Snippet of Life - Trippin'

The Walls Are Melting!

It was a little bit after midnight, maybe a little after 1 AM. I had been to Santa Monica to see John Mayall perform his new album "Turning Point". I had ridden my motorcycle, alone because none of my friends were available to go or were as enthusiastic about Mayall's music. I had gotten in not long before, a bit chilled. I was relaxing, smoking a joint, drinking a glass of cheap wine (Red Mountain Vin Rose, $1.50 a gallon) when the posters began floating down off the walls.

I had dropped a half tab of acid about a hour before the concert, just before I left home, but it hadn't kicked in the whole night. I had written it off as the wrong half some hours before. It happens, this stuff is not made by Pfizer. I was wrong. It was just delayed. Very delayed. I was listening to KPPC out of Pasadena, an underground rock station that played just about anything available. No rules, few commercial interruptions, and those often somewhat off the wall and entertaining. I think the Who had been playing. I don't know. I had turned down the stereo to barely audible because my landlady would kill the power if I kept her awake or woke her up. Oddly, your sense of hearing adjusts until you can hear every note clearly.

I curled into a little ball as the familiar clammy feeling and goose bumps crawled across my skin. My nose felt like it was running and I sniffled. My eyes were runny. It was like having the flu but no fever. In fact, I was oddly comfortable and feeling sick simultaneously. The "speed" effect is my term for it. My mind wandered, came back, wandered again. I would shiver from time to time.

I went through a couple of glasses of wine. These were not little glasses. I listened to the radio. The music drew me in, picked me up and carried me to places I had been and places I had never seen.

The wallpaper is alive

I questioned my sanity. And got no answers. I went out to the kitchen and got deeply involved in the ivy wallpaper pattern. The vines and leaves twisted and turned on the wall. They glowed faintly. I made coffee. I had an old stove that needed matches to light the burners.I am always amazed that I never burned the place down when I did this under these conditions. Or scalded myself. Or set myself on fire.

At Peace

I sat on the landing at the top of the stairs that led up to the apartment I rented from Mrs. Badger and gazed out at the lights of L.A. to the north until the sun came up.

I was content to be there at this stage in my life, drifting, making minimum wage. Going nowhere at all.

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