After a delightful anniversary painting pottery on Saturday, and then a rollickingly fun night at the OK Hotel’s “Dialect” club night, and a Sunday spent preparing, our 2001: A Forest Odessey party pretty much rocked the house last night. The alter-egos were ridiculous (Owen as a security guard, TW as a Mary Kay lady, Andreas as a wigger–that one was frightening!–and Megasoul as a chola), the cider was strong and deeeelish (although somehow we only got NINE DOLLARS in donations), and folks were still up at 7:00 when I passed out cold.

Some of the evenings high points included TW with a box of Certs breath mints squeezed between her breasts as she growled “I’m CERTain you will be having a very NICE night,” Andreas pulling out the stops on the disco moves ganked from “Saturday Night Fever,” Megasoul and I howling and vogueing our ways through “Stay Free” (a disco song who’s vocals of “INDEPENDANT!” make the whole song sound like an ad for Stay-Free Maxi-Pads. Ridiculous. It was especially good to see Owen!

Interesting how, when you party on New Years Eve, your first day of the new year (or new millenium) is spent glowering over your hangover, or tip-toeing around your own cracked out body.

And now, a story. The first time I’d ever heard the term “cracked out” was the night I met some friends in San Francisco in August of ‘96. In the haze of 4:30 am and waning a waning collective MDMA glow, a new raver friend looked at me and queried “You’ll be hanging out cracked out with us tomorrow, right?”

“Wait a minute,” I thought to myself, “Do these ravers use CRACK?” The really disturbing thing is that this unanswered question didn’t deter me from hanging out with them the next day, when I discovered that being “cracked out” simply means that you’re burnt out from the last night; hungover from the chemicals imbibed. The day after, I found that kicking it cracked out involved an exceptionally late brunch meal, glazed eyed joint smoking, empty headed badinage (look it up), and (in the case of that particular morning) half-assed making out with dry mouth.

Today, it included the late brunch (4pm at The Urban Onion, which was the only place open), sleeping while Dre and Megasoul and Tim watched movie after movie, and drinking Martinelli’s cider from the bottle. I took too long of a nap, now I’m wide awake while everyone else is sleeping (well, PERHAPS Tim and Megasoul are sleeping… ;) )