I hear the artist whose studio is next to mine at the Forrest Avenue Arts Consortium talking to someone in the hallway. We are friends, but he doesn’t knock like he usually does, so I assume he’s with a stranger. I know the hall smells of marijuana. I am guilty. I have been smoking in my studio. We all do it. My eyes may droop, but my spirit flies! I hope it is not an official stranger. Someone coming to look at his photographs for a possible sale, or talk to him about a grant to support his work. I don’t want them to think we’re a bunch of stoned hippies. We are serious artists. We just smoke while we work. The radio is up loud and Bob Seger is singing about being a travelin’ man, but I rush to the typewriter and begin typing this. It is a ruse. A reason why I have been smoking. Why: An artist needs to remove the censors that plague us and drugs are a way to do that. You hear me typing, don’t you? I must be working, right? It may seem like I’m just in here, smoking dope and making a collage and haven’t written a word all morning. But what the hell? I am what I am. And sometimes life is pretty damn fine.