last evening, i went to a rave in colorado, near denver. during the rave, i wrote a letter to myself/my lover for future reference. bare with me.

hey sweetheart… sorry if things don’t come out as “normally” as they should… i am in ?denver? with you… you are dancing out there, partying and enjoying yourslef as you always do at raves… i am chilling in the tent: my favorite spot at raves these days… a group of kids came up here, asked if i was alone.. i said i was with someone but that they were welcome to chill and smoke a joint. they asked “boy or girl”… i asked if it mattered.. they said they didn’t want to disrupt me and my boyfriend.. i asked if it mattered if it was a boy? they got all embarrassed…

ok, there are seeds on that previous page.. it was from the second group of kids who came in and asked if they could smoke inside. i said no problem… they came in… i asked where they were from… they’d asked where i was from first..

columbine

my mouth dropped… they started talking details into the air, all completely fucked up on a wide variety of drugs… “5th period, staring at her ass”… holy fuck. i asked what it was like and these stoned eyes answered me “my friends died”… holy shit holy shit. they wandered out but i saw the glimpse of pain and was not sure how to handle it. imagine being in a room and suddenly two kids opened fire… imagine

jon came rushing in to tell me that he asked the girls he was dancing with where they were from and they had answered “littleton”. a group of pre-seniors from columbine… we were both a little startled, feeling like we walked into our television. many of the kids at that party were from columbine… we had fallen into a columbine party.. all these cute little 14/15/16/17 year olds, trahsed on a wide variety of drugs!!!! this isn’t even college yet!!!!! i couldn’t believe it.. so many predyked columbine kids… jon said that he would think his girlfriend dyked all the columbine girls.. i said i was too freaked out by the age of the kids which is why i hadn’t left the tent…. eek

still me.. i am back.. i am goign to do my darndest to share what i am thinking… most people here seem to want to escape. i want to talk, to think, to wander, but that is not how it works here.. i listen, i hear rave garble.. same ole feel-good-can’t-talk-about-anything-because-i-am-candy-flipping bullshit. i hear it over and over.. people looking for drugs, people selling drugs.. or souls. you see, being out here terrifies me.. absolutely terrifies me.. i can look into their eyes.. i can see the “i don’t fit in but i am desperatley trying to”… only it is not like i remember it.. it is so much harsher, so much more drugs… i think i gave up before i got to this type of party.. you see these souls.. girls looking to find a guy and be good to him.. guys looking for sex… just sex. it’s become a coolness act.. who has what drugs, sees where, does what… competitive dancning… oh god, popularity schemes…

girls are girlies.. they are perfectly gender timed… so aware of their roles in this scheme.. and now i feel myself looking on.. looking into them at tehir substitute world that makes the popularity tree go on.. it never ends does it? i realized that i have escaped the popularity dilemma that haunted my middle school years.. i don’t feel the need to impress anyone based on their rules.. i don’t rest my soul to be valued based on someone elses values… i can feel the strengths of me as a woman for the first time… i now see my real uniquenss and it saddens and terrifies me… how i want to reach out to these young girls who are just playing th egame… how i want to say it will be ok.. cause it won’t be for most of them. they’re lost if they’re here, aren’t they? they are the lost children.. this is what happens when you follow the beam crowd like you almost did long ago… my mom never would have let me. this is the lostness… i see from mother’s eyes to these young beings only 5 years younger than me… in 10 years, the survivors will be my peer group. the survivors…. these aren’t the k/m/s college ravers… these are teens, doing teen things… back to kids, a generation i thought was behind me and my vision… but i see it in these faces.

it is hard though because when you are looking for popularity, you don’t notice all of the others like you and rebel against the system… no, you aim for popular which is why i can’t reach out to these kids…

i just go to the outside, quite happily… like abroad – let people do the “who’s in”, “who’s not” thing and make it matter… gosh… to see peer pressure screaming out our own lives… who we act “cool” to.. who we try to be liked by… college life, college bullshit… i miss serious friends… this rave/people in cs… same mentally…

i don’t want to ask these kids how old they are.. i want to ask them where they are at.. what stage in their own heads…

and then i just met a mother – tweaked out raving (still raving), travelling to sell glassware to other ravers… priding themselves in that glass and their friends in the rave scene.. damn. full life, with kids, rave culture.. teenage parents bringing their toddlers to a rave.. oh goodness… making your life doing this.. creating glass to make ends meet with your BABY.. god, i cannot imagine.. and the cycle… they are the babies that continue the cycle..

honestly, it makes me wonder if i am the only one who can AFFORD (truly afford… soul, life, money..) to be here… and even i am on the edge

GODDAMNIT. boys- i am not your fucking object

the thing is.. i feel like i am the male in this enviornment.. because the women aren’t yet hardened.. we aren’t playing in fair levles.. that is the big diff between here and the raves at home… at home, we are all on even ground.. here, the girls are still playing their role and i watch as they get screwed over

the next day, i wrote a friend about attending a rave and meeting kids from columbine.. his response startled me.. i realized that i am not the only one who feels out of place at raves these days…

Ever since circa 1993, the Rave scene has become rather distressing. Originally, the epicenter for east-coast raving was Baltimore with its “peace, love, unity, and rave” leitmotif. The raves were in abandoned warehouses and were run on a nominal fee used to cover costs. Then, the police wackjobs started the anti-rave squads which garnered it some press. Soon thereafter, it became popular, the scene declined, and promoters started charging $10+ (now even in the $20s from what I see!)

The modern rave crowd is a bunch of fucked-up 14-year-olds who have moved it from fun to social status and parades of misdirected sexuality. I can’t have fun at them now, instead I am overcome with an urge to act as a parent…..

it is situations like this that make me more and more terrified to be a parent. i don’t know if i can handle this! i don’t know how to help. hell, i don’t think anyone could have helped me realize… i just needed to do it for myself. and yet, i think back to the number of my peers who didn’t make it and i wonder if anyone could have helped them.