friends don't let friends lick psychotropic amphibian venom

(This is an unfinished entry written before New Years Eve 04 and saved as a draft...I decided I may as well publish it anyway...what the hell.) I miss sitting around and getting drunk as a skunk, or high as a kite, with my friends in college. I recall three straight weeks when I cut an evening Sociology class to sit on the stairs of my dorm listening to Sting's "Dream of the Blue Turtles" while watching the Southern California sun set behind our illustrious "J" building. It was a virtually magical moment, sitting on the landing with suitemates known as "Drama Queen," "Sex Queen," "Diet Queen" and "Satan." We would suck down bottled Miller Genuine Draft (new at the time) and watch the sky turn unfathomable shades of orange, amber and crimson while lamenting over the cost of "star wars" weapons and singing the words of "Russians" badly off-key; "What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too..." In 1988 i was living in a suite of 12 co-eds, each with her own demons and fears, but together we were invincible. That is likely what drew "the sailors" to us, as I arrived home one weekend from dumping my posessive boyfriend in San Diego to find 15 sailors, enlisted men from a Long Beach docked U.S. Navy frigate, flopping in bedrooms, the living room and even the hallways of our suite. Over the next few weeks, people paired off, raced motorcycles, broke bones, broke engagements, began pregnancies, ended pregnancies, failed exams, popped for drugs and got kicked out of the United States Navy. Just another Spring in Southern California.