| Wednesday: That night, I dreamed I was in an office
building, watching some guy and his son try to rig a trip wire across a
doorway. The string they were using was very obvious, and when a woman
appeared, she was not at all fooled. The three of them all ran off together
laughing. I got on a computer and sent emails to some people, really going
off on how they had hurt my feelings, but after sending them I felt bad,
like perhaps I'd been too harsh... I opened my eyes and saw the inside
of my tent, still feeling guilty, until I realized I was at Burning Man
and I hadn't been on a computer in days, so I had nothing to feel guilty
about.
It was just after 5 AM. It was still dark out. I could
hear a man and a woman speaking nearby, but I couldn't make out what they
were saying. I soon heard snoring.
I napped a little longer, then got up about 6 AM. On an
army cot out in the open, about 20 feet from anything else in camp, I found
Spanky sound asleep. A car shaped like a big banana drove by playing loud
Jamaican music. It was morning, and Mark was up making coffee for everybody.
I wished I'd brought tea bags. I met a guy called Sweets, who was camping
with us. Lots of people were up late. Someone said Spanky was up late,
talking to people on his megaphone in some unintelligible Chinese rap-speak.
They were getting ready to call the Everybody Anti-Defamation League
on him. Breakfast was beef jerky, a fig bar, and vodka. |
 |
As soon as the sun was up, people started filling up the
bar. A group that might have been the Space Cowboys drove up in a big car
shaped like an alligator's head, filled with music and dancing girls. Two
girls were talking, and one friend said, "I would give you the labia off
my lips." I met a girl called Jesse, who was still up partying from
the night before. She had nice teeth. I took off walking, and found the
Iron Rose camp down the street from the Pink Flamingos and You Are That
Pig Camp. I walked into their big common tent, which had lots of comfortable
pillows, and somebody took me around to the individual tents –and there
was Jenn! She gave me a very warm welcome. I met Heidi, her campmate. We
lounged around on the piles of pillows. Iron Rose's event that day was
an hour of heavy metal music, but the sound system kept messing up. The
heavy metal got postponed until the next day. It was hot and sweaty out.
The lovely Colleen showed up with her boyfriend Kevin and
some friends. She remembered me. Alex didn't come to the event with her
that year; she went to Mexico for the week instead. Mark and I helped them
put up their dome. Emory was in camp with his lovely wife Michelle. I went
for a walk to try to find a friend's camp near the 7:30 Plaza. Heaven forbid
they actually put up a sign or anything... I passed Porn & Eggs, and
stopped at a camp called Whiskey & Insults. They gave me a shot of
whiskey --and an insult-- so I gave them one of my shot glasses. I found
the Whiskey & Whores Saloon down the street, and got a shot from them,
too. They let me keep their shot glass as a gift. I passed a camp that
made refrigerator magnets to give away, so I took one and left one of my
buttons behind. I browsed through Center Camp. At Playa Info, there were
no messages for me. I forgot to check what the census was.
On the way back to the Plaza, I passed the N*U*D*E 4077's
camp, so I stopped to rest for a minute. Most of the folks there seemed
to be from Provo and Salt Lake City. I met a nice girl called Chinook.
A girl called Gypsy came by handing out fresh loaves of bread to everybody.
It was very good. Back at HOTD, I talked to a guy called Dr. Boom and his
lovely girlfriend Delish. We talked about movies, comics and graphic novels,
particularly "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." I also met a nice
woman called Lady Hourglass. Lisa D. showed up, and asked if I got my water.
I didn't. She was the one that found the water jugs I'd forgotten and left
behind the year before, and graciously offered to fill them up and bring
them to the playa for me. She came by on Sunday, when the only thing in
the whole campsite was the bar. ("It looked so cute!") So, she gave my
water jugs to a girl in the next camp over. We went looking, and finally
found my water jugs in the shade of a pickup camper.
|
A couple of impressive dust devils roared through the
City, and then suddenly a wall of dust opened up to the west. The wind
blew the dust in, and everything got slapped to a stop. Visibility was
no more than a few feet as the white-out blasted everybody and everything.
The sun was reduced to a silver disk in the sky. The dust was everywhere.
We dropped the sides of the army surplus tent and ducked inside for cover
and to wait out the storm. Luckily, Tigger had been cooking up some taco
salad, so everybody dug in. It was marvelous.
Star helped a guy that happened to wander by, a little
disoriented. He was dehydrated and confused, so someone flagged down a
Ranger. He got taken care of. Another refugee from the white-out was a
delightful blonde girl that used to be a Greeter. I asked her for some
advice. She joked around a little, but then said the best thing to do was
just be enthusiastic. Close to sunset, over an hour after it hit, the dust
in the air seemed to go down. It was still amazingly windy. I heard it
got up to 70 MPH. |
My tent did not fare well under such high winds. The structure
remained intact, but the poles weren't strong enough to stay up; the whold
tent flattened out under the force of the wind. I pulled the poles back
into position, then used more paracord to tie the poles together so that
they wouldn't bend down again. That kept my tent mostly in one piece for
the rest of the week.
After dark, the stage was getting ready to fire up. I went
by Iron Rose, where I had a barbecued rib with Jenn and her friends. Back
at HOTD, The band was just getting ready to start when technical difficulties
ensued. I was out past midnight. |
