Saturday, 6:00 p.m.: Roll up to a friend of a friend of a friend's house off of St. Charles Street. Eight of us are pounding beers by his pool when I notice his mother spying on us from a second story window. Moments later, our host is called inside. He returns with his seven-month-old nephew, Matteo. I shot-gun a beer, then somebody hands me the baby.
7:45 p.m.: Mosey over to St. Charles to watch that evening's parade. I learn that the men carrying torches in between floats are actual, real life, bona fide homeless people. Ponder the recruitment process for a while. In any event, lots of beads, but surprisingly, no titties. During the frenzy, my best friend takes an entire bag of beads to the face.
Sunday, 6:30 a.m.: Still pretending it's Saturday night, my crew and I make moves to The Mushroom, Tulane's 24-hour neighborhood head shop. Purchase four boxes of whippets and bring them to a smallish late night. Kids are ecstatic, getting noticeably slower by the second.
Monday, midnight: Accompany three friends to a well-known actor's hotel room. He is completely assed out, because he was boozing and doing blow all night on his parade float. We smoke a joint with his entourage, which consists of six forty-something-year-old men from New Jersey. It's weird.
3:00 A.M.: We are in a downtown casino with the actor's entourage. In a rare moment of clarity, I see my life from an outsider's perspective, a montage of the weekend playing in my mind. Naturally, I am horrified. I immediately ask my friend for her house keys, jump in a cab, and go back to her apartment to pass out.
