Yesterday I spent the day recovering from a migraine I had picked up the night before. One if my solutions was to make a highly nutritional meal and add a bit of spice to do it’s usual trick on my brain pain. I called up some friends and had two classmates join me for the feast which included a basil salad with feta and sundried tomato dressing. The entré was cayanne crusted chicken breast on a bed of rooibos brewed rice and black beans and a side of baked crooked neck squash stuffed with hatch peppers and feta cheese. Needless to say it was delicious! The chicken was too spicy for the girls as I underestimated te power of LA cayanne pepper. Immediately after, my friend and I took off for the semi Mardi Gras parade on Oak St. When we got there, we found a great parking spot and went o find my housemates who had already pre-gamed at my fraternity brothers house. In true fashion, they were lightly decorated and the men were shirtless. Moments later there was a global organization as all fell into place and we took our spots amongst pirates, airplanes, and floats. Once the band started, everything began a slide into a dream like state.

People marched and played instruments while they paraded around the first corner securing themselves at The Frat House, a tavern in Uptown known for big drinks. 24 oz to be precise. The stop was near the street car station which was pretty spectacular in my opinion. I took a poorly lit and fairly indistinguishable photo of it on my phone. My friend met up with a few others and took off before we began out march to Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club. On the way I found two strings of beads and a broken squirt gun I hung from my neck like a medallion. We proceeded to the bar where they served cheap drinks from a cardboard box stand and the band played jazz and older rock songs that might be classified as oldies. My housemate convinced the guy wearing a homemade aqua teen hunger force costume to let her wear it and she did for about three city blocks. Then it happened, as we were standing there we noticed a couple next to us making out. It was soon aparent that she was topless and he made this clear when he decided to reposition himself to perform an act on her which was not just haneous but far too graphic. A few moments later he was violently girating while she made all sorts of noises and the whole time, the crowd was so packed we couldn’t move away. Then a girl walked up and started touching the guys head playfully which broke his concentration. He went back to the act and we broke free, leavin a large space around them. When they finally figured out everyone was staring, they stopped and sheepishly grinned while exhibiting complete embarassment. We were glad to continue and passed a number of blocks before the group stopped again. I kept moving and got in front of the parade.

Here I stopped and relaxed a bit. Some boy who works with one of my housemates approached me and asked if I wanted to play a game. Curious, I accepted. We attempted to conduct a pushing game where he showed me the rules and after some practice, I beat him on the actual attempt to play. We all then walked and talked about his experience in Americorp when all of a sudden I was slapped on my cheek from some coming up from behind. It was his girlfriend trying to express jealousy for his lack of attention to her. He scolded her and she seemed overly pleased with herself. I continues on and escapedthe group, slipping down carrolton and made contact with some friends at the bars on Magazine st. I decided to join them and figured that rather than fetching my car a solid mile away, I would enjoy the walk and take in the night. At this point I was loopy and dehydrated and suffering from a persistant migraine that only added to my delerium. I walked 4 miles before reaching a pharmacy to buy a drink. I decided I was sort of hungry and went to get some ice cream. I saw that some kids had taped the freezer door shut so I started to peel it open when an aisle clerk scolded me for my action telling me it was broken. I was unhappy and told him he shoud put up a sign and he grumbled and left. Me empty handed of the ice cream I wanted. So I bought some gross gummy sharks loaded with HFCS and made my way another mile to Ms Mae’s for some conversation. While a staple of magazine St, the bar is smokey and I was again scolded for drinking an outside drink in the bar. I told the bouncer he had nothing o offer that was replenishing when I was dealing with a migraine and he told me to drink coke. I found this amusing because he was wrong in his assumption that it was replenishing but absolutely correct in that the caffiene would be very good for the blood flow and reduce the migraine. Without conceding to his error I told him he was ridiculous and he asked if I would eat mcdonalds in a burgerking. I honestly answered yes as they truly have no interest in what you eat at one of those places, proof by what they put in your meals. Someone took the bottle and put it in their purse while I sat down and returned to conversation. Here we discussed many things which I did not care to remember but was happy to be sitting. Soon we left and I called it a night having walked nearly 7 miles on the parade and mostly on the trip across town to the bar, watching violent crowd sex, and being slapped by a stranger. I would say that my first parade was a success but it left me feeling strange and as if I was trapped in a bad dream.