Stoners Like You
This is an excerpt from the October 2020 newsletter where I interviewed one of the Pot Luck participants and asked them only one question and then we just gabbed about smoking the wrong weed for your entire life and puppies for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Hannah Amundson: Hi! Tell us your name and how you'd identify yourself - which I'm saying vaguely since we don't all identify with our jobs if we have them, so just how would you like to introduce yourself?
Lauren Osaka: My name is Lauren, and I am an aspiring dog mom! (That also has a job, that's much less important.) Aspiring dog mom, and current plant mom.
HA: Yessss. Ok, this is something I've been meaning to ask since I met you. I need to hear the story about how you went from being a professional flute player to being a business management consultant.
LO: The short answer is, some amount of hard work and some amount of getting really lucky.
[Side note: Lauren is also incredibly smart and can figure out how to do literally anything.]
HA: What's the slightly longer but still tellable answer?
LO: The longer but still tellable version is that I always wanted to be a flute player, but sometimes your childhood ambitions don't always match your adult life expectations. So I realized I needed to make a career switch, right around age 25 (a good quarter-life crisis), and I panicked and moved home. I decided if I wasn't going to fulfill my childhood dream, that I would make money and go into "business." But it's hard to find a business job when you don't know how to disaggregate the word "business" into separate functions. My ex and I were in a fight, and he was like (angrily), "You should try Management Consulting, you would probably like it!!" So I basically networked my way to someone who had enough clout at the firm to get me an interview, even though my resume was literally: "Homeschool" and "Flute". So the hard work part was the prep for the interview, and the luck part was getting in touch with someone who was senior enough at the company to get me in the door. His daughter was an opera singer, so he was very sympathetic to my position.
LO: I played flute with some older ladies in a quartet last weekend, and they were shocked that I gave it up, saying, "You burned out!? That's so sad! Would you ever go back?" And I was like "Uh NO! I'm actually very happy."
HA: It's a hard decision though. You have all of these skills, and you're an excellent musician, and - I'm kind of going through that now - thinking like, why would I give up something that I know so well and am good at.
LO: But what a painful way to live, just doing the thing that you're "supposed to be doing" and are "good at."
HA: And it seems like it worked out ok for you.
LO: The nice thing about classical music is that does not offer financial stability, haha. So that makes it slightly easier. But funny enough, in terms of my weed history and flute history, I basically was stoned most of the time while I was getting my master's degree in flute!
HA: I can't believe you have a master's degree in flute. That's amazing. And a great segue, tell me about your introduction to weed.
LO: Oh you know, the arts community is full of drug users and degenerates (LOL). So I started smoking in college as a way to rebel against my parents probably, and then at some point became a pretty heavy user. Always trying to stay functional, I smoked a lot of sativa strains, and then at some point realized I didn't need to be doing that and took several years off. Honestly I treated it with a bit of like, fear and caution after that. And then when I moved back to LA [from New York], I just started occasionally smoking before bed or to wind down.
HA: It seems like you've changed your relationship with it a lot, that you're not reliant on it. Whereas maybe before, you were using it as a coping mechanism or were more dependent on it.
LO: I think I used to use it as a way to avoid addressing my feelings. Having feelings that require you to make a big change in your life are VERY difficult to process. So if you want to just kick that can down the road a bit, and want a little help, weed can do that. I was in that phase for quite a while. But now I don't feel the need to avoid my life so much. Also, I started to become more anxious from smoking, so I'm really cautious now.
HA: Yeah that seems to happen to people, I was reading that [the effects of cannabis can change as you age, so a lot of people just stop smoking]. But then if you do want to continue to have a relationship with weed, you have to relearn it. For me, it seems worth it, because very often alcohol just makes my body feel terrible. Being high is a better experience.
LO: Totally! And depending what you're smoking or how you're using weed, it could potentially be GOOD for your body, which is just an added bonus. I feel like there's nothing like the modern work-from-home job, that so seriously separates your mind from your physical body. I feel like weed is really helpful for grounding myself in my physical body, and I think that's why continuing to have a relationship with weed can be really beneficial, to keep my mind and body connected.
LO: This has made me realize that I don't smoke pot very frequently anymore [1-2 times a month], and it's made me want to find the right strains for me because I think I would really benefit from something like a super heavy CBD dose or something that just doesn't make me so anxious, to ground me.
HA: Yes! Next month I'm having you try these pre-rolls from TrūFlora, one is a 2:1 CBD:THC, the other is 1:1, and they have medicinal herbs in them too. I'm excited to hear what your experience is like.
LO: I love it. I also need to try the 707 OG indica strain from last month as my next step.
HA: Yeah, that one got kind of mixed reviews. I mean, people who love sedative strains were like, this is bomb, but people who don't smoke indica or smoke in the daytime were like, I don't get it. Because it has no stimulating brain effects, it just feels like your body is wrapped in a warm blanket and your brain is slowly shutting down. It's not what you'd think of as being "high" from your history of sativa's.
LO: Honestly, that sounds great. That sounds preferable.
HA: I think you've been smoking the wrong thing all along, haha.
LO: I KNOW, that's been my biggest take-away! I told my old roommate that every time I smoke sativa I get super anxious. And then I was doing this [Pot Luck] thing and I told her, "ohhhhh I think I should try indica." And she was like, "are you fucking kidding me? I could have told you that!"
I thought I knew so much about pot, I got a medical card 10 years ago. But it turns out I was wrong, and also it's just such a masculine culture at dispensaries and really unwelcoming [to women, and to asking questions].
HA: Yeah I have a big issue with dispensaries. Don't get me started. Definitely women will be the ones to change the industry.
LO: Women are taking over. GO Kamala!
HA: Well to wrap this up, what’s something non-weed related that you’re excited about and want to share with the world?
LO: Just that I'll be getting a puppy very soon, and it's all I can think about. And also my Monstera is growing so quickly! It got two new leaves this week.
HA: I'm so excited for your puppy. Ok the last, but still highly important question: what's the best thing you've baked or cooked lately?
LO: I've been on a sourdough kick, but have been slowing down recently because of the sheer amount of bread flour required. And I've been mothering the plants more, and there is only so much mothering to go around. But this Garlic Lime Chicken Thighs recipe from the New York Times was a good find recently. Their recipes are the best.
This interview has been ever so slightly condensed and edited for clarity. Thank you so much Lauren!
