heathervescent

ass was not kicked

When I usually go to the desert my ass gets kicked in some way and my body is somewhat debilitated. Not this time. I think it's because I didn't drink any alcohol. Lesson to finally learn - don't drink alcohol in the desert - regardless of how little.

At Burningman I met a really interesting person - he was in the same Village and camped not 15 feet away. If you look at the Tazii photos, he's the one who is sticking his tongue out at me. I was so struck with him, because I had very low expectations that someone like him existed. Well, I was pretty sure he existed, but I had no way to go about confirming it. (Bjork line here: I miss you, and I haven't met you yet.) So needless to say I was completely and utterly blown away to be face to face with a fluffy, horned, jauntie, clever, sensitive person. Perfectly costumed as Mr Jauntie, my current patron Saint. It was no coincidence.

G met me in LA on Friday and Friday night we headed to Barstow to meet Carson. I wanted to show G the Vision Cave and introduce him to Carson. We arrived late - stuck in bumper to bumper traffic the last 10 miles into Barstow at 1am! We had the top down and found some R&B Hip Hop station to whomp on the sub woofer as it took us 20 minutes to go 1 mile.

Next morning, like a herd of desert tortoises, we took 40 east to Water Road. There's nothing here. A grated road that goes along the powerline. Pass the little Paiutes, then the Paiutes (no water there) then the first turn west after the entopic cattle wrangling enclosure takes you to the base of the Old Woman's. Skirting along the base until we reach the rocks that have the Vision Cave - not really a cave, but an overhang with petroglyphs on the walls. The floor of the cave has gotten very dirty with bird droppings and I later cleaned it with water and very expensive french champagne.

There's not much out there in the desert except rocks, wildlife and a whole lot of silence. No buzzing laptops, radios, cell phones or traffic noise. Just wide open space. The silence is thick. Huge piles of rock play with your long distance vision - is that one pile or are there several canyons behind it that I just can't see. The rocks blend and undulate with the light and color striations and desert patina.

We arrived late afternoon and it was blazing hot. Not much stirring about - some jackrabbits, some quail, a few lizards. We parked near the painted rock and went to see what changed. The bees were still there, there was a little water at the edge of the wash (one of the only places that almost always has water - even in the past 6 years of drought). It had rained recently and we saw the rivulets in the road, yet it was very sandy and gave our 4 wheel drive a run for it's money. I grabbed some snacks and found some shade in the shadow of the big rocks and sat down to look out and enjoy the silence. I laid back and looked up at the rocks going into the sky. At the hollow places in the rocks. At the view of the vision cave. The wash. The dry mountains of rock and scrub, junipers, barrel cacti, choya and native grasses.

I wandered over to the cave, where I checked out the floor situation. The floor has been worn smooth by many years of human butts sitting on it and it is usually very clean. No animals live in the cave, some birds make their home above it, but usually they don't shit in the cave. Last time I was there, the floor was covered with bird shit and I brought some cleaning supplies (water and scrub brush) to clean it up.

I became sleepy in the cave - so I laid down on my shirt and dozed for a while. The floor of the cave is uneven and there are nice walls to lean against. It's open on two sides - one side drops at least 25 feet to the wash below where the bees live. This opening give a grand view of one edge of rock. It's cracked and has several sunburst holes where the sparrows live. I heard the droning of the bees and watched the birds flying around in the increasingly cooler light. It's a nice place to ponder those things in your mind. What you believe, who you are, what you are doing, happiness, life, etc.

The sun would go over the ridge early so I rousted myself to make camp: set up the tent, roll out the sleeping bags, check on the fire situation and start thinking about dinner. Carson and I brought complimentary desert food and Geno had stopped at the Health Food store in Barstow (yes, can you believe it, a health food store in Barstow of all places). We collected wood and got dinner fixings out, black beans seasoned with desert sage and chiltpotes, corn, fresh tomatoes, red pepper and lettuce. The cans bubbled in our small cooking fire and we watched the sun set behind the ridge.

Dinner was served and we climbed up on some rocks to eat and watch the view. Slowly the sky became darker and the stars came out. We finished up and started to clean up. Darker and darker it got in the shadow of the rock and then rose the moon. It was not quite full and shining bright - we didn't need flash lights and could see our moonshadows.

We took a walk into a canyon leading to the ridge. It was cool moonlight and we didn't use any illumination. The rocks took on a new feeling. They were realer than real. They were alive and we saw faces and characters in those rocks. They said to us - you can not imagine how long we have been here and how long still we will remain. Their desert patina exhaled the heat of the day as we walked past. We saw doorways in a juniper and passageways in rocks. We saw the leering old man sitting with his cat and cocktail waiting for the swimsuit session of Miss USA to begin - he was watching out towards the east. The show would unfold over the next million or so years.

We wandered back to camp and took turns watching the mice jump around and scurry over our dirty dishes and empty cans. These desert mice may never have had canned corn or black beans and no amount of light or fire or humans would scare them to immobility. We didn't want to scare them away, but instead flanked them on three sides (Geno in the throne seat, Carson to the east and me to the west.)

Exhaustion caught up with me and I fell into my tent. I didn't bring my blow up mattress, so was left to sleeping on my yoga mat which was basically not sleeping. It's a night of tossing and turning, waking up and looking at the stars.

Dawn brought the sounds of quail and coyotes and cool light soon to turn into the heat of midday. I rousted myself out of the tent. Breakfast was toast over a fire, hot chocolate, cheese and mandarin oranges. The day was cool and it was time to clean the cave. I got my scrub brush and some water and spent some quality time scrubbing away.

Then it was time to head back to civilization. It was a fairly short trip - not without it's revelations. And it was really nice to have such a pleasant time. Next trips calls for a visit to the Miner's Cabin in my big burly truck and serious alone time for H. It might be a while though.

Trick the tricker?

Ghost in the Shell quoted yesterday, "The trickster is the easier one to trick" - is it really? I am not so sure. I'm gonna be paying attention.

how to ruin a good thing - email marketing gone bad

I love Mark Morford's Morning Fix. I never read it on the web - I've always had it emailed to me. When I first subscribed to his morning fix, he covered interesting things that I found I liked - his take on the top stories, an article about something he was thinking about, responses to letters people wrote to him, copies of hate mail he got, strange and wonderful historical facts about San Francisco, haiku's and links to some of the most interesting stuff on the web. His writings are not mainstream. They are probably considered liberal, somewhat pornographic, irreverent, highly political and just plain rude. I think his stuff is genius. He is a wonderful thinker and questions the social reality we are fed by mainstream media. He is a culture jammer.

Why does this matter? It doesn't. What matters is that I used to get his morning fix in my mailbox and I loved it. It was one of the highlights of my week (3 times a week) when I was working for the corporate devil. The Chronicle has since slashed the fix and the interesting thing is... I don't read it that often anymore - and you know what - I don't read the SF Gate website either - which I had started doing when I was actively reading the Fix. This is a case study in how to do email marketing WRONG. Let's break down the situation and put it in business terms.

You have HeatherVescent - a subscriber to Mark Morford's Morning Fix - an opinion column on SF Gate's website. SF Gate is the web version of The San Francisco Chronicle. The morning fix is emailed to her with a variety of content including Mark's full length opinion article. Heather really enjoys reading the fix - not only the opinion article, but also the other information. She doesn't always have time to read the whole email, but she does almost always (90%) of the time open it up. She notices that sometimes there is a picture with the Fix - but you can only see the picture from the SF Gate website. There are also top stories that Mark has rewritten that link back to the SF Gate website. She often clicks on one of the links and is taken to the SF Gate article online. She finds she likes reading the stories online and more often than not, spends more time looking at other articles online. She starts to poke around in other areas that are interesting to her such as Tech and Business and reads articles in those areas. She adds SFGate to her list of quick book marks and puts it as her homepage on her home computer. Before too long, Heather is checking into SF gate almost everyday and reading stories. She likes SF Gate and enjoys going to the website. She checks it several times a day to see the top stories changing. She likes getting the fix, looks forward to it several times a week and checks the SF Gate site regularly.

Time goes by and there is a lapse in the email Fix - NO EXPLANATION - and then Heather starts getting HTML formatted emails with the first 2 or 3 paragraphs of Mark's opinion column and a link to his story on the SF Gate website. None of the other stuff that used to be in the fix is there. Heather continues getting the fix. She opens the email and sees that the whole article is not there - this frustrates her. (The formatting has been changed without her permission or even notice - change is BAD.) For a while she clicks on through to the SF Gate website to read the article - but it really is a hassle. To read the article takes time - if a web browser is not popped, one has to be launched and with the bloated NS 7.2 or hefty IE it takes some time before the browser is popped and it takes a lot of computer resources. If a browser is not popped it often steals a window with some other webpage that Heather feels is important enough to leave open. This is frustrating because she will have to open up another web browser manually (it doesn't always work when it pops a new browser window) or will have to navigate back to the previous page in the web browser before my email client passed the URL.

Heather decides this is just too much work to read the fix. "The fix is something fun that I take a moment in my day to read - I don't want it to interfere with my work." Since the format changed Heather has stopped going to the SF Gate site (the links that drove her to the site are no longer included the email). She's doesn't read the fix that often anymore and she's even stopped opening the email.

I want to want to read the fix. I love the content Mark writes - I don't always agree with his views, but it's a still a free country. But come on, Chron/SF Gate - you ruined a good thing. Really. Mark's email newsletter, the way it originally was, had successfully transitioned me from a consumer who never read SFGate.com to someone who checked out the site several times a day. (Pay attention: you were making money on my clickthroughs via your display ads). And look at my attitude now: I have a negative attitude about the site and I feel angry. Something I really enjoyed was changed to something more difficult - because YOU wanted me to go to your site. You are FORCING me to go to your site to read content I could get in my email. And I won't do it, no matter how much I like the content. It's asking too much from me as a consumer/reader. I used to go to SF Gate all the time, but it was because I WANTED to go there, not because I am being FORCED to go there.

I hope email marketers are paying attention. It's true, you can get further with honey than vinegar and it works in the online world too.

just another day in LA

I've got a lot of blog posts to finish up and make live, but first, I want to brag about what I did today - because to me - it was the kind of day I love having.

G had to leave by 10am this morning to make it to work on time. It was really great hanging out for 5! days straight and we didn't drive each other crazy. That's a good and scary thing. (Desert update post is half written.) Anyway after he left, I had most of the day to do whatever...

I headed over to Hollywood to catch the sequel to Ghost in the Shell called: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. There were 4 people in the theatre, 3 women and 1 guy and we all sat alone. The movie was excellent. Really mind blowing. The story line was good, the techno/robotic/intelligence mind warp was well done, although I couldn't stop thinking of PK Dick and BladeRunner and Hyperion. At the end of the movie an obvious enlightenment hit me - we all have ghosts and our bodies are our shells. It's a movie that questions what makes us human. What is the difference between a AI in a robot and me? The animation was AMAZING. The lights and shadows and movements and transparencies of colors and layers. Yum yum fun for the eyes, ears and cerebral cortex.

I saw the film at Arclight Cinema's on Sunset - which is now my favorite movie theater. Movies are reserved seating, they have a bar and cool stuff for sale. They have big Hollywood films and Independents. It's the best of everything and it's only 1 block from Amoeba. I've been wanting to pick up some new CDs so I finally had my excuse. I went totally crazy buying something like 30 CDs all the way from Al Green, Snoop, MethodMan, Moricheeba, Air, Jega, Stereolab, Chemical Brothers, David Bowie, Prince and Michael Jackson. I drove home via Sunset to the Ocean blasting Michael Jackson's hits. Thriller blasting as I pass through Beverly Hills. Billy Jean, Bad, Smooth Criminal as I lean in Sunsets turns (I like to drive my car like it's my motorcycle). It was completely decadent to drive down sunset listening to Michael Jackson and I loved every moment of it.

Home again, home again to the west side. To my little apartment home for the next month. And tomorrow it's back to the grind. Two weeks of vacation for the next year sucks... but that's what I've got. I've just got to remember all the great things I did the past 10 months.

who the hell reads my blog?

do you find it interesting? who are you? do you have a blog? do we have similar interests? maybe I'd be interested in reading your blog. so fess up and let me know. or don't continue being a lurker. ;)

back out to the desert

tomorrow I speak to the Mojave and the old woman. I'm heading out to the desert with some friends - an old one and a new one. We'll perhaps stop by the vision cave or the miner's cabin or maybe even camp on the plateau. Then G and I will go to another desert. Death Valley, the Sonoran. Who knows. But it will be an adventure for sure.

wednesday commute

I took over 2 hours to go home on Wednesday. I couldn't help myself and I took Piuma Road again. At a nice pull off, I pulled over and stood on the picnic tables looking out into the Valley and towards the ocean. The sun had just set and the sky was a Richard Mizrach pallet. I looked at the orange slice moon rising just over the hill to the southwest. A path was pointed out to me. I remembered my travels in Virginia when I would go for work and inevitably find myself out on some back road in my business clothes. That happened again. Wed I had opted for something a bit more girly than I ever wore in SF. A flouncy black skirt (recently bought in Venice) and a shimmery black top, some kind of psuedo yoga clothing. I was also wearing these great new high heels. I haven't owned high heels (except for my thigh high stilettos) for years and years and I would never have ever thought about wearing them. But, hey, I'm in Los Angeles, I'm someone new, the shoes fit, so I bought them.

Anyway, I step out of the snob in my flouncy sheer skirt and 2-3 inch high heels onto dusty gravely mountain top parking lot. I see the path before me across the road. I walk with precise steps over to it. My foot steps sound differently on the pavement from the gravel/dust. I walk up into the scrub, chaparral, santa monica mountain wilderness. It's sunset time, which means hunting time for cats, snakes, hawks. I know this and ask if I should turn back. My response is a small bird fluttering further down the path. So I walk on. Wearing high heels gives me the chance to be very precise about my walking and walk from my front thigh. It's a strut. It's calling power.

The brush scratched against my legs leaving scratches. I hoped I would not snag my skirt. I found myself not far from the road and still in view of my car on a rock out crop. I stood there, feeling the wind in the sheer ribs of my skirt, blowing my hair across my face, along my back, up my legs. My shoes firmly standing in the uneven rock. I looked at the traffic on Malibu Canyon below. I looked at the mountains. The sky. At the cars passing by.

I watched the sun set on the last day of summer. And I told my dreams to the wind.

broken kite string

an image from today.

waves crashing in aqua and blue and sand
dark mops and tan necks bob, float, disappear in the foam
sand sticks to my goosebumped flesh as I turn in response
to the snap of breaking string.

the sudden release and my gaze upwards
watches the kite catch in the wind and swim a new course.
I jump up, feet kicking sand, flesh a jiggling, the exhilaration of running in my lungs
eyes intently watching the sky.

The kite falls
I stop at the sea wall
I don't have the ... momentum, motivation to jump in
I want a new kite anyway.
I watch the black and fuchsia and gold and green kite sink in the channel.
Boats pass, fishermen fish.
My feet kick sand back to my towel.

boys

ok, it's one last post for tonight... I just want to write a little about something I've been thinking a lot about recently - boys. Can I just say, thank you universe. I admit, I had some concerns, I didn't think the kind of boy I like was out there ... but thank you for continuing to point them out to me. It's helping me identify the characteristics that I really like and are important. Like power, intelligence, bullshitter, vulnerable, sensitive, good with tools (chain saws and vibrators) and the list goes on. Thanks. I'm having a lot of fun.

a year ago

... I was getting ready for Clint's 29th birthday and the Wonderella Printed Open House at 1204 Neilson street. A few days later I moved out of the house and that was the jump for my leap of faith. It's been almost a year, and where I was then, to where I am today, is dramatically different.

Driving on the 405 tonight, I felt that LA is finally my home. The whole point of getting a job was to solidify my life in LA. It's done that after only 1 week. The moving transition is over. And although the adventure has been going on for years, it's a new chapter in the adventure. Let's see where this one leads us.

Friday commute home

Last week I started my new gig and with that started commuting again. I think I have the best commute in the world right now. I drive up PCH to a canyon road in Malibu (Malibu Canyon or Kanan Dume) and speed my way up and through the santa monica mountain to end it with a burst of speed on 101 before arriving at the illuminated box.

On Friday I rode my motorcycle with one of my new co-workers. We took Malibu Canyon to Piuma to Steurt to Saddleback to Tuna Canyon. The view from Piuma are AMAZING. This is one of the most amazing motorcycle roads I've been on - I think it's more amazing than Tuna Canyon, which I was so impressed with. At PCH we split up and I meandered down to santa monica only to stop at a beach just north of the palisades to strip off my moto gear and work clothes to find my bikini underneath. The sun had just set and I danced with the ocean. Stepping slimly into the effervescing waters and jumping forcefully into the waves. I would run in front of the waves as they tumbled towards the shore and then would splash about as the water receded. They sky was getting dark - but not dark enough for me to remove my bikini. More and more I wish there were beaches nearby where I could swim and lay out with minimal clothing. It's not NY you know.

So I've decided. I'm always going to have a bikini in my trunk or bag and I'm going to always stop and get wet and swim when the mood takes me. On Friday's I'm going to take Lady Knight and we'll spend the afternoon commute home on the twisties.

This is going to work out ok.

so much going on

I've been composing blog posts in my head this entire past week with no time to sit and write. First week at work is good. I have mixed feelings and I keep wanting to step back into the high pressure silicon valley personality that I so want to get away from. If I wanted to be the high profile silicon valley internet tech exec person, I would have never left the Bay Area. But I don't want to be that person and my new gig is the perfect place to be the new work person I want to be. Do great work, work with great people.

An Angel in Heaven

I get to my new computer and on the monitor is this wonderful sticker. In a red box it says:

"I want heaven"

I think it's great. and I love it being on my monitor. And of course I agree, I want heaven - and even as I'm typing this right now, I know I'm living in heaven right now. Ha ha - I'm an angel in heaven.

So, tomorrow

Today marks the end of my burnout cooloff. I start working at 9am tomorrow. I have mixed emotions. I'm very excited to be working again. I love the work I do and I have high hopes for the company I'm joining. But I'll also miss my free time - going to the beach whenever - shopping in the afternoon - having no commute. However with the job comes structure, which I welcome after months of freedom. The only thing I'm not so excited about is the commute - but I have a feeling that is going to disappear in the next few months. I've been spending a LOT of time in Malibu the past few days and I really feel that I'll end up living in one of the canyons.

dumb dumb

sometimes I feel so dumb. I make a move and only later do I feel the full force of the pain, hurt. why didn't I see that before? why didn't I think about it that way? am I really such a flightly emotional person? what about sobriety? sustainability? consistency? did what I want change? was I faking it?

but then I remember why I act the way I do. I am moved to act. Acquiescening is ACTing. I see something that's a further step in the direction I want to take. I bring pain and destruction in these steps. Because plans and ideas and emotions are destroyed. And in the destruction understanding, enlightenment and seeds of new are sowed.

Awareness, Clarity, Intention, Direction, Focus, Acquiescence.

what's on my whiteboard and in my head

The morning has brought Bjork out of the box and although things have changed from when I was Bjork happy a few months ago, it is still very pertinant. I'm amazed at how wonderful Bjork is and how she very easily describes my emotions and conflicts and feelings about relationships and love.

Every morning I wake up to see my whiteboard. Of all the office equipment I have ever used, a whiteboard is my favorite. I keep various colored markers and scribble notes and thoughts and things I am thinking of that I want to remember. I keep it at the end of my bed, so I see if before I go to sleep and when I wake up.

I was reading it last night and this morning and I saw some items I wrote on it before I left for the desert. My friend Marlee was in town and we were having a lot of discussions about relationships, what we're looking for in relationships, whether we were emotionally available, male/female dynamics (from the standard typical moral model to one based around sorcery). I fully intend to be in a relationship that transcends typical male/female role models. I've already had the relationship where I wore the pants and was the man. I'm not interested in being the traditional woman dependant on a man. And I'm not interested in a fully equal partnership - because true equality does not exist, it is always in flux. Marlee was saying that since I am a woman, don't try to be another role - be the woman. Be the beautiful, soft object there that the man comes home to cherish. I have a problem with that because I'm not interested in being put up on a pedestal or being a typical woman - or a typical human for that matter.

Although I did have a flash of enlightenment on why men are paid higher than women - it's because society and traditional corporations still believe that the man is supposed to take care of the woman and so of course the man needs to make more money because he has to support a woman, while all a woman has to do is support herself or find a man to support her. With this thinking I tried on the hat that maybe I would just find some sugar daddy to take care of me, open my car door and all I would have to be is my effervescent self, look beautiful and take yoga classes every week. Oh, yeah whatEVER! That hat lasted on my head for about a day.

So where does that leave me in identifying the characteristics for a relationship that I want to have? It's put me on guard - watching, paying attention to the characteristics of the various men I interact with. What do I like? What's a passing interest? Do I believe a long term relationship is possible? What about the "K" question? I've been making mental notes. I'm not on the hunt - I'm gathering information. It's an interesting technique and one I have used in all other facets of my life, but never applied to this one. By doing this, I'm also learning a lot about myself and what I like. It's not so random and interesting things pop up.

Anyway, I've totally digressed. I was going to type about my scribblings on the whiteboard. They are not so personal. Marlee was reading some book and we pulled the sentences out of it.

--> Forgiveness dissolves tension and promotes patience.
--> Gravity = the Attraction of Mass for itself
--> Love = the Attraction of Life for itself

I found these interesting to ponder. I don't know if I agree with them - but they roll around in my head and make me think in a new way.

T'ung J^en / Fellowship with Men

above The Creative, Heaven
below The Clinging, Flame

The Vault of Heaven in Flame
The man rose over the city on a dome. Domes are a popular structure in Black Rock City as they are structurally sound, easy to raise and use minimal materials. The Man's dome was open to the sky. Red lights picked up radio signals from two years ago. Some messages returned in their entirety, some were changed and some were new responses. The mad scientist showed me how to use the listening device to point it at one of the red lights and listen to the sounds.

Fireworks went off around the city letting its citizens know the time for the burn was very soon. I meandered through the crowd looking at the costumes of this city - my city. I saw amazing EL wire art. On the back of one figure was an animated EL Wire Jedi/Samurai winding up and making a gently curving sword strike. I lost Mariah and Joe when we stopped to look at the electric Anubis Headdress. There was an umbrella twirling with ribbons. All eyes turned to the man, as his electric neon arms started to rise and stopped in the pre-burn pose.

Fire tempters juggle poi, hula hoops of fire and spit fire. It's a hot magical night and the man watches over all from high. The dancers clear out. We will burn our god tonight.

A hush echoes through the crowd circling the man as we stretch our bodies, looking and listening for the first flicker of flame. The sky explodes with fireworks. Splashes of silver and gold. Fountains of fire. Sprays of colored sparks. And below, the first glow of oranges as fire appears in the dome, contemplatitive at first then raging into the dome struts full of magnesium. The dome burns pink, red, magenta, blue. A leg catches fire, a wrist sprays green fingers. Fire creeps up the legs into the left arm. The dome is ablazing. The sound of structure breaking, a crack and the left arm falls in a gradual deafening blaze of fire and grating metal. His head is still untouched. The body blazes blue green and then dies into the yellow orange of hot burning wood. The man has shed his metallic clothes. The right wrist sprays green. Explosives shoot skyward from the dome as the first part falls in with a deafening crash. It is the beginning of the end for the dome. Screeching of breaking metal heralds the descent of the right arm. The dome ablaze and collapsing in large pieces. The entire left side breaking away from the center and falling in with cinderflash. The smoke rising in tornadoes of flame and smoke and cinders. Fire elementals dancing around the many smoke funnels spiraling into the night sky.

The man stands alone on the center dome supports. The sides have completely collapsed. His face is still untouched by flame. Then in an instant the support breaks and with a graceful plunge, like a line of Chinese calligraphy, the man slides to the left and plunges into the flames.

you have the power

you can change your life in an instant. with a moment. with a pause. with a choice. you change your life by changing the stories you tell yourself, with the stories you tell others. one experience spawns many stories.

the power comes in a silent pause and just as easily returns when the chatter starts up again.

the glitterarmi

Cleaning up the playa dust

I spent all of today cleaning up from the past week. Unpacking the weasel, washing the camping gear, filtering through the coolers for remnants of food, sorting through the costumes, shaking out the glitter. As of now, the car is cleaned and smelling sweet and I have my post BM manicure/pedicure. How nice to get those final bits of dirt out from under my nails. (Thanks Doug.)

Im still processing what happened out there. What did happen? And the aftershocks of my time in Black Rock City are starting to hit my "everyday life". I'm getting hints from Mr Jauntie from all fronts. Be a tricky clever fluffy rabbit. Step carefully among the rattlesnakes.

I strung my horns over my head as I took my first step in Los Angeles. I walked into practice regardless of my self-importance to slow moving earth affection. I wonder about this decision I have made to live the myth. I step outside to practice in the light of the bar with a favorite colleague. A moth draws to us. At dinner later, he tells me, that the goals do not interest him. I am inwardly reminded of my natural inclination to make goals. He is right, it's all about being right here in the present. This world has much to offer. Why focus on the future goal. Cut your teeth today.

Tazii

I posted the first set of photos from Burning Man. The Tazii album on the left is the wonderful group of people I had the great fortune to camp with. Tazii was an amazing camp and we had such a great time. I can't wait until next year or at least the next Tazii party. Love you guys!

what is burning man haiku?

Burning man is a city as
Eraserhead is a movie about a man and a woman and a baby
I wonder if China Mievelle was there.

when dreams come true

I'm listening to Stevie Wonder's greatist hits volume 2. He croons about never having a dream coming true, which reminds me that many of my dreams have come true. Before I left for the desert, I looked at my definition of my dream life and realized I was living it. So what do you do when all your dreams come true? Live happily ever after? It seems to me that I've reached the starting line and now I can really start living.

returning to the "real" world

I'm back in civilization. Covered in playa dust and head spinning attempting to process the past 7 days. It's good that I'll have a long drive down scenic 395 to let all these things percolate in my brain. Watch Mt. Whitney raise herself to white splendor over the high desert and lone pines and joshua trees.

I went to burning man with little expectations but expectations none the less. (They were shattered.) I went to burning man with intention, for some kind of mark or pointer or something to pay intention to as I leave the starting line. (And a character I did meet.) I went to burning man to experience something. And experience I did. (From playa blisters to raining cinders.) I went to burning man to solidify my recent change. I will not know how solid it is until I return.

"I went, I went and took. What did I leave in return?
My change."

Oh and it wasn't all just spiritual, it was a hell of a lot of fun too! As I wandered around the playa, I realized that my dream to be in a Fellini film had come true. It was better than Fellini, it was real. (As real as costumes can be.) And I was a fish in the wonderful bowl.

Now it's time to live that myth. (and no it's not the burning man one.)