After-Burn Report 2007...

So here it is… A few days back from my first burn and I am still a tad… Well… A tad out of it… I had said that I really sort of felt that it was not that big of a new experience for me… And it wasn’t. In so many ways, it seems as if all the different things I have done over the past several years, the lifestyle I have embraced, have just finally added up to one big place… But I keep that big place with me all the time… So the Playa doesn’t seem any more like “home” than any other place…

But…

It was an experience! A giant grand adventure… Filled with wonderful people and spectacular sights… It was like a grown up version of where’s Waldo… There was so much to see… Too much to take in all at once… Like some sort of weird circus orgy for the optic nerves… Combine that with the elements and then it starts to look a little like the past two weeks…

I had said that I wanted to test my princess metal against the elements… And I did. Several dust storms, two white-outs, a little rain, a little cold, a lot of really way too hot for far too long… It was all there… And I kept smiling through it all… (Yea me! I just knew I could do it… I can do anything…)

What caught me off guard was how fabulous everyone was. Strangers, acquaintances, friends, loved ones… Everyone was spectacular… Well… Mostly everyone… But there always seems to be one rotten apple in the bunch, no matter how big and great the barrel is… At least it was just one… And after a day or two it became rather comical to see how her antics would just blow away like the dust on the ground… It was sad to see how ugly she was on the inside and how it just poured out of her and onto those about her that had done nothing but present kindness… It was also good to see that I (Still? Finally?) managed to rise above all of the childish antagonisms, selfish and spoiled antics and self- destructive behaviors… Better still that I was not the only one who noticed… But enough about that… After all… It is only one apple and there were 50,000 other apples in which to try, explore and perhaps even turn into the best deep dish pie ever tasted this side of the residual gerlach embers and ashes…

As for me…

I returned stronger and surer of myself than ever before… I am more content in my own overly dry skin and happy that I really can survive anything. And not just survive; make a party out of the trip… A sometimes understated and muted party, but a party none-the-less… (And it seems that the older I get, the more I prefer the momentary large boisterous bashes and the lengthy down-home hang out with your best buddies sorts of extravaganzas…)

As for my adventures…

It was just my style to discover that I was lost as far as possible away from “home”, get rescued by an art car, treated to their incredible hospitality while they filled their camp’s ice chests, taken on an incredible tour of the playa and all its wonders, only to be delivered right at my camp’s front door at the end of the best ride ever… (And if anyone knows a fabulous man who wore screaming orange from the top of his hat to the bottom of his crocks, going by the name of Spider, who built a neon bright art car from a (Cadillac?) car that drove from a seat raised up about six feet in a bright metal cage, camped with a group that had two neon colored geodesic domes, and a friend called Dan who gave me the best icy cold coke I have ever had in my life, camped somewhere around 2:15 and B, C, or D (I did say that I was lost…) whose theme camp may or may not be called something like Camp Over-drive… Or Camp Over-ride… Or something else entirely… Please tell him that he totally made my whole first burn… (More than the double rainbows, or the double white-outs, or the double man burns… That ride was the best! And I would love to meet him and his wonderful camp mates again sometime…)

And being the newbie that I was… (Even with all of the research and planning, it was still a new thing for me… Go figure…) I thought mid-week that it would be a grand thing to put texture wax in my hair… (More on that one later… But Carlos- Thanks again!) But even that seemed to be alright thanks to the wonders of Astral Head Wash…

Oh… The Boyfriend did manage to tie one on in the (Best?) worst way mid-week… And we back at the pleasure Garden had much fun coming up with all sorts of tall tales to tell him (Read: tease him) about… (You should know better than to tell me that you partied so hard that you can’t recall most of the night… I’ll help with the hangover, but it comes at the price of (gentle, fun-loving, friendly, razzing) entertainment… Needless to say… A good morning was had by all… And the Boyfriend still loves me lots… (I finally did let him in on the “fun” later in the afternoon when he had slept most of the yucks off…)

The Boyfriend’s over partying lead to a fabulous experience over at the Human Carcass Wash… Yes, Lots of cleaning was taking place on the Playa this trip… Between the Head Wash and the Carcass Wash and the boxes of facial cleansing cloths and wipes, I was entirely mostly clean for about five minutes at least two or three times a day… Total bliss… And then the dust would come again… (One of my camp-mates made dust angels and I could totally see the attraction to that activity by the end of the week…)

As for my clothes and supplies and all the planning…

It was awesome! I was able to scale way back and I wore quite a lot of what I brought… What I didn’t wear was due more to weather… It was so warm that the fireman’s pants and sweaters and coats went untouched… But I have been told if I had left them, I would have needed them for sure… I lived in min mai buns and cut up tights turned into tops… (Thanks to years of Ballet training I had that wonderful trick to fall back on… And a fellow camper admired my fashion so much that after a few days, she was hacking up her tights to emulate my “look”…) We brought just a tad more water than we needed, and the same went for the food. It was perfect that way… (Even if it was rather boring fare… And we were nourished and hydrated, which is what is important… Though next time I may get a little fancier with the meals… Ohhh… How those words may come back to haunt me later…)

All in all… It was a great trip and a wonderful experience… I am so very glad that I went… That I came and saw and even participated… (I must admit to this strange affinity to picking up MOOP… But more on that one later…) I would certainly go again… Though I might do something totally radical… Like go early and NOT stay for the burn… (I know, but I had the most fun in the early week and when all the yahoos showed up on Friday the vibe totally changed… And… Well… For me, it was not about the burn itself… It was about all sorts of other stuff… So… You never know… I just may do it…)

Well…

That about wraps things up for now… (Everyone knows how prolific I can be, so if I don’t end things here they could just amble along for pages and pages…) I’ll post more again soon…

Gosh… It’s good to be back!