jenga

[Content warning: some queer sex, but no kink.]

I've watched a giant wooden Man Burn for the seventh time now. Why "like a virgin"? Because I hadn't been in eight years, and in a lot of ways it felt like my virgin Burn in 2007, with all the hardship that entails.

As I usually do out there on the playa*, I took notes. Here they are, elaborated, in more or less chronological order. Who did I camp with? The knowledgeable commies of Astro Shack Java Joint, to whom leenerella introduced me.

Thursday, Aug. 27th:

Woke up at 0200. Took the long bus ride to Burien to meet up at campmate J's, finished packing, and went. We left two hours after the intended time. Le sigh.

There was some wildfire smoke near Mt. Hood, Oregon, but I've driven through much worse. I had no idea we were going to get that close to the mountain, and it's beautiful. Also beautiful was the near-total lunar eclipse that we saw that night! And all the bird watching through a windshield in the farm and ranch country of central Oregon.

We spent the night at Summer Lake Hot Springs. I didn't go in the springs; instead I crashed hard. But the resort is a terrific place to stay on the way to and from the Burn. Morning happiness: Burmese tea. Imagine Thai tea, only hot and less sweet.

Friday, Aug. 28th:

Ate at truck stops. Meh.

We got through the gate at Burning Man in three hours, which isn't bad by historical standards. The downside, though, was that we all had to pitch our tents in the dark and wind; I had headlamps, but they were all packed away. Yes, there was wind and dust, but not a complete whiteout with camp-destroying winds. (This would be a recurring condition at this Burn.)

It turns out that backing up with a trailer is less intuitive than I thought. Luckily, I didn't damage camp lead A's SUV all that badly. Dinner was scrounge.

Saturday, Aug. 29th:

Much shuffling of stuff, which I found irritating. A & J insist that you can't plan that stuff ahead because you don't know who's going to be there or what your neighbors' camps will look like. Camp Beaverton at least tried to map things out on graph paper in advance, but I do remember many late-night revisions on playa.

Since A missed the deadline for getting our big event into the Who What Where event guide, it fell to me to design, print, and install event flyers in all of the portable toilets ("portos" hereafter) on 8:30**. That task turned out to be convenient for hiding from wind-propelled dust.

We'd been using a small, pop-up shade structure until we got our "permanent" shade up late in the afternoon. We celebrated with my sake and the salmon that J caught and smoked. I did not lack for fabulous eats.

Walked to the Man, whose neon lights this year were in Cascadia*** colors. We took it as a good omen for us.

Fave art piece? "Eiffella", a quarter-scale or so Eiffel tower in two pieces sticking out of the playa as if it had been dropped there by a mysterious force. There was a tightrope strung between the two sections that I later saw in use. There was French music from before the 1960s. And it was covered in spikes to keep people from climbing it. Yeah, we've all seen pigeon spikes, but now I've seen people spikes. One wonderful feature of this art piece was its location near the entrance to 8:30. It was a handy landmark for everyone camped on that street.

Sleeping? Well, orange_stitch's suggestion of Thermarest foam-and-foil pads was an excellent one: the cold never bothered me from the ground. It did, however, bother me from the air several times, even with my extra blanket doubled up. And as for noise, my construction mufflers suffered catastrophic failure halfway through the event, because the alkaline playa dust destroyed the plastic that held the foam ear pieces on. Ah well, back to ear plugs. My leather mask from Mr. S? Excellent for blocking sunlight.

Sunday, Aug. 30th:

Getting the shack, where we serve coffee, set up up was much easier than the shade structure. I was able to get a nap in the breeze under said shade that afternoon. I went looking for Camp Beaverton and Deathguild, but I couldn't find either one. I never did find the latter, which is usually very visible. J speculated that their entry in the event guide was either a prank or a SNAFU.

Had some nasty knee twinges, a continuation of the ones before I left. Weirdly and to my great relief, they got better as the event went on.

Walked to the Temple with J****. With considerable difficulty – Sharpies have trouble on dusty wood in the dry air – I wrote a memorial to Mom on the wood. J & I were also pulled into a Native ceremony that I couldn't hear most of.

A removed the pedals from my bike for transport. (I found out on the way back that it wasn't even necessary.) Getting them back on was a pain because one of them was reverse threaded, which is apparently common with bikes. So I learned something stupid. But! If I hadn't needed to walk my bike due to a fallen pedal, I wouldn't have had an espresso martini and social time a few blocks from my camp; that's how the Burn works.

Monday, Aug. 31st:

Astro Shack commenced operations! I learned all about making French press coffee and cleaning said presses. Plus, we made every effort to boil our water with solar power*****. Yes, setting up the solar arrays was a pain, not least because it relied on A's homemade wooden frame.

I went to the Beaverton clittail hour, because cocktails just won't do for dykes. I ran into Pickle, who was one of the two mayors at my last Burn in '18. She confirmed that co-mayor Fiver had had a "falling out" with the camp, but offered no further details. I didn't pry.

I got to chat with several charming, lovely dykes half my age. One even invited me to stop by her camp, and you can bet your booty that I did. But yeah, camping there would probably have driven me meshugah for the same reasons as last time.

Current Beaverton leadership would love to for me to donate all those expensive sex toys that I don't use. I'll be sure to do that. One of the current four (!) mayors even shook my hand. I'll get on it after I clean all the stuff I just unloaded, so maybe a couple of weeks.

Tuesday, Sep. 1st:

Slept late, but my campmates didn't mind. Waffles & House, just two blocks down 8:30, had regular waffles, dick-shaped waffles, and twat waffles. I had two of those last, naturally. Their DJs were right on, too.

My pee was too dark. A said I need to use fewer electrolyte tablets, which does indeed help.

One of our neighbors was Slutty Mike, a 24-hour open mic camp. Yeah, that's as bad as it sounds for sleeping, but I did get to hear some amazing performances, usually between 0200 and 0400.

Our main event was from 1500 to 1800, but it was poorly attended despite my profligate flyering: we had a whiteout. Shoot.

But! J & I went to Disorient, which is always a beautifully-designed place to chill out, and watched a gorgeous and, boy howdy, skilled younger woman dance on stilts. Not walk, dance. I hadn't seen anything like that since well before '18. Impressive.

Thence to Opulent Temple at 10:00 & Esplanade for an entire damn two-hour Infected Mushroom concert. Imagine Israeli techno with heavy metal guitar, and you've got a pretty good idea of what IM sounds like. Me gusta. Speaking of their bouncy front man******, who isn't much younger than I am, I asked J, "Where does he get that energy?"
"Cocaine. He even wrote a song about it."
Okey doke. Anyway, there were tons of Israelis in the audience, including many young men with military haircuts who I assume had just finished their required service. Also, there were what looked like multi-generational groups of fans.

I crashed at 0300 because I was cold. I was much better prepared for heat than cold this year, so of course it wasn't very hot.

Wednesday, Sep. 2nd:

Much wind today, but no major whiteout – until 1400, when I woke up from a nap.

Failed at social calls: nobody was in camp. So I hit Dementha for mojitos & house. One of that camp's best features is the mister system on their dance floor, but I never saw it in operation because it was too cold.

Made it to Beaverton's Strap-on-a-thon, their signature event! As ever, the ice breakers and consent talk were interminable because goddamn lesbians. Froze my own booty until a trans girl half my age (playa name: Kitty) basically pounced on me. There's much to be said for T4T: we understand each others' bodies better than the cis girls do. No sex reassignment surgery? No problem, as far as I'm concerned.

I respect Kitty's superior freakitude, and she insisted that I visit her the next day at Spanky's Wine Bar – yes, it is what you think – where she was camped. Even freaks need emotional connection, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Thursday, Sep. 3rd:

Much coffee served. The weekenders had arrived.

The Man was on a tall base this year that had stairs. One had to wait in line to climb them. I got in line, but shortly afterward, the sprinkles started. 'Oh no, I'm not getting caught on the open playa in the rain,' I thought. I went home and slept.

Went to Spanky's. Saw Kitty and showed her the sex toy I designed. Made out in the bicycle parking lot. Happiness.

Friday, Sep. 4:

Rain all morning, and I mean starting in the wee hours. What makes rain such a nuisance out there is that playa mud is really adhesive: every vehicle from a bicycle to a semi becomes useless. And if you walk, successive layers of mud stick to your boots and you get "playa platforms". For the first time ever, I got them. Luckily, though, the rain this year was more like 2014's one-day affair and not 2023's days-long disaster. I'll tell you what, though: I was mighty glad to see that the portos had been serviced the next day.

Hit the deep playa that night with J to check out the big art pieces. Yes, very pretty, and also very hard to navigate: light and sound from every direction, all the time.

Saturday, Sep. 5:

Cold in the morning. I saw my breath on the way to the portos, for what I believe to be the only time during any Burning Man that I've been to.

Tried to go to Beaverton's Oval Ascension event, but it was cancelled due to "infrastructure damage". That's all the more heartbreaking because their 50' (16m) geodesic dome got completely destroyed last year.

I tried to hit a camp called NYC Deli with famous sandwiches, but I couldn't find it. Instead, I found a camp full of Slavs (Russians?) and Mexicans serving righteous hot donuts with glitter and cheap champagne, respectively. I think that was an accidental win, as so often happens out there.

While I was there I saw K of Seattle latex fame. I'd been looking for him earlier in the week.

One block from my camp was Horny Camp, where you could make your own horns out of Sculpy. I never got around to that, but they had some leftover horns that had been abandoned. I got some nice hot pink ones that match one of my outfits.

On to the Man burn, which is putatively the main event. I should have worn tights and I didn't, so I froze my booty off yet again. But I had to appreciate the design of the Man and its base: it ignited instantly, and when the Man collapsed maybe fifteen minutes later, the whole base did as well. There have been years when things didn't go so smoothly.

A funny thing about the Man burn: the conclave of fire dancers was noticeably dwarfed by the space they had available. This space was much larger than it had been in '18 because of a self-immolation suicide that year, but my campmates assured me that even last year there had been many more fire dancers. Disturbing.

I did not pah-tay for the rest of the night because I was wiped out from the previous night on the playa. I went back to my tent and slept for about ten hours.

Sunday, Sep. 6:

We struck the shack (i.e. the coffee shop proper) and the bigger solar system. Then we had camp dinner, to which I contributed nice Korean instant ramen.

A got the time of the Temple burn wrong, so it had just ignited when we got there. I swear to Goddess, there was something besides the usual wood in there: it smelled nicer. I told the Opera Story to a campmate – I'm pretty sure I told them all over the course of the week – and whoever else was listening.

Monday, Sep. 7:

We were supposed to have a nice, laid-back strike of all the common structures and then on Tuesday strike our tents and head for Summer Lake, where we had a reservation. However, the rain on Friday had apparently scared a bunch of people away early, so the wait for "exodus" was unusually short. A decided that we should leave a day early. So, strike wasn't so relaxed, but we got everything done by 1800.

I removed the last of my flyers, goddammit. I'd made three passes through the portos over the course of the week, and of course many were occupied each time.

By 2045, we were on the road. I wasn't thrilled about driving in the dark on those lonely, sometimes winding roads; the "Survival Guide" that the Borg******* publishes tells you not to do that. Nevertheless, J drove like a bat out of hell, and by a minor miracle, the two of us scored what was likely the last hotel room in Alturas, CA at 2300. (We agreed that pressing on through two hours of not much to Klamath Falls, OR would be bad idea theater.) A shower. A toilet that flushes. Bliss.

Tuesday, Sep. 8:

J drove the whole damn way from the playa to Seattle. She took the scenic route through Willamette Pass, which was kind of awesome. We saw our favorite road signs: the 45th parallel sign just north of Salem, OR for me, and the formerly right-wing billboard that the Chehalis tribe bought for J. Speaking of right-wing billboards, I saw one imploring people to leave Trump alone. I laughed at that crybaby nonsense so hard I almost cried myself.

Wednesday, Sep. 9:

Had a work-related nightmare at 0437. Restocked my fridge. Did some leather care. Napped. Updated my packing list using notes from the playa. Started this entry.

Took the bus and another Burner's car out to Kirkland. Helped move stuff. Loaded all of my stuff into J's Ioniq and the trailer, then headed back to the Devil Girl House. My bedroom is full of all my playafied gear.

Which brings me to right this minute. Was my Burn magical? Sadly, I must admit that it wasn't. Sure, it's nice that both the Borg and I are getting more things right, but so much about the Big Burn has gotten homogeneous and infected with the mindset of the "default world". My campmates were telling me earlier this evening that the youngs are staying away. I hadn't noticed, but at the same time I'm not that surprised. It just doesn't feel as free as it once did, and the specter of economics and politics hangs over everything. R blames increased internet connectivity, but I'm not even sure about that.

One thing I did learn, courtesy of Kitty, was that showing people how you really feel and what you really want isn't wrong. Indeed, it's the only way to live an honest life. Maybe that's what Sunshine (Bonus points if you remember her!) meant by, "You might not get the Burn you want, but you get the Burn you need."

Will I go to the playa again? I'm not sure. The ratio of effort-plus-discomfort to fun was pretty high. But at some point I'm going to smell wood smoke and like I did so often over the last eight years, want to "go home". Am I a sucker or what?




*"Playa" is Spanish for "beach", but in English it's come to mean the (usually) dry lake beds that dot the American west. The Black Rock Desert in Nevada where Burning Man happens, about 150 miles north of Reno, is an eerily beautiful example. Something all playas have in common is flatness and, like the surrounding desert, big temperature swings.
**Here's a note about the street plan of Black Rock City, Nevada, AKA Burning Man. The inhabited area is a broad arc centered on, of course, the Man. The radial streets are 2:00, 2:30, and so on through 10:00. The circular streets are, from innermost to outermost, from the Esplanade and then streets A through K. (Officially, words starting with those letters, but everyone just uses the initials.) My camp was on 8:30 between A & B. The "sound camps", i.e. camps with massive sound systems, are along the outer edges at 2:00 and 10:00.
***Green, white, and blue in that order.
****The Temple, which is always behind the Man as seen from the city at 12:00, is the only quiet place on the playa that isn't bare dust. People go there to meditate and place memorials to loved ones. The Temple burn is the last official event of Burning Man.
*****The weather did interfere with our solar power. Luckily, we had a propane stove for backup.
******I think I saw his name in Hebrew, written in blue tape, on the side of an RV.
*******Burning Man Organization.