Hello Again

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?

I have missed my little blog, I have.

I got back from Burning Man last night.

I am back a day early and I cannot be more grateful for it.

I needed to get back, I was missing my world.

I also wasn’t wanting to sit in any kind of exodus line, the last time I had tried to leave on Sunday morning I ended up being in line for almost four hours.

Four hours on playa.

Four hours to go three miles.

No fucking thank you.

And I had to be back by today to give myself enough time to recuperate and unpack and unwind.

And.

Um.

Shower.

Holy Mary, mother of God.

Fuck me.

That shower was something else.

A spiritual experience for sure.

I knew when I heard that the temperature was going to rise and peak out on Sunday that I wanted to come back Saturday.

I didn’t need to see the Man burn.

I have seen it burn ten times.

I wanted to get home without a shit ton of traffic.

I asked the woman who I had traveled with to the event if she would be amenable to leaving a day early and she was quite down for it.

And in given that there was a death last night at the burn I am extraordinarily grateful that one, I did not witness it.  And two, that I had left before the event turned morbid.

Death happens.

But I am relieved that I did not witness it.

I had a very different burn than I have in the past.

First, of course, because I was not working it.

I had to laugh, even when I tried to pick up a volunteer shift at Artica slinging ice, I got turned down, they had more volunteers than they needed.

Every time that I thought I might have worked, it was pushed down and away.

I spent a lot of time sitting in Center Camp Cafe writing.

I sent lots of cards and post cards off and I did a lot of journaling.

I hung out at my camp with the ladies of the Nest, a sweet group of women that I have known for years and witnessed their growth into extraordinary beings.

It was super sweet to have such a girl centric time.

I wasn’t on the prowl for the playa boyfriend.

I didn’t need to look for anything.

I have everything I want.

I went dancing twice.

Once in camp, an amazing dj came and played at our potluck dinner for the camp.

The music was the best I had experienced in years at the event.

I danced hard for two hours.

Happy in my body and light on my feet.

Although, the knees felt a little rough the next day.

I got to know a few folks in my San Francisco fellowship whom I have known for years but not really connected with.

I went on bike rides with the posse.

I got caught in dust storms unlike anything I have experienced before.

Prior years I was always working very close to my accommodations and they included access to trailers.

A dust storm would spring up and I would be hiding out in a trailer.

A huge dust storm came up and I was obliterated in it.

The “clean” spot on my face was where my dust mask was.

I mean, you can’t even tell I have tattoos for god’s sake.

I had been caught off guard and though I saw the storm coming, it came up too fast for me to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I spent about an hour of it laying on a bench outside of the Temple.

Completely exposed.

I rested my head on the bench, curled up next to the fencing it was by and held on for what literally felt like dear life.

I kept my eyes closed.

I wasn’t wearing goggles.

My bad.

Stupid too, since I have a pair.

I was, thank god, wearing something, my big aviator sunglasses, but my eyes still got totally coated with dust.

It was an extraordinary experience.

Not exactly pleasant.

But I surrendered to it and rode it out saying prayers inside my head and breathing slow and steady.

There was a break in it and I thought go!

I got my bike, made it five feet and it whipped up again.

I was told later the wind was roaring along at 45 mph.

The dust battered me and I held still straddling my bike for about another hour.

There was a man standing next to me on a trike.

He might have been three feet away, probably less and he was invisible to me.

I could have reached out to him and touched his arm.

I didn’t.

But.

Knowing there was someone else there made it palatable.

The experience was mind-blowing.

No pun intended.

It also lead to an experience that I had never had before.

I got topless at Burning Man.

That has never, ever happened.

I stumbled into camp, with another of my campmates who had gotten blasted by the dust too and we let the women in camp strip us down and clean us up.

She got completely naked.

I couldn’t quite do it and in fact was walking away to wipe myself down solo when I realized what a monumental task it was going to be and I started crying.

I went back and said, “help me.”

And they did.

I dropped all my pretenses, and my clothes, well, I couldn’t step out of my under wear, there really is a limit for me, and just surrendered.

I got sprayed with a vinegar and water mixture and then a baby wipe down.

I got all the dust off my eyes and eyelashes.

I actually left my hair up in the puffs and antlers and let it be the way it was.

I was told it looked pretty spectacular and just let it be.

I had to have help getting dressed and it felt as though I was a priestess being made ready for a ceremony.

We all went out that night in a mutual friend’s, who is staff at the event, car.

I wore a long white dress and fresh makeup.

I had my hair up and added some goggles to the mix, I wasn’t without them the rest of the event.

We rode around the playa, the six of us, sitting regal in the back of the Jaguar convertible, the “Shaguar” which was painted hot pink with black spots on it.

I felt like some sort of playa princess.

And I was happy to be with the women around me.

All of whom I wouldn’t have met outside of recovery.

I am lucky and grateful to have them in my life.

I felt seen and loved.

Really loved and really included.

What more could I ask from Burning Man?

I’m so glad I’m home though.

I missed it more than I had expected.

And my heart is glad to be here.

Despite having a bad tummy today, which happens sometimes after coming back from the event, especially after being smacked so hard by the dust, I am happy to be home.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

So very free.

From The Playa

To La Playa.

I’m not sure how it happened.

We were rolling down the street looking for a parking place.

He turned the wheel of the RV left and we were on La playa.

We had just left the playa.

The playa at Burning Man.

It’s been a long, strange, dreamy, love trip.

I’m not sure how this blog is going to go, I’m not sure what rabbit hole I fell down into.

But fell I did.

It’s been a while since I have posted a blog, or written a blog, and I have to say, I have missed it, and I have not missed it.  I have missed the daily practice of sitting and organizing my thoughts and sorting through my feelings, but I feel a feeling that I am loath to say.

I don’t want to share with you.

I don’t want to tell.

I want the secret space between here and there to be sacred.

“I woke up and there was a Carmen shaped hole next to me,” he said to me last night after coming back into the RV.

It was cold up at Donner Pass and we snuggled together in the twilight that seeped through the black out curtains on the vehicle–it was still covered in shade and playa dust guards, there was still plenty of dust left from our journey back into the world.

But.

For a moment here.

A moment there.

There was no other person.

No other place.

I was completely present with one person.

We had met Friday night.

It was a cold night.

He was dressed up like Santa Claus.

I had just left the Cafe at Center Camp.

It was a cold night and it had been a dusty day, horrid with dust, knock down scary with dust, white out dust, screaming dust tornadoes, knocked over shade structures, throttled with dust, broken with dust.

I had been pretty wiped out by it, especially after my bicycle broke down on the way back from spending time with friends at AV, a village a lot of my friends were camped out at, and was a bit demoralized by the time I had gotten back to camp.

It was far later in the day than I had anticipated getting back and I missed saying good-bye to Junebug and her mama, who had, smartly, avoided the imminent dust storm and hopped off playa before it hit.

When my bike broke I gamely walked it for a while and thought, no biggie, I’ll just take my time and walk it back to camp, but I was on the other side of the world and by the time I had gotten to First Camp I was done with it.

I popped my head into a few places looking for folks I knew, but no one was to be found, all hunkered down with the storm blowing about.

I made it to Media Mecca and stashed my bicycle in the back.

I went in and gratefully found friends.

One of whom, thank you lovely Minx, gave me and my broke bike a ride back to camp on a dusty golf cart.

I arrived dusty, late, and a bit broken from the weather.

Junie was gone, Mama Grace was gone, the camp was rocking with the dust storm and I was exhausted.

I hugged Papa Tom and crawled into the trailer where my fairy godmother and father were graciously allowing me to stay.

I was cold and dusty and tired and wiped the fuck out.

I pulled off my boots and gingerly started wiping the layers of dust off my face.

It took some time.

I ate an apple.

It was dusty.

Everything was dusty.

I am still dusty now, as I write, I can imagine and feel it, and there is no describing it, it does not matter how many pictures you see online or how many descriptions of it there are to read about, until you have lived through a white out dust storm at Black Rock City, you will just never quite comprehend it.

I’m sorting my feelings and thoughts as I write and I know this blog is a bit disjointed.

I am a bit disjointed.

Although I am showered and I have done all my laundry–three loads washed and dried and folded.  I have gone to the grocery store up the street and bought a few provisions for my house.  I have called and checked in with some folks and taken messages from some other folks.

But my thoughts are often with him.

Mister Claus.

The twinkle in his green eyes and the way he held me close.

I get a head of myself.

Even with no expectations of further engagement, though I am sure there will be, I have a jumble of thoughts and feelings and the price for having been so open and honest and available to someone, the effects have yet not been sorted and this sad, distracted little blog is just a way to sort through the photographs of him in my head.

Four days of spending time with a person is a long time.

Four days at Burning Man is forever.

Was it four days?

Three and a half.

Starting when we met Friday evening to this afternoon, Monday, we spent every moment together.

Exceptions were few, a bathroom break, I took a shower–in the most janky shower contraption ever–while he took a nap, a bicycle ride across playa on Sunday to break down my camp while he broke down his, with these exceptions, we spent every moment together.

From the moment he kissed me at the burn barrel in the six o’clock keyhole outside of Center Camp Cafe.

Until the moment he kissed me goodbye in front of my house this afternoon around 1:30/2pm.

We spent the moments together.

We spent every day together.

We spent every night together.

We rode our bicycles out to deep playa and back.

We went to the Baa’s art car and watched the burn from the top of a gigantic sheep.

We snuggled at Dream Land.

We told each other endless stories under the stars, under the roof of the RV, entwined around each other for body heat and comfort–it was the coldest event I have been to in years.

We walked through the Temple together, the cafe together, around First Camp together.

I showed him the secret spots and introduced him to friends.

We told each other tall tales and laughed and giggled, and ugh, I even snorted, he got me laughing so hard a few times.

It was a grand old-time.

And I am not sure how to reconcile it all and I don’t know that I want to share all the details either.

I just don’t.

Some things belong in my heart.

“Keep yourself open,” he said to me today.

He said so many things to me.

He held up a mirror and I saw myself, sans makeup–when was the last time I spent so much time with someone and did not wear makeup?  I had no time to put on a face, he saw it all, every dusty bit of it, and accepted it, embraced it, pleasured it, hugged it, kissed it.

There was nothing I hid or tried to hide.

I was open.

And perhaps that is what Burning Man does.

Or.

Perhaps it is what I allow to happen in my life when I say, fuck the dust, go out dancing, play with your friends, ride your bike into the wind and when a stranger throws a log onto the fire and asks if you have been a “good girl this year,” I can smile and say.

Yes.

I was a very good girl.

And.

I was given the most amazing gift.

A gift that has no strings, no direction, no expectations attached.

Just the sweetness of being in a man’s arms who held me tighter than I have been held in some time and fed me with words and desire and made me see exactly how far I have come.

I have come so far.

I don’t know when I work tomorrow.

I don’t know what I have to do for school–Friday is the first day of the school year, the official start.

I don’t know if I will see Santa again.

But I believe.

I have faith.

I believe in magic.

I have lived to tell the tale.

Even if I have kept some of the details to myself.

I hold them all in the crucible of my heart.

And will move forward with them there, gently held in that space between the bowl of the dusty playa sky and the warm omnipotence of the ocean blue where he left me on the doorstep to a new way of being.

Seen.

Accepted.

Embraced.

Known.

And kissed.

Oh.

So.

Very well.

Kissed.

There’s A Storm Coming

Fortunate for you, fellow Burning Man friends heading out to the playa, it has passed.

It was a strong one.

It was on and off weather all day long.

Dust storms.

White Outs.

Rain.

High, high, high winds.

So high they knocked over numerous banks of port-a-potties.

I may come back to this thread at another time and add some of the photographs I took of the toppled johns, but for the moment the internet is so spotty I just want to focus on getting as much of my blog in before it conks out completely.

The city continued to be built though.

There is nothing so heartwarming to see, at least to me, as seeing the building up of the city despite the weather, the hard ass perseverance that so many folks have no idea of before they come out to playlandia.

I watched from inside the safety of the trailer with my little guy snuggling on my lap, three men on top of a container strapping down scaffolding that would have otherwise blown off in the  high winds, I worried that they might just get blown off.

A sudden gust of wind ripped the shade structure off the front of the trailer and drew my attention to the front where the papa was busy securing as much of it as he could, then back to the view out the back window.

The men had stopped working and spread themselves flat hands locked, faces down on the top of the container, still, silent, a picture of resilience in the face of it all.

When the wind died down a bit, they just got right back up and went right back to work.

And that’s how it’s done.

At least in my circles.

I do hear rumors now and again of folks that can’t hack the weather and sometimes you just have to hunker the fuck down, you can’t do certain kinds of work.

Like, oh, putting the bike lights on my bicycle wheel rim.

God only knows where the 25 zip ties would have blown to had I attempted that.

No thank you.

I did eventually get out.

There were breaks in the storm.

Unlike my day, I had no break.

Although there was a little down time here and there where my charge slept, but I never did get away for my own little catnap.

The napping for him was disturbed by the trailer getting rocked in the high wind.

He was not upset about it, but the banging woke him up.

And when the two-year old has been woke up, he’s up.

The weather makes for new friendships though, I was having an awesome conversation with Slim in line to the Commissary.

Slim is somewhat of an iconic figure at Burning Man and I have never had the opportunity to really talk with him and we had a great talk about the weather and the power it has to connect people who may never have been connected to before.

When it hits and you have to grab cover, you sometimes grab cover with complete strangers and new friendships suddenly bloom.

Or you watch a neighbors tent blow away and you go help them set it back up after ward.

Or perhaps you find out that a friends space has been destroyed and you let them crash over at your place.

It brings people together in unlikely ways.

Extremes can often bring out the worst in people, but I find it more true that it brings out the best in others, and it really can be a matter of pure, basic survival.

You can’t let your fellow lapse in the dust.

And then you get up and start re-building it all again and no one knows better that there was crazy wind and rain and bluster and shaking trailers, ripped awning, toppled port-a-potties, dust soaked bodies.

It all gets tidied up and prettied and made neat-o before the “world” lands on playa and the fun begins.

The fun for a lot of people is pre-event, the camaraderie of people building the city makes my heart just swell.

For instance, it is nearly midnight and the entire camp, sans one or two of us who have no mechanical ability, ie me, are out side repairing the awning over the parents trailer so that tomorrow there will be shade for the monkey.

I mean, flashlights, and men and tarps and rope and god only knows what, I am not the best person for that sort of stuff, but they are.

I bring my services elsewhere.

I take care of the baby.

The little boy, I should say.

I maintain his homeostasis to the best of my ability and help him through the hard spots.

In the regular world, or the default world as it is called, he will give me plenty of clues that he is hungry or tired or needs some extra love and attention.

Out here it can happen really fast and if I’m not attuned to the minutiae of his moods it can get out of hand fast.

Little tempers flare under duress.

So my job is to be on top of it.

And on top of it means I am ending my blog just a tiny bit short of my normal word count and getting my ass offline so that I can clean myself of all the dusty dust and shake out my hair and wash up.

So I can get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

Fortunate for me, the weather for the rest of the week is going to be dreamy.

Thank God.

MF Poppins out.

 

The Rainbow Connection

I should just start calling these the day after blogs.

The weather was big time again yesterday.

Dust storm white out.

Lighting.

Thunder.

Three different systems that moved in and out and flew across the playa, kicking up high winds, hail, rain, and yes, of course, dust.

The squalls blew in quickly, winds up to 42 miles an hour and then blew back out.

I was fortunate to have gotten in a quick shower before the last of the storms blew in.

Just as I was leaving the shower area another started.

I tell you, it’s nice to work for people who have a direct line on what the weather is going to be like.  It is unpredictable, but there are, oops!

Interject, someone’s shade structure just blew over and smacked into the trailer.

Damn, Gina, stake that shit down.

This wind is not fucking around.

Thursday is supposedly the last of the “bad” weather.

Although, again, it can turn on a dime and I have seen it do just that.

I was able to duck out from the trailer in between the storm systems and grab a few shots of the double rainbow that appeared right at sunset as the setting red-gold orb sank below the mountains, a few God rays peeped through and sprayed a beautiful rainbow across the desert.

The hooting was heard all across the playa.

Rainbow

The photograph does no justice to the beauty of the sky, but it was the best one I was able to cull from the bunch I took.

I have been taking on average about 75-100 photos a day.

I have been editing them down and I get about 10-15 that I like and of all the photographs I have taken, I have gotten about five really good shots.

That is not bad.

I used to think those were horrid odds.

However, I feel grateful to get any.

And grateful that my camera still works.

One trip to Paris five years ago for ten days sparked buying the camera and it was the best purchase.  Thank God, too, for digital photography.  I don’t think I could afford the film I would be going through if I didn’t have the camera I have now.

I have not had much of a chance to get out and about during the day, morning or afternoons, I have been with the baby.

He’s doing fairly well, but there are times when the melt down happens, and he’s cutting molars.

Ah.

Teething.

NO fun at all.

Again, grateful that the parents work for the Borg (Burning Man Organization).

They have a trailer with air conditioning and a fridge with a freezer that actually works.

I have been cutting up fruit for the peanut every day and sticking it in the freezer for him to gnaw on when the molars get bad, he’s had his little paws in his mouth a lot the last few days.

Working on keeping those clean too.

Lots of baby spa time.

Lots.

He’s the envy of the playa, is what I think.

A buxom woman taking care of his every need, hauling him around in a snugly or in the covered wagon, standing in front the swamp cooler at the commissary (it is the largest one I have ever seen, the fan is easily five foot by six-foot), drinking cold bubbly water from fancy sippy cups, eating frozen fruit, getting foot rubs with vitamin e oil, and lots and lots and lots of cooling cream on the bum.

Not a bad way to spend your Burning Man.

Plus, everyone wants to say hi to him and pinch his little cheeks and coo at him.

The family has taken to eating on the less populated side of the commissary, away from the entrance and the main aisle that leads to the food line, as the constant attention–male and female–is distracting to the bunny at meal times.

We go “en famille” every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It is nice to feel part of a unit and I really like the parents more and more and more.

Not only for the unstinting way they take care of their child, but also in the way that have accommodated me into their family.

I do feel like I am family.

That is how I like to roll.

Plus, I get to see more of my extended family every day.

Mostly in the commissary, where the meals are sit down and every one chatters about their day and what they are doing, where they are camped, what art project they are working on, what jackassery is in the making, and who is batting eyes at whom.

Speaking of art, I got the Where/What/When map today and I am excited for a day to go out and start seeing more of it.

Not Thursday, though.

It is mom and dad’s ten-year anniversary!

They met ten years ago on a Ranger shift.

So romantic.

I think there may be a moon lit golf cart ride out to deep playa with a bottle of champagne.

I am going to be staying back at the camp to keep an eye on the baby.

I will make a cup of tea and write down what I did during the day and fingers crossed, there won’t be anymore storm systems.

The weather clears after Thursday.

It should be hot and clear for the event.

I am sure there will even be a moment when I miss the rain.

The sound of it on the roof of the trailer and the feel of it on my face, the cool ozone smell that drifts across the playa is delicious.

Tonigh the storm brought the first chilly evening I have experienced out here.

And the smells of the first burn barrels being lit up.

Wood smoke.

My favorite smell.

So good.

So happy to be here.

Home is where the heart is.

And mine, albeit normally on my sleeve, is right here.

Right now.

 

Rain Day

*This post was written last night, and as it turns out the weather was not as bad as it sounded while I was inside the trailer, but this was the post I wrote while waiting it out.

Irony?

Yup, another storm on the horizon, big one too from the looks of it.

But after that, forecasts, for whatever that’s worth, appear clear.

Exquisitely Lucky

Like way beyond grateful right now.

There is a rager of a dust storm happening, which is presaging a rain storm.

Yup, there is rain a coming, until about ten minutes ago I was outside with a cup of tea and a new friend talking about Burning Man adventures.

We were watching the lightning storm on the horizon guessing if we would be missing the storm or if it would make it to us.

Then, an update, rain, real rain, not the spatter of drops that flecked my face as I went out for my sunset bike ride.

I rode deep out into the playa, way past the Temple, where there was no one, no containers with artists materials, no noise, no sound, nothing but me, the high sky studded with whipped clouds underlit by the rosy sunset flocking the mountains ringing the high desert.

It was gorgeous.

Sunset

I stopped my bicycle when I could not see anything but the mountains, the sky, the clouds and the horizon for 180 degrees.

Black Rock

Behind me I knew there was the event happening.

However, with my back turned, I could easily pretend that there was no one, just me, my bicycle and the stunning sky above.

Ok, now I just got a little frightened.  I have never experienced wind like this, the entire trailer is shaking and shaking hard, my tea is sloshing around in its cup like I am on an airplane experiencing severe turbulence.

I will not be leaving the trailer any time soon.

My boss warned me the weather was coming, jesus, this is intense, the entire trailer feels like its going to blow away.  I can’t tell yet if that’s rain out there or hail, but it’s big…

I got to stop writing.

No.

Breathe.

I am ok.

There is nowhere I can go, there is nothing to do, but ride it out and thank god I am riding it out in a trailer and not a tent.  I am really hoping that my friends have all secured coverage.

Fortunately this is happening before the event, if there were more folks out here it could be messy for emergency services.

If it rains really hard we won’t be able to move.

The boss said, don’t worry, we have lots of food in the fridge if we have to buckle down for a few days we’ll be alright.

If the playa floods, we cannot move.

And the way it sounds out there something catastrophic is happening.

This is already, hands down the worst wind and weather I have experienced out here in seven years.

Lucky number seven.

I hear shit flying out there.

I heard my bike get pushed over, it dropped against the trailer and slid to the ground.

God.

All the early art.

Fuck.

There are some beautiful pieces out there, I wonder how they are going to withstand this storm.

I wonder how long this is going to last.

The boss said inclement weather coming in an hour and a half.  That was at 10 p.m. it is now 10:28 p.m.  What is it going to be like by eleven?

The noise I heard was not rain, I think it was just big bits of playa smacking against the trailer.

Well, I have tea and I have coffee.

There is water in the water bottle and I can use the toilet in the trailer, although it was to be strictly for emergency only, so I built up a vanity over it so I wouldn’t be tempted to use it, except in said emergency.

I believe this qualifies.

I feel like if I open the door it will be pulled off its hinges.

In fact, I am tempted to lock it.

However, I am keeping it open as I told a couple of my friends if there were to get stuck out in this neighborhood they could use it as a bolt hole.

I don’t know that anyone will be able to see where I am, it is pure white out.

This blog is being done off line as well, there is no getting online.

There is no phone.

There is no one to call either.

I am not suffering an emergency.

Just some nerves.

I do want to get myself tucked into bed though.

I have Brazilian lounge music playing on the stereo and I can do a nice wipe down with some baby wipes, a whore’s bath if you will, and crawl under the covers and just sit it out.

I don’t think I will sleep any time soon, but the kettle is on and I can get out my book I am reading and just hunker down.

Ah, oh my god, there’s the rain.

That is heavy, thick sounding rain.

This is no little shower.

This is a downpour.

The playa is about to become soup.

No body is moving anytime soon.

I will keep you posted.

If I ever get out of here.

Anti-Climatic

I thought that buying the ticket to Paris would change my outlook today.

It did not.

Then I had a couple of conversations with people, via text, via e-mail, and in person, and I realized that I had actively made the decision to go so long ago (or so it feels) that buying the ticket really was not much of a big deal.

Just one more step on the path to Paris.

My challenge right at this moment is to secure a ride to the playa for Burning Man and not spend a god forsaken amount of money-getting prepped.  I am going to miss a weeks worth of work with no pay to go.

No vacation time.  No sick time.  No pay.

That being said, I am more than confident that I will not only have enough money, that money is about to unexpectedly drop into my lap.  I have no idea why that is and since why is not a spiritual question, I will leave it to the universe to surprise me.

I like surprises.

I got to see Brian Kenney today right at the end of the day as two people were wrapping up bike designs and another was doing a bike pick up and I got to give him a great big hug and let him know I was indeed, after all, going to Burning Man.

I suppose Paris will fill a lot more of my brain pan when I actually am not getting prepped for the playa.

I really do not have a whole ton of things to do–I always go rather light–but there are some things that must be gotten.

Baby wipes.

I must have them.  They are my number one essential.  That and lots of clean socks.  There is nothing like having a nice pair of clean socks to put on your feet after a baby wipe down of the soles and a lotioning of the skin.

“It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again”

I will not have playa foot.  I have never gotten it and when I see people running around without shoes on I get instantaneously icked out. I like my tootsies soft and clean.

Which means, lotion too must be gotten.  Sun block.  Lip balm.  Dust masks and bandanas.

It is going to be a stellar banner dusty ass year out there.  All reports say heavy dust.  I have seen a few pictures and heard a lot of talk about there not being much rain during the rainy season, which means a much greater level of dust out there.

It makes it harder to get around, on bike, especially, and the dust flies. I expect dust storms and white outs.  And white outs are just that, white outs.  Can’t see a foot in front of your face, can’t move your vehicle if you are in a vehicle, can’t breathe for shit, have to wear goggles, have to have a dust mask, have to have a bandana over that dust mask.

You can get lost and it can get serious out there.

There was so little dust last year and nary a white out that I fear for the second year kids.  Any one who was a virgin last year and got to experience the best playa weather I have ever seen, will be caught with their pants down.  It is not going to be like last year.

Hell, there was so much rain last year during the rainy season that even months later there was green plant life in deep playa.  I was amazed to stumble across little plants last year when I was out riding my bike along the perimeter.

I do not think I will see any plant life out there this year.

I am also splurging, in a manner of speaking, and bringing all my pillows with.  I won’t be taking bedding with me to Paris, so if I destroy my nice pillows at the burn I don’t really care.  I am going to want to be as comfy and cozy as possible out there.

I will be back in a tent after having had the luxury of a trailer the last two years.

This reminds me I have to check in with Jennifer about the kind of tent she has.  She read my blog the day before last and texted me that I could borrow her four man tent.  This is perfect, a big tent is really a nice thing to have, but it has to have thick fabric walls or dust will blow right through it.

Heavy canvas tents are the best.  They are also expensive and I do not currently have the cash to drop on any sort of thing like that.  I will be happy with what ever shelter comes my way.

Hats.

I scored a great hat today from some swag a company interested in having us sponsor them sent.  I got a great trucker cap.  I normally would not even think about wearing a trucker cap, but now having glasses it makes more sense.  I am going to want a good bill over my face, I doubt very much I will be wearing sunglasses as I am wearing my glasses now.

I have already debated having to stash them some place.  Since I don’t foresee sitting in front of a computer for hours on end doing invoices, I may not need them quite so much, but I feel more comfortable wearing them and I do notice a pretty distinct difference when I don’t.

That being said, it may well be challenging if it becomes necessary to break out my goggles.  I have to go unearth them from my box of supplies–which is at Robyn’s house.  I have to get over to her place before the event.  I have two boxes there.  I think only one box is Burning Man gear, but I know I will want it, even if I can’t remember what is in it exactly.

A blue wig.

A pair of goggles.

A hoop skirt.

Fabric flowers and ribbons.

A sleeping bag.

Some other random things.  Mostly I want the goggles, the sleeping bag, and the wig.

The wig is actually really awesome for nights out on the playa when it is cold, it provides an extra layer of warmth to your head.  It gets damn cold out there at night.  Extreme temperatures are a definite fixture of the environment.

None the less, I am excited, exhilarated, and thrilled beyond compare that I get to go again.  It’s going to be really interesting to have a new experience out there when I am not nannying.

I am up for that.

Then I will get excited for Paris when I get back.

Then I will probably freak out.

Until then, off to buy some baby wipes.