Wonderland?! Kinda. I want to live there.

I wasn't really sure what to expect the first time I did shrooms. I'd heard some people say they'd had really awful, scary trips, and I'd heard other people say that they had crazy hallucinations (seeing people/things that weren't really there). One of my best friends had done shrooms before, but she was drunk at the time and wound up sick--so she couldn't really tell me what the experience was like. I was really nervous, mostly because I was terrified of having a bad trip.

Anyway, back to the story: it was her birthday, we looked forever, finally found shrooms. Keep in mind, this was on her birthday... and she'd been partying for 2 days prior. She'd had no sleep.

We ate a cap and two stems each, then our other friend took us to the Drive-in to see Inglorious Basterds (great movie, btw). This first attempt was largely unsuccessful. There were no effects. So, four hours later, our friend drops us off, and we're back at her house.

At this point, we decided to eat more, even though my friend wasn't feeling good. We each ate two caps and three large stems, and popped in Rent (the stage performance). While waiting on the shrooms to kick in, my friend fell asleep (like I said, she'd been up for days). This is how I wound up tripping on shrooms by myself.

At first I was doubtful they were going to work because of the lack of effects the first time, but I was wrong. The first thing I noticed was that her pale yellow chair in the corner was suddenly a whole lot more yellow. It was super bright. In her living room, my friend had floor-length horizontal blinds with a weird pattern on them. I'd never noticed the pattern before--until it started growing. Out of the corner of my eye, I started to see the pattern twist, turn, and grow like an out-of-control vine. Then the blinds themselves started breathing, in and out. Every time I took a breath, they took a breath. I tried holding my breath to see if they'd still breathe without me --they did. I kept trying to wake my friend up, but she was passed out. So I kept watching Rent...... and trying to avoid looking at the cup on the edge of the table that kept looking like a little person out of the corner of my eye.

My friend woke up and felt sick, so she wanted to go to bed. She went and laid down in her bed, and I went to the bathroom to pee. The pattern on the floor was moving and I kept feeling like the Alice In Wonderland picture on her wall was looking at me while I was peeing. I told it to stop being rude. Then I looked in the mirror. My pupils were huge, which made me laugh. I realized I was laughing, stopped, and studied my face. It looked like it had a bit of a red rash on it. When I realized I was grinning like an idiot, I started laughing again and went to her bedroom.

I laid across her bed in the dark listening to the radio with the same grin on my face. I felt so happy. I realized it was possible to see more colors in the pitch-black darkness of her room than it was in the light of the living room. I watched the colors for a while (not sure how long really), before deciding I had to get up. I absolutely could NOT lie there anymore, so I told her I was leaving, got my stuff from the living room, and made my way to the front door.

Once out the front door, I got a little confused about where I was but quickly figured it out. I didn't mind, really, because it was so wonderful outside. The air felt great and everything smelled great; I stood and looked down the road for several minutes, contemplating walking home because it was so nice out. Realizing it was 4AM and my cell phone was dead, I decided against it. Walking down her driveway to the back of the house where I parked was fabulous. The trees and vines and flowers were growing right in front of my face, twisting and turning like the design on the living room blinds. I felt like I was in garden from the movie "Coraline," but with less color.

Once I got in my car and found my keys, I had no problem turning around in her driveway and driving the short distance (about a mile) home. The lights on the console were really bright, though, and at one point my windshield got really, really big and disappeared. I was glad when I got home and stood on my front porch for a while smoking a cigarette. I kept hearing weird frogs (which we don't have around here), so I went in and woke my husband up off the couch. He was really groggy and grumpy, but his eyes shone really bright grey in the dark. He went to bed, leaving me to put up the bags of groceries I'd left in the floor earlier.

I had tons of energy and felt really good--that's very unusual for me. I turned on some music and skipped around the kitchen as I put up groceries. That didn't last long, though, because I got really sweaty (our air was broke) and kind of sick feeling. It was about that time that I realized I had put frozen juice concentrate in the dishwasher, milk in the cabinet, and canned foods in the refrigerator. I laughed out loud at myself for a few minutes, threw the rest of the bags of groceries wherever I could find room on the counter, stove, and dishwasher, and let the dogs inside. They were crazy. Like really crazy. They moved so fast I could see motion blurs left behind.

I decided to try to lay down in the bed, but whenever I closed my eyes I saw a carnival behind my eyelids. I wanted to ride the rides. I talked and talked and talked about what was going on, finally waking my husband up. I was still really hot, so I washed my face with a cold, green washcloth. It felt so good. I decided I was washing my face with the rainforest (don't ask--I can't explain).

Finally things started to calm down a little (it was 6AM, and we had eaten the shrooms the second time at around midnight). I was really worried about having to drive to school at 10AM (a two hour drive!), but I eventually got sleepy sitting on the couch talking and watching my husband play video games.

I went to bed, woke up three hours later, and felt..... kinda good, actually.

It was ahhhhhmazing.