Live blogging this mushroom trip (2016)

Weds. 3/16 10:50 office

So I guess we’re doing this today. 11 am, just took a small tiny bit to start. Why does everybody hate the taste? Tastes like getting fucked up to me. If David Chang used it in a dumpling people would wait outside in the rain for an hour just to look at one.

Had a tough time after the marathon yesterday, didn’t feel like I could do anything today, figured why not. If I’m going to take the day off let’s take the day REALLY FUCKING OFF. But then this morning I felt motivated to come here whether I get anything done or not.

Thinking about the guy on the platform fucking w/ his girlfriend, his sadistic grin, “Why are you getting so mad?” I wanted to start a conversation with her about anything and give her some psychic relief. Give me some psychic relief. That’s what I’m hoping for out of this. I want to know what I don’t know.

11:45   Nothing yet. Taking a small pinch more. 483 words. Keep going.

Noon   My lips are getting plump. I feel like I can see words on the facing page, shadows of the depressions of the pen. The Depressions of the Pen. Everything sounds like a title. Everything Sounds Like a Title. What am I hoping to get out of this today? To see more. Pattern recognition, aids in understanding. Now going back and forth with the phone.

12:30   Something but not much. Taking more and then THAT’S IT. Good to keep track. I seem to be failing at tripping actual balls but okay.

I want to be wildly creative. Maybe the garbage picking thing is an epic poem. It’s enough to be in a good mood about living for a change.

Try to derive some wisdom from the mini bust of Venus on my desk. Work harder, she says. Work until your arms fall off.

1:20     Meditated, feeling wonderful, fantastic. Should not be allowed to feel this good. The simple act of drawing breath and releasing it, the revelation of the superstructure. We wants the redhead! I love Bill and my t-shirt that smells like grapes.

I am so fucking palms-sweatingly lucky. The old wrinkly skin on the back of my hand. Is the air in your body a part of you? The air you carry in your mouth and ears, in your lungs. Is that “me”?

Lockets with lost loves. Tractor beams but in a good way. Seahorses. Unzipping after unzipping.

Ugh, bathroom run noooooooo

A penguin, a nun, some Fiji islanders, all showing up in the rug. See the green cast creep over my clawed hand. Cracks in the fabric, snowflake-shaped splinters in the glass.

Remember hoping there was some force out there that would love every leaf and blade of grass so no living thing felt neglected? I knew how important it was to tell the trees they were loved.

The page like smoked glass. Speaking of which, haven’t smoked today, maybe the way to quit smoking pot is to do shrooms all the time.

I should go through [the] last few notebooks and see what they say but I’d probably want to set them on fire. My sweaty hands make the pages curl.

I should join a relief organization.

The flower, the face, so easy to find in the blank wall. A carnivorous fish. The demon wind. Falling off the back of your dragon. Someone vomiting their foot from their mouth. Flying snails, broken ducks. Grasping, but not in a desperate way. Friendly marshmallow cereal ghosts. Pink and yellow fans that fall and spin like dimes on the floor. Luminosity as a sign of life.

Why am I writing all this dumb shit about Pete? I finally have retorts for our fights 15 years ago. It’s stuck in my craw, which is very sticky. I should have my craw removed.

Twitter.

Lucky Strike bar, Tribeca. Hil? Joey? Holla. Thank god at least SOMEONE remembers. But who was that really beautiful, ruthless size queen? Wound up working at Blue Water. She sat on my fire escape and told me she wanted to date Derek Jeter which would not even be the last time I heard that said in perfect seriousness

I’m glad there’s no mirror here but I’m curious. Me and my mirror face, my waiter voice, half an octave higher than my usual bleat. Now I am smiling and greeting Manny the UPS guy in my head, rehearsing after the fact to make sure I did it right.

The wall is cool to look at too. A disco ball, a twelve-sided die. Rainbows and fractals and I’d rather not vomit but que sera sera, like Saunders on her 21^st birthday lying on my bathroom floor, puking. “I’m still having a really good time, though.” I wrote about it to Sarah. Sarah! It’s okay! I’m sorry I’m so bossy and overbearing and condescending and my voice always sounds sarcastic or otherwise forced to show how hard I’m trying.

Now I am singing!

The Woody Woodpecker song!

And I’m singing it to the tune!

Yeah, I’m on the Wonder Wheel now, bubbling pages, fish in the butter. Is that ceiling tin? Everything looks microbial, broadloomed, ridged by age. The wind…did something windy, I presume. The wind revved its engine, and poems almost seem worth writing again.

I talk to my baby in her stroller all the time. I don’t know how to hold my heavy head.

Who could fail to love me? Certainly not me! I love me and have loved myself for many years if not minutes now! Hello, beautiful self. It certainly has been a while since we’ve been together like this. It’s so wonderful not to be at war anymore. I love and accept and understand and forgive you.

This mirror is very far away. I must say, though, I am aging remarkably well from a distance. Having a body feels amazing. I am trying very hard to be deep. I should take more drugs. Moar drugs!

All is well but not very trippy. I thought I was going to have this big cathartic cry and all these profound realizations but all I have is this feeling of well-being and tranquility and gratitude. What the fuck is that! These mushrooms must not be any good.

I am definitely the caterpillar, though, sitting in my upside down pink polka dot beanbag chair. A kingpin. The Cowardly Lion. Van Gogh. One of those six-sided fung shui mirrors. Green and purple leopard spots. Tartan goat. Panda bears, geometry, kaleidoscope eyes indeed. A squeezy stress toy from the 80s.

Earlier I didn’t know what to do with myself and I rolled like 50 joints. Excellent impulse by me.

My feet are TINGLING BROTHERS AND BARNUM AND BAILEY CIRCUS.

Staring at the wall is great, is a totally acceptable way to spend an hour. Seams in the wall where the stitches look like scars. No. Scars in the wall where the spackle looks like stitches, and the stitches look like slash wounds.

Now I just look dumb. A little person. A sliver of river, something I would never write sober. I wouldn’t dignify that with ink. Yeah, I’m on the Wonder Wheel now, bubbling pages. Indigo and violet everywhere. Thinking ruins everything. Thinking ruins your looks and everybody else’s too. The dormouse, safety strap unbuckled. A Peter Bagge grotesque. Spiderwebs! Fucking everywhere!

Minky was titanium earlier, then deco, then Lego. Leo, a copper cubist cat. And you, Velvet, what makes you so special, so speckled, so perforated? You’re a seal, an eel, a bunch of other things that rhyme.

The billionteenth joint. I’m microdosing and megasmoking. Non-twinkly things are twinkling at me.

It’s ridiculous that I had to take drugs to find out things are basically okay.

I think I’ll hang out in the mirror and see what happens here. My mother’s face, crossed by the shadow of my father’s. A dead-eyed serial killer. A glass-eyed doll from an old story. Bernie Sanders. Princess Leia.

These shadows are doing great things for my cheekbones. Without my glasses I look 12. With, 38, at worst. 46 isn’t so bad. I look good for some 46.

(2016)