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You Are Embarrassing Your Future Self

I had to go to the dentist to get my front tooth fixed the other day. I chipped it. Well, I actually chipped it a really long time ago, and have gotten it fixed a few times over the years. It had been awhile since it chipped again. I was due. Normal chipped tooth stuff.


(I was just about to describe how I chipped it, and I decided to search my old Xanga posts - which are archived on Wordpress - for "chipped tooth" and found this post from June 5th, 2008, recalling the experience:)


the last time i fainted was in the summer of 2003 in New York City. i was in a club, probably dehydrated, and i fainted not once not twice but four times - first in the middle of the dance floor, then at the wall after throwing up, then in the bathroom stall as i was undoing my pants, then again as i was about to wash my hands at the sink. i ended up with a chipped tooth and busted lip. and now, here i am in Salt Lake City, Utah. and i fainted at the Erykah Badu concert.


I am laughing and cringing. The all lower case! The double spaces after the periods! No one needs to see how they wrote 14 years ago. It isn't far away enough, like when you read something from when you were five and it was adorable.


But then I kept looking and found my post from June 22nd, 2003. The cringe, indeed, gets much worse:


Last night, I met up with some old friends that I used to party, or I guess you can say '"rave'" with two years ago.  We smoked a lot of blunts...a lot, of this stuff called Sour Diesel.  I had a couple of beers, but other than that, I felt completely sober...not even really high.  Nothing can beat Cali weed. We headed out to Club Arc by about midnight.  Party ran 'till 8 in the morning. I really liked the club...excellent sound system, good music, nice small room for intimacy...they didn't serve alcohol, so you know everyone there was fucked up on drugs.  Not even long into my time being there, I was standing, kinda dancing, listening to the music, when all of a sudden, I got really dizzy.  Then, my vision started to slowly fade away.  I kinda put my hands on my knees, and then, next thing I know, I'm sprawled out in the middle of the dance floor.  I'm completely blacked out, but I think I remember actually being conscious, so, like, I knew that I was passed out on the floor.  I finally came to, 'cause people were trying to get me to wake up.  They moved me to a big block thing to go lay on. Then I threw up. Then I fainted again, on that big block. Two of the girls I was with came to me.  I told them I needed water.  Keep in mind that I had no idea what the fuck was going on with me...because this was really random.  It's not like I dropped or anything.  I was feeling completely fine. I told them that I wanted to go to the bathroom.  They had to walk me, 'cause even though my eyes were open, I couldn't see anything, everything was black.  Really scary feeling. We got to the bathroom, and next thing I know, I'm on the bathroom floor with them trying to wake me up! I spit out something from my mouth - I fell on my face so I chipped my front right tooth.  I also had a pretty busted lip.  I drank more water... I got into the stall, and the last thing I remembered was starting to undo my pants...but next thing I see, they're trying to wake me up again! I fainted in the stall. They said that they heard a big sound, and saw my legs coming from under the stall door.  My friend Linda got me another bottle of water.  I started to feel better as I chugged the entire thing.  We sat there in the bathroom for awhile until I felt a little better.  Then we went back on the dance floor. Of course I wasn't feeling too hot and I was still kind of in shock of what the fuck just happened to me, so I sat down.  I wanted to go home, but there was no way I could, since all my stuff was still back at the apartment we were at.  And it's not like anyone was gonna leave. So I sat there - for maybe five hours straight.  I tried to sleep for awhile, but security came up to me shining a flashlight in my face and told me to stay awake.  I almost wanted to say to him, "I'm not on fuckin' drugs, you moron, I'm just tired!"  So, I sat there, talking to whoever ended up next to me every now and then, staring at the lights, watching people be fucked up, and of course taking in the beautiful music. I think I might have been dehydrated.  This kind of thing (but definitely not as major) happened at Raging Waters when I was in middle school.  I got the same initial feeling, but went to First Aid and they gave me some Gatorade and I was alright.  It was really hot in the club, and I think I remembered being really thirsty but not thinking anything of it.  Plus, when I ate a big stoner dinner, I didn't have anything to drink with it.  So maybe that's a possibility? We left at about 7.  They went to an afterparty in Brooklyn.  Hell yeah I wanted to go home! I'm gonna try and get the tooth fixed when I go to Arizona this week, 'cause I'm sure it'll be cheaper than it would be here.  Great, I get to see Don with a chipped tooth and a fucked up lip.  I guess it could've been worse, I mean, good thing security didn't see.  I would have gotten in big trouble!  Plus they probably would've took me out in a stretcher and I would be the symbol of those anti-rave commercials.  What kills me is that I wasn't even on E.  Ha.  What the fuck happened?!?!


"This stuff called Sour Diesel". My snobbery on Cali weed. "Excellent sound system." Things being "random." "And of course the beautiful music." Swearing and probably thinking I was so cool, because I was 19 years old. Oversharing every detail. Referring to yet another time of fainting and not having learned the lesson. And my raver boyfriend who lived in Arizona, my raver boyfriend that I met at a rave in San Francisco, who isn't even alive anymore.


It's such a trip to look back at POV's from your past. It always reminds me that the things I am thinking and saying and doing and writing right now... will eventually make me cringe in the future. Humbling!


It's also interesting to look back on how we tell stories, and how they change. How they edit themselves as they get further away. If I were to describe this night to you now, I would have told you that I was a child that had no idea how to take care of herself. I would tell you that I was definitely on drugs, because even though I wasn't on ecstasy, I had smoked a lot of weed. I would tell you that I was prone to fainting and it was a recipe for failure because it was hot and enclosed, and I hadn't been drinking water. And I would tell you that it took me until my 30s until I learned how to take care of myself, because now I very rarely get high, if I did it wouldn't be in public, I eat well and drink a lot of water, and I leave when I want to. Could you believe I was in my 20s at the Erykah Badu concert and that shit was still happening?


Because you just don't know... until you know. Which always makes me wonder-- what don't I know now? And how embarrassing is it?


You know, this blog didn't end up at all like I had originally planned. I was going to write about how when we are reminded of things from our past, they're opportunities to acknowledge how far we've come. How I can have a flashback of something I had completely forgotten, hear an old song, remember an old relationship, or smell a specific scent and time travel to whoever I was at the time, not knowing what I do now, wishing for all these things that eventually came true. How the cool job I have now is close to the building where my old group therapy was, where I once went to every single week when I was in some of the most painful and hopeless times of my life, and I get to drive by it, and remember. How life is funny and fun and weird and messed up and miraculous. But then I got distracted by old Xanga posts.


Can't wait 'til this post embarrasses me one day. (I still listen to EDM.)


Understandably did not have a photo from Club Arc, but here is one from Limelight in 2001, where I cropped out the glowstickers from West Point I had just met.




1 commentaire


sour.diesel.nyc
26 mars 2022

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