A Hazy Shade of Winter, Look Around...

or, i could just put it this way: partied uptown with the whole clique, new year's eve starting at 10. the heartiest party-goers headed down to times square, all of us ten million miles gone on various tonics, elixers, and such. hopping police barricades thrown up by ghouliani, finally a perfect view of the ball, somewhere around 49th and broadway. the liquor hit me harder than anything before, probably a prequel to the events to come. nevermind. just experience it in order. follow these words. i passed out at 11:30, right in the middle of the crowd. falling on to the girl unnamed, supported by ODIE, by NZ and the like. coming out of the flush with the new years epiphany, the hallmark and headline for the year to come: "incoherence, but it all comes out okay in the end." how right i was, am, and it's only four days later. a million years, fellow travelers, a million years. jumping police barriers with HER, running and ducking up broadway to fifty-fourth. nearly pissing on a cop in full uniform as he pulled someone vomiting from the toilet. feeling relieved, running back to the police barricades and being turned away. running up fifty-third to seventh, where fifty northface power-rangers were storming the parkinglots and running around the barriers. two rasta-men from uptown threw us over the fence. thanking us, telling us to hurry, why, i'll never know. down the street back to broadway, panting, asthma attack feeling, presaging the tightness and ER-electric-paddle hallucination later on. through a restaurant, up and over another barricade, still ten-thousand drunken sheets to the wind, crowd surfing over german tourists who just didn't give a damn. back to the clique, hugging and congratulations all around. "we never thought we'd see you again." "oh my god, two minutes..." and then the countdown, and not seeing the ball drop for a second year in a row, not because i was passed out on the ground, as in olden days, but rather, because that damn neon number sign was just too fucking bright. and i can't, couldn't, won't ever be able to turn away from the light.

then back uptown, stopping and stickerbombing and thinking about stencils all the way up to 116th. trains crazy-crowded and having to convince security not to close the whole party down. falling drunk and praying against vomit which marred last year. the carpet ruined and all the secondary cast streaming around me and slapping me and everyone else on the back. a giant love-in soon to get a thousand exploding times more lovely. the train out to the hamptons and passing out in buckets of drool and the thumping of railroad tracks so like the chest beating heart thumping killing and reinventing the world one-ness of the following thursday night. out on the platform, six of us dazed, absent three who would arrive with the fixer, in his crazy-driven car. out by shifty taxi to the beach, convalesing for the rest of the day, minus a walk on the beach staring at beauty clouds, which would become so important, like everything else, when things exploded into oneness just a day later. don't worry, we're getting closer, don't panic, and don't think about the bronx. out to the radio tower to look at the year old fills, and then to the house, to scrounge food, all of us happy together. TV and boringness and confusion, and the rest arriving that night. down to sleep by the fire, customarily roaring, and dreams of her, but younger, presaging-brigit, and going to sleep, good-night.

waking up on thursday, i can't believe the weekend, god, it wasn't even a weekend, just a middle of the week, i can't believe it could contain so my. oh my god. i shouldn't say it, jesus. but no, concentrate on the writing, it will all get out, not really, but don't worry, hold on to the thread, okay: exploring east hampton, putting the Professor on a train, thinking about throwing some flatware, boosting stuff from polo and a toy store, the duck pond and tagging swans and silence and nature, thinking back to Thoreau, but he wasn't here, and neither was my old partner, but screw him, he missed it, going on: there was the rocks at montauk, and the sun setting, but really already set, over the beach, and the second, secret beach, and dreams of "oh my god, it's EARTH!", and staring up at the lighthouse, over our heads, and thinking of stars, and axe-murderers, and the sand and breaking our necks and breaking out, and oh my god, there must still be some of this in my system, but it's okay, it will go away, don't worry, go on: hiking back, treacherous, holding on to each-other, like the way we would hold on in a few hours, but not yet, over the hills, down into the median sand strip, seeing people, but not the right ones, over the hills and back to the water, up to the path, reunion by the bathrooms, now wrecked, and the car. back to liz's, and here's where it all starts and ends, now don't go fuzzy, face it with me. we decided brownies were the only way to go, as another, better quarter ounce was smoked upstairs, kind-bud, probably, and much wine, and booze, and i'm still smelling like jack daniels, even now.

expertly baked by james, so like jesus in dreams, but closer maybe to disembodied spirits, there's that deja-vu again, maybe i was right, no, can't think of that now, just describe: he sautes, while i mix up the batter. we bake, and it cools and we all just chill. oh god, it's beginning, they're ready and we dash for the fridge. four or five dimes had gone in, no i'm exagerating, just three, but they were crazy thick, and with the brownie-time-release-lose-your-soul-to-madness-delivery, three was enough. upstairs, more TV, all eating one. "yo, keep them away from JUGZ, we don't want him freaking out..." how right they were. me eating another. sneaking two halves. three, maybe a little more in all. all together about a third of the batch. sickness and i'm dizzy, i've got to finish this before they break down this door, even as james broke down the door, oh no! i haven't given him a code name, oh never mind, what does it matter now, all masks are off anyway. i've faded back into manic-ness when i thought i'd stay on the straight and real. hallucinations begin shortly after Mr. Princess called on the phone, right with the PGTV thing on the screen, and not being able to feel any breath. my first trip, and last, and oh my god, you'll never believe me. we've all got to tell them, just kidding it's only a plot device, or sort of, never mind, here we go:

i'm seeing patterns and regressing to birth, liz is next to me, i'm my father, i'm dying i'm on the bed. BIG ANT is there, scared. she's terrified, and throwing up, and now completely sober, radiant and pale, even after the full bottle of wine, and the brownie, and everything else. liz is holding me, there i go again, revealing names, never mind. she's holding me, but she's more than she is, my mother, and everyone else. i'm dying and i'm my father dying, and thinking back to all the people i've helped in my life. i'm sarah's father thinking about ancient empty southern towns, and nightmare nights, and the cause, and righteousness. and i'm sarah, and there's no escape. regaining consciousness in the bathroom, not really, now i'm getting crazy universal. we are eachother and the universe moves through us. this moment is the beginning and end. in a second, i'll begin the whole trip all over again, as one of them, a baby, who knows. the cycles start. ain't nothing like the real thing baby, is playing, real soft, somewhere in the back. real meloncholy. i think i'm dying again. i keep coming back to this bathroom, covered in vomit and drool, and looking up at ARCS, over and over, asking him, telling him, having him smile at me, as if to say "it's all such a joke, cosmic, crazy, run!" and then looking at mike, and him so radiant, holding up my face on silver foil, and me thinking it was jesus, oh my god, i hope they don't use this later in court, but nevermind, here we go: mike, and behind him, turning to josh, acknowledging some family truth, and snapping back to the Fixer, sitting there on my legs, and telling him something but what? ODIE, in front of the mirror, splashing water on his face, water which was the secret, saying "oh my god. what should we do? oh my god, calm down. next time, think. oh my god. next time remember the women! remember the women. next time don't go so fast. oh my god, it's going slower. oh my god. help me, jesus please..." and me knowing that it was all me speaking, but being him, hearing it through his ears. and looking down, the yellow blanket, ripping it off. naked, there on the floor of the bathroom.

then the famous break for the window. i thought i was reaching for god. getting out of the cycle, you can't understand it, you won't, you wouldn't just listen. this is what i told them. there was a secret, a great big mystical secret, and we were all each other, and the universe was one. and don't ignore this, it's important. the secret could only be found in a thousand subtle-moments of every day experience in each of our lives. we'd all have to figure it out together, but we couldn't, and didn't, and that's why the cycle kept going around. if we found out the secret, we get to the higher level, but until then, it would always begin and end in vomit and shit and bathroom tiles, somewhere out on the island, in the upstairs bathroom. oh my god, i'm blacking out again.

eventually, i started coming to these moments of clarity, on every cycle, just for a second. i declared, remembering the importance of orgasm, that i could just masturbate my way out of the whole thing. and attempting to, and being stopped by the guys. damn, i have good friends. because orgasm, it was so close to the light, and no, i can't forget the darkness, and the dirt and vomit, like two sides of the same, no, don't lapse into suburban cliche, like parts of the same experience. the blood and the light. and all of it being surrounded by friendship, by togetherness and love. we were a team, and we'd all get through it together. and i was everyone and they were me. just like some sick fantasy, but it was true, for that one moment, oh my god, now i'm stepping back again, and remembering where i am, at the keyboard, in harlem, new york. knowing some part of me never really forgot. not now, not that night, not ever.

and now, everyone being outside, and calling me, so i'm going to sign off soon, with just a little more ado. many things weren't in the experience, but seem, through some crazy miracle, to be slipping into it now. like taking a sneak attack through time. which, in itself, as itself, TIME, it was very important during the whole thing. faster and slower, faster, then slower. and back again. i was time, simple, and then rushing back to the whole experience again. i'm at the limit, like thinking about huge, horrible numbers and distance galaxies and the form of a nucleotide. seeing the happenstance and the coincidence in everything, seeing a million subtle relations which may or may not exist.

so i'll sign off now, after i've been so rudely interupted by her, my twin sister, who was there, that night, but really wasn't, so can't understand, never mind. i'm rendering a moral, and then poof, like kaiser soze, gone. here goes: if i was right, and it wasn't just a all-encompassing huge, tripped out drug experience, total psychotic episode, and really did render some insight into the universe, it goes like this: we're all part of the same thing, we're all together, in everything, the higher moments, of better behavior, noble motives, and love are the ones that matter, and everything else exists to be understood as counterpoint, maybe, or maybe just to exist. the universe is the way it is by accident, and i'm, all of us, each, we're all the center. i need to recover. soon. nevermind. that's all, this is for all of you. take it. it's funny and embarassing and it's yours.

from everyone elses perspective it was the same, of course, up until thursday night. then, basically, JUGZ ate too many pot brownies, collapsed on a couch, wandered into a bedroom. started spinning and kicking at liz. shouting and being incoherent, was dragging into the bathroom and restrained for three hours, except when he managed to get loose for a second and break for the window, and the couple of time he got up, stark naked after taking of his clothes, to confront liz and scream and yell at her. and the time he called for anthea, and a million insane ravings for four hours. and all the next morning, until he told ODIE: "if that's not death, i'm scared of what is, because i never want to go back there again." and then the sunset outside of some McDonalds on the the LIE, and the crazy way the sky behaved, and the after party on seventh street. the same night, incidentely, across town, as another brigit, maybe the same one... never mind... this stops here.

remember, the sickest thing is, you had to be there, and you never were and won't be again. unless i was right, in that highest moment, and we are all part of the same thing, and life and the universe and all of us ends in nakedness and vomit and the staring at the sparks in people's eyes, 11:30 p.m. in winter, in some bathroom in amagansett long island. This was the first two weeks of our winter break, but honestly, it couldn't get any better or worse than this. So, tired, paranoid, and dizzy, 12:51am, Sunday, January 5th, i'm out.

thanks, for following along anyway, and hearing, because i wanted to be heard. thanks from me,

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