I Am Destroying My Own Body!
LSD was my new favorite drug. I couldn’t believe I had the option to do it whenever I wanted to do it, even though it was highly illegal and had terrified me for most of my life. I was thrilled to have a new way of life, a new meaning for my life. Being on LSD gave me purpose.
It didn’t matter terribly that my “purpose” was nothing more than introspection that couldn’t be usefully harnessed or turned into knowledge. I thought that when I was tripping, I was actually experiencing reality. It didn’t matter that “reality” came with colors and trails and the inability to function in what was, actually, the real world.
So, in the summer (fall and winter) of 1988, I did LSD as frequently as I possibly could. Gregg and I spent the rest of the week drinking and smoking pot, then we’d spend 24 hours or so on acid. These were the 24 hours of the week I loved best.
It was impossible to just sit around and listen to music when acid was pumping through my veins. I had to get up, get out, explore, see the world! This might be how the word “trip” evolved; I always wanted to go somewhere.
Mostly, I wanted to go outside and be in nature, especially at night. Gregg and I would walk down the paths of Schenley Park from the time the sun set until it came back up, breathing the air and listening to the water ripple and staring at leaves on the trees as though they were infused with magic.
Once I swore I saw a spaceship landing in an old polo field. (It was a plane, no polo played there.)
I was bear emerging from hibernation. I had no desire to do things I normally wanted to do. I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes, for example. It seemed wrong to pollute such fresh, clear air, right there in the park.
One night on acid I was walking through the woods and, as I’d done since the age of 10, put my fingers in my mouth to gnaw on what was left of a fingernail.
“Oh my God!” I said, alarmed. “I’m tearing off pieces of myself! I am destroying my own body!” I stopped biting my nails immediately, and that nasty habit ended permanently.
I also didn’t want to drink alcohol. The thought made me nauseous. Sometimes we would come out of Schenley Park and go into a bar to sit down, where I would order a beer and just stare at it. I had no interest whatsoever in feeding my alcoholism.
“It’s like I’m putting poison inside me,” I said to Gregg. “It’s like drinking gasoline!” I tried to take a sip, but I gagged violently. But when I bought a beer, the bartender was also happy to bring me a glass of water, which I downed with great zeal.
“Nobody should drink anything but water,” I explained, sipping and tasting its coolness, my tongue tapping the ice cubes. “This is the best drink ever and it’s free!” I couldn’t get over the simplicity of what was provided to us, straight from God’s green earth.
I drank glass after glass of water not because I was thirsty, but because it was astounding to me how fabulous it tasted, how beautiful the experience of “water.” It foreshadowed my future in ways I could never have imagined.
When it occurred to me that we could also use water to bathe and shower, my mind was nearly blown.
LSD taught me things.