good and bad trips

I lost myself for about an hour the other day. My journey with Margie and Julian started off remarkably well, our early attempts at artistic expression perpetually giving way to mockery of the art world and bouts of laughter that rattled our brains and bodies. But things took a turn for the worse when we were led into blaring streets littered with death and grime and noise; what had begun as a harmless attempt by Joshua to lead us into nature became a frantic search for a return to shelter. After returning home, my mind eventually began to wander to a terrible place from which I couldn't escape through any means of logical thought or rationality. Instead of my expectations of monsters or demons or school buses to Hell, I perceived the more horrific artificial illusion of losing my sanity. And for a good hour or so, I was anything but sane. The torture of the worst trip of all. But after constant struggling and finally hurdling over the right neural connections, I made my way back home. And the rest of the night was beautiful. Margie, Julian, and I baked a pizza and started laughing again. As evening came, we found ourselves outside again, the ambience darker and the atmosphere much calmer than the world had been earlier. We traced the abandoned train tracks from our backyard and into the boundaries of Cabbagetown, snaked back and around the perfect facades of Inman Park, roamed through an urban park behind some nearby apartments that was rife was hastily constructed nature at its quaintest, and made our way back home over the bridge, balloons in hand. We finished the day at Mary's, drinking ginger ale and dancing to funk and '80s R&B on an especially slow and peaceful night.

Last night, I went along with Donnie, Mandee, and Michael last night to a party at some nearby art studio on DeKalb Avenue. The front of the place was open to the street outside, so armies of cars and MARTA trains rolled b y through the night. The band Judy Chicago, composed of two mostly naked guys wearing trash bags and baseball caps, played between several DJs, including Austin, whom I first had trouble recognizing and thought was checking me out. I rather unsurprisingly stumbled onto Chris Daresta, who was rather unsurprisingly cold and unfriendly, as per usual. Nevertheless, I met a few friends of Donnie's and chatted up Mandee all night as I downed whiskey and Coke. It was a nice time, but the dance floor could have assuredly been more populous.

Julian and I have been spending more time in Little Five, something that makes sense as it's practically our neighborhood: I finally replaced the steel hoops in my ears with glass plugs Wednesday at Kolo; we had a huge lunch at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club Saturday; and we worked up the courage to find and buy some clothes at American Apparel yesterday without spending the national deficit. And yesterday, Meredith, Julian, and I rented and watched not one, not two, but three parts of the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, part of our month-long horror film festival.