Dialogue: Growing up but not going to pot ...

Today I'd really wanted to write about marijuana, tie it in with Tuesday's documentary and, once again, put forth balanced arguments to support legislative changes.

I'm hardly smoking pot at all these days but I still wanted to get on my high horse because I see it as an important human rights issue.

Once I would have done my whole piece on law reform. I would have pointed out the irony in the documentary that four different shots of cops had them wearing Lion Red-branded clothing.

I would have asked: who is funding those big busts up north? I would have had a wee spout about the narrow-mindedness of those who oppose change. Can't they see that harm minimisation will never be achieved through prohibition, that children wouldn't be able to get weed so easily if it were regulated?

But I'm a lot more relaxed now. Sure, I hope we see the law change but it's no skin off my nose if we don't. And I think the reason I've not done the grass thing is that these days I'm more inclined to listen to other people.

The editor asked: "Do you have to do another piece on pot?" No, sir, I don't.

And my mother would rather the world didn't think of her little girl as a hardcore pothead, which I'm not, but it's so easy to get pigeonholed.

I wonder if this means I'm mellowing with age? I'm definitely less intractable and opinionated, more amenable to considering other people's wishes.

Then I started to think of all the other ways I've changed and can only assume that I'm growing up.

For one thing, I'm living on the North Shore, a place I thought of in my Grey Lynn days as an area with a different time zone to the rest of Auckland.

But I love it here and find fewer and fewer reasons to go into town, though it does take a little getting used to.

A cop stopped me the other day as I pedalled into Devonport and asked me what was wrong with the picture? I knew it was a rhetorical question so I let him answer.

"You've got your helmet on your handlebars." Damn, he was right. In my old neighbourhood, the cops would speed past a helmetless rider and not even bother with a warning.

Thank you, though, officer - point taken. I will be more responsible in future. I know now that helmets are better on heads than handlebars and brains are better in than out.

Another thing I've noticed is that when there are old newspapers cluttering the gutter by the letter-box, instead of letting them pile up or blow about, making a mess, I put them in the recycling.

I've started pulling weeds out of the garden - at least I hope they're weeds - and I make things with old fruit before it decomposes.

I don't, if I'm full, eat everything on my plate just because it's there and I've taken all the things that are never going to be done off my Life List.

The biggest turnaround, though, is that I've stopped all that positive thinking nonsense, which means I'm much less prone to disappointment. I've stopped harping on about wanting a real job - no more cold calls, no more employ-me-please letters and consequently no more rejections.

No wonder I feel so calm. I'm earning enough to get by, am no strain on our already strapped social services and I'll just make the most of summer.

There are beautiful beaches everywhere, I'll get a nice safe tan, never miss a yoga class and get stuck into my novel, a work of adult fiction, a sexy book that will sell well in airports. It's a serious work, with proper characters who actually do things and every couple of pages someone gets laid.

Which reminds me, I even have ex-boyfriends now who, instead of sulking throughout a protracted heartbreak or ignoring me if I bump into them, are my friends.

I really came to understand that when one came to stay (with his new partner) over Labour Weekend and another turned up from his OE and is now sharing house-minding with me.

Talk about civilised - although he does think aliens have taken my mind and replaced it with someone else's. Talking to cats, taking an interest in weeding, watering someone else's garden and no pot? Oops, I wasn't going to talk about pot.