The bluegrass band wasn’t a bluegrass band after all, it was a Phish-esque jam band. It was strange, transitioning from my usual 4/4 house beat dancing, back to the noodley, free-form hippy dancing. I remember going the other way when I first starting going to raves, after years as a Phish fan (here is a photo of me at a show in Vancouver, BC, circa ‘95). It’s like I’m stepping back in my own history.

The party was sort of funny…and amazing house (perhaps even cooler than our hand-built loft-filled hippy shack), dear sweet people, and huge amounts of beer. I watched Andreas (my 24 yo returning student boyfriend) get completely sorted on a combination of beer and Southern Comfort, and at one point he slurred to me “Thish feelsh jusht like collesh!”

“You *are* in college, remember?” I reminded him, as a drunk 19 year-old stumbled by.

Strange to be back in a hippy college scene…I graduated from the University of Washington two and a half years ago, and yet here I am, back at keggers, patting my boy’s back as he barfs into a hedge…*sigh* At almost 26, am I too old to be doing this? I was a hippy college student when *I* was 20, and I’m endlessly amazed to see people doing the exact same things I did, thinking (as I did) “Wow, my life is unlike any other.” There are parallels to our experiences that we cannot deny.