let love rule

upon entry into 29 palms, where 7 of us decided to spend out new year's eve and new year's day, i saw the sign to the harmony motel which read "LET LOVE RULE." it was totally fitting and i was excited to stay there. wanna had been once before and thought it would be perfect for our little new year gathering. a pretty random group was formed for the occassion...me, amy, wanna, sara, mark, gotton (our new japanese friend visiting from tokyo), and dj superstar j-logic (total surprise, but so stoked to have him with us). we rented the cabin which was its own separate place away from the rest of the motel. jeffrey, the motel owner greeted me when i arrived (i got there first, driving up from san diego). i could tell he was a super cool dude. he ran the place himself and there were all these groovy zenned out rock sculptures and subtle rock garden touches, complete with corragated steel and found wood fences around the pool and hot tub. the cabin was very modest, but was perfect for our needs. i was excited.
the rest of the crew showed up with tons of booze and food and we started the party right away. wanna concocted her traditional filipino new years stew and the booze guzzling was on. not sure how, but i got super tipsy early on and apparently everyone else was eager to catch up with me since i was in such high spirits. sara (bless her heart) set up the ipod and her fatty speakers and we partied into the new year in a majoy way. midnight rolled around, we all stepped outside to pull our party poppers and light our sparklers and pour our champagne. jeffrey joined us, along with a couple of wanna friends who showed up as well. outkast's "hey ya" was the midnight theme song and the dance party was on. it was so so so fun bouncing around and being dorks. a few minutes later, wanna pulled out the e and she talked sara and i into taking them. oh shit!

craziness ensued. i vaguely remember freakin with jeffrey the motel owner. sara said i was saying bullshit like "i feel soooo damn good right now." god, i hate those people and i was one of them. HA! and apparently i made out with the motel guy, of which i have absolutely no recollection. oops. i usually remember kissing dudes, but that combo of being very drunk and taking a pill is lethal. the next few hours are a complete blank. next thing i knew, a group of us had made our way to the hot tub. it was perfect outside. very chilly, the the sky could not have been more clear... completely dark with a million stars surrounding us. pretty soon, the rest of the party was in the hot tub. sara stripped down to her undies, and wanna jumped in topless. HAHAHA!! yep, we were all feeling damn good. it was fantastic.
the night ended with a late night ipod session by sara. she freakin rocked it. even dj superstar logic was impressed. so so so good! chet baker, some bleepy shit, i don't quite remember what else, but it was just so good.
morning time was harsh. we all woke up real late, made a big old breakfast in the cute community kitchen. i apologized to jeffrey for my behaviour, which he said "no need. i had a GREAT time with you guys." heh.
before sunset, we made our way into the joshua tree park. holy fuck. why had i never been there before? it was like another planet. we found jumbo rocks and climbed on up to view maybe the most beautiful sunset i've ever seen in my life. we all decided that seeing that sunset only meant we were all guaranteed an excellent 2004.
more chilling that night then another trip to JT the next day for more fun exploring. i loved our group. each and every one of them. so so lovely. we all got along swimmingly. no drama. only good times. love was definitley the ruler those couple days. the place, the setting, the people, the fun. couldn't have asked for a better new year. i think i'm blessed that way. here's to good things for all of us in '04!