It's hard to start. I want to get down my experience of the rave, because even though it was great and interesting and different....with me and my memory I'll most definitly forget. BUT, it was over a week ago that it happened. But, you know what, lemme just get it down.
The whole week before the Rave, after Ryan had asked me to go with him, I was in conflict. First, the whole situation although mildly "date-ish"...him asking me to a party, wasn't really a typical date, you know? Not that was important, there were a ton of things I had to think about. Going to an illegal event with a bunch of people I didn't know at all, who did drugs. What exactly are you doing again, Aglaia?
I wanted to go for two reasons. One because I really liked Ryan, and two because I've always been curious to see what the whole rave deal was about. But would I do drugs, should I do drugs? Would Ryan be as nice as he played out in class? Would we have anything in common? Would his friends like me? Would I somehow get lost in a crowd of people, losing my connection and never finding my way home? Would I get raped? Would I be caught and find myself in jail? What would I wear? :)
I didn't know what to think. I knew I would be with Ryan and his friends...both who i didn't know at all. I would be in a completely new scene, and I was still pondering the question of drugs....and how that related to me. Knowing he did drugs...I don't know, not that I didn't care, it just didn't really affect me. I guess, I don't like smoking, so I kind of disapproved of the habit, and drugs....maybe it's cuz so many people do them, it doesn't really surprise me to find someone who does them. My position on drugs? Never did them. Probably because I wasn't in a crowd who did them, probably because I had parents and DARE that told me to say No! ;) No, seriously, I just was never around them. None of my closer friends did them...or had friends who did them. Now Tim, he did them, although not when we were dating, although his friends still did.
I guess everyone knows in general "drugs are bad" for you, so why do them? Sure there was probably always some curiousity concerning smoking pot or something...just because it seems most people have...not even necessarily the "druggie" type people. But I never felt the need to start smoking, and never really cared to drink. Maybe my mother's protectiveness did work. Having a strict curfew prevented me from experiencing things. But not for long. I can't say college has corrupted me. I think I am merely choosing to participate in experiences I never could..or really tried to before. Not even, because I couldn't or didn't before, just because waiting is. (It's from the book Stranger in a Strange Land). And my time had come, because I chose it. And I don't see anything wrong with it.
So I went back and forth while I was waiting to decide if I should go or not. I kind of knew in my heart, that if I did go, i would do drugs. I knew that I could go, and continue to stick to my drug virginity, but the thing was, I didn't want to. For so long i've been living in a world, where I was so anti-everything, just because some how it started out like that, and I would be a hypocrite to start anything now. But i was with new people. They didn't know who I was. Who I stood for. But more importantly, I found in myself, I didn't really stand for anything ever, really, even from the beginning. Except smoking, which over the recent months...years, I've come to accept those who do. I think Tim summed it up the best when he told me he just plain liked it. How do you complain about that? We all do things we shouldn't...and know it, just because we like it. There's no point of attacking people's likes...just because I don't share the same feeling. Although I'll state here, that even when I frist tried smoking...I did like it. But with a lot of likes...it isn't worth the consequence of participating in those actions, just for the pleasure that comes of it. Or at least, no point in starting up new habits, when I do plenty as it is that probably just isn't good for my health (junk food, tanning :)
I decided I would go. And I'm really glad I did. The biggest trauma then, was what to wear. It sounds silly to say it, or to write it, but I was really worried about it. Here was a bunch of "alternative" kids, who were comfortable with this party scene, that I've never even seen before. My advice from Ryan was to wear something loose and colorful. To my horror, I had neither. I wasn't sure if jeans would be appropriate, and besides, Ryan had already seen me in jeans...i wanted something different. I opted for my black pants...although I would definitly put them on the other side of the scale of balance with his suggestion of wearing something "loose." Oh well, I said...I didn't really have any other options. As for colorful, I didn't really have that either. Color is dangerous in a lot of situations, and I usually shied away from it. Can't go wrong with black, I picked out a lavender super skinny strapped tank top that I had purchased from an "alternateen" magazine...this will have to be the closest I can get ;) I had thought! La la la....
Then, because it's cold, I chose a quarter-sleeved black cardigan to go over. Perfect for walking when I'm cold, then if I get hot can just wrap it around my waist. Which is exactly how I ended up using it.
He came and picked me up; me still feeling super self-conscious about my clothing choices. He didn't seem to notice, and we got in the car and started driving.
We talked about drugs.
I said sure.
We got to his house, a typical campus house, but not bad really. I guess he lives with two other people...Dan and Ka-rin. (I have no idea how it's spelled, but that's how it's pronounced. :). We walk in and there are two guys on the floor right by the entrance playing a game of chess. Both look reasonably nice, although I'm still apprehensive to coming in and meeting all these new people not of "my kind." I figured before hand, I would just smile a lot. Even if I looked totally out of place, everyone has to like a happy, friendly person, right? :)
This wild girl, Rachael comes running up to me and says "hi!". I had heard her on the phone while I was talking to "Ritzy" as all his friends nicknamed him. She seemed really cool, just bouncing with energy. She was all decked in a very typical "alternateen" outfit. Big baggy kahkis, a babytee-ish logo-ed shirt, with a baby backback, and a viser on her head, with hair twisted into "afro poofs." Sigh, gotta love those alternateens :)
There's another girl lying on this pull-out bed (from a couch) just kind of hanging out. She's really pretty, but looks super tired (or perhaps on drugs herself?). Then there's a girl sitting in a chair beside the one I chose, and she looks very dorky. Dark, brown, undone hair, a little overweight, with unsociable movements, and a chatty mouth. She seemed nice, though. :)
Rachael decides to adopt me as her "pet." I don't mind. I might as well be a dog on a sting, following my master around, not knowing what to do or how to act. I find that she is only 16. (Most of the people there were 19+. Although Rachael herself, I could have guessed 20) I got kind of sad. She seemed pretty drug knowledgeable...I don't know, drugs still seemed stupid to me. Both her and Ryan decide to eat some shrooms. Ryan wanted me to do them, then my "pet" decided "E"--or ecstacy, would be a better "first drug" choice. "No one has a bad trip on E, replies someone to me. All is well, I think to myself....I'm not sure what would be worst... a "natural" trippy drug like shrooms, or a new "rave" drug probably produced in someone's basement. But even while these little thoughts would drift out from time to time, I found myself surprisingly...untroubled by the drugs?
I felt like I was a psychology student, just standing back with mild amusement watching the "young folk" participate in their daily/weekly routines...those that I have never seen before, but I always knew occurred. I was there, being a part of it, but felt incredibly disconnected at the same time. I know I was there. I know I had almost done shrooms, without a care or a thought in my mind. Perhaps after a week of worrying about the situation I found myself in, had been enough to send all worries away. What happened would happen, and I was in the hands of my "master" happy and dumb like a dog to do or take whatever my master said. Even without thought or care...not..not that I didn't care about me actually doing all this stuff, but I guess I felt totally comfortable with everything that I was doing, perfectly calm in my mind, that I was safe.
I had talked with James that a lot of the drug situation would depend on my comfort and trust with those who were providing them. I think I had either previously calmed all fears and concerns, or found myself perfectly safe in the hands of Rachael and Ryan. It wasn't that I was doing drugs to belong, or doing it to be cool. I was just doing. But doing for what? I didn't know. And however harmful and worrysome this may sound, I didn't care. I was doing it because I wanted to. You could say, for the literacy of it.
My whole English 110 quarter was about literacy. Personal, academic, society...yadda yadda. Literacy. A sort of code, and "know how" of a situation. I was there for experience, I was there to see what happened, and any comfort I found in me doing any of this...I had already given it all up to God. But 'Thou art God' Aglaia? Yes...I don't think James, understood when I said I gave it up to "Him". Because the ultimate reality, is that I gave it up to myself. A personal responsibility, but i knew however conscious or unconscious my actions were...I (perhaps the bigger "I" of Brahman...) was doing it for a reason. And with that...I smoked some pot, to Ryan's surprise and maybe even (hmm, not disappointment, it just seemed, somewhat negative, or neutral I guess, just complete surprise, that came off very non...positive ;). But anyway...we were off.
I found Ryan in the car to be an unusual quiet one. I'm assuming that's the drugs kicking in. Although Rachael is still pleasantly psyched about the world as usual. We drive only to find out that the people lost thier.....venue (who were staging the rave...tangent)? But I guess someone picked up the party at their actual house (which now, really does make the whole thing illegal, I think....). So we head there.
Did I mention I'm not dressed like anyone else? Thankfully these alternateens just don't notice, don't care, or are too nice to say anything. :) Even the gals have these fabulous big baggy kahkis. Oh well, it's not like I had a pair at home to slip on. SO I don't worry about it. If anything....alternatives should appreciate the look of someone DIFFERENT. Isn't that their whole point? The gang of people trying to go to this person's house, looked very unoriginal as a group. But that's alright, they're a clique in theirself. :)
We get to the place, and because of the limited space only four more people from this line can get in. "Ohp! Over here, we have four!" calls Ryan. Good call. We got in.
We go in, Ryan, very kind, pays for my ticket...okay only five dollars, but still. :) They pat you down for drugs...although as Ryan and the girls tell me they kind of know who to...slip in. I almost felt cheesy having them pat me down. Could I really hide anything in those tight black pants? Ha HA!
The girls (BTW, it ended up only being Ka-rin, Rachael, Ryan and me who went....), they were interested in this little half chill/half "buying room." ---it was filled with "toys" stuff like glow sticks, bubbles and stuff like that. Ryan was more interested in the music. I couldn't decide who to follow. (But my master is over there!.....) I followed Ryan though. He is after all my "date."
The room, I imagine is relatively small to the usual raves, but still could fit probably, maybe 300 peeps in it. As you walk in the door, to your right is this projector that's lighting up a wall, with wiggly lights and stuff. Might fuck you up pretty bad if you were taking anything heavy, is what I was thinking. To my left the DJ was over there, mixin' in all up, and a very small group of dancers were doing their thing. We walked futher into the room, found ourselves a group of break dancers. They looked professional, very entertaining. The girls found us, they were all looking for the guy with the drugs. He had the E. We wandered around looking for the guy, and finally found him. The girls went off to buy the drugs. Ryan is groovin' his little heart out. I'm kind of like "uh.....". First of all, Ryan is just adorable, and actually a pretty great dancer, but it's always going to take me awhile to get me dancing, even though I love it. And if you can imagine funky rave dancing...well that's Ryan. ;)
I need to soak in the atmosphere. Check out the people, soak in the music, and overall just get comfortable and used to my surroundings. Ryan decided we should play a game. It was typical if you saw someone cool (like if they were dancing good...) or just a "neat" person in general you should give them some "candy" (beaded bracelets). So he hands me a bracelet and says, go introduce yourself to someone cool and give them this! Normally, I think I'm reasonably friendly, but new to this custom I'm la la la-ing myself to his friendly pushing. Not really scared...just felt kind of silly. Uh, here's a braclet..I don't know you or anything. :)
Finally we spy a cool looking guy with spiky reddish dark brown/black hair. So I'm running after this guy, and sort of plop this bracelet into his hands. Uh, here! Finally getting over my retardness I tell him my name, and find out his name is John. Seems like a nice kid. I'm sure we hugged or something, then Ka-rin came running up and asked John if they could trade "candy." It seemed kind of slow and twilight zonish there, while they were trading, and I just really wanted to laugh. She like took one of his, and then he kept on pointing to ones he wanted and she would be like....uh, no, you can't have that one. Then she finally said here, you can have this one...and I don't know, it didn't look terribly special or anything. I kind of felt like my "new friend" John just got jipped, but I didn't know who to call the claim on. My secondary "mom" Ka-rin, or my boy John, who didn't really look like he wanted to trade in the first place. Who knows how that story ended ;) Ryan grabbed me and on continued our adventure.
We bought some bottled water (yum...I now found out that you can actually explode your brain with water when you're on E very easily...great.). Our drugs are here..."red tellytubbys." Without hesitation, into my mouth it goes. It kind of fizzles and I swallow. I think for a moment, hmmmm if that was already reacting in my mouth...think what it's going to do in my stomach! But the thought leaves me quickly and we walk around saying hi to people and such. I find myself choosing my girls over Ryan when they begin to split again, and they kind of tell me that Ryan is likely to walk off in the night, so I should stick with them. I can't tell if they told me that, because Ryan usually walks out on girls, so I shouldn't get to "connected" to having him around, or if they were just saying that because I was their pet. But I hoped we wouldn't lose Ryan for the whole night, because that wouldn't be too much fun. Thankfully we hook back up with him, like 2 minutes after and meet some more people...old friends, or friends of friends I think. I can't remember the people's names, although one guy was pimpin' it in this old fashioned hat, but he looked really good in it. :)
I'm not exactly sure how we spent our time for a while then. I think it takes a little over an hour for the drug to kick in, so we must have just walked around. The girls purchased some glowy mouth thingys....those were fun! I got an orange one. I felt kind of bad earlier with Ryan dancing and me not. I didn't want him to think I lied about liking to dance, but I was still getting a feel for the place. After that, we all went to look at the DJ's and dance a little. That was fun, watching the guy physically mess with the record was neat, and then there was a guy rappin' to the music, which I hear is very rare, but I thought he did a really awesome job, so that was fun. We started dancing, and I got really into it. I liked it, because everything is so freestyle, and even almost, the bigger you do it, the better it looks. It's more...um, personal then a dance club too. At a dance club you're trying to hook up with someone, here it was like, you just wanted to dance, and you did. I mean, I'm sure "hooking up" was happening, but while I was dancing, it was just me and the music...if that doesn't sound too cheesy.
Perhaps by then the drug was beginning to get me. It sort of felt like an upbeat beer buzz. You know, there was that nice warm feeling, and I probably had a goofy grin on my face. We decided to take a breather. Walking was fun. I could make it fast or incredibly slow. I could always get that on a beer buzz too, and was always fascinated with it. Seriously, last time I was beer buzzed, I think I would have been pleased to have just walked around on "fast forward" cuz it was such a funny feeling. Can I say this whole night, I was laughing? Me being there, me anything, the whole thing was beyond who I normally am, I found it all terribly funny. What am I doing here, what am I doing? But I loved it all, anway! We went out, and we were (ryan and i) totally covered in sweat. Somewhere during dancing Ryan had taken off his shirt (and my cardigan said goodbye as well). We kind of stood by the door in this "glowy" daze. At least, that's how I felt. I was incredibly turned on by him. I'd say normally sweat is kind of grody, but I mean we were both drenched, just sort of--both us, doing the "lean" and half way giggling about being covered in sweat. I remember tracing my finger sort of from his navel up. He has a small frame, but he's actually pretty carved for what he has. I also noticed he had a pierced nipple as well. (ouch, right!). They kick us out from the entrance, cuz it's too crowded and we go and sit down on the wall outside the dance area.
We run into this great guy--who looks exactly like silent bob, so I always refer to him like that in my mind, but actually his name is Matt. Matt was in our "area" in philosophy class. So we're talking with him, and Matt gives me my first candy. It's blue with purple stars. How great! Your first bracelet is really special, everyone has a story for theirs, so it's kind of fun that my first one...was from silent bob! :)
We chill with silent bob and his girl Whitney. They get up, but whitney leaves her "angel wings" on the ground. And since I'm drugged and silly, I slip 'em on! ;) Whitney comes back and she's like "hey! lemme get a picture!" So she snaps a picture, then gets one of me and Ryan too. We exchange email addresses to pick 'em up later. It's awesome, that was fun.
So Ryan and I are back to leaning on the wall, half chillin' with Matt. He gives me this lollypop (Matt) and it tastes soo good. I don't even like the flavor sour apple! So Ryan and I are sharing it...then Matt is sharing it with us. Normally this would have really grossed me out (food traumas and all) but it was kind of fun. And "bonding"-ish. Matt whips out some Menthol cigarrettes, and I'm joking with Ryan not to smoke it cuz he's already gone so long without smoking the whole night! And to my surprise, I find myself taking Matt's offer of smoking...on myself!!! Ryan is like "nooo! Don't smoke!" But we decide to share a cigarrette. It actually tasted pretty good. (I read somewhere else later on that it's just the brand that seems to give E a kick I guess). I don't choke on the smoke or anything. It felt so casual and natural, I don't know, I'm crazy. So Ryan and I are just hanging out some more, and we're kind of "goo goo" eyeing each other, and before I really know what's going on, we're kissing. Like, make out kissing.
Okay, miss major ANTI-PDA girl! We are such the "make-out" couple at the club that I always see. I can't figure out if me doing that was really cool, or really gross. I get the same feelings when I see other people doing that. (Eww, why are they being so obvious? Hmmm, wish I had a guy I could be doing that with. ;) I guess I always was probably worried about what other people thought...but under this situation, didn't have a care at all, and definitly was not thinking about anything else than....cool, I'm kissing Ryan, fun tongue ring. ;)
So that in itself, is an interesting phenomenon to witness in the memory bank. And geez, right beside silent bob we were going at it! HA, I'm kind of glad class is over! I suggest dancing to Ryan and we go out for more. Our girls decide to leave, and ask Matt for a ride home. But it's not much later when Matt says he wants to go too.(although I later found myself saying we weren't there that long...but we were..it was 5+ hours! so I imagine my concept of time wasn't exactly accurate ;). So we leave and Matt takes us back to Ryan's house. We were kind of thinking of hopping into his car and going back, but we think the cops were about to bust it right as we were leaving, so we scratched the idea. His house was kind of dead when we came in. Some guy was crashed on his couch/bed. Ryan kicked him out of the room, and we turned on more music. Decided lollypops was a great idea. Ryan threw me a fun red sweatshirt with this dragon on it (which I still have!) cuz it was cold, and off to UDF we went. Yum, lollypops.
Back at his house, 2 guys came down and were talking with us. (One from earlier who was playing chess). I think me and Ryan were getting a little fruity so he wisely said to his buddy...lets uh, go play some chess up stairs.
Okay, me and Ryan we were...it was just like massage. But because of the E, it makes you incredibly tingly. Every touch has like a new meaning to it, when you're on it. So we were like giving these body massages, and it felt so incredible. I mean it was like making out...except we weren't kissing. I don't know, it's weird, but it was very..well it had me turned on. We were messing around with the lollypops on our lips and tongues and such as well. At some point, friends came back down, Ryan decided to take me home (back to my dorm) and that's my story. Of course there's the "since then..." story. But please, how long can I make this journal entry, right??!!
