{"id":20132,"date":"2019-09-08T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=20132"},"modified":"2019-09-08T21:24:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T01:24:31","slug":"blowhard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/?p=20132","title":{"rendered":"Blowhard."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blowhard\"<\/a>Saturday<\/strong> was my 66th birthday<\/strong>. After celebrating<\/strong> by eating THREE(!) stupidly delicious deserts<\/strong> by Brant<\/strong>, the genius pastry chef<\/strong>, and drinking a nice Allagash Curieux<\/a><\/strong>, at Gross Confection Bar<\/a><\/strong>, I headed off to Blackstone\u2019s<\/a><\/strong>. It\u2019s our one real gay bar in Portland<\/strong> now and gets pretty crowded<\/strong> on weekends. Still it didn't take me long to snag a seat at the bar. I\u2019m 5\u20183\u201c<\/strong> and I feel more comfortable<\/strong> and visible<\/strong> raised up a bit on a bar stool. And did I mention I'm old?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It also didn't take very long, of course, to be accosted<\/strong> by a local windbag<\/strong>. "Oh, look who it is!" he bellowed<\/strong>. I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that because I think I've only seen him on Grindr<\/strong> or Scruff<\/strong> or something. I'm pretty positive we've never spoken in person<\/strong>. Like a typical pothead<\/strong>, he almost<\/strong> immediately<\/em><\/strong> started talking about that most tiresome of subjects: weed<\/strong>. My eyes glazed over<\/strong>. I've had this tedious conversation<\/strong> many, many times. I have nothing to say other than that I don't smoke it because I don't like the pot high<\/strong>. (BTW, I think it should be completely legal<\/strong>.) I'm convinced at this point that pot changes heavy users' brains<\/strong> so they don\u2019t believe anyone<\/em><\/strong> could possibly dislike pot<\/strong>. They appear to not understand that possibility <\/strong>at all. To a man\/woman, they suggest that I just haven\u2018t tried the right strain yet<\/strong>, as this guy did. Because of course he did.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know, in my 66 years<\/strong> I\u2018ve smoked enough pot<\/strong> to know that it\u2018s not for me<\/strong>. I\u2018m OK with that<\/strong>. What these folks are really<\/em><\/strong> suggesting to me is that I should continue having unpleasant experiences<\/strong>\u2014and they\u2018ve very nearly all<\/em><\/strong> been unpleasant!\u2014until I find that elusive perfect strain<\/strong> for me. No thanks.<\/em><\/strong> It\u2018s simply not a priority<\/strong> for me. Please stop asking!<\/em><\/strong> Nothing,<\/strong> and I mean nothing<\/em><\/strong>, is more boring<\/strong> to me than weed talk. <\/strong>I don't walk up to people I barely know<\/strong> in bars and start chattering<\/strong> about bourbon and beer<\/strong>, do I? Please, Mary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He went away. For a while.<\/p>\n

When he returned<\/strong>, he pretended<\/em><\/strong> to be interested in my views<\/strong> on current events<\/strong> and that's when he became a real blowhard<\/strong>. Lucky me. <\/em><\/strong>He asked what I thought was our most existential threat<\/strong>. Country? World? Humans? Gays?<\/em> He didn't specify<\/strong>. Off the top of my drunk<\/strong> head, I said \u201cClimate change.\u201d<\/strong> (It could have been any number of things<\/strong> but that, unchecked, will kill us all<\/strong>.) His response was \u201cREALLY?<\/strong> That\u2018s<\/em><\/strong> what you think is the most dangerous?<\/strong> Climate change??<\/em><\/strong>\u201d with a roll of his eyes<\/strong>. He went on pooh-poohing<\/strong> everything I said, offering no views of his own<\/strong>, just asking more questions. It was infuriating<\/strong>. I finally said "You know, you\u2018re acting like a superior asshole<\/strong> right now and obviously trying to humiliate<\/strong> me. I'm not interested <\/strong>in continuing to talk to you anymore."<\/strong> Thankfully, he just walked away<\/strong> without saying anything. Importantly, he didn't deny<\/strong> it or try to defend<\/strong> his ridiculous behavior<\/strong>. I guess he owns it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I'm\u00a0 grateful<\/strong> that the good feelings<\/strong> that began earlier in the night then just continued<\/strong>. I didn't end up screaming<\/strong> at this asshole<\/strong>, and getting kicked out<\/strong> of the bar. Thanks, Jim Beam!<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS.<\/strong> As I\u2018ve said many times<\/strong>, I don't like pot but I think it should be completely legal<\/strong>. Just please, stop talking to me about it!<\/strong> I\u2018m also now a big fan<\/strong> of CBD<\/strong>. I\u2018ve been using CBD oil<\/strong> daily for about a year now<\/strong> and it\u2018s made a huge<\/em> difference<\/strong> in my life. I noticed after about a month that I was sleeping better<\/strong> and was much less depressed and irritable<\/strong>. I don\u2018t hobble<\/strong> around my apartment in pain<\/strong> from a herniated disc every morning as I did before I started using it. That discomfort<\/strong> is completely<\/em> gone!<\/strong> I was really skeptical<\/strong> but I\u2018m a convert<\/strong>. And there is nothing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 resembling a pot high<\/strong> when I use it. I recommend<\/strong> it highly. YMMV<\/strong>, of course!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday was my 66th birthday. After celebrating by eating THREE(!) stupidly delicious deserts by Brant, the genius pastry chef, and drinking a nice Allagash Curieux, at Gross Confection Bar, I headed off to Blackstone\u2019s. It\u2019s our one real gay bar in Portland now and gets pretty crowded on weekends. Still it didn't take me long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[429,31,17,291,7,8,1],"tags":[489,570,525],"class_list":["post-20132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising","category-food","category-gay","category-highstrungloner","category-maine","category-portland","category-uncategorized","tag-gay","tag-gay-bar","tag-highstrungloner"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2ccTA-blowhard","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20132"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20148,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20132\/revisions\/20148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.highstrungloner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}