I Lava 420

Record scratch... What?!

For those of you who know me, you know that I can't even comfortably hold a cigarette for a friend as they duck inside to get something, let alone be here late into the annual stoner holiday proclaiming undying LAVA for it.

So lemme 'splain.

I don't smoke, I actually woke up thinking today was a normal day until about 8 AM when after being at a friend's house at 5:30 AM for a run I got onto Facebook and saw the bazillion 420 posts.  Oh, right.  I didn't think stoners were even UP at 8 AM!

But I also noticed that my dearest friend Aurora Lady had posted a link to her blog in which she had interviewed me about my first zine,  My Drunk Year. 

I was excited, so far my zine had only been distributed to a handful of close friends who dealt with the wreck that me as I trudged through the experience that led to writing the zine.  The strong response from the people who had read it started to give me a feeling that maybe what I thought was just typewriter therapy actually had a little weight to it.  Then a few nights ago while talking to my amazing friend Yvonne about how many people we know have some substance dependency or another I jokingly said "I should just become an addiction counselor so at least I can get paid for my overwhelming desire to save the world." and then it hit me.  How have I not been doing that all along?

So without really remembering that today would be the day Aurora Lady would be posting the interview, I decided I'd go in to the counseling office at Fresno City College this afternoon.  The timing was just really amazing.  I sold my first zine to a complete stranger in a completely different state, I've had a lot of amazing discussions all day long with friends who I never would have thought would be even remotely interested in reading about my experience and then I found out that 10 classes, or about 33 units more and I would be able to get another associates degree and have my AS in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling.  So you know, some people get doctorates in the amount of time it's taken for me to figure out a career path.  I'm gonna have a wall full of associates degrees, but whatever.  They're like the Pokemon of the academic world.

As I was at the post office mailing out the zine and choking back the tears at how amazing it felt to finally have some sort of direction, it struck me as ironically funny that the day I'd set the wheels in motion to try my hand at a career in counseling happens to be the high holiday among stoners.  Synchronicity.  You know I LAVA the heck outta that, and I'll never forget everything that led me to what I'm hoping will be exactly what I'm called to do on this day.