Post-Ultra

I awoke confused--the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Charlie Kelly peeking his head in our door. I got out of bed self-consciously. I was in a 70's themed hotel room and still disgusting from the all-day festival I had attended the day before. No time to worry though, it was noon and we needed to get out. Charlie Kelly made a deal with us that we didn't have to pay him for the hotel room if the three of us girls split the remaining whiskey he had in his water bottle. Right, guy. We were able to hail a cab immediately, in stark contrast to a few hours earlier. We drove by the park where Ultra had been held and I was almost heartbroken. We briefly contemplated standing outside the gates shouting "one more day!". We got back to the boys' car and they drove us back to our glamorous airport hotel. We said our good-byes and Charlie Kelly and I mentioned perhaps regrouping in NYC (he happened to live there as well).

The rest of the day was spent by the pool. AD and I mananged to get ridiculously burned and looked like jackasses. That night we went out for a ceviche spoon dinner and to my surprise the tuna was amazingly delicious. We then met up with AD's friend, whom we'll call Miami, who she had been trying to meet up with all weekend. He took us to a lame, surburban bar and I was bored. He talked about his multiple businesses (apparently he is an "entreprenuer"). He did say he was going to be in NYC later that week and had an extra ticket to see the Strokes, if I was interested. An enticing offer....

The next day was our last day. MM had an earlier flight so AD agreed to come with to an art show being held in a botanical garden that I had read about. We arrived and it was awesome and comical. There were sculptures of all types of animals--sheep, cows, rabbits--placed right in the middle of this lush, Florida landscapes. The plaquards listed their names in French, which added to the amusement. As we wandered around, taking in the scenery (we were by far the youngest people there), we came across an adorable little white bird. He kind of resembled a stork, but much smaller. He came right up to us as we took pictures and cooed. He started twisting his long neck from side to side and we were even more amused. But he kept it up and it started to seem sinister. Then his spread his feathers out and walked quickly towards AD's legs, his sharp little beak much too close for comfort. We screamed. AD stood perfectly still and I of course did exactly what you are not supposed to do. Turned and ran as fast as I could. If that bird were a rhino I would've been dead. Same with one of the raptors from Jurassic Park, which he was starting to quickly remind me of. And he wasn't finished. A few minutes later, in a completely different part of the park, I head AD yell "holy fuck!". I looked and that bitch bird had popped up again, out of nowhere. He charged, we screamed and I took off again. Luckily we were able to enjoy the rest of the exhibit but bitch bird had shaken us both.

So Miami and Ultra were finished. I reflected on this as I sat in the airport awhile later. I had been texting with the kid from Tiesto (codename Dennis Reynolds) all weekend, in case he was up to anything good. I sent him a final text to see if he had had a good flight back to NYC that morning. He texted back saying that he was still in Miami; his flight had been cancelled. He then asked what gate I was at. Despite this creepiness, I looked around and there he was. I had thought the kid in the neon sunglasses looked familiar. Turns out we were on the same flight. We chatted about the weekend until we were ready to board. A funny coincidence.

On the bus from LaGuardia back to my apartment, I had a hippie run-in. He sat next to me and asked me a question about where the bus went that I couldn't answer. I thought I detected a BO smell coming from him but he was actually really cute, even for a hippie. We chatted for awhile--turns out he had been at Ultra as well, and before that South by Southwest and before that I couldn't really gather from his rambling. Now he was in New York (to live?) to play in his band and he was "staying with some chick in the East Village". Then mid-sentence he took out his cell phone (which I suspected was a pay as you go) dialed a number and began to very loudly discuss his current situation with a friend. Lots of sentences like "Fuck yea man" and "shit come out and see our show". Luckily at the point my stop was coming up so I exited the bus leaving hippie behind me. I entered my apartment and was immediately depressed to be back. And this is when the week and a half of texts and emails about missing Ultra began between MM, AD and myself. Ultra=Success.