Another question for the GS Gods...you guys have saved me before and I'm hoping you can do it again before I do something stupid like sell her.

Haven't ridden my 96 GS (7,000 miles on it) in a few weeks, maybe even months, but knowing I had no desire to clean my carbs again I put Sta-bil in after my llast fill up and then rode around a bit to make sure I had gotten all of untreated gas out of the carbs.  Fast forward...yesterday I pull a 2 inch piece of metal out of the flat front tire of my car.  Okay I'll just go into the trunk and get out my jack and put on the donut and go get a new front tire before I have to leave for class.  No jack.  Okay I'll just take the GS.  Start her up and let her idle for awhile.  Rev it and it revs nice and clean.  Head down the road for a bottled water for class.  I'm about a mile down the road when I notice she's responding very sluggish-ly to my throttle inputs.  I'm in 6th gear at 60 mph at about 6,000 rpm (14t front sprocket) and i open the throttle all of the way and she goes very slowly up to 70.  Make my turn down a side street and she's feeling VERY sluggish.  Going about 40 in 3rd gear and open the throttle all of the way and she climbs slower to 50 than she did from 60-70.  Waiting to make a right turn into the 7-11 and she's idling at about 1,000 and falling a bit every few seconds until it just conks out.  So I walk her into the parking and try starting her with the throttle closed, halfway, nothing.  Finally she starts with the throttle wide open but now won't rev above 9,000.  Figure I better just head home since it's mostly downhill and worst case I can coast most of the way.  Start riding and even though I'm maintaining speed the tach starts bouncing all over the place and then drops to 0, but the motor is still pulling me.  Tach jumps back up to normal and I nurse her home.  I also noticed that when I downshifted and let out the clutch, even at low speeds, it felt like I had downshifted 2-3 gears at high speed or had pulled on the front brake hard with how much she nosedived.  Now the question remains, and please pardon my French...how f%&ked am I?

What ...

OK lets try this ... you must be 214 years old. Why you ask ?
My grandpa would have been 107 years old and he was only 1/2 crazy.

Dude, you sputtered and died. Can be out of gas, plugged fuel line, plugged air filter, can be seized motor ...

Cool.
Buddha.

Gas tank is full of fresh clean gas, oil is at normal levels.  Took her out again and it happened again, though it was slower this time.  I was able to ride for about 5 minutes and she felt normal, and then she got sluggish again and became almost impossible to accelerate with.  Being able to ride uninhibited for 5 minutes is what's confusing me.  Thoughts?

How is the fuel tap under the tank ? that open ?
Fuel line can still be clogged, you can have a vacuum line with a hole in it ...
Cool.
Buddha.

open your gas cap and ride around, does it run properly now? if so, search the faq's on how to clean gas tank vent.  does the bike have a fuel filter? is it clear? can you see fuel flowing through it?