Where Am I?

Who am I?

Who is this woman?

Flying up in the sky.

At oh, about 12,500 feet, over the Sierra’s, which let me be frank, was a fuck of  a lot better than how I got over the Sierra’s.

Really, nothing says it’s going to be a long ride to the playa than finding out that the roof on the car that was picking me up was not in working order.

Oh yes.

That’s right.

We drove through the night, in an open top convertible VW Cabriolet.

It was cray cray.

And may I just add.

Hella fucking cold.

I mean, we drove through the mountains at night with the top down.

In the end, it didn’t matter, we got to the playa, albeit once we landed the poor kid’s car got crop dusted with playa from every vehicle driving past.

Who the fuck needed to do dust angels on the playa when we were already covered?

He dropped me, dropped all his clothes, from an untied garbage bag stuffed in his trunk, and once I got all my stuff out of the odd nooks and crannies I had to shove my things into, I gave him a hug, told him to relax and have fun and pointed him in the correct direction.

I have no clue what happened to him.

But I am assured he had enough molly and hits of LSD to make sure it was a fun trip to his side of the playa.

Note to folks.

Don’t tell your ride share that you are carrying drugs on you.

Just don’t.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

Also.

When it’s suggested that you not have your bicycle cover up your license plate or obscure it in any way, really, listen.

OH.

And.

Navigation in certain desolate places in Nevada is not always spot on.

“Don’t turn,” I said loudly, I didn’t holler, I didn’t grab the wheel, but I almost did, he was totally on autopilot listening to his navigation system.

“But the navi says to turn left,” he said in a voice that was young, 23, slightly white male privileged and very naive.

“Honey,” I said in a kind voice, a voice that was beginning to be over being kind as I had talked him out of returning to Reno to buy bell peppers from the Safeway after having a text fight with one of his camp mates all the way past Fernley, “there’s not a road there.”

There was a dirt track leading God only knows where, but it was not leading to Burning Man.

The navigation insisted and for a moment I really thought the kid might just off road it and defy my suggestion.

Fortunately he did not and we got into Gerlach and refueled at the last gas station in town.

Then.

Burning Man.

I should call it “I didn’t get much sleep, man,” I mean really.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

I had gotten up on Friday at 7:30 a.m. worked then came home and left for the event and drove through the Sierra’s, remember in a chilly, drafty open roofed car.

Although, I will say it was beautiful, the Milky Way, the dark skies, the stars, the nebula and the two shooting stars I saw, exquisite.

We landed on playa around 3:45 a.m.

After a rather long, protracted grocery stop in Reno, wherein there was much re-packing and re-sorting of the small amount of space in the car.

After getting through Gate, getting the kid’s ticket from Will Call and getting to where I was camped, it was 5 a.m. by the time I had gotten my stuff to my small spot on the playa.

What was fortuitous though, was the sky starting to brighten.

By the time I had my tent up, my bins sorted, and my air mattress inflated, it was already beginning to get hot.

I tried.

Oh.

I tried really hard to lay in my tent on my new blow up mattress, but man, without a shade structure, it was just too hot to sleep.

I got up.

I did shit.

I did eventually take a nap in the communal shade structure and thank God.

I might have cracked.

I only really got emotional once the whole morning, and that was when my air mattress pump died.

I was like.

Fuck me.

It hadn’t held the charge and only blew up my mattress about a quarter of the way.

I was bereft.

Until.

Heh.

The playa doth provide.

A friendly neighbor in camp said, oh go across the street to the Electro Shock Therapy camp, they can help you out.

And help out they did.

It was a solar powered camp that had strips of chargers and before you knew it I had gotten my air mattress blown up, bed made, and was lying in a hot box trying to nap.

I retrieved the item that was to save my life, a black out sleep mask, and found myself reclining in the shade structure.

I got about an hour and a half of sleep.

Enough to get me going again.

I went to a birthday party that night and dressed up and was up until about midnight or 1 a.m.

Most nights I was up about that late and most days I was up by 7 a.m.

One day I was up at 5:15 a.m.

I went to watch the sunrise with some friends from camp on an amazing art car that took us all out to the far reaches of the event at the trash fence.

It was a spectacular sunrise.

And there were beautiful sunsets.

Long bike rides to deep playa.

Crazy conversations struck up out of nowhere.

Running into unexpected friends.

Being told how good it was to see me.

Getting tons of hugs.

But.

No kisses.

No boys.

No hook ups.

I just treated the whole thing like and art and recovery retreat.

It was fantastic though, no matter the  I am tired bit.

I am not spent.

I am happy.

Happy I got to go and got some good photos.

Although I am a little concerned, I’m having some trouble with my regular camera.

I think the dust has finally gotten to it, I’m going to try a few things, but I may have lost some photos.

Such is life.

And I have my memories.

Loads and loads.

And a day to sleep in before I head back into school.

A day to readjust, catch up on the sleep, and um, oh, yeah.

Go see Mike Doughty play.

Nice to be home.

I have no complaints.

Not a one.

I am so very happy.

Yes indeed.

I get to sleep in a dust free bed, I got the playa out of my hair, and I get to see a great musician tomorrow with friends.

Life is lovely.

Nighty night y’all.

I have some much needed beauty rest coming to me.

Sweet dreams my friends.

Sweetest, undusty dreams.

Mom, Carmen’s on Acid

The horror.

My poor mom.  She did not even know how to react.  Carmen, her ‘good’ kid was tripping?  What had the world come to?

The door to my room creaked open and a slant of light flooded the room from the hall, “Carmen?”  My mom said, gigantic pause, “Carmen?”

Then the door shut.

And she never said a thing.

Never.

Well, that’s not true, I found out in my mid-twenties that my mom knew, my sister had ratted me out.  Thanks sis.

But my mom did not know how to react to the news, so she chose to ignore it.  I did however get grounded for having boys over when there was not a parent around and I got to come home straight for two weeks.

I also had to fork over my tickets to see Iggy Pop in concert.  I was miffed.  I had won those tickets and two weeks was an awful long time to be grounded, especially when my sister was the one who should have gotten in trouble.

She and I and my cousin Channing had gone to Madison.  20 miles away from Windsor.  It was a Saturday night.  We were definitely not supposed to be in Madison. Especially without my mom’s knowledge.  Mom was bartending at Inn Cahoots on King Street across from the Majestic Theater.

God, I loved that theater.  Fell in love with French foreign movies.  I saw La Petite Voleuse there, The Little Thief, by Francois Truffaut, and later I took it as a sign from God to have sex with this guy who I had gone on a date with at of all places the 24 hour coffee Star Bucks in that little strip mall over toward Pacific Heights–Laurel Village.

We had been talking movies and when he asked me my favorite movie, I waxed poetic about the Majestic and how I saw The Little Thief there and Sante Sangre, and Jesus of Montreal, and my first Almoldovar film–Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, Pulp Fiction, Cinema Paradiso, and a score of other foreign and indy films.  I also saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show there and for a year went to every single first of the month Saturday that the had a floor show.

As it turns out, dude has this movie, The Little Thief, in his dvd player at home.  I did not believe him.  I was invited back to his place to verify said movie was actually there and he wasn’t just giving me a pick up line.

Of course it was a pick up line and I went back to his place and we hooked up.  I mean, come on, I had had three venti lattes, I was gacked.  Of course I was going to fuck him.  And as it turns out, he did indeed have the movie in the player.  It was such a romantic moment, that relationship lasted all of three months.

Ah, good times.

And back to the acid.

His name was Donovan, and he ruined me for kissing.

Or maybe it was the acid, maybe it was the experience of kissing a boy on the acid.  I will probably never know, but I will never forget that kiss.

Hmmm, might have been the acid, as I am remembering another kiss from another boy six months later–although Eli was the one on acid, not I.  He was a damn fine smoocher too.

I had run into Donovan and his friends outside of a poster shop on State Street in Madison.  They were loaded on LSD, but I had no clue.  They were also lost.  They had parked their car by the KK–The Kollege Klub, not the Klu Klux–and were trying to get back.

I knew where the KK was and gave them directions.  Then they just asked that I take them back to their car.  I acquiesced.  Donovan was beautiful.  Dark eyes, white skin, full red laughing mouth, nineteen, headed off to Iraq.  The whole group of them were off the next day and they were having one last party before heading over to camp.

We turned around and headed back down State Street.  At one point the guys got into a fight with a gutter punk and there was a brawl that blew up and over within seconds.  I ditched them momentarily and headed into the Rocky Roccoco’s to let my sister and my cousin know where I was.

And they were gone.

Gone.

Fuck my mother.

Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.

But I am a savvy young thing.  I connived to have the army boys give me a ride back to my house in Windsor in exchange, I would let them know where they had parked their car–it was a white Jetta–thank God I had learned on a stick.

God does watch out for drunks and children.

I was both at that moment.

Although not to be intoxicated for a while yet.

Some one forgot to tell me that it takes some time for LSD to come on.

That night was memorable.  I spoke to time, I danced in the orchard out back, I can still feel the cold blades of grass on my bare feet and smell the slightly sour smell of fallen apples turning to vinegar.  The way the stars hung in the sky and swirled, really swirled about my head.

The kiss.

The dreamy, soul shuddering kiss.

Then the impending doooooooooooom.

DOOM I tell you.

The sound of my mothers Ford Escort Diesel station wagon coming down Highway 51 at 3 a.m.

Oh god, oh god, oh shit.

Go, go, go, get the hell out of here.

Donovan was worried about leaving me and he told me so.  I was going to be tripping for a while.

And I did.  I lay trembling in that bed waiting for my mom to go away and hoping fervently that she thought I was asleep.  I got the talking to the next day.  And the interogation about the boys, but never a peep about the acid.

I remember walking to the corner store, sort of floating above the side walk.  I can see the green of the grass, which was unusual, it was November and the grass was still a fresh bright green.  That Sunday the air was a crisp fall day, but the cold was there, just waiting to pounce.

I spent the rest of that day writing an essay for English class.

I was inwardly re-arranged, although I did not know it at the time.  I tripped again.  How could I now?  But I never quite captured that first time, nor did I ever quite get kissed like that again.

I believe that there are better kisses in my future though.

I believe that today I can be inwardly re-arranged without having to ingest something because a boy is cute.  Hell, I am sitting here re-arranged.

Loving every damn moment of it.

Only problem is that lack of a kissing partner.

I have a hard time making out with myself.