passed through my system by that time.

Maybe I should employ the purifying diet they use to make snails suitable for eating.