Oregon Country Fair - Darling's Reunion

It fell into our laps back at the campsite so we journeyed out shortly thereafter. With the tide of the LSD coming in within me, my two homies and I sailed down the highway toward the third party vendors. Homie 1 - Big Stache - is a very attractive man with a nose piercing, dirty long blonde hair, a set of beautiful tattoos about love and nature, a knack for clever conversation, and a recently surgically repaired ACL. Homes 2 - Pro - is a professional longboarder with an attractive face and immense conversational capability. Cars travelled at speeds less than ten miles per hour to compensate for the overwhelming amount of intoxicated fairies. Red and blue flashed infrequently because the police adopted an admirable hands off approach - only dealing with the most foolish delinquents. 

As we arrived at the vendors, Ken Kesey's son, Zane, was posted next to his notorious vessel, Further, selling sheet art.  A white man and woman were selling Mexican food to my left under the Big Brotheresque banner with a cartoon Mexican woman logo. My homie Big Stache grabbed a tamale and Pro bought a taco salad. A 30-40 year old female sat with us and began conversing. At this moment, colors were vibrating through different saturations and vibrancy. Conversation wasn't too easy for me, so I feel like it often died. She kept pushing more conversation. Questions about where we were from, what we do. Programmed response mode activated. She kept pushing more conversation. She began talking about how the government crafted lyme disease at lyme island and how many people are unknowingly affected with the most generalized range of symptoms I have heard; as an expected consequence, she started bashing my job as a natural product chemist (antibiotic researcher). I had a hard time not laughing when she said lyme is spread through chem trails. My homies and I had been making fun of gluten free, GMO free-esque-philosophy all day and she fit in quite well.. Nostalgicly, I remembered 7 hours prior to the conversation when I adopted a Chong voice and asked whether or not my mushrooms were gluten free and rid of high fructose corn syrup. I had a hard time not laughing when she proudly proclaimed she didn't take antibiotics to get rid of her lyme. Now, my conversation mode shut down per my command. Big Stache exploited an opportunity to leave and began laughing hysterically with the Pro. They thought it was hilarious how the girl was "an exact" replica of the salsa girl on the logo behind her. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b9/65/98/b9659815d2778af42df9894c1c84077f.jpg

 We set sail through the raging tide within us, and embarked back down the highway to pick-up the often lost homie, The Man - a boy unafraid to dress his way and play mandolin until people's ears fall off.

We rearrived at our campsite and I screamed The Man's name and he immediately appeared - albeit, rolling on MDMA and three hits of LSD. He got his hands on all of those drugs for free because a gentleman was empathetic toward him. You see, The Man had $150 pirated from him back home when we bought tickets at the store. We rehydrated and saddled up for our objective - sneak into Shady Rest campsite and reunite with the friends we partied with on Independence Day. The ground felt wonderful upon my bare feet. As we meandered out, we met a man named Alan. Alan taught English in other countries and carried a non-authentic English accent. Perfect for our vessel. He came aboard as a sherpa. We needed into Shady Rest and he coincidentally knew the way. Funny enough, he had permission to camp there, but his generosity - expected at the fair - made him come with us. Big Stache jumped the fence with his ACL problem and I caught him as we meandered into this foreign soil. I began thinking I cut my hand open. I had to wait to use a light so we didn't get caught on the outskirts of the campsite. My anxiety wavered with the tide, but I simply attached to the present. 

We paid to enter the adjacent campsite and passed all the drug dealers to arrive at an amazing cello concert of the band Gaia. Anxiety occasionally rose, but I simply attached to the present. I broke out the bird as my choice dance move. We danced under the wavering trees and circus dancers until it began to rain and the band had to retreat. How pissed the singer was, yet it felt so wrong that someone as supposedly enlightened as her became overwhelmed by her emotions. Typical. Someone with a carted amp cleverly led us deeper into the campsite and would stop and place the speaker down until a larger crowd gathered. Then he continued. We stopped at campsites, Honey Buckets, and finally a big Red Tent. Alan got lost with a girl. I sat down and the real fun began.

This Girl with an ukelele asked if I wanted some red wine. I said fuck it and pulled it and passed it to The Pro. Small talk began with this girl, DarC, DarB, John, Brandon, and the Pro. I translated my understanding of the guitar onto the ukelele and The Man jammed on mandolin with me incessantly playing C and G. When I began feeling fancy, I threw in an F and A minor. The group that we met was great to talk to and we decided to go to the bathroom together. On the way, we stopped because some requested I play "I'm Yours". I knew the chords from playing Vallentunes in high school, but I played it quite like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" so we sang that instead. It was a lovely disaster and many people joined. John looked at Big Stache and jokingly proclaimed, "Let's play some Big Poppa." Big Stache cleverly replied, "That's his jam." knowing damn well I'd start playing it - with the same chords. A crowd of twenty people gathered and joined as we jammed. People were throwing their hands in the air and laughs were shared. We went to the bathroom, jammed on the same chords some more, and returned.

This Girl truly sparked my interest with her humor and education. Topics ranged from Fyodor Dosteyvsky, Nietzche, Buddhism, soil science, chemistry, biology, and simple life stories. For one of the few times in my life, I felt like a girl sparked my interest with conversation. We talked and jammed until 5 AM and with the Acid wearing off, we returned to camp to sleep. I didn't ask for her number - maybe she was with the other guy and I don't like to interfere - conversation was just so interesting. I suppose I like the mystery.