Fear and Loathing at UCSD

This is the story of later in the summer of 2008, the last week of July I believe. I had come down to Southern California for the ComiCon with Max, and Lauryn gave us a ride down to San Diego. We all decided to start our morning with some LSD and wanderings around UCSD (University of San Diego) because of the cool architecture and lots of eucalyptus trees. Max likes to chip eucalyptus bark in his hands when he is tripping.

Max and Lauryn, at the beginning of our journey.

I can't believe my hair was that long. It really blows my mind. I had gotten a horrible sunburn on my face thanks to the Day Star - my nose was leaking gross goop. I also lost a lot of weight doing a lot of psychedelics and as such my pants didn't fit too well, so I constantly had to hike them back up, completing the whole ponce look I have going on here.

This is the Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss!) Library, which looks like a crazy spaceship from a bad sci-fi movie. We spent a good amount of time in there, being noisy and looking at old books. We found an archived collection of Popular Mechanics magazines from the 80's that cracked us up.

We left the library and came across a map of UCSD which was water damaged and really hard to read. I told Lauryn and Max that I couldn't read the map, to which Lauryn replied 'Why? Are you so stupid you can't read?' On acid, you lose track of the magnitude of things, especially with sounds, so I yelled at Lauryn 'YOU KNOW, READING IS REALLY HARD FOR ME RIGHT NOW OK YOU DUMB BITCH!' Which caused a group tour nearby to immediately go silent and watch Lauryn and I glare at each other for what seemed like ages until we realized what we had just done.

There was this crazy looking tree that was dripping a deep red sap, we thought the tree was bleeding profusely.

Making our way back to the exterior of the library Max saw the moon, which he called. It's his so no one else can have it. Looking around for something equally awesome, I saw the Cognitive Sciences building and called that. It's mine. Lauryn didn't want to call anything so we gave her the West Coast, which is full of brazen hussies. This turned into the adventures of the Moon Ambassador, the Cognitive Sciences Robot, and Western Hussydom playing around on the exterior of the library to escape the Day Star, which we were all allied against due to it's face wrecking capabilities.

The ground outside the library looked like the surface of the moon, which I excitedly told Max about. Glaring at me, and in the sternest tone I have ever heard him talk to me in, he said, "You wouldn't know The Moon's maiden beauty." and smacked the camera out of my hands.

There was some general wandering around, watching the gentle coastal winds ripple through the trees, appreciating the architecture of UCSD, and idle conversation. We went to the cafeteria shortly thereafter to get something to eat.

Eating while tripping is always really hard. First, you lose perception of time, which messes up the internal dietary clock immensely. Secondly, you lose your appetite. Third, nothing looks appealing. Case in point, we went to the Subway in the cafeteria for lunch. Standing in line, we had another magnitude problem. There was a guy eating a sandwich at a table, but his sandwich looked huge compared to him. We couldn't decide whether the sandwich was enormous or the man was really small, so Lauryn went and stood next to him for comparison. Unfortunately that didn't help. To this day it still really bothers us that a midget might have been eating a giant sandwich.

I looked at the sandwich fixings through the glass, and everything looked like insects or organs to me - I couldn't take it; the bright lights, the noise of people eating, the prospect of eating a sandwich full of tapeworms and grubs. I stuffed a wad of bills (it turned out to be like $60) in Max's hand and ran to what I thought was outside. Turned out to be a breezeway, which I stood in the middle of trying to clear my mind as people navigated around me.

Max and Lauryn somehow made it through the ordeal of ordering food and came out bearing sandwiches, proceeding to tell me the horror stories of dealing with the Subway employees. I couldn't handle hearing it, their descriptions filled me with anxiety and fear. The fear of people, noise, and connection started to bother me, and as I looked at Lauryn and Max, two of my best friends, I began to feel extremely distanced from them.

After lunch we all needed to cool down and the acid had switched into the cerebral phase. We sat on the grass and contemplated silently in our own heads. I remember thinking that I had no future compared to Max and Lauryn, seeing the life and environment of UCSD only amplified that feeling. I had earlier that month had an experience which helped me decide I wanted to pursue science over art, but what would I do? I was just a long haired drugged out depressed cosmonaut, drifting through the empty space of my life.

A lack of connectedness and purpose. That's what gives me the Fear. No matter how much I try I still come up short. That's what causes my Loathing.