"I get drunk sometimes. But getting high's better" Kenny said.

What fascinates me now is for all the marijuana that Kenny talked, his descriptions now seem cartoonish. Maybe he had used general, vague descriptions because he knew I, being inexperienced, wouldn't have a clue what a bowl or bong was. But if I had to guess today, I'd say it's more likely that 15 year old Ken had gotten stoned a few times and those occasions allowed him to adopt the persona of a stoner.

I wasn't self aware enough to realize people did this. All I could go on was what they said. There weren't really any focused conversations about weed itself. It was more that among the other topics we discussed cannabis made its way into the jokes and side comments Ken added. Like if we were talking about how would win a fight between two guys at school he would mention how one of the guy was such a stoner. 

I noticed that it was always the stoner who was the hero. Usually the guy who got high was the one who would kick the other square's ass. Almost always if there was a weed smoker in a discussion Ken was leading, that guy would be the protagonist. This rubbed off on me and I started thinking that smoking weed was cool too. I wouldn't do it for years down the line, but watching how Ken admired stoners, I wanted to be seen as a stoner.