my drive to pittsburgh unfolded pretty much as predicted in my itinerary, with the notable exception that i decided not to push myself to drive from boulder to chicago with only a powernap.

car-based powernaps suck pretty hard in the winter.

instead, i booked a cheap hotel in omaha, which split the drive into two easy 8ish hour pieces. i arrived at the hotel late after leaving boulder in a leisurely manner, woke up feeling rested, and headed out into a clear, cold nebraska morning. as i crossed into iowa, the sides of the interstate were quite literally littered with cars that had gone off the road during the dark and windblown night. i was glad that i had opted for the layover, and even more so when i was delayed getting into chicago, first by more snow, and then because i missed my exit and couldn’t turn around and had to figure out a new way to approach the city. this would have been an annoying turn of events at the tail-end of a nonstop from colorado, but as it was i remained relatively unfazed, and when i finally made it to my destination, i was rewarded by the homemade gnocchi and surly wit of dave carter, whom i had not seen in person in years.

FTW, as the cool kids say.

prior to chicago, i had stopped in san jose, ogden, and boulder, as planned, and i tell you whut, there are few warm fuzzies to rival four nights with four friends in four states, trailing behind you across your mental map like twinkling christmas lights, reminding you of how many cool people you know.

so thanks, everybody.
keep up the awesome. :)

the fifth and final light in my eastbound string was pittsburgh, and a bright and festive light it was, indeed. i made it just in time to follow reed on a gleeful crosstown slalom run through the snow-laden streets around cmu to meet a hardy group of friends who were gathered at the sharp edge to discuss the upcoming weekend and drink beer. i really like pittsburgh, and it was fun to have a couple of days to enjoy the town and see my friends. on thursday, colin helped me make two ginormous pots of stew for us to eat on sunday night, and on friday, we all headed north to set up camp and discover what frostburn had in store.

for those of you who need the cliff’s notes: there’s burning man, in the middle of the desert, for the full week before labor day, and then there are the regional burns, all around the world, all throughout the year. every year, more and more people complain about burning man being too big, too commercialized, too popular to be worth the time and expense, and the regional burns are productive outlets for addressing these complaints. don’t like big city life? take the spirit of the party back home. invite your friends. start your own traditions. put your creative juices where your whine is, and leave the gentrification of black rock to the suckers.

or at least, that’s one perspective.
;)

don’t get me wrong: i still love going to burning man, and plan to go for at least a few more years, life willing. it’s like going to vegas, or disney world, except the tourists wear glowfur instead of khakis, and there’s no money once you get there, which makes day-to-day decisions about what to do way less stressful. the sheer scale of black rock city, and the talent that it attracts, and the level of participation that it inspires in its citizens, is amazing. rejuvenating. inspirational. unlike anything else on earth. but it is, in fact, really big. and expensive. and exclusive. and lots of other things that mean that it shouldn’t be the only option on the table. so i wholeheartedly support the regional burns. and, of course, all displays of awesomeness completely unafilliated with the burning man network. i look forward to visiting many of the new temporary towns and cities that are emerging around the world during my time here, and i even hope to play my part in building some of them along the way. so it was fun to see what the pittsburgh burners had to offer.

it was a good group of people, and on saturday night, they burned a wooden snowman in effigy, which is a twist on the rite that i found somewhat clever and amusing, at first, but once there, it won me over on a deeper level.

it was very cold, and snowing lightly, and it took a while for the flame to catch, but when it did, i felt the crowd ignite with it. we stood there in the middle of one of the roughest winters in recent memory; three feet of snow had fallen in the past week alone; a recession was going on in the outside world, and two wars; our political discourse was degenerating into an ugly spiral of name-calling and publicity stunts; and there was still another long month between us and spring.

and yet, here we all were, camping in a small stand of woods on the fringes of suburbia, huddling together for warmth one moment, and stripping off layers the next, as the flame began to roar and reach high into the night. at one point, people began picking up handfuls of snow and hurling them onto the fire, as if daring it to go out, but it was far too strong. it was like a collective shout of “take that, old man winter! show us what you’re made of. we’ve got everything we need right here.”

in other words, pittsburgh gets it. and it was an honor to share in their burn.

on the way back to our camp, rachel led us to a dome i hadn’t visited yet, and we were met there by three people, sitting around a woodburning stove, discussing religion in rather serious tones. feeling somewhat dazed, and glad for the warmth after tromping through the snow for a while, we sat down. matthew was wearing a scarf made out of a chain of small stuffed elephants, and whryne kept interjecting comments, some of which were in response to the conversation that continued unabated around us, and some of which were random observations about other things that caught her attention.

i lay back on the bench that ran the circumference of the dome, and smiled blissfully in response to the whole situation.

soon, two of the serious sounding people left, and the one who remained took off his shirt and began making pizza after pizza in the woodburning stove, which suddenly had my full attention. the dome also contained several hammocks, suspended from the upper bars, and many dangling bike wheels, which sounded cool if you strummed their spokes with a spatula. in short, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and i will now do all that i can to help judy and adam make it to the playa, if that remains their goal.

i will also continue to banter with them on facebook.
:)

upon returning to camp, i finally tried my hand at flaming simon, and then a group of people pulled up with a small wagon and began constructing a statue out of precut pieces of balsa wood. i called it “the robot emperor”, because it reminded me of the emperor in my tarot deck, but it was also clearly a robot, so there you go. it was holding a book in one hand, and something i can’t remember in the other, and it was sitting on top of a pyramid, like a simultaneously ancient and futuristic deity. it was awesome to watch them erect it, which was clearly a part of the show, as it happened very quickly, like a puzzle being put together on fast forward. then, of course, they set it on fire, leaving nothing but a pile of ash for the people who wandered past later to wonder about.

and that is a pretty good summary of the events that took place between 7 and midnight on saturday, with the notable exception of the period during which matthew and i carved out a snowfa underneath the disco ball that was dangling from the porch at bat country, and proceeded to converse with everyone who entered or exited the bar. that was a good time, but honestly, the details kind of blur together, so i think that’s all you’re gonna get.

many other things happened over the course of the weekend, including probable low-dose carbon monoxide poisoning from the ridonculous jet-engine style kerosene heaters that we rented to heat our main tent, and the appointment of henry as pharaoh, due in some part to his forward-thinking planting strategies and commitment to gathering input from the people, but mostly because it was widely held that he looked killer in the shiny gold hat.

my eastward journey was therefore a complete success, and i had one night to recover in reed and sue’s lovely guest room before turning my nose back west and heading to bloomington, where i was due to be reunited with a great many things that were being stored for me, and also to visit with friends who had not make the pilgrimage to frostburn.

but for that story, you must wait for part iii…

so, the other day i says to facebook, i says: “over the course of the next month i am going to drive over 5,000 miles.” i will now take the opportunity to elaborate on this announcement a bit, for the sake of the curious, and to supplement my own future memory.

on thursday of this coming week, i am going to pack up my car and go to san jose for the night, where i will have the pleasure of staying with two friends who moved out here recently from bloomington (where they had come for school, from portland), which will be really fun, because i haven’t seen them in a very long time, and i like them, so that is sad.

on friday, i am going to get up early and drive to ogden, UT, where i will have the pleasure of seeing three friends from burning man, and i will also enjoy the chance to sleep somewhere other than in the backseat of my car, which i have done many times over the course of the past few years while driving between CA and CO, and it is starting to get old, particularly in the winter.

on saturday i will make my way to boulder, where i will visit the ever-hospitable bourlands, and work with matthew on moving my kwerk prototype to the next level. we will also probably cook some tasty foods, and prepare ourselves mentally and materially for the trek that we will both be undertaking in the week to follow.

sometime late in the day on monday, according to my current best predictions, i will resume driving eastward, probably pushing through to chicagoland with one powernap stop somewhere in iowa, once the sun is up on tuesday. i don’t know where i will stop in chicagoland yet, but i hope it involves pizza.

on wednesday i will continue east to pittsburgh, where i will meet up with friends, sleep until thursday, and then make a large amount of stew, to be stored in ziploc bags until sunday night, when it will be consumed by hungry people who are camping in the snow.

from friday through monday i will be here, along with roughly 30 of my favorite people from across the midwest, and somewhere on the order of 150 strangers, many of whom are doing awesome things like constructing a giant flaming simon game, which i will definitely play. i <3 simon. on tuesday i will pivot and return west, this time on a slightly more southerly route, which will take me through bloomington, where i will sort through and purge/reclaim a middling amount of stuff that a very lovely friend has been storing for me now for over a year, and, through the graces of the fates, have the chance to hear malcolm dalglish and co. perform the third iteration of ‘the welcome table‘, as well as celebrate the 40th birthday of one of my favorite former professors, whom i am now fortunate enough to count as a friend.

i will also see kevin and talk about games and robots, and hopefully see many other people whom i love and have not seen for a while. and eat esan thai and aver’s. and go contra dancing. and generally give bloomington a big hug.

then i will go back to colorado and see my dad and some other friends in the vicinity of colorado springs.

then i will come back to california, where i will dive fully into the final preparations for the MAPS conference i am assisting with in san jose in mid-april. i am so excited about this event that i have not yet been able to put my thoughts into blog-ready words. i predict this will change in march.

and that is as far into the future as i am currently inclined to outline here.

i will post adjustments and photographic annotations as the story unfolds, as well as muse on other things that are in the works, like kwerk and my novel and work options for the summer, as opportunity and inspiration permit.

now that you know my itinerary, if you’re going to stalk me, you must bring your own mug and sunglasses, and gas money would go a long way towards earning my trust. games and snacks would get you bonus points, but if they are lame games, or poison snacks, you’ll be disqualified, so choose wisely, like indiana jones when he had to pick out the holy grail.

here’s a hint: i am not a carpenter, but my uncle is, and i am still rarely impressed by bling.

so, some of this is liable to have bled through my facebook status updates and such, if you’re one of those people who watches facebook all day, or you’re like, stalking me, but otherwise it’s probably hazy at most, so let me just go ahead and say it straight:

i quit my job in san diego, and i’m moving north to santa cruz.
i’ll most likely be there until the end of the year, but i don’t really know for certain, because i’m not really going to finish planning that part until after burning man.

i know!
you didn’t even know i had a job!
and if you did, it’s probably because you were otherwise privy to some of my first month and a half in san diego, wherein i was agonizing about money, because gainful employment in any capacity was starting to feel dangerously elusive, and i had to admit that picking myself up and moving across the country to a town where i knew only a handful of people and had no plan for survival beyond the promise of some design brainstorming with erik and the horizon of my initial two-month sublease, IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION, was maybe a little bit less than the smartest plan i could have come up with.

[see post title]

but then, just as i was investigating escape routes, i landed a nearly full-time job with a tiny little research chemical supply house, doing what was supposed to be mostly office work with a touch of web design, but ended up being mostly web design with a touch of office work. the pay was not really fair for the work i was doing, and the amount of time it took, particularly when i included the commute, was really making it difficult to continue to work on other projects i actually cared about, so i was feeling wary, like a horse who let herself get saddled because there were apples involved, but now she isn’t so sure she likes the look of this trail…

but i told myself there was no reason to bolt – it was time to knuckle down, and quit whining, and be grateful to have a job at all. i had a lot i wanted to do, but what i needed most was the chance to relax into having a routine for a while, because my nerves were beginning to fray from the uncertainty of being on the road so long, and my health was beginning to suffer.

so i found a neat house with nice artsy folks and a dog and a big yard and a room for rent, and i focused on the positive sides of my new job (the people were friendly, and troubleshooting their website was educational, and the agreement was only until december, so i wasn’t too worried about them expecting me to stay for all time), and i tried to enjoy the summer. i went to the beach, and a padres game, and turned 30, and began making plans to get certified to teach english abroad. a month passed, and over the weekend of the 4th, i traveled north to wine country for an old friend’s wedding.

the wedding gave me the chance to tell the “so, what are you doing?” story about 100 times, and meet some new friends, and spend a few mornings walking along dirt roads in a pine-scented valley that began each day blanketed in fog. it grounded me sufficiently that when i got back, sticking with my job seemed ridiculous and cowardly, and i resolved to just quit before burning man, instead of risking being fired when i asked for the time off, which was my ingenious current plan.

that same weekend, my mother’s partner went into the hospital.
his kidneys have been failing, and this time they found out that he is going to require a whole new level of home care. :(
right now my mom has some time off to be able to get used to the transition, but in the fall it will suck, and if i were to come and help with the cooking and stuff it would be a tremendous help, and i could live rent-free, and look for a part-time job in santa cruz, and have time to work on kwerk, and a kitchen full of food to play with.

and, as a complete bonus, i had been handed a pretty much fault-free way to quit my job, with no need to wait until burning man.
i could just walk away.

it was crazy, and since i know that i am susceptible to looking for excuses to do crazy things sometimes, i wanted to think it over, but it just felt like the right thing to do on a lot of levels, and when i told all of this to erik after he picked me up from the airport, the first thing he said was: funny thing, but this month is going to be crazy with sprout robot, so if you want part-time work during the transition, i could find stuff for you to do, and pay you a fair wage, so that would mean you would have another month of work, really, even if you quit tomorrow.

and that pretty much sealed it.

so here i am.

the last few weeks have been a wild ride, but i still feel good about the decision.

this week, i am trying to spend as much time as i can helping with sprout robot, and also deciding whether i have enough room in my car for the things i had with me plus the things erik has been kindly storing for me since last august, because if i don’t, i need a trailer.

i am leaving town at the end of the week.

as of today, i have one month, exactly, to ensure that all the bits and pieces are in place such that a kitchen will be equipped to feed 50 people for a week in the middle of the nevada desert.

i am frightened at times, but the wind on my back feels good.

last summer, i set out for southern california with the intention of setting down some semi-permanent roots in the san diego area by september. instead, i spent all my money on running a kitchen at burning man, and ran my energy bar down into the blinking red along the way.

the adventure was worth the risk, but i needed to recover, so i returned east to search for powerups, play some old mini-games i had already figured out pretty well, and develop my strategy a bit better. i learned a lot, and had a lot of fun, and felt very grateful for my friends.

i also thought quite a bit about the potential benefit of using games as a metaphor for life, and that may impact how i write for a while, so… fair warning.
:)

last wednesday i arrived in san diego with a carload of assorted possessions, a two-month sublease on a room that is two blocks from the ocean, and a relatively well-defined concept for a web project that erik has agreed to work on with me for a while.

these are all very good things, and i’ve spent this weekend taking many deep breaths while looking out the window at the palm trees, listening to the birds, and trying to just let my new surroundings sink in.

i love california, but right now, bouncing back and forth between time zones as much as i am, i can’t help but marvel at how different it feels from the rest of the country when it comes to the simple mechanics of daily life.

when abundance can be taken as a given in life, strategies change.

whenever i’m here i feel like i’ve just been dealt a really great hand of cards, and at first it’s really fun to play it out and get a lot of points, but after a while it starts to get boring, and i start to wonder if maybe someone forgot to shuffle the deck…

for now, here i am, and my hand excites me.
i am good, but tired, and there are many stories to tell.
over the next few weeks i will try to figure out where to begin.

(March 22 – 25, 2008) K ATTENDS STARTUP WEEKEND IN BOULDER AND THEN SPENDS THREE DAYS WITH GOOD FRIENDS MB AND JB AND THEIR DARLING 8-MONTH OLD DAUGHTER, LB, DURING WHICH K AND JB CRAFT THREE BUDDING MICROBRANDS – JB’S LEIO DESIGNS, K’S DREAMFIELD COLLECTIVE, AND THE UNSPELLABLE CHAIN RESTAURANT K IS POTENTIALLY COFOUNDING AT BURNING MAN.

(March 26, 2008) K DRIVES FROM BOULDER TO LAS VEGAS AND CRASHES FOR THE NIGHT AT THE FOUR QUEENS HOTEL, WHICH WAS A BARGAIN ON ORBITZ. SHE STARES AT LIGHTS, SPENDS $10 OF HER OWN MONEY AND $4 OF FREE BONUS MONEY ON PULLING LEVERS, AND CONSUMES HASHBROWNS AND EGGS WITH A CHEAP MIMOSA FOR BREAKFAST.

(March 27, 2008) K LEARNS HOW RIDICULOUS THE LAX PARKING/PICKUP LAYOUT IS AS SHE RETRIEVES HER FRIEND JK SO HE CAN TIE UP STRINGS IN BAKERSFIELD AND PORTLAND BEFORE MOVING TO BRIGHTON FOR CHEMISTRY PROGRAMS OF BOTH THE PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC VARIETIES.

(March 28, 2008) K AND JK HANG OUT IN BAKERSFIELD, WHICH REMINDS K OF COLORADO SPRINGS + PALM TREES + IN N’ OUT – DR. DOBSON.

(March 29, 2008) K AND JK DRIVE TO ASHLAND, OREGON AND FALL ASLEEP.

(March 30, 2008) K AND JK STOP IN EUGENE FOR BREAKFAST WITH THE DEAR VHS AND CONTINUE ON TO PORTLAND WHERE THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NO SALES TAX AT THE APPLE STORE AND THEN GET DRINKS WITH JK’S OLD HOUSEMATE G? AND HER FRIEND ??

(March 31 – April 1, 2008) JK CURSES AND SELLS POSSESSIONS ON CRAIGSLIST WHILE K TRIES NOT TO INHERIT TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY JUNK, LAUGHS AT THE PET TORTOISE, DOES AN UNEXPECTED BIOFEEDBACK EXPERIMENT AT THE NEIGHBORS’, AND MEETS TIF FOR SUSHI AND SP FOR PIE.

(April 2, 2008) K TAKES THE BUS TO EUGENE TO CONTINUE CONVERSATIONS WITH VHS AND MAKE PASTA AND GLUTEN FREE COOKIE BARS.

(April 3, 2008) JK PICKS K UP FROM EUGENE AND THEY DRIVE TO SAN FRANCISCO TO GIVE A CLOCK TO JK’S FRIEND R? AND HANG OUT WITH KYNTHIA’S FRIEND EG AND MUTUAL FRIEND PJ. PJ PROPOSES A VERY EXCITING PLAN FOR A FUNDRAISING PARTY FOR THE GOLDEN CAFE, AND K FINDS RANDOM SHOES ON THE STREET, WHICH GIVE HER A BLISTER.

(April 4 – 7, 2008) JK AND K CONTINUE TO LA WHERE THEY MEET UP WITH SATI, LUCIFER, TEZ, THOR, ATHENA, AND DR DAVE & CO TO PARTAKE IN AN OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED HIGH-QUALITY SALAD BAR, A RANGE OF FINE COCKTAILS IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS, AND OTHER GENERALLY DEBAUCHEROUS ACTS CULMINATING IN A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADYBUG AND CONCLUDING WITH DEAD BATTERIES AFTER DIM SUM AND AN AFTERNOON AT THE SPEAKEASY WITH ARES. PARTIAL SCHOLARSHIPS WERE AWARDED AND K ASSUMED THE ROLE OF KITCHEN MANAGER FOR THIS YEAR’S GOLDEN CAFE. FM’S DRAMATIC DEPARTURE LEAVES MANY STUNNED. K BUYS JK’S CAR ALL OFFICIAL-LIKE BEFORE LEAVING HIM TO HIS FINAL UK-BOUND PREPARATIONS.

(April 8 – 10, 2008) K HEADS TO SAN DIEGO TO SIT ON THE BEACH WITH ERIK AND HIS LOVELY NEW FRIEND L?, COLLAPSE ON A BEANBAG PILLOW FOR SEVERAL HOURS, AND DELIGHT IN THE DISCOVERY THAT K AND ERIK SEEM TO HAVE BROKEN THROUGH A RECENTLY CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONAL DIVIDE, WHICH COULD LEAD TO EXCITING COLLABORATIONS IN THE NEAR TO MID-TERM.

(April 11 – 12, 2008) K EATS BISCUITS AND GRAVY AT THE BIG KITCHEN ON HER WAY OUT OF TOWN AND THINKS OF CALLING /_\ TO MAKE AN ATLAS SHRUGGED REFERENCE. SHE FINALLY TURNS THE NOSE OF THE CAR EASTWARD AND DRIVES, WITH A FEW NAP STOPS, TO COLORADO SPRINGS, WHERE SHE HANGS OUT WITH HER DAD, LEARNS OF A POTENTIAL NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, AND WONDERS IF SHE SHOULD COME BACK TO CO FOR HER BIRTHDAY.

(April 13, 2008) K FINALLY DRIVES BACK TO BLOOMINGTON, WHERE SHE ATONES WITH MVP’S CATS AND DISCOVERS THAT THE BATHTUB IS BEING REPLACED, WHICH IS EXCITING BUT RESULTS IN A DIVERSIONARY VISIT TO JN’S, WHOM SHE IS VERY HAPPY TO SEE NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF THE CHANCE TO SHOWER.

(April 14, 2008 – present) K SETTLES BACK INTO BLOOMINGTON, CLAMORS TO CATCH UP ON WORK FOR IMI, FIGURES OUT HOW TO HANG OUT WITH JN AND RR WITHOUT LIVING AT RR’S, BEFRIENDS AFOREMENTIONED CATS, DOES NOT GO TO PITTSBURGH AFTER ALL, WORRIES THAT ONE OF THE CATS HAS RUN AWAY BUT THEN HAS HER WORRIES RESOLVED, AND THINKS ABOUT HOW TO REALIZE THE PLANS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN SET IN MOTION. SHE PROCRASTINATES TOO MUCH WITH REGARD TO REGISTERING THE CAR AND ATTENDING TO THE WEEDS IN MVP’S YARD, AND OTHERWISE DELIGHTS IN THE SPRING WEATHER.

here i am in boulder, colorado, and you might start to get the suspicion that i only blog when i’m at startup weekends anymore. fair enough. there does indeed seem to be a trend developing. a commentary to my proximity to wireless access in the past few months, perhaps.

anyway, the boulder startup weekend is off and chugging along and it’s mixing things up a bit by not requiring the group to pick one idea, but instead breaking up into as many groups as can successfully recruit support for themselves. it’s like walking around a little startup factory, and i’ve decided to pimp myself out as a consultant rather than join any one group, and so far that’s lots of fun.

i got in late last night because i drove out from bloomington without really sleeping first, so i had to stop a few more times than i anticipated when i planned my very time-crunched driving schedule, a schedule which was further complicated by the fact that my car was in the shop for a day longer than i expected, so… pant, pant, pant…

now here i am.
and back into the flow i go.

i am hereby moving my camera into my purse even though it takes up too much room, because keeping it in my backpack clearly doesn’t do enough to ensure that i have it when i want it.

i got back last night from a little trip to palm beach, FL, where my mother is living now and where she was just officially ordained as a unitarian universalist minister after many years of preparation and hard work. the ceremony was a big success, and it was nice to see and hear so many people telling my mom how cool she is, because they are right. :)

congratulations, reverend momma. i am proud of you.

[insert touching photograph here]

it was fun to see both of my parents – my dad flew down for the weekend and i realized that i hadn’t seen him in nearly two years! – and i am going to colorado and then florida again during the holidays, so there will be more time to catch up, which is good.

i also enjoyed seeing the ocean, and floating in it for a little while yesterday morning before we ate lunch and headed to the airport to send me back west. i have been to the pacific ocean a couple of times this year but i swear that the water in florida is warmer and bluer in november than the water in southern california even under the august sun, and the shells on the beach push some buttons that giant seaweed creatures still don’t quite reach, as much as i love them and as much as i learn to appreciate the beauty of rugged, rocky pacific views.

[insert super blue ocean shot here, followed by fun close-up of the broken shell section of the beach where i made little mosaics for a while]

the autumn weather in portland has made me hesitant to make too many rain jokes, lest i reinforce false stereotypes or tempt bad weather sprites to teach me to be careful what i ask for, but last night i flew in to heavy fog and drizzling rain, which continues today, so perhaps winter is starting to stake its claim on the PNW. flying into PDX at night is kind of a ripoff because you can’t see any of the mountains, which are absolutely stunning from the air. i had a window seat on both flights this time, too, and it was fun to fly over cities at night and try to guess where we were. it’s actually quite hard. i started wondering whether, as we enter the age of satellite photography on every desktop, a new dimension of urban planning will emerge to play with how we look from above.

so now i’m back, WAY behind on nanowrimo, and confronting the task of gathering and/or redistributing my portland material footprint before i head out for a while. i am both glad to be here and glad to be in motion. the west coast has set some deep hooks in me over the past eight months, and now i begin the task of determining which lines i want to sever and which i want to continue to play out, no matter which ocean i swim in next.

tonight lauren and tif celebrate their november birthdays and some time in the next day or so victor returns from his bowling and supercomputing convention, at which point he may or may not have energy for portland adventures that will most likely involve neither. and sharon and i are inventing a tofurky dance. and chakra wants me to make a pie. and there may be another boat? and i might be hijacking jonathan’s car?

hello, friday. another cup of coffee, anyone?

this week i learned that when i got home from burning man, i wasn’t really fully here. sure, i was in my apartment and sleeping in my bed. yes, i unloaded the truck and cooked with what edible options remained. yeah, i saw my friends and did my laundry and embarked upon a gin-weaning regimen with jonathan, and indeed i even began the employment quest in earnest, with no trip looming on the horizon to distract me.

but my mind was churning and calling out for california, where several new friends and two very special old ones were going about their business, and all i really wanted to do was mindmeld with them and careen about drunk on life in the last rays of the summer sun. this became particularly clear last friday when i realized that i was going to be in san diego this week with victor and erik whether my body deigned to actually travel there or not, so i’d best just shut up and get myself all in one place and enjoy the ride.

lemme tell ya, i’m a smart one sometimes, because i had an amazing week romping up and down california, and now that i am back? game on. all systems go. i got three new employment leads today alone. i had a lovely morning in eugene hanging out in a coffeeshop and time traveling to the beat of my shuffle on the bus ride home. i spent the evening out with good friends who i am so glad to be getting to know even better. i am resolved to make sunday dinner a part of my life again. and i really do love this town.

so cheers.

and check out my pics if ya wanna.

last year i made a pledge to redouble my efforts to travel to black rock city this year for burning man.

i made it.

i returned home last thursday night, and the intervening days have been spent unloading a large truck, rinsing playa dust from my skin and hair and clothing and lungs, and alternately bubbling over with stories and collapsing from exhaustion.

i have new friends, a new job for a week out of the year, and a new town to call home. there is so much to say about black rock city and so little of it makes sense out of context, so for now i offer some photos to get things started. my own camera ran out of batteries early and i didn’t get many good shots, but burners are thankfully well represented within the flickr community, so i offer you a few of my favorites:

The Monkey Tree —

Life in a whiteout —

The Double Rainbow and the Temple of Forgiveness —

The Double Rainbow Entire —

The Eclipse —

The Big Rig Jig —

So chew on those a bit, and if you’re still hungry, head over to this description by Lucifer, my boss at the Golden Cafe.

i’ll say more soon and evermore, i am sure. in the meantime, stay happy, and i hope to see you next year in black rock city.

i’ve never been very good at picking a favorite anything, and i’m kind of annoying if you ask me to do so because i will probably give a somewhat lengthy speech like: “well, toDay i think it would be fun to watch the hudsucker proxy, listen to the shins and go bowling. while eating pringles. but last week i totally wanted to watch ET and go to the park. so i Really think it’s more about… sorry. yeah. i’ll take whatever’s on special. thanks.”

but then there is aged dutch goat’s milk gouda, and i think i’m ready to go out on a limb and say that it is my favorite cheese. ever. and yes, i would marry it.

the first time i tried this cheese was a few years ago in some schmancy wine and cheese shop in concord, ma. i was there on a business trip and the other woman i was traveling with and i were exhausted and decided to go buy some cheese and a baguette and a bottle of wine and call it dinner in the hotel room. i think we got some other kinds of cheese, too, but honestly i don’t remember any of the next week because all i wanted to do was eat that gouda all day. work schmork.

it’s funny because this was the same trip wherein i discovered that i have a fondness for tempranillo wine, which is one of the most common spanish reds, so this post sounds a bit big for its epicurean britches now, don’t it?

but to return to the cheese, i came home gaga over it and unable to find any in indiana for a long time, until david rousted some up in indy for the decadent garden party almost a year later, and it was still good, but not quite as good. then sahara mart offered yet another reason to become my favorite bloomingtonian grocer by carrying some for a few weeks. i must have been the only person who bought it, though. barbarians. ;)

anyway it’s not all that hard to find these days, possibly because it’s getting hipper, and i have since located several samples that were all lovely, though usually quite expensive. at whole foods, for example? they have one that is aMazing but it costs like $18/lb. and i’m sorry, but i make it a rule to only donate a kidney to subsidize dairy purchases once every five years.

yesterday though? i found some at trader joe’s for $8/lb. and the past few days have been happy, which is what led to this post. i think my conviction is even more solidified because this dairy sensitivity thing i mentioned in the biscuits and gravy post? it’s quite real, but both hard cheeses and goat’s milk cheeses don’t aggravate it much, so it looks like the thing to do is just pinch pennies and cherish only such cheeses that truly deserve to be cherished. which is how it should be anyway, really. and this shiznit’s at the top of the list.

that was educational, eh? :)

and the first reason it might be fun to live in amsterdam, you ask?
why, the tulips, of course!
i like tulips.
and if you don’t believe that, look here.
there are even two pictures that are named “i like tulips”, so i don’t know what else you thought i meant…