San Francisco bound

I am moving. Moving to a different place and essentially a different life. The time has come, I feel so ready to have a place to call my own and to get a "job" that I am happy with that also brings in a little dough. This is the view from across the road of my new apartment in lower haight. I think it is a community garden entrance. The cute blonde is Kelly, a dear friend of mine from the college days who is going to be my roommate! I am leaving on the 25th of September and taking every day as it comes.

I have a tail to tell.
I let him back inside my life
after many months of heartache and hell
and crying and not eating
and sitting, staring, thinking
of the tragedy that I fell in love with a man that lives in Australia.
Thank the lord for my friends, the talks, and all their help.
The dance parties and smoke sesh’s were supposed to cheer me up
but all they did was make me wish he was here and with me.
Finally. Finally the sad went away. But happiness didn’t come in its place.
Emptiness was in my heart. Emptiness took the space.
It was over between us. I had to accept that. And I did at a very slow pace.
But I guess something couldn’t let me keep going from pain to empty to ok to happy
because he came back for Burning Man and we saw each other.
He is so engrained in my life because he is friends with my friends. He was before he met me.
So now every time he comes to America I know who he will see and where he will be.
We spent all of Burning Man together. I don’t know if we fell back in love but he did with me.
I fell back into his arms, into the comfort of having someone adore and comfort me always.
After burning man we were together for 5 more days.
Now he is gone and I am sad.
Now I can’t read a book with out thinking of my sadness.
Did I think of my sadness or of him the first time?
I am the one who made myself sad.
I knew this would happen, I knew we would be back to wonderfulness and he would leave and it would be bad.
I tried to do the right thing and not see him, I did
But he kept pulling me back and how could I not see my first love if he came to America?
So now its back to emptiness.
Not happiness. It is much less.
It is the feeling of “ok, now what’s next.”

Burning man 2011

This year was my first Burning Man experience. Before Burning Man I did not understand how I was expected to live for 7 days in the desert, with out a proper shower, in a tent, and enjoy it and miss it when I finally had the amenities of the default world. I was scared that I would not be able to handle it. I did not yet realize that Burning Man is not just another music festival, it is a social experiment on a different way that you can live your life and it was refreshing after all.
Burning Man is a community, Black Rock City is the city that the Burners build for one week in Nevada, and it has grown to become the third largest city in Nevada every year when it is formed. It grows and stays alive and works because of ten chore principals.

1. Radical inclusion.
Everyone who is willing is welcome.

2. Gifting
There is no money exchange. You give things to people simply because you want to, you don’t expect anything in return.

3. Decommodification
There is no advertising in Black Rock City. Your mind is not cluttered with name brand signs. You are free to look people in the eye and enjoy what is happening around you with out subliminally being trained.

4. Civic responsibility
The wellness and welfare of others is a visible priority. There are numerous camps dedicated to making wonderful things for people such as a steam camp, multiple bars, snow cone camp, camps with blankets and pillows that you can sleep and lay on for as long as your heart wants, coffee shop camps, bike stations, play ground, a slip n slide. With all these great things, safety is always in mind.

5. Radical self-expression
The city is a huge circle. All the villages and tents and camps are in a semi circle with street signs and addresses and the rest of the playa is open space for everything creative. You want a big fuzzy bus that plays music, you got it. You want a magic carpet ride at 5AM, you got it. You want a stage that vibrates with the music, you got it.

6. Radical self-reliance
At Burning Man it is more than making sure you have brought enough water for yourself, it is about emotionally being the only one that takes care of you. You must find the strength inside yourself to be ok, to be happy, and to rely only on yourself. Once that strength is found then you can start letting other people contribute to that happiness.

7. Communal effort
Burning man is a community with its own culture and ideas. It is its own society. Everyone helps one another and looks out for one another.

8. Leaving no trace
You leave no trace when you leave. You leave the playa the way you found it. If you see MOOP, (material out of place) pick it up.

9. Participation
“Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play.” Get your hands dirty, if you want to do something then you are encouraged to do it and share it, build it, play it, make it, and invent it.

10. Immediacy
“We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.”


During the days it does get pretty hot, dry, and sweaty. The second day I was walking down the playas sandy streets wearing a big straw hat and a man dressed in white sprayed me with lavender water. It felt refreshing and delightful. Then he asked me if I wanted to come in and have a massage. His camp was called the lavender camp. I said "hell yes" I wanted a massage and he took my name down on a piece of paper and sat me down in a chair with about 3 other people waiting for a massage as well. After 5 minutes he called me in to their camp, it was made to look like a spa. Air mattresses were aligned all over the outsides. I layed down, he put a lavender pillow over my eyes and started giving me a head massage and spraying me with lavender water. While I was lying there a man started speaking Russian to me, startled and confused I sat up and started talking back to him, asking him how he knew that I was Russian and spoke Russian. He told me that he could sense it and at that moment I knew that I was in for one wild, awe striking, and emotionally charged week. That man gave me the energy I needed to survive the harshness of the playa for a week.

People let themselves to whatever they want. Ride bikes naked, dance, sing, wear anything they want, build anything they want. On Friday I got my huge dread lock of a head of hair washed by a cute guy from New Jersey. I couldn’t say thank you enough. I didn’t know what to do to make him see how appreciative I was. It is still shocking and refreshing that people try to make you comfortable and elicit energy for someone else’s benefit and expect nothing in return. When did our society get to a point that doing something nice for someone else with no expectations became shocking?



Music plays all day and night long and not one stage or space looks the same as the next. Big purple metal structures in one corner, a giant ship on wheels in another, an octopus that spits fire from each leg over here and fire dancers over there. Art cars made to look like fish, bird cages, dragons, big magical mushrooms. There was a big tree made of cascading lights. There were lights and sounds and things to climb and things to look at everywhere. Trapeze areas, and flying bikes, and piers, and giant lotus flowers. No explanation would do it justice.

A big structure of a man stood 100 feet tall. He was made of wood and wire and color. On Saturday every resident of Black Rock City sat and watched the hour long fire work show before they set the man on fire. Seeing the man stand tall and overlook the whole city for 6 days and then watching it burn down on the 6th night was something else. For me it signified the burning down of the man who controls your life. The man that is always watching you and you can escape the government. It was the visual effect for what was inside of me. When it was all burned down to the ground and you could walk up to it and hold a piece of metal in your hand, that’s when I suddenly felt free.

About a yard away from the man was a temple. The temple was constructed of wood and when you came close to it a sense of silence and heaviness fell over you. By the last day it was written all over in pen, marker, and pencil and pasted with pictures and necklaces. People wrote their hopes, dreams, their deepest wishes, and apologies; they wrote things that they wished they could say, they wrote what they wished they could do. One passage said that they hope their dad’s cancer cells burned down with the temple, just goose bump raising, tear generating, heart wrenching things. On Sunday all 60,000 residents sat down, holding each other in silence and watched the temple burn down. There was no fire work show before the burning of the temple. With each flame you felt a sigh, with each sigh you felt a tear, and with each tear you understood that life is not about holding back, it’s not worth hoping and wishing and regretting, it is about doing what feels right to you always. Do what you want and let it be.

Burning Man 2011

Times magazine named Burning Man a top 100 important place to visit on Earth in 2010. If you think Burning Man is a music festival, a drug induced freak show, or just something that stoners do, you are 100% wrong. I left my house on Sunday and did not return until the next Wednesday, a week and a half.

The line was ridiculous to get in. When we finally got into the greeters gate they told us “Congratulations, you’re finally home.” I did not know how that would ring true.

You don’t pay for a damn thing at Burning Man. There is not anything provided for you, no water, or food, or booze, or anything, so they say. They want everyone to come prepared with their own means of survival. Radical Self Reliance.

I have never been in a world where you are completely free to do ANYTHING. Radical self-reliance, and radical self-expression are the mottos. People are naked; people are riding bikes, and dancing. People build and make their own things, they don’t rely on society or “the default world” to manufacture them. There are art cars. Vehicles people make to look like anything they want, fish, colorful mushrooms, big fuzzy busses, dragons, anything. Some were fuzzy and you could lie down on them after hours and hours of dancing your heart out. Some had blankets for when it got super cold during the wee hours of the night/morning. Some had poles and music, some were birdcages that you could stand on, some were even magic carpets. Anything you can dream of, people had dreamed of and made.

During the day you rode bikes through out the city. Black Rock city is Burning Mans city. It happens once a year during Burning Man and is the 3^rd largest city in Nevada when the event takes place. It all started 28 years ago with 20 people on the beach of San Francisco watching a sculpture of a man burn. Last week it was 70,000 people gathered for a week of giving, love, self-reliance and self-expression, and absolutely no judgments.

I camped with a crew from Berkeley, CA. We had a great time together. We went out together, one night in particular and danced on a vibrating stage, danced on platforms with green gas, saw a British guy with a t-shirt and jiggly butt say, “My shirt is too cool for pants” and thought nothing of him dancing right next to me.

Fred, my ex boyfriend from Australia came to America just for it. The first night I was thinking about him because we weren’t together. The second day I found him and we were together for pretty much the whole thing. Something happened in the desert between us and all of the people at Burning Man. An unexplainable energy coming from the universe and flowing between us.

Friday night we saw the man burn. A giant 92-foot sculpture of a man made out of wood and wires. To me it symbolized the man, the one that controls your life and makes you do things, the government. We saw him burn down to the ground with a long show of fire works.

There was a temple that burned down on Saturday night. The temple brought about a sense of silence and serenity. By the last day it was written all over with peoples prayers, hopes, dreams, goals, wishes, confessions, apologies, and pictures. Walking through it and reading it all makes you cry. When it burned all 70,000 people sat in silence and watches as their wishes and words were let out into the universe.

We were originally going to ride back to Las Vegas with my friend Nate on Tuesday. But my new friend David was leaving on Monday and instead of driving 9 hours to Vegas was driving 2 to Reno. Fred and I hitched a ride with him. Granted we stood in line for 7 hours before entering the road. He let us sleep at his house and the next day took us to see Lake Tahoe. We went to some secluded area on rocks with a few beers and swam and chilled all day. Then we went to some great Mexican restaurant and Fred and I checked into a hotel and flew home early the next morning.

No matter how hard I try to explain every aspect of it, its not going to happen. The reader is never going to fully understand the phenomenon that is Burning Man by reading or looking at pictures, no matter how many. Just know that it has changed the lives of so many people and that it is different from anything you can imagine.