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The best way to summarize my experience is this conversation that happened during a wee-hour bike ride on Wednesday:
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butterflake: So what do you want out of Burning Man?
Me: An epiphany, I guess.
butterflake: If you're looking for one, that'll make it harder to find.
Me: You're probably right.
She was right. I didn't have any epiphanies that I can recall, but this was one intense, trying, and educational trip. I want to go again, even if time and money are unlikely to work out next year, just so I can go there without making the mistakes I made this time. Yeah, so I can make a batch of new ones. My carpool buddies & I spent the whole trip home coming up with ideas for next time.
Saturday 8/25
Drove to about 1 mi. elevation & ate at Loree's Chalet in Chemult, OR. Stayed in Klamath Falls. Shaved things no one should ever have to shave.
Sunday 8/26
Vinegar & shampoo containment breach; containers not watertight.
Greeted by whiteout. Just barely enough room for stuff in tent. Took three hours to pitch tent, set up, and get dressed. Am half a block from some of the best & loudest music on the playa. Good dancing; bad sleep. Lonely.
Art piece idea: bungees in every color. I got the idea from looking at our trailer.
If Gookinade tastes like the nectar of the gods, you need it.
Must be careful not to hide stuff from self.
Monday 8/27
Fixed bike brakes while trying not to let it blow over.
Went to Spike's, the playa goth joint, and ran into a pretty Merc regular who I don't know. Hilarious.
My blinky-finned bike helmet is a hit.
Good art car: giant radioactive jellyfish. Good house music: the Philadelphia Experiment (PEX).
Spent about six hours sawing, screwing, and lashing together our the Space Virgins' shadow box project. (The Space Virgins were the theme camp I was with.)
Shower at 8 p.m. just after sunset. Water temp is OK but breeze feels freezing until you dry off. Cleanliness is next to orgasm.
The amount of eye candy here, human and inanimate, boggles the mind.
Good Burning Man activity: wandering around town in the middle of the night with friends and finding cool, weird, deserted stuff.
Port-a-potties: not too frightening, but six blocks from camp. Hand sanitizer + blistered hands = ow.
Best place for Leatherman & bike key: corset.
Saw who I think was Kate Hudson at close range.
Tuesday 8/28
Someone burned the Man last night! I saw it at about 2 a.m. coming back from a wander with my carpool buddies around their neighborhood. At first I thought they'd just turned off his green lights, but then he glowed white. Like a lot of people, I couldn't believe my eyes. The Green Man still stands, but now he's black. This was minutes after the lunar eclipse started.
Going through about 2.5 not-quite-full 3-liter Camelbaks (hydration packs) a day. I'm told that's about right.
I wish people would stop calling me dude. Le sigh. It does seem to have tapered off since I de-butched.
Grilled guy who built solar-powered art car that moos. Fascinating.
After spending ten to noon lashing tarps to scaffolding, the Space Virgin swamp cooler may have saved my life. Too bad it uses so much water we can't run it all afternoon.
I'm burned near where my backpack straps rub. I don't think that's a coincidence.
Dehydration + "bag food" = constipation. Pooping is more than physical relief.
I love PEX's big public shade structure.
Bike headlight conked out. Am now shaving by the light of the electroluminescent (EL) wire on my helmet.
Danced to trance. Duh.
Tried second time to findxaotica; no joy. On the way, though, I passed Pee Funnel Camp. The funnels let women pee into bottles and see the color of their urine, which is useful for knowing if you're hydrated enough. Picked one up. How could I not?
Wednesday 8/29
A cloud passed over the sun while I was in deep playa, the area past the Man and the temple, checking out the art (again). Glorious!
Went to the Temple, the other major combustible structure that appears yearly. People meditate and write messages on the wood. You bet your butt I wrote some, one for each Abbey resident.
Found Pinky's. And today I'm wearing my pink Alice dress! They give the Philly boys a run for their money.
Deep End: best bar in town. DJs have good taste but limited skill. Jaeger doesn't suck, to my surprise.
Kostume Kult: They give costumes to people. Coals to Newcastle in my case.
First time I went to Carbofuckingnation, which has a brewmaster, I'd left my cup in my tent. Second time, it was too early for beer, just fizzy water. Third time's charmed. Got to talk to a 5-year-old about how I was dressed. She didn't approve at first, but I think I raised her consciousness a little.
Finally saw a shirtcocker. I can't believe it took me this long.
Afternoon kicks my ass again. Wind's up, though, so an open shade structure is just the thing.
Removed corset. I still fit the pink dress, thank Bob.
Forgot to eat lunch. I don't think I've ever been this miserable from heat, which is saying something. Only the coldest spots of the Condome (the swamp cooler dome) really fight it. It's crowded in there from 11 to sunset, so it isn't just me.
Accepted offer of moleskin from camp mate. It failed to adhere to me in flats. Sweat or playa?
Observed the power of a different kind of hotness as guys fell over themselves to help a flawless blond playa bunny with stars on her nipples to her next destination.
Space Virgin potluck with group hug. OK, I admit it: I liked it.
Ran intoleenerella, her hubby, and butterflake! That made my night. My timing was uncharacteristically good: I was just in time to see the tall couple's recommittment ceremony, officiated by butterflake at the Monticello theme camp. Theme: the 18th century, natch. There was an Israeli grandmother there who got to talking about my costume. She ended up feeding me lettuce in her RV. She was happy to hear about the Wendling's Hebrew studies. Even at Burning Man a Jewish experience.
Peed in scrounged bottle to avoid 3 a.m. ride. Not proud.
Bummed lantern off camp mate of carpool buds. Chance of death from street accident or invisibly filthy toilet has dropped.
Thursday 8/30
Clouds. Shower. Bliss!
I wish I'd known you could go under the Man before that idiot burned him. Three disposable cameras may be enough, but just barely.
Finally another tranny sighted at (where else?) a house joint.
Went to the eastern end of the Esplanade. Talked to God. She was comforting and sensible. Saw much well-executed head shop art. Ate freeze-dried lunch at Belfry, a bat cave covered with reproductions of dozens of depictions of the temptation of St. Anthony.
Painted.
Turned about fifteen people into Soylent green with my very own green paint and pre-printed mailing labels. (Burning Man's theme this year was the Green Man.)
DUST STORM! I was trying to chill in the Condome, experimenting with toilet paper ear plugs, when serious wind started to blow at about 2:30. Soon people were coming in off the street to take shelter. The dome's entrance is covered only by a sheet attached to the dome along its top edge, so we took turns holding the sheet down and letting people in & out. The whole dome shook. My camp mate Sires, who designed, built, and rebuilt the dome, didn't trust the dome to stay up and kicked everyone out. My stuff was there and intact, but thickly coated with dust. Hey, the air mattress needed reinflation anyway.
Our art installation took quite a bit of damage. Sires heard on informational radio that rain and more wind were on the way, so he got us to dismantle more of the installation. Murphy's Law: the weather report was dead wrong. I escaped helping to put it back together, but I did catch some runaway pieces of cardboard scenery and trash. (The Condome is still standing.)
Hit Pinky's during the tail end of the storm. It was wonderful to see people still partying in goggles and masks.
Broke in the Space Virgins' boxes, workin' the dance moves. Pretty and sweet Lebanese girl in huge, motorized LED angel wings advised me to cut my tempo in half. Of course I took her advice.
Flight to Mars, another Seattle-based theme camp, has a Birthday Bus, which is an art car in the shape of a birthday cake. Spent the ride with a Martian named Jen who claimed to have met me and talked costumes at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
nerdvana. I have no memory of this despite her cuteness. Oh, the shame.
Black Rock City at night, as seen from atop a double decker bus shaped like a birthday cake: Las Vegas goes underwater. The bikes & peds are little reef fish, and big art cars like ours are the whales, attracting some small fish and repelling others.
Friday 8/31
Sunrise camp meeting. Not well attended. Art director Patty sent me to bed, for which I was deeply grateful. Tried to recover in the Condome. If I can't remember whether or not I slept, I probably did.
Another dust storm. I don't think it's as bad as yesterday, but Sires disagrees. We've had a sprinkle. Dust has jammed both my tent zippers. Bike lube will (mostly) fix it, but there's no point in trying when the dust is still flying. Actually fooled a woman into thinking I was one - while wearing a dust mask & goggles, until I spoke. Still, a small win.
Watched camp prez "marry" her girlfriend out by some playa port-a-potties.
Tended bar at Space Virgin pah-tay. Everybody I know here stopped by, includingdj_stitch, which was neato. It wasn't that well attended despite my best efforts to advertise the shadow boxes, of which my camp mates approved.
Wah: LED angel came back & went while I was doing stuff elsewhere in camp, including lacing a camp mate's corset. Biked around a bit, then crashed. Slept through a good Seattle DJ, Jen Woolfe, right in our camp from 2 to 4.
Saturday 9/1
I've finally made a concession to the heat: I'm not wearing a corset in public. Oh the shame. As soon as the sun goes down, the corset goes on.
Some of my camp mates don't quite get transsexuality. Another consciousness-raising opportunity for me. I hope I got through.
Founddj_stitch's camp, Black Rock Hardware, where they fix things under military camo net. I came to see dj_stitch, but I remembered that my shades needed fixing. I bummed epoxy off a pretty lady with a sunburn and a hangover. While there I saw that butterflake's harpy costume with perforated metal unfolding wings is wicked cool.
Lost boob! Gevalt! I amused the folks at lost & found (at PlayaInfo) by saying, "I lost the mate to this." Happily, my bras have some structure.
Ran into a girl who could have beencupcake_goth's younger sister, hoop skirt, long jacket, top hat, and all. She reminded me about Neverwas, a steampunk camp I'd heard of but never got around to.
Saw the Man burn from four rows back. Not bad. Decided not to wait for the burning of Crude Awakening, the sculpture with metal figures worshiping a huge wooden oil derrick. Checked out music camps at the far edge of town, hung out at PEX, and saw the derrick go up in what's rumored to have been the world's tallest fireball. Too bad. I thought the sculpture was worth putting somewhere prominent.
Sunday 9/2
Up at 6 (ungh), packed by 8:30. Tried to help out with camp stuff but with so many camp mates asleep, I decided to check on carpool buddies' progress. Not so good, as it turned out.
Found Neverwas's steampunk art car. Very well done!
Helped out in camp some. Bruised ribs needlessly on truck looking for burlap bags for drying food waste.
Apparently my bike helmet, which is no longer blinky and is the only hat I haven't packed, isn't cool according to some drunken asshole on the Esplanade. What the vets have told me is true: Friday and Saturday bring the scum.
We better get rolling if a) we want to make it to Oregon by nightfall, and b) I want to avoid more Space Virgin loading.
We left at about 4. Got through exit line after sunset. Feet swollen. So low on sleep I hallucinated. They're cool hallucinations, though.
Lessons learned:
butterflake: So what do you want out of Burning Man?Me: An epiphany, I guess.
butterflake: If you're looking for one, that'll make it harder to find.Me: You're probably right.
She was right. I didn't have any epiphanies that I can recall, but this was one intense, trying, and educational trip. I want to go again, even if time and money are unlikely to work out next year, just so I can go there without making the mistakes I made this time. Yeah, so I can make a batch of new ones. My carpool buddies & I spent the whole trip home coming up with ideas for next time.
Saturday 8/25
Drove to about 1 mi. elevation & ate at Loree's Chalet in Chemult, OR. Stayed in Klamath Falls. Shaved things no one should ever have to shave.
Sunday 8/26
Vinegar & shampoo containment breach; containers not watertight.
Greeted by whiteout. Just barely enough room for stuff in tent. Took three hours to pitch tent, set up, and get dressed. Am half a block from some of the best & loudest music on the playa. Good dancing; bad sleep. Lonely.
Art piece idea: bungees in every color. I got the idea from looking at our trailer.
If Gookinade tastes like the nectar of the gods, you need it.
Must be careful not to hide stuff from self.
Monday 8/27
Fixed bike brakes while trying not to let it blow over.
Went to Spike's, the playa goth joint, and ran into a pretty Merc regular who I don't know. Hilarious.
My blinky-finned bike helmet is a hit.
Good art car: giant radioactive jellyfish. Good house music: the Philadelphia Experiment (PEX).
Spent about six hours sawing, screwing, and lashing together our the Space Virgins' shadow box project. (The Space Virgins were the theme camp I was with.)
Shower at 8 p.m. just after sunset. Water temp is OK but breeze feels freezing until you dry off. Cleanliness is next to orgasm.
The amount of eye candy here, human and inanimate, boggles the mind.
Good Burning Man activity: wandering around town in the middle of the night with friends and finding cool, weird, deserted stuff.
Port-a-potties: not too frightening, but six blocks from camp. Hand sanitizer + blistered hands = ow.
Best place for Leatherman & bike key: corset.
Saw who I think was Kate Hudson at close range.
Tuesday 8/28
Someone burned the Man last night! I saw it at about 2 a.m. coming back from a wander with my carpool buddies around their neighborhood. At first I thought they'd just turned off his green lights, but then he glowed white. Like a lot of people, I couldn't believe my eyes. The Green Man still stands, but now he's black. This was minutes after the lunar eclipse started.
Going through about 2.5 not-quite-full 3-liter Camelbaks (hydration packs) a day. I'm told that's about right.
I wish people would stop calling me dude. Le sigh. It does seem to have tapered off since I de-butched.
Grilled guy who built solar-powered art car that moos. Fascinating.
After spending ten to noon lashing tarps to scaffolding, the Space Virgin swamp cooler may have saved my life. Too bad it uses so much water we can't run it all afternoon.
I'm burned near where my backpack straps rub. I don't think that's a coincidence.
Dehydration + "bag food" = constipation. Pooping is more than physical relief.
I love PEX's big public shade structure.
Bike headlight conked out. Am now shaving by the light of the electroluminescent (EL) wire on my helmet.
Danced to trance. Duh.
Tried second time to find
xaotica; no joy. On the way, though, I passed Pee Funnel Camp. The funnels let women pee into bottles and see the color of their urine, which is useful for knowing if you're hydrated enough. Picked one up. How could I not?Wednesday 8/29
A cloud passed over the sun while I was in deep playa, the area past the Man and the temple, checking out the art (again). Glorious!
Went to the Temple, the other major combustible structure that appears yearly. People meditate and write messages on the wood. You bet your butt I wrote some, one for each Abbey resident.
Found Pinky's. And today I'm wearing my pink Alice dress! They give the Philly boys a run for their money.
Deep End: best bar in town. DJs have good taste but limited skill. Jaeger doesn't suck, to my surprise.
Kostume Kult: They give costumes to people. Coals to Newcastle in my case.
First time I went to Carbofuckingnation, which has a brewmaster, I'd left my cup in my tent. Second time, it was too early for beer, just fizzy water. Third time's charmed. Got to talk to a 5-year-old about how I was dressed. She didn't approve at first, but I think I raised her consciousness a little.
Finally saw a shirtcocker. I can't believe it took me this long.
Afternoon kicks my ass again. Wind's up, though, so an open shade structure is just the thing.
Removed corset. I still fit the pink dress, thank Bob.
Forgot to eat lunch. I don't think I've ever been this miserable from heat, which is saying something. Only the coldest spots of the Condome (the swamp cooler dome) really fight it. It's crowded in there from 11 to sunset, so it isn't just me.
Accepted offer of moleskin from camp mate. It failed to adhere to me in flats. Sweat or playa?
Observed the power of a different kind of hotness as guys fell over themselves to help a flawless blond playa bunny with stars on her nipples to her next destination.
Space Virgin potluck with group hug. OK, I admit it: I liked it.
Ran into
leenerella, her hubby, and butterflake! That made my night. My timing was uncharacteristically good: I was just in time to see the tall couple's recommittment ceremony, officiated by butterflake at the Monticello theme camp. Theme: the 18th century, natch. There was an Israeli grandmother there who got to talking about my costume. She ended up feeding me lettuce in her RV. She was happy to hear about the Wendling's Hebrew studies. Even at Burning Man a Jewish experience.Peed in scrounged bottle to avoid 3 a.m. ride. Not proud.
Bummed lantern off camp mate of carpool buds. Chance of death from street accident or invisibly filthy toilet has dropped.
Thursday 8/30
Clouds. Shower. Bliss!
I wish I'd known you could go under the Man before that idiot burned him. Three disposable cameras may be enough, but just barely.
Finally another tranny sighted at (where else?) a house joint.
Went to the eastern end of the Esplanade. Talked to God. She was comforting and sensible. Saw much well-executed head shop art. Ate freeze-dried lunch at Belfry, a bat cave covered with reproductions of dozens of depictions of the temptation of St. Anthony.
Painted.
Turned about fifteen people into Soylent green with my very own green paint and pre-printed mailing labels. (Burning Man's theme this year was the Green Man.)
DUST STORM! I was trying to chill in the Condome, experimenting with toilet paper ear plugs, when serious wind started to blow at about 2:30. Soon people were coming in off the street to take shelter. The dome's entrance is covered only by a sheet attached to the dome along its top edge, so we took turns holding the sheet down and letting people in & out. The whole dome shook. My camp mate Sires, who designed, built, and rebuilt the dome, didn't trust the dome to stay up and kicked everyone out. My stuff was there and intact, but thickly coated with dust. Hey, the air mattress needed reinflation anyway.
Our art installation took quite a bit of damage. Sires heard on informational radio that rain and more wind were on the way, so he got us to dismantle more of the installation. Murphy's Law: the weather report was dead wrong. I escaped helping to put it back together, but I did catch some runaway pieces of cardboard scenery and trash. (The Condome is still standing.)
Hit Pinky's during the tail end of the storm. It was wonderful to see people still partying in goggles and masks.
Broke in the Space Virgins' boxes, workin' the dance moves. Pretty and sweet Lebanese girl in huge, motorized LED angel wings advised me to cut my tempo in half. Of course I took her advice.
Flight to Mars, another Seattle-based theme camp, has a Birthday Bus, which is an art car in the shape of a birthday cake. Spent the ride with a Martian named Jen who claimed to have met me and talked costumes at
nerdvana. I have no memory of this despite her cuteness. Oh, the shame.Black Rock City at night, as seen from atop a double decker bus shaped like a birthday cake: Las Vegas goes underwater. The bikes & peds are little reef fish, and big art cars like ours are the whales, attracting some small fish and repelling others.
Friday 8/31
Sunrise camp meeting. Not well attended. Art director Patty sent me to bed, for which I was deeply grateful. Tried to recover in the Condome. If I can't remember whether or not I slept, I probably did.
Another dust storm. I don't think it's as bad as yesterday, but Sires disagrees. We've had a sprinkle. Dust has jammed both my tent zippers. Bike lube will (mostly) fix it, but there's no point in trying when the dust is still flying. Actually fooled a woman into thinking I was one - while wearing a dust mask & goggles, until I spoke. Still, a small win.
Watched camp prez "marry" her girlfriend out by some playa port-a-potties.
Tended bar at Space Virgin pah-tay. Everybody I know here stopped by, including
dj_stitch, which was neato. It wasn't that well attended despite my best efforts to advertise the shadow boxes, of which my camp mates approved.Wah: LED angel came back & went while I was doing stuff elsewhere in camp, including lacing a camp mate's corset. Biked around a bit, then crashed. Slept through a good Seattle DJ, Jen Woolfe, right in our camp from 2 to 4.
Saturday 9/1
I've finally made a concession to the heat: I'm not wearing a corset in public. Oh the shame. As soon as the sun goes down, the corset goes on.
Some of my camp mates don't quite get transsexuality. Another consciousness-raising opportunity for me. I hope I got through.
Found
dj_stitch's camp, Black Rock Hardware, where they fix things under military camo net. I came to see dj_stitch, but I remembered that my shades needed fixing. I bummed epoxy off a pretty lady with a sunburn and a hangover. While there I saw that butterflake's harpy costume with perforated metal unfolding wings is wicked cool.Lost boob! Gevalt! I amused the folks at lost & found (at PlayaInfo) by saying, "I lost the mate to this." Happily, my bras have some structure.
Ran into a girl who could have been
cupcake_goth's younger sister, hoop skirt, long jacket, top hat, and all. She reminded me about Neverwas, a steampunk camp I'd heard of but never got around to.Saw the Man burn from four rows back. Not bad. Decided not to wait for the burning of Crude Awakening, the sculpture with metal figures worshiping a huge wooden oil derrick. Checked out music camps at the far edge of town, hung out at PEX, and saw the derrick go up in what's rumored to have been the world's tallest fireball. Too bad. I thought the sculpture was worth putting somewhere prominent.
Sunday 9/2
Up at 6 (ungh), packed by 8:30. Tried to help out with camp stuff but with so many camp mates asleep, I decided to check on carpool buddies' progress. Not so good, as it turned out.
Found Neverwas's steampunk art car. Very well done!
Helped out in camp some. Bruised ribs needlessly on truck looking for burlap bags for drying food waste.
Apparently my bike helmet, which is no longer blinky and is the only hat I haven't packed, isn't cool according to some drunken asshole on the Esplanade. What the vets have told me is true: Friday and Saturday bring the scum.
We better get rolling if a) we want to make it to Oregon by nightfall, and b) I want to avoid more Space Virgin loading.
We left at about 4. Got through exit line after sunset. Feet swollen. So low on sleep I hallucinated. They're cool hallucinations, though.
Lessons learned:
- Go with who you know or at least stay in touch with them. Many of the best times I had were with people I know well at home, which unfortunately didn't include the Space Virgins.
- Pick the camping situation that's right for you. Big theme camps can offer amenities and do cool stuff, but they demand a lot of work and sometimes cash in return. Burners seem to do lots of stuff at the last minute, too, which poses a problem for anyone with inflexible committments.
- Take care of yourself. I wasted a lot of time being needlessly hot in corsets in the daytime. Others do so by not hydrating enough or (ahem) overindulging.
- Vets are often the only source of info about what's worth going to.
- Talk to strangers.
- Try new things.
