The Dudes Are Alright

I’ve done more drugs in my lifetime than I’d like to admit.  Granted, most of those drugs were drugs you can buy at your local Walgreens, but I have abused those drugs.  I’ve abused Stacker 2s when they had ephedrine so I could finish papers, and I snorted Ritalin tablets in high school, but most of all, I’ve drank a lot of NyQuil. 

1. I think I saw angels in the winter of 1999 as I lay on my tiny mattress on my top floor apartment in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.  I had a high fever, and I chugged a bottle, put on Brian Eno’s Ambient 1/Music for Airports, and fell into a weird state of sleep that took on some strange metaphysical bend as I recall looking at myself, and looking at the radiator as it made this high-pitched whistle.  

The next morning my roommate had his doctor father come look at me, and he told me I should have overdosed from all the NyQuil I drank. 

2.  Seeing Sigur Ros at Massey Hall in Toronto in September of 2011.  It was a week after 9/11, I was depressed.  I’d just broken up with my girlfriend, I was fighting with my friends, and I was sick.  For some reason I remember the show was on a Monday, and I had class that day, but didn’t have anything the next day for some reason.  I stayed at a friend’s house, and I remember him saying, “If you want to cure the blues, drink NyQuil.”  I’d thought that sounded cheesy, but decided to try it.

For the next two months I drank the stuff to fall asleep at least 3 nights a week.