BM - Day Seven - The Temple Burns

Burning Man - Day Seven

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

We had another major storm roll in, mostly during the morning and early afternoon. I was reading until I pretty much couldn't stand it anymore and Gieve and I begged Pretty and his crew to crawl into their RV. There wasn't really a need to beg as they took us right in.

Damn... that thing is palatial. Huge. Beds, DVD players, kitchen, eating area, etc, etc. Good lords. Very nice, but all in all, way too expensive for my pockets. And really, I'm outside most of the day anyway. The tent is just for sleeping. Now that we have the new and improved Chez Bryan, I'm not as concerned about my bed area. But still... dang. Nice.

Those storms are so hard on the body and it was definitely very nice being in the RV. Gieve took a nap and I read more and briefly snoozed. Then they made dinner and we joined them. Tasty. I need a cook at home. This is so great. And I actually eat real, full meals out here. And drink water. In proper quantities.

While eating dinner, we had a hysterical play acting around being a horribly dysfunctional family. It sort of built out of Pretty wearing a "wife beater" (I hate that term) white tank top with boxer shorts and I have no idea if I'm remembering this right, but those weird sock garter thingies men wear to keep their socks from sliding down. So we thought he looked like the perfect abusive, drunk father. So that was his role. Chel played the long suffering housewife, Gieve the codependent, ingratiating son, Dan played the older, druggie complaining son, and I played the try to be perfect, emo daughter. We really tried not to laugh. Then Pretty's fashion designer came over with her friend (female and I was assuming at the time, girlfriend/partner type) and we had them play aunt (designer) and her gay lover, coming to visit the family. I think then we had to laugh ourselves silly. I laughed so hard, which was good as I cleared my lungs up a bit. This is one of the aspects that I just adore about Burning Man, the community. As temporary as it is, it fucking rocks.

Then the storm cleared in the late afternoon and we all crept out to start packing up the camp. Gieve and I started in on ours after helping out Pretty and his crew take down their shade structure outside their RV. We had decided to avoid the crowds (haha, this usually ends up like the Prayers to the Porta Potty Gods) and leave right after the Temple Burn. So we packed up everything beforehand in order to just be able to head out right afterwards. Tent down, bikes on top, figuring we'd just walk out to the Temple, double check the area... Set.

While we were taking down the camp, double checking for MOOP (Matter Out Of Place) in order to be in "compliance" with one of the major tenets of Burning Man: Leave No Trace, I wandered a bit with my camera.

The environment is so amazing out on the Playa. The white, flat lakebed, the mountains in the distance, and of course, the clouds and sunsets!! The sun was setting and wow, it looks so empty as often people clear out after the Man Burn or in the morning of the Temple Burn.

So off to the Temple Burn which, as always, is just the complete opposite of the Man Burn. Although usually the Man Burn is much more energetic with lots of noise and very "up" energy. And you'd expect this of thousands of people gathering to watch a large structure explode and burn up. The Temple Burn is almost completely silent, which is pretty damn amazing for such a large crowd. Any heckling, if there is any at all, which is so rare, I've only heard it twice, is apparently dealt with immediately by the crowd (not physically or violently but quietly and firmly) as you don't hear that person again. It's funny because that sort of thing happens all the time at the Man and people let it fly, but not at the Temple. People take this Burn seriously. It is taken as a solemn, meaningful, somewhat spiritual event. Everyone's memories, yearnings for lost loved ones, things to let go of or bring into one's life, all those messages rising up in the smoke. Silence.

This year, for some reason, the Temple took a very long time to Burn to the point where it collapsed (which is the thing that everyone looks forwards to with the Man, as they let folks go forwards to the bonfire at that point). And even though it took forever, there was still silence. A few hoots here and there as the Burn time lengthened, quickly silenced (this was number two in the" twice" I mentioned before). I let my stuff burn up with the smoke and sat in my own silence.

Then we headed back to our sparse camp, gave everyone hugs and headed out into the night, me driving, getting a bit turned around before finding the gate road and then, of course, just sitting there forever.

Thus ended my 2008 Burning Man. Here's Javier to send it off until next year.

BM - Day Six - The Storms Roll In, The Man Tentatively Burns

Burning Man - Day Six

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

As usual, I was just hanging out, reading, snacking.

The weather was fine and then bam, a massive White Out (Brown Out in some places) rolled in. A White Out is exactly what it implies, the whitish dust gets whipped up by very strong winds and rolls in over the city, layering everything with white and you can't really see even a few feet in front of you. A Brown Out is worse, when the wind is so strong, it's kicking up dust, chunks of dust and dirty. It's brownish and stinging as it whips over you. Ouch. As you can see here, as this is taken in mid-day with the sun blazing. Yes, that little bright spot is the sun. Some folks in the camp over were taking down their structures. A lot of people leave on Saturday, packing up before the Burn and leaving afterwards.

But in this case, a lot of people were taking down to batten down the hatches. I know we were, scurrying around, tightening ropes and the rebar for our structures and securing loose or even lighter items like chairs. Because really, I've seen whole car ports ripped out of their rebar roping and flipped over a campmate's van (2006). There's not much you can do about the dust unless you're in an RV. Then you can really batten and hunker down. Here's Ethan being blown away while trying to secure his tent. You can see Pleas-Air in the background.

After securing everything, I put on my goggles and bandanna and just sat in Chez Bryan and read. Later, the New Mexicans scolded me for not knocking on the RV to come in but I didn't really think of it until way later. Although these storms are incredibly wearying for some reason, even when under regular shelter.

If you think being at Burning Man is dirty business, you're right. It's pretty grungy. We have a shower platform set up over an evaporation pond and some people take showers while here. I don't bother, I can't stand to get dirty again when it takes me a few days to adjust in the first place to being here and being dirty. And for the most part, it's not so bad, I use that handgel to "wash" with and there's not much body odor because the alkalai kills everything off, even in your armpits. But when these storms come in, there is no avoiding it. You just get really, really dirty. Evidenced here by Gieve and friend chatting under Chez Byran during the storm.

Again, a great dinner, eating grilled steak, corn on the cob, and homemade from scratch cherry pie, with Sundancer and friends of his, Ranger Pacman and his wife, Megan. You'd be surprised how much you can taste through the dust.

A bonus feature of having a Black Rock City Ranger living in your camp is you get to hear what's going on "out there" in the rest of the city. Sundancer often leaves his handheld radio on, especially when he's getting ready to go out to work a shift. So we were all listening to the chatter going back and forth, eating our nice dinner in the midst of this howling storm and soon we start hearing chatter that they are thinking they are not going to be able to Burn the Man because the wind was just too strong and they were worried about safety of the city and inhabitants. I was a bit stunned, since really, Burning Man.... the Burn of the Man is sort of THE Thing, you know?

But I kind of understood too. When Marty came out here last year, he said he had never experienced weather like that before. And we had some severe storms last year. More Brown Outs than White Outs and when the wind picked up, which was most of the time, it stung the skin. You couldn't see a foot in front of you and we were out on the street until we realized that we just had to get to some shelter from the wind. Well, the storm today was just about as bad. Fortunately, one of the first (outside of the beginning of the week) we've had. Last year was exhausting as it was about three days in a row. This photo is of a flag pole that normally stands upright. Seriously. That vague white dot just by the pole is the sun. It's probably about three o' clock in the afternoon. I fucking kid you not. Without the dust in the air, it'd be as white and bright as you could ask for. And really, this is probably nothing. They've clocked 60 or more mph winds out here. Now, imagine lighting something huge on fire surrounded by thousands of people. So, I could understand their concern. I really could.

So, with the Burn in question, I went out with the Israelis and Gieve to dance at The Deep End, an (outside, natch) rave club that has been a Burning Man staple for years. Supposedly this is their last year on the Playa. I'd never been before, it's not usually my scene to go rave, but fuck it, why not. The music was decent, that sort of thumping techno that is reminescent of the scene in the third Matrix when everyone is dancing in Zion, jumping up and down, throwing themselves about with wild abandon. I plowed into it, joining in the cheers as the storm briefly broke and we could see clear skies for a bit, joining in the wild dance as the dust swirled in again. Goggles, a bandanna and a camelpak are a raver's best friend. Hell, a Burner's best friend. So we danced wildly and I was quite enjoying myself until a likely drunk dude wearing only an American flag tie and mini catholic school girl skirt stepped, more like was leaping up and mashed, on my big toe. I was barefoot and damn, that really, really hurt. I thought it might be broken at first. But hell, I just stopped dancing and sort of swayed in place, trying to breathe through it, watching with vague amusement as he mashed someone else's foot.

We wandered back to camp and heard that the wind had died down enough that they were willing to give the Man a Burn and we wandered over pretty much as a camp pack to watch. We sat down at the front (there's a line you cannot sit past for safety's sake) and began eating Jelly Bellys which I bring every year. There was some conflict with some Yahoo's nearby us but we pretty much ignored them and tried not to get involved even when it was tempting to tell the jerk to shut up and leave people alone.

There was no Conclave this year, the giant fire spining/dancing show that goes on in the inner circle, between us and the Man (not while it's on fire), due to the wind and it took them forever to actually get set up for the Burn and then actually Burn the Man. I think they were still a bit concerned about the wind, which was still fitfully gusting here and there. But Burn the Man they did. Fireworks, all that usual stuff.

The Burn seemed a little low energy this year, maybe due to the lack of Conclave and the time it took to get going. People seemed restless and irritated. To me, it was almost a side note, this year. I wasn't as invested in it as previous years. Usually, I'm all hyped up and ready for massive explosions and fire. FIRE!!! Ah well.

So after eating our fill of the Jelly Bellys, we sent the container off into the crowd, as I did last year as well. Who knows how far it gets. I hope they get passed around. And eaten. And then we wandered back home to our dust filled tent, which we had already cleaned out once or twice today, to sleep.

BM - Day Five - Pole Dancing and Talent Shows

Burning Man - Day Five

(I didn't take photos today.)

I was up early today but mostly just sat around reading until breakfast about which there was some confusion about what to eat. I noted that folks seemed a bit irritated and grumpy with each other this morning but there didn't seem to be any particular reason behind it.

But I stayed under the shade, per usual. We still have a ton of food and we aren't going that great with the ice. I think I'm mostly just using it for my camelpak. I've had a physically hard Burn this year. The cough, my heart going off all the time, and today my eyes were burning, streaming tears. I hadn't been wearing my bandanna or my goggles much. The weather really has been quite good. Although that doesn't mean there isn't dust. There is always dust. It just depends in what quantity, usually more when the wind is up.

It was my coffee service shift today. Gieve was on this shift as well. It was, as usual, quite fun. Usually people are quite thankful, but I swear for giving away something for free, some people can be quite impatient and judgmental. I mean, we're not a full fledged restaurant or even a partially fledged one! But in any case, I had fun with it and was silly around the stirring of the coffee, especially since I manned the ice station for some time. No stir, no ice. I'd speak in a fake Russian accent and check their cup three times in play. Usually people played along and teased back or begged my ice queenly mercy. We served roughly 175 cups in a couple of hours.

After service, I was still hanging out. We heard that Pretty was going to do a cabaret talent spot in Quixote's in one of his fabulous dresses so we were waiting around for that. In the meantime, our neighbors, Pleas-Air, held a pole dancing contest. No, I don't have photos. I'm sure someone does. There were some women who obviously had done this before. But my body image wasn't up so horribly watching these slender women getting up to dance in such a raunchy fashion. I think partly it is because there are no mirrors to remind yourself of what you look like. Or I've lost weight. But that's usually not the case surprisingly enough. There was one woman of "flesh", apparently a new phrase "lady/woman of flesh" to denote heavy these days. Whatever.

So some of these women obviously knew what they were doing and some went beyond, like letting guys come up and put their faces in their crotches (still wearing their bikinis). Then the finals came and of course the more raunchy ladies made it to the final round and... Javier!! Who apparently did a turn on the stage that I missed but upon hearing that he was up for a final round, competing against the dirty, skinny bitches, practically the entire camp went over to watch.

He got up there in high heels I'd run screaming from, a wild afro wig and a sleeveless tube dress. And danced better than any of those bitches!! He did things with that pole I didn't think was possible, like swinging out and holding it and then drawing himself in towards the pole slowly. Wow. We were all screaming and shouting for him. He didn't win, however, the raunchy bitches getting the votes from the men judges. Bah. Javier was the best.

On a side note, the strange man in our tent was in the crowd and I approached him. I had to remind him as he didn't remember but he apologized profusely, taking me at my word. I wonder if that's happened before...

Then off to dinner with the New Mexican crew with grilled chicken, sauteed veggies, rice and Sundancer's homemade bread (made from scratch in a bread oven on a gas grill, natch). Again, I eat better here than at home.

Then off to the Cabaret which was fun in varying ways. I tried to have an alcoholic drink but ended up hiding most of it under a bench. Bleh. Too strong. And really, drinking out in the desert is dumb even if a good 70% of the folks at BM do it. We saw Buttercup, a large Samoan looking gentleman with a stuffed, yellow birdie, singing in a quite a good voice, "Don't Touch My Birdie" which was very funny. Then various sexy, burlesque style singers, and then Blue, a poet who recited a very hot poem. A European comedian filled in some space. Then a hysterical Air Guitar contest with was very silly and fun, and raunchy of course. The guy who flashed his penis a lot won, of course. Followed by a very tall and skinny man in a Superman outfit who was a hoola hooper who stripped to full monty while hooping which was pretty funny. Pretty was great in his Statue of Liberty outfit. All his outfits have been fantastic. And then, the finale, a small Thai (or nearby country) man who looked like a young Sulu from Star Trek did a strange and somewhat disturbing dance down to his thong underwear. It was just... wrong. And that's saying a lot for Burning Man.

So in order to wash that out of our heads, Sundancer, Gieve and I went out to visit the Temple in the dark. I also wanted to drop off my items to be burned. Some papers of David's (my cousin who died some time ago), some of Willow's paperwork (my Sheltie I grew up with), and unnecessary military paperwork. The wind was picking up a little and I was actually in need of my goggles and bandanna, hopefully a storm is not heading in. On our way back, after I chose a good place to put my bag of stuff, we stopped at a massive Tetris installation. And I mean huge. Large, lit up Tetris "pieces" with large platforms that you could go up on and play the game and it would show up on the large centerpiece. We watched someone get the high score and then Gieve got up there and almost, just barely didn't beat the high score. We were shouting and cheering him but I'm pretty sure he couldn't hear us over the noise of the wind and the constant background of the city.

Then back to camp and to bed. The temperature had dropped today, previous nights were warmer, as much as warm can be. So it was colder and Gieve and I snuggled in to avoid the cold. Damn, it's freaking cold out here sometimes!!

BM - Day Four - Strange Man in Our Tent!

Burning Man - Day Four

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

I got up early, with the light, as usual, but went back to bed. There's only so much morning abuse a night owl can take, you know.

When I did get back up, I was mostly hanging out in Chez Bryan. This has been become my wont this Burning Man. To do nothing, I find, is perhaps what I need. A break from crazy work. And besides, it was freaking hot today. I know, I know, it's the desert, right? Hot all the time, right? But some days are better than others. Hot, yes, but with nice breezes. We've been having amazing weather outside of that dust storm on the first day coming into the city which we didn't really experience. Clear skies, nice breezes, very low dust. I haven't been wearing my bandanna and I probably should be, the cough is still up.

But I hung out until coffee service and then went to help set up and get today's coffee shift started. And then I did a lot of standing around, watching the coffee service, drinking a few cups of tasty coffee myself. Here's Gal, testing a cup of Vietnamese Iced Coffee (and Shirry in the background behind Ethan "testing" some as well). He and Ethan wore these aprons (Ethan's was red) over just boxer briefs, which I absolutely loved (the aprons, mind you, although the guys do have hot bods): "I keep the best snacks under my apron." Actually, I must correct myself. Gal wore his over underwear as seen here and Ethan wore his over... nothing but then ended up putting a VICC apron over his backside.











You can see Aiden serving ice in the foreground. Note his tattoo on his shoulder. We discovered the first year that we have pretty much the same tattoo. Leo always wears an Eye of Ra necklace. I have one on my right hip.

So... the set up. The tables are in a large U shape with the camp stoves starting it all off, heating up water. Then the coffee station where someone packs the presses and screws the tops in. Then the milk station where one can of sweetened condensed milk is poured out across five cups, then presses placed on top and the yell of "HOT WATER!!" comes out and we scatter and the keeper of the water station pours the water. Once it brews, someone gives the cup over. Ethan of this crew became something of the Stir Nazi. I mean he really got into it, coming up with all sorts of playful and silly ways of handing that cup over with stir instructions.

After stirred properly as previously mentioned and shown a couple of days ago, the customer is off to the ice station. Then yummy goodness is enjoyed and the cups (hopefully) turned back in to the dishwashing crew who get the joys of washing everything out, hopefully easily if all the milk was stirred in properly. All these stations rotate to give crew members a break. But about 3/4ths of the Israelis ended up together on washing duty at one point and they seemed to be having a good time about the whole thing. Well, okay, they don't look like it here but it was one of the best photos I had of it.

At one point, we had a customer (Vietnamese, natch) come up and say "You know, you're serving Vietnamese iced coffee and none of you are Vietnamese." So Aiden (who was shift "captain" at the time) made her an honorary crew member, gave her one of the cool medallions Aiden had made for all of us, plopped a rice paddy hat on her head and told her to speak in a fake Vietnamese accent. She got the duty of handing out chopsticks to customers (how we determine if you're getting a cup or not especially since people don't file singly like we tell them too and tells us the end of the line when were done). She was totally into it and had a blast. The absolute best thing was she was already wearing this shirt. "I will not love you long time."

We chatted for a little bit and found out she and her crew made the huge metal tree with steam coming out of it and big tire swings hanging off the branches. She said it took thousands of dollars to make, I may be remembering incorrectly but it might have been $10k. That is an amazing amount of money to spend for a one week a year event.

Then Quixote's Bar offered a bellydancing class as we were starting to clean up, so I stayed to watch. No, I didn't join in even though I have taken it in the past. Droves of ladies and even men came in, some with bellydancing like gear, some without but Quixote's offered scarves to wear and then the crowd gamely went forth to follow the instructor in her gyrations. Don't get me wrong, I love bellydancing. But why I stopped learning it was because I could not for the life of me get one of the most important moves, the Shimmy. That quick up and down hip jiggle thingie. As it really is one of the basic moves upon which many are built, it's sort of a bad thing if you can't do it. I can do many other moves as long as they don't include the evil shimmy. Plus I just like "freestyling it" when it comes to dance.

Speaking of dance, our neighbors, who built a large shade structure shaped like a plane and was called Pleas-Air ("It's our pleas-air to serve you") or some such, served "jet fuel" and music, offering a dance space under the body of the shade plane. They were pretty considerate neighbors too, the music actually going off not to late at night. Plus they played a good selection of music. So much so that Aiden decided to give the DJ a VICC medallion. I went over with him and danced on my own for a bit. I was really struck again by how much I think I would like to dance. I got good feet, good turn out, so I've been told. I was leaping around, pointing my toes and all. Fun. Then Aiden and I had some jet fuel and danced together for a little bit under the plane, listening intently and deeply to the music and the noise of Burning Man, looking up into the sky (eve at this point). The Playa, believe it or not, is one of the more peaceful places I know. Maybe it's the quiet surroundings. Like New Mexico is stunningly quiet in the back of my head. All that psychic constant buzz of the city gone. And then I was called back for dinner. But often at home (in SF), I can close my eyes and get a slight memory of that quiet and the "noisy" peace in the background.

Oh, I remember something before dancing at Pleas-Air, during the day. After coffee service, we had an in-depth discussion about socialism among several members of VICC, getting almost a little heated at points, but never really went over the line. Dan then said that he and I should go find the camps in the distance flying the Confederate flag and "Raid those Commi Confederate Bastards!!" and so we did. Well, mostly it was wandering around looking for them but then upon finding them and storming in with our demands that the Commies get out of our neighborhood (all as a joke, of course), were wooed into trying a vodka pickle chaser instead. Well, Dan tried it. I really can't do shots of straight alcohol, basically from my time in the military, even the smell makes me ill. Dan said it was good and we chatted with the crew, who turned out to be from North Carolina but I can't remember specifically where.

Gieve and I ate with the Israelis tonight, they made dinner. You know, I felt slightly guilty at bringing bagels, salami, beef jerky, nutella and bread to eat and not being able to really contribute to these fabulous meals being made here. We had good conversation and good food (vegetarian, which Marty would have been thrilled with after seeing all the grilled meat!).

Then I sat with the New Mexicans for a bit, chatting, having a couple of their leftover grilled lamb chops (damn, life at Burning Man is hard, eh?). I think I eat better at Burning Man than I do at home. Gieve came by and said "Hey, did you know that guy in our tent?" I snorted and told him to stop it. And he said, "No, really..." and I laughed at him again. But when he gave me a look and said, fine, in a particular tone, I realized he was not kidding as I thought he had been.

There was some strange guy passed out in our tent!! He was laying on our bed, wrapped up in Gieve's blanket and sleeping bag with his legs sticking out of the entrance. At least he was polite about it, since he was still wearing his shoes. And no, I didn't know him. I shook him awake, or at least tried to, since he kept vaguely shooing me away and trying to wrap up into the blankets even more, like a little kid who doesn't want to get up for school. Finally I yanked the blanket away from him and told him to get the fuck up and out of our tent. He managed to drag himself out and Sundancer, being a Ranger, came over to see if there was something he might assist with (remember, they are trained in mediation). The guy kept demanding this was his tent and at one point, reached for Gieve's blanket still in my hands and I just stepped back, telling him, "Mine." until he dropped his hands. He was convinced the New Mexican's RV was his boss's and this tent was his. He was pretty smashed. He was not going to leave, no matter what. Sundancer wasn't on duty but he always has his radio going and called for a Green Dot (a Rangers who is also trained in counseling who travels around with a regular "field" Ranger) to come assist but then Sundancer managed to talk the man into coming away from our tent and over towards the plane, which is where we think he might have been camping. Sundancer is good at his job.

We giggled and shook our heads in amazement about the whole thing for a little bit before settling in for bed.

BM - Day Three - Coffee Service Begins!

Burning Man - Day Three

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

I woke up still with bad Playa cough and heart issues but bounced up and out of the tent, jazzed, it's coffee service today!

Today we started our coffee service. VICC, Vietnamese Iced Coffee Camp serves from 100 to 200 cups of extremely tasty iced coffee each service day to the hot and thirsty citizens of Black Rock City. It is a bunch of fun and we are very popular every year.

We have been very fortunate to have a contingent of friendly Brits who camp with Avalon under the camp name of Quixote's, who have been extremely nice in letting us use their space each year. This means we don't have to bring or plan our own structure. Quixote's was extra nice to plan space in their storage for our VICC equipment as well so we didn't have to lug stuff back and forth between camps, even if we were fairly close by. Quixote's usually runs a bar and cabaret and this year, their theme was beach fun, in keeping with the American Dream of course! Here's VICC's serving home at Burning Man. Note the line of citizens eager for tasty coffee!!

Vietnamese Iced Coffee could also be known as Crack-In-A-Cup as it is very sweet and strongly brewed. A couple of cups and you can run around the city (pretty large) a few times. We use sweetened condensed milk, one 6 ounce can per five cups and dark roast coffee brewed through drip presses. Stir and add ice. It was a bit crazy getting set up for the first run. We really should have practice runs before we come out here. Besides, we'd get to drink more of this stuff more often. Yum. We did have to train some VICC virgins as you can see Luz carefully measuring out sweetened condensed milk and MoistPup (with the apron and coffee press in the foreground) preparing a coffee press.

Once the water has seeped through and brewed completely, we hand the cups over to our eager and often impatient customers to thoroughly stir before getting their ice. We usually make a big deal of it, making people dance and be goofy or be goofy ourselves, faking accents while we encourage folks to stir with vigor and with passion! Actually, it's kind of selfish since if it's not stirred properly, it's hell for the dishwashers to get the gunk out of the bottom. So here are some enthusiastic and dedicated stirrers before receiving their ice.

As I mentioned, it was a bit crazy, setting up for the first time in a year, training folks, but soon we were full swing and eventually Gieve and I wandered off to go wander the Playa as our shift wasn't until Friday and I was just there to make sure everything got set up according to the health department standards (we have to apply for a temporary permit). As it happened, Gieve and I didn't end up wandering the Playa quite yet but went and had lunch, after getting our requisite Crack-In-a-Cup. VICC members get first dibs. We had tasty bagel salami sandwiches, under Chez Bryan, chatting, waiting for the sun to go down. We had some photography fun during our shade stint. Yes, this is black and white although I have recently just learned that for digital black and white, you shoot color and fiddle in Photoshop, not use the black and white setting. Who knew. I certainly didn't. I didn't fiddle with this and the unfortunate thing about black and white digital is that it shoots uniform grey, rather than contrasts of good blacks and whites.

On a total aside, we did get ice finally for the ice coolers but I also love filling up my camelpak with ice and water. The temperature is much easier to take when one's insides are cooled down. So I was physically doing much better after that.

But I digress. So as the light got cooler, we went out and about. I love a lot of things about Burning Man, the camaraderie, the atmosphere and the massive art installations. Here's an example of one of many, a massive mosaic and metal flowerpot. This was at the circle intersection of the Esplanade (the most inner street of the city) and the 9pm street. I'm shooting upwards but you can still get an idea of the scale of it. We ran into another very large art installation on our way to the Temple out in the deep Playa. Most art is Burned at the end. Obviously that metal flowerpot wouldn't be but the giant Hummer (the American Dream, obviously, after having its rubber tires removed) was burned to the ground. I don't know the guy on the top, but it was a great unconscious "American" pose.










Today also was the first Temple visit. If the Man is noisy and his Burn totally crazy, the Temple is quiet and contemplative. More on that later. 2006 Temple I liked a lot, 2007 Temple I didn't. 2007 Temple was beautiful but cold, not really any place to sit down or post memorials like 2006 Temple had, which was sprawling and had a warm quality to it.

This year's Temple was made out of reclaimed and recycled materials, old timber, processed wood, found beach wood, squashed soda cans, found nature objects, such as pine cones, old bottle tops for detailing. Bits and parts were painted, which was a first for me. Last two Temples were plain wood, relying on the beauty of their structure alone. As we walked up, you could see the delicate details of the structure but also, there was a noise all throughout. Those squashed aluminum cans were strung together, as well as wood bits being strung together to form long strands that were hung all over the Temple and next to each other so the wind, of which there is plenty on the Playa, rustled them together. You'd think it would have been a massive cacophony but really, it was quite peaceful. There were people sitting in the various little separate "rooms" and nooks, some quietly chatting, some meditating. As usual (although less so last year), there were writings on the walls or any clear surface, items place in nooks and crannies, photos, written pieces, all of a memorial nature. Where one writes whatever wanted on the Man (I wrote a hope for cultural world peace), the Temple is usually reserved for memories of the dead, the missing be they alive or whereabouts known or unknown. I often get quite teary reading and looking through all these heartfelt memoirs.

I thought the Temple was quite beautiful this year. I brought items with me to burn last year but not having connected to the Temple then, they came home with me. This year, I would be leaving them behind. Although not today.

As the light continued to dim, we started heading back to our bikes when we noticed a large crowd forming off to one side of the Temple so we went to check it out. It was a wedding in progress, one of those random Burning Man events, so we stayed through to the end and then Gieve realized that his cousin was in the wedding party. So as she was getting on the crazily decorated wedding art car, Gieve called out to her and she quickly told us her camp and address as they pulled off. So later we went to find her but sat for a long time, looking but didn't find her. But we had a lot of tasty appetizers for the wedding "reception".

So after a long sit, we decided to head home and found a good half of VICC dancing the Hava Nagila in our camp's "courtyard". Gieve and I hopped right in, it was a blast. These are the joys of Burning Man, coming home and finding these sorts of things happening.

Then off to bed, with Prayers to the Playa Gods actually being heard tonight and I managed to sleep through the night.

BM - Day Two - Settling In

Burning Man - Day Two

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

Timing gets all screwed at Burning Man. Plus when you're sleeping in a tent, there's nothing you can do about the light. So you're up early in the morning and down early at night. Even for night owls like me. My sleeping schedule is all fixed up when I get home after Burning Man, well, for at least a few days.

So bright and early I was up and eating a nutella sandwich for breakfast which was fantastic. The "saying" holds true that "Everything tastes better on the Playa." Even with all the damned dust. So that nutella sandwich was sooo tasty. And that was it for breakfast. I don't really eat a lot of food when out on the Playa, always have left overs of what I bring with me.

So after our filling breakfast, Gieve and I decided to go out for a ride around the City and out to the Man, sort of a traditional tour, to see the Man after getting all set up and settled in. But wow, the Playa was extremely mushy, lots of drifts built up after some of the severe dust storms Black Rock City had experienced before we came in. My bike is a "hybrid", mostly street, some mountain and it was too "street" to take those big drifts. You'd be biking along at a decent clip, hit one of those piles of dirt and either go wildly fishtailing around and come to a wrenching halt or basically get dumped over onto your side. I usually would have to waddle out of the drift, both feet on the ground, pushing and moving the bike like a little kid learning to ride. It was very hard work to do some of the simple touring we usually do. Usually it's nice and packed flat.

And then I came to realize why I should have been wearing my dust bandanna last night while setting up. And probably should have worn it more throughout the week. I had a pretty bad case of Playa Cough. That deep racking cough that never seems to want to cease with a hint of metallic in the back of the throat. Bleh. Some people cough up stuff. I'm betting they're smokers. I just coughed deep and hard with nothing to show for it. How disappointing. Well, this may have been the cause of the sore and raspy throat I developed, sounding like a well-smoked out, washed up blues singer. And I don't know if all the coughing was causing my arrhythmia to go off but it was bad, every other beat and just about all day.

But despite that, Gieve and I muscled our way out to the Man to have a look see. This year's theme was "The American Dream". So the Man was on this huge tower that you could go up in, wrapped in the flags of just about every country in existence and some that weren't anymore. We climbed up into the tower to look out over the City. And then back down after writing something somewhere on the Man (all wood structure). This is tradition too, since the Man is going to be burned at the end, you write what you want to go up with the smoke. The man had various interactive art projects placed around it and we wandered around, writing things, poking at things. There was a debarkation sort of thing supposed to be Ellis Island but arriving into the State of Burning Man and Black Rock City from the "regular" world. I went down the gangplank and wrote my Playa name in the book. Marty would have scoffed. I did it for fun.

Then back to camp to sit in Chez Bryan. Remember Sundancer, the intrepid desert cook from last night? Sundancer is also a Black Rock City Ranger, the civilian mediation "force" that patrols the city. He brings a full kitchen with him every year which he calls Chez Bryan. Last year and the year before, it was a small structure with the table and shelves and grill. We all kept trying to jam ourselves into this small space around the table to avoid the sun and to chat. So this year Sundancer decided to bring an entire portable car port, one quarter or so being the actual set up of Chez Bryan and the rest being a nice shaded are we ended up putting most of our chairs under. And where I ended up spending a good deal of time at Burning Man.

I sat and went through the event booklet, circling things that I wanted to try out or do. Of course, I never get to these things. Time is just so messed up and I usually don't have the energy. And since every Burn is different, apparently this Burn I just needed to sit around and do nothing. But I looked through anyway. Because you just never know.

Then Sundancer had his traditional dinner of marinated Ahi tuna with noodles and salad for the entire camp. Soooo tasty.

After dinner, we had a giant camp meeting with everyone of VICC (Vietnamese Iced Coffee Camp) attending except one, my co-worker who asked to come along, his camp having fallen apart. We went around saying names and Playa names. We have Bryan/Sundancer from Seattle with his friend Javier/Vortex (from San Francisco), a huge crew this year from New Mexico, namely Albuquerque, I don't even know if I'm going to get everyone right, or if I even remember real names, I get so used to Playa names: Ricky/Leo, Brian/Aiden, Charlie/Ruckus, Sean/Blue, Woody, Voyeur, Pan, Luz. Then the group that came to be known as The Israelis, two Israeli friends of Marty's (and mine a little) who live in San Francisco and two of their Israeli friends traveling the US: Gal, Liron, Etan, Shirry. Then the San Francisco crew: Heather/Fryii, Gieve/sometimes Buddha as called by others, Chris/Pretty, Dan, Chel. Then my co-worker Kiril/Anakin, who wasn't at the meeting. We set up coffee shifts and planned the service week. It was great and pretty amazing to get everyone together all at once.

In the photo are, from left to right - Blue, Aiden, Ruckus, Dan, Sundancer, Liron, Gal, Etan, Shirry.

I ended up going out after the meeting with the New Mexico crew. Woody was so completely smashed on something. But he was a fun and sweet "drunk" and I felt like staying with him to take care of him. We wandered around, finding a cool dome with "chill space" seating and caves. Chill Spaces are extremely important at Burning Man, spots you can go to where the energy is toned down, there is relaxing, not so stimulating music or much stimuli around. We plopped Woody down to watch folks dancing behind white screens so they looked like shadow puppets. Vortex (Javier, who is a professional dancer) got up behind one and did a lovely dance with us quietly cheering him on. I sat inside one of the cave features, looking out. It had rugs inside and was quiet but it was nice to have my body inside and poking my head out to watch, tucked between Aiden and another New Mexican sitting on either side. Very sweet.

Then Javier decided to go roller skating (yes this exists) and the NM crew disappeared somewhere and I went to go look for the pointe shoe tree, which had been listed as "if it fits, you can take a pair", but nothing fit. I have aircraft carriers for feet. It comes with being a 5' 9" woman. And that's nothing. I'm the second shortest woman on my mom's side of the family.

My home for a week.

On my way to my (hopefully) last Porta Potty visit for the night (uselessly) praying to the Porta Potty Gods, I saw 5 bikes zip by, one in front with LED wire made up as a Pac Man and four bikes with LED made up as the four ghosts chasing it. I laughed all the way back to the tent.

BM - Day One - And We're Off!!

Burning Man - Day One

(8/25/08 to 8/31/08 written later)

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

I got way too little sleep last night and now have to get up and leave too damn early from work. But at least I got home and packed earlier than usual. Although I think we got on the road earlier than I usually do, around 10:30am and usually it's 12:30pm or 2:30pm. Packing was about three hours. Always is. And I should never be surprised that it doesn't take six hours to drive there, but twelve. Every time.

We drove up to Sacramento, which is on the way to Burning Man in any case, and visited with Marty's parents. Only his dad was there but we sat and chatted for a bit. Then to a brief lunch at McDonald's where I haven't eaten in years and may I never eat there again for more years to come. Although one can only hope that McDonald's is gone in many more years to come.

One of my favorite things in driving to Burning Man is seeing other Burners on the road, always identifiable by the amounts of crap jammed into or strapped onto vehicles. There weren't so many at the beginning, too early I guess. But later in the drive, we saw more and more, giving the surfer "hang loose" sign as we passed by.

Then we hit the long two lane road up to the gate, it's about 90 miles to the BM entrance but I think it usually takes six, considering that traffic reduces itself to a crawl. It seems there were a lot of accidents too, on this road, more than usual. Mostly involving RVs, some that looked like they had rolled over and been twisted apart at the seams and one that was a burnt out husk that we didn't know the story behind. I didn't hear later about anyone dying at Burning Man in a car fire so I'm assuming the people all got out in time. But dang. Does that mean your Burn is over? How do you get home? Icky.

Plus, later we found out there had been a massive dust storm that shut down the city "Introdus" and thusly we were sitting there for quite some time, again, I think about six hours? Usually only Exodus from the City is this bad.

You can see the line up here, heading into the dust hanging over the Playa. Miles of cars and RVs ahead of us, single file. And this is still miles from the main City gates. Fun, eh?

But Gieve and I passed the time chatting about all sorts of things and eventually we got onto the topic of photography, in which we are both interested. Gieve has a decent point and shoot which he has always used on automatic. It's taken great photos. I use my Canon Rebel DSLR on
manual. We started talking about manual settings and then I started explaining the basics of photography and how to use a digital camera on manual settings. We passed some time, taking photos, since we were at a dead standstill for quite some time. It was fun and as good for my own sake as it seemed for him. Always good to review aperture and shutter settings.

Here's Gieve in the driver's seat of Zippy (Marty and my Subaru - the truck has always come to Burning - Zippy did an admirable job). Gieve did a lot of the driving, fortunately, I was so tired.

But we got into Black Rock City in the dark, as usual. We wandered only a little bit but found VICC fairly quickly. Always good to have the address before hand. Of course, Avalon Village is rather big, hence at least the little bit of wandering. We started setting up our tent by handheld lamp and car headlights. It was a little windy but not too bad and not too dusty either. I didn't even need my bandana although later learned I should have worn it anyway.

After we got set up, we have a very fancy dinner with Sundancer, our resident Black Rock City Ranger who delights in challenging difficult situations by creating practically gourmet meals. So we ate crumb-crusted scallops with salad and such. Heh. Sometimes I just love certain aspects of Burning Man over others.

I think we ate dinner around 2am and I was so tired at that point that I was starting to hallucinate which I don't think I've ever done before when tired. I could have sworn at one point that I saw a black dog darting away out of the corner of my eyes. There are no animals allowed on the Playa, it would just be cruel. So I was fairly certain it was not an actual dog, but that strange "corner of the eye" sort of effect. But then I started seeing slugs all over the ground and I knew I needed to go to bed as soon as I could. I almost felt like I'd taken Ambien but I hadn't. It was quite an odd space to be in.

So we crawled into our blow-up bed, saying a prayer to the Playa Gods to not have to pee in the middle of the night, meaning crawling out of your warm bed, stumbling through the dark and the cold to the Porta-Potties, but somehow they never hear your prayers. It was very hard to sleep although it was quiet. Which will be this night only. But finally we both drifted off.

To suddenly wake to morning. Gieve and I sat up and stared at each other. Because in our minds, it shouldn't have been morning yet and we were both sort of stunned and surprised because we really needed more sleep. It was bright all around, that sort of white, yellowish morning light you get on the Playa, not just uni-directional as if someone turned on their car headlights. And then after a few moments, it flicked off like a switch. Completely dark again.

Later, asking around, none of our other campmates had experienced such a thing. So Gieve and I think we were abducted by aliens. At least that's the colorful version I like to spread around.

Emily Leaving

So, it was my last day to see Emily as I was headed off for work and then off to Burning Man the day after.

Poo. I need more community. Especially girlfriends with whom to hang out and giggle with and be all femme. Bah.

Then there was the usual silliness at work, people freaking out, splatting their Stuff all over the place without boundaries.

I am a Container, thanks.

Everything You Want

Everything You Want - Vertical Horizon

Somewhere there's speaking
It's already coming in
Oh and it's rising at the back of your mind
You never could get it
Unless you were fed it
Now you're here and you don't know why

But under skinned knees and the skid marks
Past the places where you used to learn
You howl and listen
Listen and wait for the
Echoes of angels who won't return

[Chorus]
He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why

You're waiting for someone
To put you together
You're waiting for someone to push you away
There's always another wound to discover
There's always something more you wish he'd say

[Chorus]

But you'll just sit tight
And watch it unwind
It's only what you're asking for
And you'll be just fine
With all of your time
It's only what you're waiting for

Out of the island
Into the highway
Past the places where you might have turned
You never did notice
But you still hide away
The anger of angels who won't return

[Chorus]
I am everything you want
I am everything you need
I am everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
I say all the right things
At exactly the right time
But I mean nothing to you and I don't know why
And I don't know why
Why
I don't know

So I basically got everything I wanted for my internship, last piece to fall into place was the supervision group and I found one that fit right into my schedule. There was a part of me not wanting it too.

I got a bit teary about it all... bah.

Partly it is fears of all going south. Partly it is not wanting to give up my free time. Partly it is that I just really don't want to do this.

I sat down and set up my schedule in my phone and it felt very overwhelming.

Sigh, an embattled hardened intern vet with fresh, bright eyed, very new trainees... ack!! What have I gotten myself into.

Prawn

I was talking to Drukenkiwi the other day on WoW, one of our guild Kiwis (New Zealander) and we were talking about the Olympics and the insanity that is Michael Phelps. DK mentioned that he had heard that Phelps was being referred to as a Prawn. I was like, "Waah? What the hell is that?" and he said, "You know, like when you eat a prawn (shrimp), you keep the body and lose the head."

Meaning apparently people think that Phelps has these qualities, hot bod, ugly face.



I saw this very interesting cover of Phelps the other day, which apparently is a take off old cover back in the 70's. Both are swimmers, both insane gold medal winners.

I wonder if either of them are actually wearing anything for the photo other than gold medals?

So, going back to those spouting the label of Prawn... I think they are just jealous. Because I don't see those Prawn-Callers standing up there with all that bling around their necks. Probably because they already drowned in their bathtubs.

Killing an Old Bald-Headed Jew

A resident said this the other day and I just loved the phrase: "throwing up your brain" which apparently = journaling. Hehe, very clever!

So, at work, I'm sitting working on meds or something in the office when I hear a shriek from downstairs. As it pretty much was followed by that almost screamy laughter from the same person, I basically ignored it. Then that same resident comes barreling up the stairs, another male resident in tow, with whom she has been building a relationship, yelling that there is a ginormous bug in the laundry room.

I sort of give her a raised eyebrow look, questioning her interpretation of huge and tease her a little bit about her jump-on-the-chair-and-scream behaviors. She takes it in stride, laughing back but then is very firm that there is a large bug downstairs. The boyfriend client agrees, a bit bemused by her reaction to said insect. Okay, so I get my keys and go downstairs.

I walk straight into the laundry room, no hesitation. I don't mind bugs, spiders, snakes, reptiles, whatever. I'm not very squeamish around animals. Except ferrets. And cows. Long story. The ferret one, I shall impart at this time.

My mom wanted me not to be squeamish. And she knew that children model what their parents do. Of course, she probably wasn't so aware that children will pick up feelings in any case. But bravely she went forward to evince being okay with slimy critters and such in front of me. Come one day when we went over to visit a family friend, Ken, who owned ferrets. We walk through the door and Ken is like, "Here, mom!!", plopping a ferret in her lap. And she reported that she held her shit together fairly well, gingerly patting the ferret, "Oh, how nice." while freaking out on the inside. Well, I must have picked up the freak out, not the attempt to not be freaked out. So ferrets have creeped me out to this day.

I didn't see anything in the laundry room right off the bat and the resident led me to where she had seen it last. And lo, an alien.... thing skitters out from under the washing machine. I even jumped. I didn't recognize it and had never seen anything like it before. It looked vaguely cricket like but then with a sort of wasp striping. Weird almost human like head. And boy was it fast. The male resident said he thought it was a potato bug. I disagreed, I thought potato bugs were those little grey rolly poly things.

Since I had a houseful of people I am responsible for and since I'd never seen the bug before, I was in a quandary because I didn't want to kill it but I didn't know if it was poisonous or not. I was thinking how to remove the bug, first, but it was quite fast. I told them I wanted to try to remove it but she wanted to kill it. There was a bit of a discussion about this and then the female resident sort of made all my plans moot by pushing over a very large box onto the critter. And it still didn't die. I mean, it was a bit squashed but kicking. Then the male resident stepped on its head a few times and it was still kicking. I was feeling pretty ill at this point. As in "I really didn't want it to suffer" ill, not the "Eww, a bug." ill. He gathered up the twitching bug with some laundry dryer lint and flushed it down the toilet.

In any case, even after this violent death, I went online and started my search. Since I thought potato bugs were the small pill bugs, I didn't start off with that word but I did start looking for crickets. It was actually a short search. Said alien creature is called a Jerusalem Cricket, or otherwise known as a Potato Bug. Well, okay, so not those little grey rolly poly things. Apparently, they are native to the west coast and in Navajo, are called "Old bald-headed man", as well as "Child of the earth"or "Child's face" in Spanish.

When I told the female resident these nicknames and the actual name, she clapped her hands over her mouth and then yelled, "Oh my god, we killed an old bald-headed Jew!!!" and then she felt bad about having instigated its death. I know I already did.

I learned a valuable lesson myself. One, potato bugs are not those little grey rolly poly things. Two, hold fast about saving bugs and don't let crazy people drop boxes on them.

Freak Out

Wow, I'm in some sort of a freak out right now.

I have crazy paralysis, I can't pack, can't think, can barely even move.

Feeling frozen and stuck.

Bah.

LolDog

I'm sorry but I just couldn't help myself. I just about howled when I saw this one.

The Lead Up

The lead up to Burning Man is always a bitch. And this is early to start up.

All sorts of extra stress right now.

There are all sorts of things starting up and it seems that Burning Man is leading them off.

First there's Burning Man and getting my theme camp going and getting my stuff together. Then when I get back, starting a fitness challenge since I can't seem to get my shit together on that bit and then the internship which is going to play holy hell with my "free" time which I am very attached to.

Bah.

Prima Donna

Definition of prima donna...

So Rex left the band in a snit, and I'm feeling guilty, because I feel like I was hard with him or something. "Careful about what you ask for... you get it".

The teacher talked him into coming back and apparently he agreed but never showed up during our practice. So our band was like, okay, that's it, he doesn't get to come back in even if he shows up at some point. I feel less bad now, knowing that he is a Prima Donna.

But I have to do most of the songs now, mostly guy songs. Ack, I am so scared can barely breathe when I think about it.

Bah.

And Another!!

And another LOLCat, just because I can and I thought it was funny as well.



Just the look on that cat's face.

I Bet You'd Drown in a Bathtub

Marty and I were watching the Olypmics and the successes of Michael Phelps.

We were watching him on the stand for probably his sixth time getting his gold medal. We thought his salute was rather wimpy, sort of strangely cupping his breast, standing there listening to the national anthem play... again.

He wasn't teary or anything silly like that because lord knows the media does enough close ups of the athletes to see if they are crying or what their emotional response is. And if he was, fine with me. But he was just standing there.

I imagine at that point either he is completely confident to be up there again, or very humble or very sportsmanlike.

But then Marty said, "You know, he's probably up there thinking to the rest of the world, "I bet you'd drown in a bathtub."" I just about howled.

In comparison to what he does, we probably would.

So Michael Phelps is not a waste of meat afterall.

You Can Never Have Enough LOLCat Either

LOL!!!!!!!!




Wow, what a mutant looking kitteh!

The Highs

When caffeine works for me, it really works for me.

I was in a very good mood.

I came home and I was dancing around and cleaning.

I found all sorts of things:

Lots of wood where ChiBird chewed my dvd/book shelf.

Lots of wedding (this is from almost 4 years ago) to-do-lists, looking for sites, listing prices, who to contact, organizing, making favors, damn... lists and lists... okay.... recycling... ooh, damn or maybe a scrapbook..... sigh, I am such a packrat.

Tons of old general and specialized "to-do lists".

And really, my major packrat-ism is paper, of all sorts.

I was going along full steam... I don't clean often so this is very precious time, got in about three hours solid before caffeine crash. Bah.

East Palo Alto Charter School

So I went to my assigned school today to meet the principal.

It's a bit different set up from my last placement. The principal actually wants me to be here, there's lots of support although I am a little nervous about learning the ropes, and it's K - 8th and that pleases me a great deal. Whew. It's so weird being an intern again.

Then off to band practice. The male singer and second guitarist guy dropped out, now it's just me singing...

Ah, the "Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it" applies here as I had been wanting to just take over because he was such a horrible singer. I didn't want him to leave. He could at least play the guitar. Ah well, such is life.

But apparently he left because he had a hissy fit, feeling like we (read I) were bossing him around. He left a note saying that he wouldn't be coming and had left the band. Okay. Don't talk to anyone about it.

Bah.

Limbo

Today I ended up sleeping when I didn't really want to. Ended up canceling a lot of stuff on my docket today because I was just too tired and I'm in a bit of limbo, waiting for the call to go visit my assigned school for my new internship.

Posts short lately because I am far behind.... (today is 9/26/08!!).

Olympics!!

The Olympics have started! The opening ceremonies were on Friday but I didn't get to see them.

I finally got to watch some with the clients and everyone was cheering the crazy gymnastics

The Olympics have always been a tradition with my mom and I. And probably outside of July 4th, the only time I really feel "patriotic" although I routinely cheer really for any athlete of any nationality that impresses me and these are the best of the best in the world.

On another note, I am feeling a little better depression wise. Let's hear it for 5-HTP and Tyrosine!!! Woot!

Because You Can Never Have Enough Engrish

A mug found in Korea...




Apparently the large text says "Happy Wildness Men".

I certainly want my men to feel as such.

Dumb Ass Test

Here's a Dumb Ass Test.

http://www.gamershood.com/flashgames/2965

Apparently you can test if you are a Dumb Ass or not, as the same time assessing if it is a Dumb Ass Test or not.

Depressive Tendencies

I sure do have 'em.

I did start my aminos up again but sometimes the slumps are low. Not as low as they used to be, mind you, for which I am very thankful.

But low enough that sometimes I get scared that I am going to go lower.

But now that Marty has pointed it out, it shan't take over.

I arise!! Or something.

Exhausted Freedom

So COC left to go to her surgery today. She'll be gone for about two months and I can't tell you what a relief it is for me and most of the rest of the team.

Peg (COC's boss) came to the staff meeting, first one without COC. That went fine.

Apparently, before she left, she raved about me to Peg, saying what a joy I was to work with and what a great worker I am, blah blah..... WTF?? Whatever.

I'm so tired though, can't catch up on sleep, can't sleep very well.

Marty pointed out that apparently I've been in a slump longer than I thought I was. I hadn't even noticed but I promised my man that I would take my aminos to try and head off a further downward spiral. Let's hear it for 5-HTP and Tyrosine!!!

A Man in Pointe

I did make it into my Intro to Ballet class today having slept most of the day yesterday.

There were three new people in class and they were all men. One guy was in tights and ankle warmers and.... pointe shoes!!!

I'd never seen a man in pointe shoes, at least not to my memory. And I guess I got a thing for men in tights and apparently pointe shoes because I couldn't stop looking at him. He had nice legs, although I guess pointe would do it as the other ladies who wear pointe also seem to have great legs.

From what I understand, you need a lot of alignment and strength in your feet, ankles and legs to properly dance pointe without hurting yourself. I really want to try it.

Just because.

What Do You Do...

There used to be T-shirts for a contra dance group years ago that came out one year with:

"What do you do if you can't dance and it's too wet to plow?"

The next year they came out with:

"What do you do if you're all wet and too plowed to dance?"

Well, I kind of feel like that right now because I had no fucking sleep last night, I really couldn't dance cause I absolutely had to dance.

"What do you do when you're too tired and pissed off to dance?"

What the Fuck Is Sleep Anyway?

I am writing this at 5:33am on 8/4/08 but technically it's for 8/3/08 but still working on stupid fucking notes and paperwork and med counts and blah blah.

But I had Greatest American Hero DVDs to watch, which was highly amusing in some strange, kind of 80's nostalgic way.

I know you have to remember that show. It was endearing at the time. I seem to be on this 80's kick, watching all sorts of things, or at least lined up in my Netflix queue.

Marty and I were singing the theme song in the kitchen when I told him that I had rented it from Netflix. And he remembered most of the words so I'm not sure what that means. Maybe he's a fan from long ago.

William Katt, who apparently has done a ton of TV work, some movies, and the list just goes on forever on IMDB, plays the fumbling hero nee school teacher. And oh look, there's Michael Pare as a dumb punk kid. Hehe, very fun!!

Emily Two

We went out to the park with Emily and her daughter Helia and played with rocket balloons and learned a new game of elimination. You know, Enee Meenee Minee Mo, right? Well, this one was called Coconut Crack and was terribly cute taught by Helia in her six year old-ness English accent.

We found a ring that seemed expensive which I posted on Craigslist.

We hung out and chatted as we always do with Emily and I always feel that sense of yearning, wanting her here.

Then Marty and I went to see the new Mummy movie. It was entertaining but I felt that the first two were better, the first probably being the best, although the second had more Oded Fehr and you can't go wrong there. He makes for a hot tribal native. So a passable popcorn movie.

Emily One

Our dear friend Emily from England comes back home every summer. Well, I should say that she started off as Marty's dear friend from the days of old, in his wildness of Adhoc, a political peace group he was with for some time. But she has become my dear friend as well and I always look forwards to her visits in the summer.

So she came to stay a few days, relaying her struggles she has been having lately. She is an American living in London and has been there for twelve years, I do believe. Fifteen maybe? She has a six year old daughter with a man in England but she wants to come home. He can't come over due to silly laws. So, in a way she feels stuck.

It's sort of a selfish thing for me, I think, wanting her to ignore that sort of stuff and come home. I really don't have any girlfriends, all my friends, at least close friends are guys and most of them don't live in the area either. So, yeah, I want the one girl I consider my "girlfriend" to be near me. I admit it. Plus, on the non-selfish side, I think she might be happier as well.

Marty and I continue to try and convince her to move back...