Hi, I'm Kurt. A binge-drinking, pill-popping disco diva with a heart of platinum and an appetite for self-destruction.
Welcome to Sleepless Solitude: The True-Life Journals of a Xanax'd Millennial (Part 2 of 2).
Adapted from a collection of nightly...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
August 20
I had approximately one hour of sleep last night. I got back to the hotel, set my alarm, fell asleep at 6:30 a.m., and was out of bed by 7:30 a.m. Today was doomed from the start.
I packed my things for Fire Island in the dark, most of which I was smart enough to prepare last night before the bar. After a quick shower, I left the hotel room and made my way to Penn Station, where Kevin Sutherland and his Ivy Leaguer friends were waiting. The only one of Kevin's friends I already knew was Trent Jackson. However, Trent and I aren't the most compatible of personalities, so I barely talked to him today. Instead, I made friends with a few of the new guys and we boarded the train together.
To get to Fire Island from New York City, you have to take two subways, two trains, a bus, and a ferry. The entire journey takes about two hours. With my complete lack of sleep and having had no food in my body since yesterday's brunch, I was feeling quite loopy. After the first train ride, all of which I spent talking to a random girl about Mariah Carey, the group transferred to our second train.
I took my seat beside Sterling, one of Kevin's friends. This guy was fucking nuts. In a good way! You could tell Sterling was down to party all the time, but he was also fresh out of the closet. That came as quite the surprise to me, as the boy was very flamboyant. It was only once Sterling stood up on the train and I was blinded by the reflective patches on his Under Armour coordinates that I could see how someone might think he was a breeder.
Kevin and his friends weren't fucking around. The group of trust fund babies had clearly made the trip to Fire Island many times before, as evidenced by the two bottles of expensive French Champagne they busted out to drink on the train. Everyone had a good laugh when I refused to drink out of a plastic cup, and instead pulled a glass flute out of my bag. As if! Later, one of Kevin's friends told me that not many people could pull off a glass champagne flute on a commuter train the way I did, and he thought it was hilarious. That guy was Cooper, one of the gays who I became pretty good friends with throughout the day. More on that later, though.
We had finally arrived in Sayville. After a delayed bus transfer to the ferry terminal, we had unfortunately missed the boat and had to wait for the next one. I was completely out of sorts. In a weird way, though. It was the kind of fucked-up where I couldn't tell the difference between what was alcohol-induced looniness, and what was sleep and food deprivation. Truth be told, I don't even think I had sobered up from the night before.
Our large group of gays sat together on the dock of the ferry terminal. While others ordered food and drinks from the café, I tried to rest in my chair. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen. What should have happened was me ordering lunch. I couldn't do it, though. I had a crippling fear of developing a full stomach gut pon de beach, and didn't want to make things worse than they already were. I had a few Goldfish pretzels and some water before we boarded the ferry and headed to Fire Island.
By the way, the crowd throughout this entire journey was the gayest thing I had ever seen. It was like the entire queer community of Toronto on a single train, then on the same ferry, and things only got crazier once we docked at the marina.
