Burning Man 2010 - Thursday / Friday

I simply don't remember any differentiation between these days, sorry. :( It's been too long and they've all blurred together. Chronology is lost to the banks of my memories. I'll just list various events and experiences without worrying too much about precisely *when* they took place.

I was Spiderman one night, but I lost my Spiderman hood at the end of the night. :( Lame. While Spiderman was very fun, it was totally eclipsed by Flaming Shadowman. Blake and I work the blacksuits from the SCI show at Horning's Hideout, and we had more fun than any two black-clad people are entitled to have. We climbed and climbed and climbed and hung and hung and hung. I explored my body's potentials and limitations like I never have before. I never would have believed that I could do the things I was doing. I got comfortable with double-knee hangs, and then single-knee hangs. I thrashed around in a single-knee hang. Blake lifted people from double- and single-knee hangs, and swung them. I explored a wide range of ways to hold onto all kinds of different anchor points with 1 or 2 hands and/or 1 or 2 legs/feet. I did Bridges on very tall, not-so-sturdy objects. From a Bridge or hang I gazed in stupified wonder out over a rave full of brightly-clad super-people.

Gummy Bears. Creature coined the phrase and it immediately made sense to me. He and I (after my return from BRC) took a moment to clarify just what quantifies a Gummy Bear.

I'm not sure they *need* to be female, but they overwhelmingly are females. Nearly all of them are small. They wear brightly-colored things, and they favor fluffy stuff. They're made up to look hotter than humans can possibly look, and dressed & costumed accordingly. They look like candy, clothed in wonderfully colored wrappers. But (for me at least) the primary determinant is how they dance.

Gummy Bears dance like sex-candy. They move in a way that's calculated to make watchers want them fiercely. They're not overtly sexual (at least not often) but the hint of sex is there. Mostly, though, they just dance (and look) like candy. Dawn is occasionally my Dark Gummy Bear (she doesn't favor neon colors). Feather was a Gummy Bear now & then. The rave stages were sprinkled liberally with Gummy Bears. The spotlight dancers (behind the screens at Tower of Babel, especially) are almost always Gummy Bears. Most Gummy Bears are strippers, though not all of them are.

Burning Man 2010 taught me not to obsess about Gummy Bears, yay! :) I watched them (they were everywhere and it was hard *not* to) and I slowly came to realize that I don't want one. I don't want human candy. I don't want strippers, or superhot European girls with perfect face and body. I got to see Gummy Bears in many different situations, and girls who are caught up enough in themselves to become candy aren't for me. It's a very good feeling - like I'm a trout that's finally learned to avoid flashing lures.

I also really appreciate the perks of being a stunting addict. I'm so often surrounded by superhot girls with absolutely delicious bodies... it's tough to find a guy who gets more hands-on experience with lithe bodies. And it lets me turn off the lust... I can be very physical with girls who are delicious in every way, and unless she's grinding on me or something I can avoid arousal entirely.

Plus, I spent over half my nights in Dawn's tent, so my lust was physically impeded, as well. If I'd spent too many days in a row being celibate I'd have been torn apart by lust. Instead I was generally pretty spent. Yay! So much more enjoyable to be in control of my thoughts and my eyes, instead of being yanked around by them like I would've been if Dawn wasn't there.

Plus, Dawn is superhot. She's always breathtaking, but when she purties up she becomes ridiculously gorgeous. I typically end up going home with the most desirable girl at the event - it amazes me. I've found a superhot girl that isn't into herself. Joey was, too - she's a bit more into being catered to because of her looks than Dawn is, but she's far from egotistical or stuck up. I've actually had quite a string of superhot girls who aren't stuck on themselves. Gaelen, Mary, Amanda (though she's got more image-consciousness than she admits).

Even better than Dawn's looks & body, though, is the stuff that matters - her heart and spirit and mind. We connect easily and completely, and we can share things with remarkably little concern. Through delightful coincidence we've matured into 2 beings who fit together like we were milled to do so.

Back to Burning Man. :)

Dutch and Sara and I did a show. We did 2, actually. First there were some fire-spinners / acrobats, and they didn't mind if we jumped up and stunted on their stage. We got a few ideas and jumped up - me & Dutch & Sara. I'd forgotten that she's not a performer. She stood around a lot, and talked a lot with us about what to do and not do - breaking character a bunch. I grew up around a stage and I forget that those who didn't have a hard time remembering that you perform at *all times*. But overall that show was pretty cool.

The 2nd time we were recruited by a really talented flier whose name I can't recall. She knew Zac, though, from Boston, and she flew really well. She was very confident about flying either mid- or high-flier for a 3-high. Even though I'm a more experienced (aka solid) base than Dutch, I'd rather spot a really risky stunt than base it, so I put Dutch on bottom and Shanni on top.

Shanni! :) More about her later.

That 3-high was the scariest stunt I've ever spotted. First the mid-base girl ran through a spin-up mount, where Shanni stood on my shoulders facing the mid-base girl, and then jumped (with a pop from me) and spun up onto the mid-base's shoulders. Well, it didn't work out that way. Shanni made it 3/4 up, then climbed laboriously the rest of the way. The mid-base girl had to *squat* to stay up, and poor Dutch found himself holding the most wobbly and unstable 3-high I've ever dared to imagine. He was hunched forward, trying desperately to cling to the last vestiges of stability. He called "Down!" a few times, but they couldn't hear him and honestly, it was safer to go up than down at that point. Shanni was *really* high. They finally got it despite Dutch's protests, and bless Dutch's heart, he held it. It demonstrated just how wimpy our fliers are - not one of my students (other than Alysia, who's now gone) would have held that trick. But the two girls flying it held it and tightened it. I want-want-want that in my fliers!

Anyway, the mid-base girl whose name I forget invited us to do ambient stunting for their Battle of the Bands at Center Camp. We were thrilled to comply, and me & Dutch & Sara planned out our tricks.

This was soon after Sara blew me off to stop Nick's art-car and ask for Dawn, though, plus Sara had been complaining all day about not getting whatever she wanted, quickly enough. The Zoobombers have a saying, "Do it better!" Sara uses this saying anytime she doesn't get what she wants, to mean, "Anticipate and do what Sara wants!" It bugs me mightily. Anyway, I told Dutch that my cope-with-Sara ability was all used up, so that he could help me detach rather than conflict with her. But she got in my face about something and I snapped at her about interfering in my personal life with Dawn, and she sulked, and it was a bad scene prior to the first performance. But to our credit we did well, and kicked out some sweet stuntery for Round 1. :) Yay!

Right away in Round 2, though, a bad thing happened. Sara & Dutch threw a Star, but it went bad and Sara dropped straight out of it, tweaking her neck pretty badly. :( I was mortified - I'd just spatted with her and now she was injured. I felt horrible. Then I was pissy at Dutch for having to stick with his girlfriend instead of coming back to the show and finishing it out. We ended up not doing anything else for lack of Dutch in the 2nd Round. :( Sara was hurting badly for at least an hour and I was emotionally exhausted in addition to physically spent.

Shanni. We met her in Center Camp while stunting and she asked if we'd base her in a low Hand-to-Hand. She flew okay - she'd obviously done it but she wasn't spot-on. I showed her a bunch of new stuff, too, of course - Angel, Arabesque, etc. She'd done many of them. She asked if we could do an Angel Full-down, and seemed suspicious when I readily assented. She explained it a few times, and we practiced the pop a few times, and then we were ready. I was confident; I've thrown them even though it's been 20+ years. Plus, I do Angelbesques with tons of fliers, and it's the same pop. We threw it, and it went perfectly. As I cradled her, her eyes and mouth shot open in the most adorable "O"s of surprise, and she gushed with excitement about how clean and smooth it felt. I think that's when she fell in love with me & Dutch. :) And we happily reciprocated, of course. She's super-tight, eager, brave, and she doesn't make the same mistake twice. She also lands like a cat - but not unless the base and spotters fail to catch her. If they do, she stays stiff and tight like a flier should. I haven't stunted with a partner as tight & skilled as Shanni for many years. I want her for my own!

She was super-excited to work with experienced, safe bases. She trained herself, which is amazing 'cause she's really good. She does Aerial. She's got a gig in B.C. for a month or two, and then she's looking for a new home base, hopefully on the west coast. Dutch and I tried our very hardest to sell her on Portland. If she moves out here she's a shoe-in for a Kazum flier, and she can probably increase our fliers' skills dramatically. Yay!

After the Battle of the Bands at Center Camp we all set out for another night of fun. I don't recall the specifics of what happened when... it's been too long. :( I spent a lot of wonderful time with Dawn, though, over the course of Thursday through Saturday. We mostly avoided Nick, but a few times we were together around Triceratops while he was there.

I got to hang out with Feather a bunch, too. She was my glom-buddy for one of the nights - a date that I didn't kiss on or be flirty/romantic with. Just a person to be close to. It was wonderful. I'm sure glad I got to spend time with that kid. :)

Burning Man 2010 - Tuesday

On Tuesday there was no dust. The rain had left the air moist, and it was partly cloudy and wonderfully un-hot.

Speaking of hot, the hottest girl in our camp (IMO) was Shauna - here's a random pic of her. Hm, I can't upload it so I'll just link - Shauna
Anyway, I walked out of my tent on Tuesday morning and saw her just standing up from leaving her tent. She was wearing a bikini bottom. She saw me and smiled and waved - it was one of the most breathtaking things I saw during the entire burn. Superhot eye-candy gorgeous mostly naked girl. I was supercharged with energy all day long from that.

We did a bit of stunting in camp, then we did some more stunting at the dance stage just up 4:30 from our camp. It was there that I stunted with an older lady (maybe 60 or so) who came up and asked if I could lift her. She was super-nervous and shaky, and she cautioned me repeatedly to be careful because her legs and ankles and feet were gnarled and twisted from past accidents. I put her through a succession of stunts, ending with a circus mount to shoulder-stand. She was ready to bawl, she was so appreciative. I was ready to bawl, too. I'm so grateful to so often be able to give people the gift of flight.

Next we circled over to Center Camp, where the stunting really took off. We met a bunch of stunters, including a guy I've been hearing about for years now - Lux. He flew some hand-to-hands, and showed us a cool twist-mount. He had Dutch hold him in a low H2H while trying to lie down - pretty sweet.

I also stunted with a blind man. His friend stunted with me first, then led him over to me. I guided him through a flag - at one point he looked a little concerned and informed me, "Um... I can't see." I had to chuckle - it was pretty obvious he was blind, and he must've been super nervous, but he did great. Watching his face as he held a blind Flag was amazing. He was really moved, and again it triggered a powerful appreciation in me that I get to facilitate that kind of emotion.

Thanks, Richard.

That night I went out for my first ramble with Dutch, Sara, Blake, Leah, Jay, Emily, and a few others - we were 8 for the bulk of the evening. Leah had some fun stuff, and it was Blake's first experience with that kind of thing. I was his trip-buddy all night, and we had a wonderful time. I can only remember a few of the things we did that first night, but it was a magical and bonding experience.

We did climb the supercool ball-on-column structure between Center Camp and the Man.

It was superfun; designed to be climbed. I really wanted to mantle up the top few rings and climb the *outside* but I'm not a good enough climber, by a long shot. So we went up the normal, inner route. I climbed around the inside of the top thingy, and then climbed down the ladder headfirst, which was pretty fun. I wanted to climb the outside part upside-down but it was a little too risky.

We moseyed back to camp eventually, around dawn. I got about 2 hours of visual-laced nap and then I was up again to prepare for stuntery. I came to Burning Man for stunting and I wasn't about to sleep through it, sleepy or no.

That first night's magic was amplified by Leah - thank you Leah! Blake and Sara and Dutch were my funbuddies. I love Sara, and I love having fun with her. Jay offered herself as my glom-buddy, and I snuggled and hugged and held her all night. It was superb - I had someone to touch and hold and be close to, without any lust or arousal. Deep gratitude for Jay! And for her boyfriend, who was okay with loaning his girl to be pawed at all night.

I bumped into Dawn as we wandered, on her people's artcar. The deal with Triceratops is tricky. Dawn's ex-husband, Nick, has been very polite to me, which is surprising. I'm New Boyfriend, and they're still divorcing and being wracked by the accompanying turmoil. They often exchange fairly vicious communications, and Dawn occasionally vents to me about Nick stuff. Luckily, I'm twice divorced plus I have years of support experience from recovery groups, and I can listen to the venom without being poisoned by it. Overall, I'm super impressed by Nick - Dawn's issues with him are personal things, not results of him being a bad person. He's displayed far less antipathy toward me than I could ever have hoped for. I have a pretty darn high opinion of the guy.

I also have some pretty good empathy for him. If I was freshly splitting, I wouldn't want New Boyfriend hanging around my people and my space. He's one of the bigwigs on Triceratops, and having New Boyfriend on his art car isn't something he's likely to want. I totally get that, and I respect his space as much as I can. I don't wanna crowd his space nor his people. I see them fairly often when he's not around, and they're wonderfully accepting of me. I don't need to invade his space too much.

Unfortunately, at Burning Man that means that Dawn can either hang out with her people, or with her boyfriend. We spent a surprising amount of time together, but mostly we couldn't simply 'cause she's got her crew and she didn't really want to hang with me and my crew. Now & then she spent a few minutes with us, but the vast bulk of her time was spent with her people (and Nick). It's sad and unfortunate but it sure ain't Nick's fault. If anything I feel sad that she so often prioritizes her friends over me... but it's not at all as if I wish she'd make me a higher priority. It's like if she had kids that I couldn't be around for some reason - I wouldn't resent that at all, even though it would make me sad.

She did finally agree to transfer herself into my care, though. Mostly she was worried about leaving Triceratops, which provided an easy-to-find safe place and ride. But she ventured out with me, Dutch and Sara. I needed to re-find Blake, so I told Sara and Dutch that she was all messed up and asked them to keep an eye on her. Sara snorted at me and walked off - she's all about selfish gratification, especially when she's drunk. Dutch shrugged helplessly - he's all about catering to Sara's childish whims. By the time I got back 15 minutes later they'd totally lost Dawn. I should've known that would happen, and never left, and I was furious with myself for that.

I spent the rest of the night looking for Dawn. I circled the Raver Death Camp (aka the Nexus Pyrosphere) for a few hours, cycling back and forth between the Tower of Babel. I climbed stuff, 'cause it's way easier to be seen on a high place than to see others. But I never did find her. I assumed she'd returned to Triceratops (she had) and she was safe (she was) but I couldn't shake my worry. It was a pretty miserable few hours other than when I occasionally got distracted enough to forget about losing my girl.

I did have fun, though. Climbed on stuff, stunted some, saw lots of neat things. I eventually left with Dutch & Sara. As we crossed the playa I noticed Triceratops coming up somewhat behind us. I made the mistake of mentioning my regret that I couldn't go see if Dawn was on board. Sara set off to stop them and get on board, or at least check for Dawn. I told her not to, because I wanted to stay out of Nick's art-car, and not affect it. She told me that was stupid and walked off. I nearly grabbed her and pulled her back, but I'm not much of a person for physical restraint unless it's seriously important... and Sara's blind interference in my personal life wasn't important enough. I told Dutch I absolutely did not want Nick's art-car stopped on the playa by the drunken friends of his wife's new boyfriend. He shrugged helplessly and followed Sara. I could hear her shouting, "Is Dawn on there!?" as I booked it in the opposite direction. I was hoping to minimize the impact, plus I just didn't want to be around while something that horrified me so was taking place. I've rarely been that furious at Sara.

I followed the art car back toward Triceratops camp, and hurried ahead to be in Dawn's tent when it arrived. Instead it didn't, and I laid there for a few hours until it *did* arrive, after the sun had risen. I was in a terrible place by then. :( I was worried sick about Dawn, plus upset that she consistently chooses to heavily use with her "healthy habits friends" instead of spending time with her "unhealthy habits boyfriend". Not so much upset at her... I think it's good that she's able to choose friends over boyfriend, instead of acting out of obligation. But it's still painful and upsetting, even though I'm glad that she's choosing what she wants rather than what I want. I was also absolutely furious with Sara for infringing on Nick's art car after my vehement protests. Plus I was exhausted and I knew I needed my strength but without resolving where Dawn was I couldn't sleep.

So when Dawn came in she wanted to talk and process and snuggle but I just wanted to make sure she was okay and then go back to my tent and try to crash for a bit. I knew there was no way I could sleep in her camp with all the angst I was going through, and I really didn't want to process at her camp, a few feet from dozens of her friends. Public drama is not something I cope well with, when it's avoidable. She, however, wanted to talk and process and vocalize stuff. I asked her a few times not to, but her need was a lot greater than my requests, so I just froze up and endured as she talked and talked. Almost everything she said impacted me personally, as if she was trying to hurt me. I knew she wasn't, of course, but I simply couldn't process each new "attack" fast enough to avoid the next one. After about an hour I was ready to burst into tears, scream at her, or simply sprint away into the playa and curl up somewhere blessedly alone and without antagonization. I finally convinced her to let me leave, and it was okay that she came with me - we were out walking through BRC, talking about what we were seeing instead of trying to process. That was fine. And that's how Wednesday began. :)

One of the things that Dawn said that really hurt was, "I figured you'd abandoned me so I went back to my friends." It's good to know, but it's painful. I'm terribly overprotective of people I care about, 'specially when they're messed up. When she didn't see me she immediately figured I'd abandoned her, but instead I spent the rest of the night looking for her and agonizing about where she was. How can we be in love if she assumes I'd ditch her so easily... I don't think she knows me very well, nor that she has a very high opinion of me. And a lot of that is my fault - I sell stupid avidly as a habitual part of my interactions, and almost everybody buys it up quickly. Of course she buys what I sell her, even though I don't mean to sell it to her. So that angst was of my own making, and I'm working through it.

Okay, enough about Tuesday. :) I do want to call out that on Saturday I stopped by the Temple for half an hour or so, and had a good cry about all the sadness and other "negative" emotions I'd been stuffing until I could deal with them. It was very healing and healthy, and I didn't take any of the caustic, poisonous stuff with me away from Black Rock City.

SCI at Hornings - Sunday

On Sunday I was pretty tired. I moped about Dawn's camp for a bit until Jade of Lucent Dossier pressed a bunch of us into service for the 4th Annual Underwear Invitational. We set out in our skivvies with a disco ball (Jade's) and whiskey (Justin's) and a lightsaber (mine). Dawn came with us in sexy underwear, and Hannah came in sexy clothes that were nearly underwear. Chalan came, too, and he really brought the sexy with his slouch-walk and baggy boxers. Ron even put on some undies and accompanied us. There were more folk; we were quite a group. Loud, we were.

We descended upon folks who smiled, or wore bright costumes, or simply failed to flee quickly enough. Jade would hold the disco ball up and begin to disco-dance around the victim as we all chanted "Disco-disco, disc-o!" and bumped & ground our disco sexiness. Then we'd switch to "Uhn! Uhn! UnderWEAR!" and crescendo. People loved it. I saw it as helping to boost ambient weirdness. It took us about 2 hours to tour the entire festival, including a stop for me to go swimming. Super fun.

Lisa Hahn was at Dawn's camp and I spent an hour or so talking with her. She wants to give us some pointers on basket-tosses, and hopefully performance stuff as well. She's super-professional - Lucent Dossier is amazing and she choreographs their stuff. I hope she can come to practice tomorrow!

I joined Dawn's crew for the final Cheese show, and bumped into Dutch and Sara who were sitting literally 4 feet from them without realizing it. Awesome! The show was great, but I mostly enjoyed watching the crowd. Blissed-out people are way fun to watch.

Dawn's ex-hubby Nick is dating Creedence. Weird. It was great to see her, though Nick seemed unthrilled that I was pals with his girl.

Dutch & Sara left right after the concert. Dawn & I hung out for a while with various friends, and did a few stunts. On a boring T-Rolldown, her hip went out with a click. :( Ouch. She's been hobbling since then. Lame - she always seems to get injured just as she's trying to head home.

We gave Dawn's friend Rosie a ride back into town. I was mostly comatose - I was exhausted and out of it. I tried to help Dawn a bit when we got home but mostly I just crashed like a log.

Dawn and I did amazingly well together. We've done really well at all of the parties and festivals we've attended. It's pretty cool. Neither of us really thought we'd make it this far but things just keep working out. I hope we can continue to shine like this. We're really good together, and really good for one another.

I hope to find amazing pictures and maybe even video to post. It was a spectacular event! I love doing what I do, and I love my friends, and I love Kazum. How can this summer possibly be even more magical than last summer?...