Another Saturday night had arrived and I gathered up my usual crew and headed for a rave. It was my friend J's birthday, and the first party we had attended together in a few weeks. I was really looking forward to it since the last few days had been very stressful. Some unpleasant events at work had led me to quit my job rather suddenly, which left me uncertain about my immediate future and a little depressed. If that wasn't enough, I was also recovering from a head and chest cold.

We picked up my girlfriend and headed to the party. We were all disappointed to discover it was being held in a familiar and unpopular venue. Inside we milled about and talked while the place filled up. I had some acid but I wasn't sure if I was going to take it or not. After talking to my girlfriend L for a while, I decided to go ahead and take two hits.

Soon after I ingested my acid the first DJ finished up and a live p.a. came on. He started off with some interesting, spacey techno stuff. The acid began working quickly and it hit me harder than I expected. Within a half hour I was feeling it strongly. The p.a. began playing harder and harder stuff. He started off as techno, led into a more industrial sound and then into pure hardcore.

I don't like hardcore. I find it rather annoying as a matter of fact. I don't find it very interesting to listen to and it is all but impossible to dance to music that exceeds 175 bpm. L and I sat and discussed the music and even considered leaving. We got up and wandered around, but by then it was very crowded and hard to navigate. I talked to J about how much hardcore sucked and how I was tripping harder than I expected off of two hits. By then I was having trouble focusing on things, since they kept splitting into multiple images and moving around. The music was harsh and unyielding and very, very annoying. I was eager for the next DJ to start.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity the next act came on. He had been listed as Goa Trance/Hardcore, so I was hoping he would play some good, danceable psychedelic trance. The start of his set was promising, and I decided to take another hit of acid. Unfortunately, except for a few decent tunes in the first half hour of his set he also played almost exclusively hardcore. L and I wandered around some more and continued expounding about the unpromising music as I tripped harder and harder. I think I peaked while we were trying to cross the dance floor. It was packed with wall to wall people, almost none of them dancing. I was getting intense visuals off the lights and the screen that were set up in front of the stage. Everything I saw was generating intense trails, making it very difficult to keep from running into people. I literally couldn't tell where they were standing in relation to me. Luckily L was there to help steer me through the crowd.

We returned to our seats and continued talking. I was enjoying her presence and our conversation. In between talking we would stop and kiss for a while. As usual, kissing on LSD was phenomenal. With eyes closed, each kiss generated beautiful, surging images behind my eyelids. It felt like we were merged at the point of contact and each kiss seemed to last an eternity. As we broke one kiss L said "That's nice". I had to agree.

We were both bored and annoyed with the music. Several times we discussed the possibility of leaving, but we didn't have any way to get home. The music had gone beyond annoying and was now oppressive. I wanted it to end and was even beginning to think it was going to set off a bad trip if it continued much longer. I wandered off to talk to one of the other people we came with, N. He was rolling (tripping on MDMA) and in a fairly talkative mood. He expressed regret that I had quit (we had been coworkers) and we discussed work and various related topics for a while. I ended up telling him to be careful that he didn't let what happened to me happen to him.

After that I returned to where I was sitting to catch my breath and think a bit. I began thinking about work and what had happened to make me leave. At first I was a bit depressed. I had left in anger, without giving notice. My boss and I had exchanged some pretty harsh words. Even though I felt my anger was justified, I regretted leaving my coworkers in a bind by deserting them so suddenly. All of these things conspired to put me in a negative mind set. But then I began thinking about the positive aspects of it. For quite a while I had been spending far too much energy on work. It had been stressing me out to the point where I felt it was impacting my health. I had developed carpal tunnel syndrome (which my boss refused to pay to treat) from sitting in front of a computer all day. All these things and more had distorted my focus until I was no longer happy at work, but I was still unable to find the courage to leave until my boss pissed me off so badly that I had no choice. I suddenly realized I was free of a situation that had been weighing on me like an anchor. I felt really, really good. I let go of the accumulated stress of the past year and saw my unemployment as an opportunity to move on to better things instead of a thing to be afraid of. Interestingly, my wrist felt better than it had in weeks, being almost pain free, even though dancing usually irritated it.

Soon after this the last hardcore DJ finished up and a jungle DJ took over. I was greatly relieved. J and I moved out on the floor and began dancing. As usual, once I began dancing everything else became relatively unimportant and I began really enjoying myself. I was having a pretty damn good time once the hardcore was over. I ran into my roommate M and he said basically the same thing. As far as I could tell, not too many people were into the hardcore. Everyone seemed relieved when it was finally over.

L suggested we go up front and sit on a speaker, and that sounded like a good idea to me. We moved up to the front and sat down in front of the speaker. The DJ was pretty good and people were finally dancing. I enjoyed sitting there watching people get down. I really like watching people dance, especially if they are good. Before long I couldn't watch anymore. I got off the speaker and began dancing. I was feeling really great and really into the music. I stopped to rest and steal a kiss a few times. After a while L suggested I go talk with my friends, which I thought sounded like a pretty good idea.

I went and sat down with J and we talked about the party and various other things for about an hour. I decided to go look for L and noticed her walking up to the front. I sat back down to wait for her. She returned and we all decided it was time to go. This was around 4:00 a.m. After ten minutes or so we managed to round everyone up and leave the party. We drove to L's house, where I was going to stay for the rest of the weekend. Unfortunately she hadn't brought her keys and her roommate was still at the party. We decided to go kill an hour or so in a coffeeshop.

The closest thing that was open was an IHOP. We went in and sat down. People were giving us extremely strange looks. We were all still pretty zoomed. The waiter seemed totally freaked out by us, like he expected us to rob him or something. I wonder if maybe he wasn't getting some sort of contact high off of us. Five of the seven of us were candyflipping, and L and myself were both tripping on acid. I'm sure we were giving off some weird energy!

We sat in the IHOP drinking tea, coffee and juice for over an hour. It was more than a little unpleasant. We were all a little paranoid and wished we were anywhere else. We finally decided to head back to L's house and see if her roommate had returned.

Luckily, he had. We went inside and sat around chatting about inconsequentials until someone was down enough to drive everyone home. After another hour or so N's girlfriend A decided she wasn't tripping anymore and was ready to leave. I wished J a happy birthday a final time and gave him a big hug as he left. Afterwards L and I headed to bed.

We lay in bed talking for another hour or so. I told her how much I enjoyed hanging out with her, and that I would have had a fairly lousy time at the party if it hadn't been for her. I thanked her and told her how much I liked her and how glad I was that we had met. We started kissing and before long we had sex. I was still tripping just a little bit and the sex was wonderful. The leftover acid high acted to tune me in to her feelings and allowed me to lose myself in what I was doing. Afterwards we were both exhausted and fell asleep easily.

This was a nice trip. I really enjoyed spending time with L in the opened psychedelic state. As I get to know her better I enjoy her company more and more. This trip reaffirmed that. I am also grateful for the fact that I was able to think through and come to terms with my decision to leave my job. I'm sure I would have reached the same conclusions without the trip, but the acid catalyzed the process, wrapping up in a few hours what might have otherwise taken many agonizing days or weeks. Last, but not least I was happy to help one of my good friends celebrate his birthday in our favorite way, dancing all night in the presence of the divine.