My pet and I
Last year, I really wanted someone that I could drag around at the Folsom Street Fair. This year I had somebody!
Also, apparently somebody thought that we "had the cutest faces in the whole place." Aw!
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.: posted by Vera 
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My first secret piercing
"Have you done a lot of nipples before?" I asked Christopher.
"Yes. Thousands," he laughed. "When I first started piercing, for the first two years, I kept count of how many of each kind of piercing I did. By '96, I had done about 2000 of each."
"And now it's twelve years later."
"Yep."
Then he pierced my right nipple, and it hurt a lot, and then, at 12:34pm, he pierced my left nipple, and it hurt even more, and after it was all done, I felt amazing.
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.: posted by Vera
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You and I outside of time
Not last Saturday but the one before that I had an amazing experience with the mushroom goddess and her bee friends. I was at home by myself, and I was lying in bed. These bee-like insects appeared on my ceiling. I felt that they were my spirit guides and that I could ask them for help. I told them that I wasn't happy with my current work situation and that I didn't know what to do about it. I told them that I lived in a world where people had to get up and go to work and that I wanted to live in a more primal, more tribal world. It suddenly occurred to me with amazing clarity that Kean was the one who had to get up and go to work and didn't like it, that he was bringing that energy into my life. The bees made it clear that there was going to be a solution for both of us. Even though Kean wasn't with me physically, they asked me to bring both of us in front of the bee council that was so clearly meeting on my ceiling, forming a portal to the next phase of my life. They initiated us and told me that we were a team from now on and that we were to work together. The details of what both of us were going to do for work in the future would be worked out, they said, and that teamwork was the key. The phrase "I am here for both of us" kept running through my mind, and it made me cry. It felt so true.
I realized that the bond between Kean and me was stronger than I had known so far. I had never felt this close to another human being before. I had always felt like my soul was facing the world on its own, and now I felt like our souls were linked, and we were facing the world together. It felt really primal, this idea that we were working together to survive. "I understand," I kept saying through my tears, and I understood that I was learning something about human intimacy, something that was new to me.
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.: posted by Vera
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I'm on the Webbery
These are my hips. And Kean's dusty face is there too.
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.: posted by Vera
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My first time as a DJ
Kean had another DJ gig at Noc Noc last night, and this time we tag-teamed. I picked every other song. It was my chance to finally play all the obscure songs I have ever wanted to hear in public. I played mostly Drum&Bass and EBM and some IDM. It was a lot of fun, and we got lots of compliments too. I can't wait for Thursday because we are going to tag-team again.
Here is the playlist (starred songs were chosen by moi):
DJ Shadow - High Noon*
Prefuse 73 - Expressing Views is Obviously Illegal
Kiethevez - One Roman Choir*
Balkan Beat Box - Delancy
Kosheen - Hide U (Subsonik Remix)*
Dexter - I Don't Care
Massive Attack - Mezzanine*
Trentmoller - Night Walker
Neuroticfish - Prostitute*
Landshark - Dangerous
Plump DJs - Morning Sun*
Prefuse 73 - Gratis (Prefuse vs. Pedro)
Slowdive - Shine*
Nathan Fake - The Sky Was Pink
Sons of Mecha - Rockweiller*
Bonobo - Ketto
Ulrich Schnauss - Crazy For You*
Bitter:Sweet - Dirty Laundry
Android Lust - Sex and Mutilation*
Evol Intent - South London
Autechre - Second Scepe*
Bitter:Sweet - Our Remains
Concord Dawn - Morning Light*
Evol Intent - 5:30
D.Kay - Devotion*
Lamb - God Bless (Wagon Christ Mix)
High Contrast - Return of Forever (Klute Remix)*
Detroit Grand Pubahs - Artificial Intelligence
Klute - Ill Do Anything (You Want Me To)*
Electrocute - I Need a Freak*
Lamb - Gabriel (Si Begg's 5.1 Futures Mix)
C83 - Taurus*
The Prodigy - Break and Enter
Cyantific - Quiet Star*
Santogold - You'll Find a Way (Remix)
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.: posted by Vera
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Noël, Kean and I at Shine
This was taken in July and I found it today.
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.: posted by Vera
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Taking responsibility for my art
I have wanted to do this for over two years: This year I am going to be part of SF Open Studios. On the weekend of October 18 I am going to turn my studio apartment into an art studio where people can stop by all day and look at my paintings. Finally, it's official.
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.: posted by Vera
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Further openings
My mom and I had an amazing conversation the other day. It was the kind of conversation I wish we had had more of when she visited me a few months ago.
In the emotional aftermath of Burning Man I am finding myself more honest and quick to express things that have a charge and that I otherwise might have kept to myself. So I told my mom that I am struggling because I feel very bitter and angry and just altogether negative about the way I was raised and educated. I told her that I feel that I was raised to try to control the world and to beat myself up constantly in the effort because if I didn't control everything and control myself by beating myself up, things were going to fall apart and I was going to fail. I told her that I felt that the constant pressure to achieve and the formula of go to school/work all your life/retire were just not working for me and that I felt bitter for ever having been suggested them as mottos to live by.
My mom said that she was taken aback and that she had thought that, aside from my time as a diagnosed mentally ill child, I had had a happy childhood and youth. And this is when I started crying and saying that I didn't even really know what was the truth anymore and how happy I actually used to be; all I knew was that right now I was feeling bitter and angry; and that I felt really guilty for this and was trying really hard to be appreciative of what my parents had given me and lovingly accept my past, and that I really wanted to find a middle ground between embracing new ideas and chucking old ones that no longer work for me, without feeling so bitter about them. She said it sounded like I was on my way there.
This rang true to me, I told her, and that I feel like I am still in the process of filtering out what I want to keep from my past and what I don't. I told her that hopefully by the time I was done filtering, I would be in a state of balance where I can move forward in creating my own life while at the same time feeling grateful for what my past has provided for me.
I told her that I was feeling ungrateful. (This is interesting because that is actually something of which my parents have accused me a lot as a child and teenager - being ungrateful.) My mom said that, given how hard I was trying to be grateful, I didn't seem ungrateful to her at all.
Before we hung up, we said this:
"Remember that we love you very much," my mom said.
"I love you guys very much too."
"See? Everything is okay then."
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.: posted by Vera
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Soapy Bubbles -or- A Very Couply Burning Man 2008 - Part II
-- Back to Part I --
Now it was Wednesday evening, and Kean and I were wearing matching light-up pens on our collars (pen-dants, really). Plague noticed that the day before we had been linked by a leash, and that tonight we were still light-linked. I liked that observation. We wanted to hang out with Plague, Siri, and Lance because we had similar industrial interests. Our first action item was to give Arachnophobia another try. I had eaten a mushroom chocolate, and it was coming on strong, and I was feeling antsy. When we got to Arachnophobia, they were showing the movie Big Trouble in Little China. I went straight to one of their cages and lied down. I felt overwhelmed and wasn't sure if I was having a good or a bad trip. The idea entered my head that I was going to die tonight. I was okay with that. Being okay with that is probably what kept me from actually having a bad trip. I found out later that Kean also contemplated death that night. Both of us felt good about it because we knew that if we did, we would be dying happy.
I had no interest in the movie whatsoever. I was content lying in the cage, looking at the ceiling. I needed Kean to deal with the world in my stead. He got some soy milk and cookies from one of the girls working at Arachnophobia. I wanted some cookie but no milk. I asked about our friends. He said they had gone to the bathroom. They never came back. We found out later that they had lost each other as well due to their bikes not being lit enough. That night Kean and I "installed" a sound signal system on our bikes that sounded a little bit like ducks quacking. If we wanted to make sure that our bikes were still close to each other, one of us would say "Murr?" and then the other would say "Murr!" and then we knew that everything was okay.
After the movie was over, I was ready to face the world upright again. The camp next door to Arachnophobia was playing U Can't Touch This by MC Hammer, and we both danced to it. I had not expected Kean to like MC Hammer but he did, and I was pleased. Arachnophobia tried to launch their industrial hour but they were having technical difficulties. We stuck around for a couple of started and then stopped songs, Kean was asked to hang a monkey from the top of the dome which was so appropriate it made me squeal because he loves climbing on things and he loves monkeys, and then we took off.
We headed towards 2 o'clock again in hopes of finding good music to dance to. We found a camp which we believe was Cyphertown and danced there for a while. Then we finally found Moonbass, which Kean had been dreaming of all week, and they were just getting set up. We only danced to one drum & bass song and talked to a cute girl with pig tails which to me represented the archetype 'LA raver girl' although I'm not sure she was actually from LA.
We also found another camp with really good music that Kean was really excited about dancing to but that I was unfortunately a little too tired to enjoy. I was a little disappointed that the mushroom goddess wasn't giving me more energy. I decided to listen to my body and told Kean that I wanted to go to sleep. He decided to ride home with me but he kept getting distracted by things along the way. It was frustrating because I just wanted to go, go, go and be home. When we got home, I asked him to take off my make-up and undress me because I was too exhausted to do it myself. He complied, and I crashed, and as far as I know he stayed up for another hour and a half or so to watch the sunrise from the veranda at Spike's before joining me in the bus.
When I woke up on Thursday morning, a paper bag full of food was sitting on my platform boots outside the bus. Adrienne and Bret had dropped it off. I was feeling groggy and dispirited that day. I dragged myself and my parasol to the potties. An older man walked up next to me and said "Let's compare parasols. I've got dolphins on mine. What about you?" I showed him that I had flowers on mine. He asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was lacking energy this morning. He told me that he would help me with that. He embraced me and with his English accent asked me to pretend that he was a big battery that I could use to charge myself back up. I inhaled deeply a few times while holding onto him. Afterwards I felt much better and thanked him. He told me that he was an angel. He said he could grant me any wish; I just had to be careful what I wished for.
After Kean woke up, I was pushing for us to go to the Weenie Roast one more time, but then some people in our camp started making pounds and pounds of bacon, and I actually took over the cooking for a while, and after eating three or so strips of bacon I had forgotten about the Weenie Roast. Kean and I did go to Center Camp for some iced mocha and chai though, and while we were there, we got roped into another photoshoot in front of a turquoise backdrop. The pictures looked gorgeous on the guy's camera, and I hope that they will eventually be in my digital possession.
Kean and I took turns being silent that day. It is really nice to take a break from talking once in a while, and since we were always together and only one of us was silent at a time, we were still able to communicate with the rest of the world. Kean was silent first, so it was my responsibility to order for us and to talk to friends and explain if necessary. Luckily everybody was completely understanding of the nonverbalism.
That afternoon we went back to Arachnophobia because we didn't want to miss Miss Spider's Tea Party - they were promising bubble tea! When we got there, we had to wait in a long line in the sun but we didn't mind because we could clearly see that at the end of the line there was bubble tea waiting for us, complete with those wide straws. With bubble tea in hand, I went straight back to my favorite cage and enjoyed it there. It was extremely refreshing. They even had a soy milk version for vegans, which Kean got. While we were sitting inside, I saw a supercute cut-up hoodie outside. I walked outside to admire it more closely and discovered that its wearer was Hillary, a hooper and my upstairs neighbor's sister.
When we were just about to leave Arachnophobia, Theorna aka DJ Megabitch showed up. We had already run into her once a couple of days earlier, and both times I was very happy to see her. We rode around with her for the rest of the afternoon. She was talking about samosas and mimosas at Bat Country. When we got there, they were serving neither, and we stood in their rotating bar for a little bit and then sat in their dancey dome that was playing housey music. After that we headed to Root Society and chilled and tumbled there. While we hung out there, I decided that I was going to take my silent turn now, so Kean started talking again. Theorna wanted to head to this camp that was supposed to have a salmon reception, but when we got there, all the salmon was gone. I got this idea to go to the orange fence, and I tried to communicate this nonverbally to Kean and Theorna. They finally understood that I wanted to take us to the "big orange circle." It was clear that they didn't know what exactly I was talking about, but they agreed to follow me there. After a while of riding into the open playa, Theorna said that she didn't want to keep going all the way out there. We were close to the Temple, and she said that she would go to the Temple and head home. Kean and I agreed to go to the Temple with her.
I wrote something in German on the Temple:
Mama und Papa,
ich will akzeptieren und anerkennen, was ihr mir beigebracht habt.
Danke für alles!
Eure Vera.
It means:
Mom and Dad,
I want to accept and appreciate what you have taught me.
Thank you for everything!
Your Vera.
While I was writing it, I suddenly heard a German voice. I looked over and saw a guy's face with beautiful black make-up. He said to me in German that they were about to have a wedding on the section of the Temple I was writing on. He asked me if that bothered me. I said that it didn't bother me, and that's how I broke my silence. After I was done writing what feels so important to me right now, I sat on a step and cried for a little bit.
Then I circled the Temple several times but didn't see Theorna or Kean. I was starting to get anxious because the sun was setting, and I didn't want to miss dinner at our camp. Finally I saw Theorna, and she told me she had seen Kean up on the Temple. For some reason I didn't want to get on top of the Temple, but eventually decided to climb it in hopes of finding Kean there. I found him crouched in an obscure corner, copying what he had written on the Temple into his journal. His eyes looked watery. When he was done, we stood up, his arms reached out towards me, and we hugged. He sniffled and sobbed and shook and wailed a little, and I just held him. I had never seen him cry before, and it made me happy to feel him open up like that.
When we got back to camp, they had just started serving dinner. After dinner, we watched the fire performances on our Inferno stage, and then I went back to the bus for a nap. Kean had wanted to take a nap with me but then decided to accept the invitation from some people in our camp to join them for an art car ride. We both had shifts at the bar starting at 2am. I set my alarm for 1. When I woke up, I changed into a sexy oufit and headed to the bar. Kean was already there, talking to the DJ before him. Kean had the closing DJ shift, and I had the closing bartending shift. It was super fun serving people "blood" from the IV's while Kean was playing a mixture of his favorites and Spike's Vampire Bar favorites. I got to interact with lots of people and received several gifts. One guy took a polaroid of me and then gave it to me. Another guy gave me a homemade chapstick and a glass full of absinthe. Yet another gift was that Antonio showed up halfway through my shift and hung out at the bar for the rest of the night. Finally, a very sexy girl who had danced on the stage earlier, asked me what time I was getting off and if she could steal me for a few hours. She offered me some sexy naked fun and that I could bring "the boy" too. I was very flattered and thankfully declined.
At one point Kean played I Need a Freak--the song that Lizzy and I had performed for him for his birthday--and insisted that I dance to it. Even though I was terrified of dancing on the stage, I couldn't resist his request, so I heaved myself from the bar onto the stage and crawled across it and then did a dance performance that even involved the poles a few times. I felt really elated and accomplished afterwards. Kean seemed to enjoy my performance a lot, and I got some applause and approving nods. Go me! I also got back up on the stage to get flogged by Cat a few times. One of the last songs Kean played was A Forest by The Cure, as requested by me to pay homage to 2006, and this time Sueness and I danced on the stage together. After that I felt that I had sufficiently fulfilled my aspiration of getting up on the stage at Spike's.
The bar closed around 5am, and Kean and I decided to pedal towards the sunrise. Since I had napped earlier, I wasn't tired at all. On the way to the sun, we were called briefly into a dance camp because Traffic by DJ Distance was being played by a DJ, who ended up giving Kean a free mix CD. At the moment the sun was emerging from behind the mountains, we were still in mid-bike ride across the playa, and I did my obligatory sunrise scream. The sun was already all the way up in the sky, when we arrived at the tall jungle gym, and we climbed it gleefully. Up on top we took some beautiful sunny morning portraits, and I was hallucinogen-free and happy. After leaving the jungle gym, we played in the white pagoda for a while. It had a three-layered swingset in it that was super fun to play on. Kean was on the top layer, I on the bottom, two other people in the middle, and together we made the swing gyrate in circles. Then we went home to "peepee and sleepee", to borrow Kean's words.
On Friday Kean and I participated in the 2008 Burning Man Census, which took hours to fill out. It was fun though because I love answering questions about myself. Some of the questions were how many times we had been to Burning Man, if we had ever gotten romantically involved with someone we met at Burning Man, how much money we had spent on getting there, how playful and emotionally expressive we considered ourselves on the playa vs. off-playa, etc. The question "Do you consider yourself a person of color?" stumped me for a moment. My first impulse was to answer yes. While we were sitting there filling out our questionnaires, I spotted Tyler walking by. Tyler and Kean had been trying to connect all week, and finally it happened. Kean and I split up for the rest of the afternoon. I went on a wild goose chase for the carousel art car. It had been my favorite playa thing in 2004, and Adrienne had told me that she had spotted it this year. I never did find it, but I did find myself in a touching conversation with a Native American political activist, and I also found a human bubble ride that almost ran me over.
After dinner at our camp, Kean and I decided to finally go get noodles at the Dragon Noodle Bar, which we had promised each other to do before week's end. As we were about to take off, I asked Plague to take a sunset picture of us, and that's when Zak called my name and said that some friends were there to see me. And it was none other than Stefan and Heike, two friends of Julia's that I had met during my last trip to Germany and who had stayed in my empty apartment for two days before coming to Burning Man. They had just arrived earlier that afternoon. I told them that I had to rush to get noodles but that I was working at the bar later, and that they should come and hang out.
When we got to Dragon Noodle Bar, there was a long line, and I wasn't hungry, and I was anxious because I didn't want to be late for my 8pm shift at the bar, so I asked Kean if my promise was still considered kept if I left him there without getting noodles myself. He said yes, and off I went, back to camp to change while he stayed in line for ramen noodles.
Lance and I were working the security shift at Spike's from 8 to 11pm that night. This meant wearing a Spike's T-shirt and fangs if you had them. I didn't have any fangs, so Kean drew some blood onto my chin. It also involved making sure that people turned off their headlamps and blinky lights when they entered the bar, that people were staying out of the pole dancers' way and that nobody was getting out their penis. Kean was playing a DJ set at the Inferno stage from 9 to 11. I kept going back and forth between the bar and the Inferno to hear some of the songs Kean was playing. Heike and Stefan showed up again and drank some blood, and Antonio was there as well. I wasn't able to spend too much time with them though because my security duties kept me pretty busy.
After finishing our shifts, Kean and I shared a mushroom chocolate and headed back to Arachnophobia. This time their industrial hour was in full swing. "My" cage was taken but I climbed into the other one and pretended I was a wild animal. Kean thanked me for my "performance" afterwards. It was something I had always wanted to do, and this time I finally had the right person with me to bounce animal energy off of. I paced around in the cage and rattled the cage poles. I alternated between seeing Kean as my keeper and seeing him as another wild animal that was free while I was in a cage. I pawed playa dust all over his shirt, hissed at him and tried to pull him into the cage through the poles. Every time I willingly put myself into captivity, I am also reminded of my time in the mental hospital, and it feels healing.
Next we set out to find a place to chill near some good music. First, on the Esplanade, we found the same art car that had played that Sugar Lollipop song earlier in the week. Kean told the driver of the vehicle that we had enjoyed that song, and he, who introduced himself as Animal, promptly played it again for us, and we danced. Then we found a chill dome next to Cyphertown, and that was fun for a while, but the Ecstasy energy present there made me feel uncomfortable. I am finding myself more and more repelled by Ecstasy energy, especially when I'm on mushrooms. So we roamed the playa again, and Kean led us to the big sound-blocking dome in which you can lie down and look at the stars. Then we broke into a fort with barbed wire made out of rubber. It felt very satisfying to break into it but also very wrong. I definitely felt like I had done something that wasn't allowed but that was exactly the appeal of it. Finally we climbed the giant Tetris structure, and Kean played a game of Tetris while looking totally badass. The structure was playing Psytrance, and we thought of Justin and how he would totally commandeer this place. And then I got tired again. We headed home, but first I got infatuated with the mushroom image of myself. I hope it's real. If it is, I am very beautiful.
When we got back to camp, we decided to do one last walk through the bar, and suddenly Shu was standing right next to me. I had been wondering when I would run into him because I always run into him at Burning Man, but usually much earlier in the week. It was almost time for sunrise, and Shu, Kean and I went up onto the veranda, and Rose joined us too. I would have liked to hang out more and watch the sunrise, and my body wanted to be horizontal, so I excused myself and went to the bus. Kean joined me, and then we both played with my boobs because they were feeling nice. This was our last night on the playa since we were planning to leave before the burn on Saturday to avoid traffic and hype.
We rose after noon on Saturday. After taking a naked stroll to the potties together, I started taking down the curtains in the bus, and Kean started taking down his tent. We packed everything and then went back to Center Camp for another round of iced mocha and chai. A guy with a camera walked up to Kean and asked him if he could take a picture of his eyes. He said the picture would be in a book coming out soon. I asked him what his name was, and to my delight and confirming my suspicion, he said he was Patrick Roddie. I told him excitedly that I had been a big fan of his Hips series for several years. So he took a picture of my hips, and I felt supremely honored. Then Matt and Lyric, whom I know from DNA Lounge, walked by, and Patrick took a picture of Lyric's lovely hips too. We also ran into the fabulous Nezzy Idy, but he was on a mission and didn't have time to chat.
It was starting to get really dusty when Kean took some last pictures of the murals surrounding Center Camp. We headed back to camp and finished packing when a person I didn't recognize showed up at the bus. He told me he was Rob and that he and his girlfriend Flora had met me at Burning Man in 2004. I knew exactly who he was and exclaimed "You're the birdlike creature!" We talked for quite a while while Gerry loaded into the bus the things he wanted us to haul home for him. After that, Kean and I went into the bar one last time, and I got to serve Neon Jason some blood because he showed up just as I was launching myself out of the dome. Good timing.
Then it was time for our exodus. It was not easy because the bus was parked in the middle of the camp, and we were the first to leave because it was only Saturday afternoon. I was behind the wheel first, with Plague, Gerry and Kean directing me. I had to wiggle back and forth several times, and we had to remove a couple of poles from the camp's shade structure. After a while I got really frustrated, pounded my fists on the steering wheel, ran out of the bus and made a lap around the camp before stomping on the ground and saying "Fuck! I am tired of this!" and finally ending up in Gerry's dome, hanging my body over one of the horizontal bars and exhaling. Kean told me later that it looked really good when I did that. I am so happy that my expression of anger is finally welcome here when I feel like it never had been growing up.
Kean took over behind the wheel, and with Plague's, Gerry's and my help, the bus was finally navigated onto the road. Kean said he actually really enjoyed the challenge, and I was glad. We hugged good-bye anybody from our camp that was easily accessible, and then we drove through the dust towards the gate. There was no line and no wait because people don't usually leave before the burn. We missed the burn of the Man, the burn of the Temple, and the burn of Spike's Vampire Bar. But it felt right to us to do so.
We drove for an hour or so, and then we ran out of gas. We wrote NEED GAS and drew a heart onto the bus with bright pink electrical tape, propped up some chairs and waited. It was nice sitting in the cool breeze on the side of the road and watching the setting sun turn the mountains red. After an hour or so of waiting, a burner from Reno named Jason stopped and emptied his five gallon container of gas into our tank, and off we went again. We made it to Reno around 10pm, had some Mexican food at Mi Casa Too and then stopped off at the dilapidated Sunset Motel. The furniture was forty years old and the floors uneven, but the shower had amazing water pressure, and that made it all worth it. Kean apparently watched Ocean's Thirteen on the television, which I was completely oblivious too because I was out as soon as I laid down my head. We both slept completely naked without any covers, which was a first.
We checked out at 10am, read fashion magazines and had a lovely croissant breakfast at a cute little coffee shop with a cute goateed and tattooed employee and then headed towards the Bay Area. We stopped at Scandia in Sacramento and played a round of mini golf in the sun. Then things got uncomfortable because Kean wanted to play arcade games and I didn't. After he had played for about an hour, I couldn't take it anymore because I had no interest whatsoever in arcade games. We both got frustrated, and then we left.
We arrived at Kean's house in Emeryville around 6pm on Sunday. We unloaded his stuff and then went inline skating in hopes of finding a nail salon for our post-Burning Man pedicures. All the places in his neighborhood were closed, but the skate felt great. Around 9pm we had our own little private Temple burn at the firepit in his backyard and set some intentions for the coming month. Then I took BART home, and we both slept in our own beds. Betty the bus stayed in front of Kean's house that night.
In the morning, I took BART back to Kean's house, and after Kean procrastinated and drama-queened for a while, we drove the bus to my house in San Francisco, unloaded it and then took her to the hand car wash. They charged us $150 but I decided not to care. After that we finally got pedicures AND manicures at Yzinn Nail Club in my neighborhood. They did a very thorough and loving job, and we were in their massage chairs for almost two hours. As part of the manicures, we got to bathe our fingers in a bowl of soapy bubbles. Kean got some awesome two-toned designs on both his feet and hands. I opted for just plain black nails on both. Then we took BART to Berkeley, picked up some Thai food and then went to Kean's mom's house. We ate and talked with her for a while, and then we got into her hot tub. We fell asleep while watching a DVD about desert animals and then fell into Kean's mom's super cushy and fluffy guest bed. I slept really well.
After breakfast with Kean's mom, Kean had to go to work, and I had to get back to San Francisco to meet Miguel and return Betty the bus to him. On the way to the BART station we had a talk about Kean's future. At the end of it he said "You're so inspiring. How do you do it?" I told him that he inspired me a lot too.
When I got home, Miguel was already waiting for me in front of my house. We sat in the bus and talked for a while. He noticed my Guadalupe bracelet that Philo had given me and told me about the secret Native American imagery hidden in the image of Guadalupe. He said that the angel below her was a Native American chief, and that the dark half moon below her was the half moon altar that Native Americans build out of mud in order to pray, and that the fire behind her was the Great Spirit. He said that all this hidden imagery enabled Native Americans to pray in their own way, without the Catholics finding out. But these days they don't have to keep it secret anymore, so he decided to tell me. I was extremely grateful, and I am now looking at my images of Guadalupe in a different and enhanced way. Until now, Guadalupe had only been a different version of the Virgin Mary for me, but now she is that, plus I can connect to the Native American spirit through her.
And on that wonderfully spiritual note, my Burning Man 2008 experience officially ended for me.
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.: posted by Vera
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Soapy Bubbles -or- A Very Couply Burning Man 2008 - Part I
This was my fourth time at Burning Man and my first time at Burning Man as a couple. I was excited to be there as a couple because everything Kean and I do together is always super fun, and I knew that I wouldn't have to worry about getting laid, and I knew that I would finally be one of those cute Burning Man couples that I had longingly admired in the past, thinking "Why don't I have a cute boy holding me while watching the sunrise?" or "Why don't I have a cute boy to play with on the desert dance floor?" or "Why don't I have a cute boy to roll around the chill dome and pretend to be animals with?" (Well, yes, I got all of those things this year.) I was also concerned about being at Burning Man as a couple because I knew that it can be hard on relationships. I knew that relationships that are on shaky ground often end there or shortly thereafter. Kean's and my relationship didn't feel shaky but I was still worried. I was afraid that we would fight, that we would be on different waking/sleeping/dancing/playing schedules, that we would get on each others' nerves, and frankly, I was afraid that he would ditch me for someone else. With every passing day at Burning Man, it became clearer that my fears, as usual, were lies, and that the truth was something much more beautiful.
Kean had warned me before Burning Man that he would go do his own thing if he felt the need to. While I wanted him to have that freedom, much like I wanted to have my own freedom to do my own thing if I felt the need to, it instilled fear inside me. But I quickly understood that his warning stemmed directly from his experience last year, with a girlfriend who he claims did not know how to enjoy herself at Burning Man and who wanted to stay in camp all day and not really explore things. I, on the other hand, am very adventurous, active and just plain happy when I'm at Burning Man. Despite the fact that I don't like the heat, I don't like the dirt, and I hate camping, I do know how to keep myself hydrated and sun-blocked, and I do know how to have a good time at Burning Man. I think Kean was delighted and a little bit surprised to see that, and it enabled us to have an amazing couply experience together. Neither of us were clingy, but somehow we were inseparable almost the entire time. We were on almost the same schedules and usually agreed on what we wanted to happen next.
Now for what actually happened. As previously mentioned, I rented a yellow school bus from a wonderful man named Miguel. He had delivered the van on Thursday evening. Kean spent the night at my place on Friday. We got up around 9am on Saturday, August 23. We packed my stuff into the bus, and then we picked up Gerry and his stuff in SoMa. We drove across the bay to Kean's place and added his stuff into the bus. By the time we took off towards Gerlach, it was about 11am, the earliest I had ever left.
I took the first driving shift, Kean the second. We had no music in the bus, so we sang a little. Over burgers at Carl's Jr. in Reno, I mentioned to the boys that I would like to come up with a better way of saying 'You're welcome' when somebody thanks you. Gerry said "Why not just say 'Of course'?" I liked it, and it didn't completely satisfy me.
After Reno, Gerry was behind the wheel. We were all feeling tired and hot and had stopped talking. I was sitting on the school bus bench behind Gerry, and Kean was sitting on the bench opposite mine. We were leaning against opposite windows, facing each other. I had stripped down to my underwear. I masturbated while Kean watched. It was hot.
We arrived at the Burning Man gate around 6pm. We had to wait in line for only a little bit. I think it was less than an hour. By the time we got to our camp it was dark. We were put straight to work. We helped erect the huge dome that was going to house Spike's Vampire Bar. We all stood in a big circle working on different sections of the dome. A guy named Bob, who I later found out wasn't even in our camp, just an expert dome builder, kept walking around the circle, dropping off differently colored poles and saying things like "The red connects with the red, and the green connects with the yellow." He was very cheerful the whole time.
I got to move the bus to its final position. Kean built his tent right next to the bus, under the gigantic camp shade structure that housed about fifteen tents. I put up some sheets as curtains in my bus with duct tape. They kept falling down all night. Kean slept in his tent that night. Some other people from our camp apparently worked through the night because we heard them swearing for hours.
The next morning I decided to use the windows to keep the curtains in place, and that worked a lot better. They never came down again all week. In the morning I hung around camp topless. It was my first time being topless at Burning Man. A campmate thanked me for it later, not only because it was nice to look at, he said, but also because it encouraged and inspired his also-big-busted wife to go topless as well, which she had never done before either.
It was extremely windy and dusty on Sunday, which made it a pain in the ass to do anything. We mostly sat under the camp's shade structure and did a little bit of work here and there, Kean more so than I. I don't like to work but will do it if I am specifically asked to. Sometime after dark we invited Lance to smoke with us and then escaped camp for a little bike ride. I felt paranoid and guilty the whole time and didn't enjoy myself very much. The feeling of being leashed to our hard-working camp was very strong, and we didn't stay out long but got a nice little preview of things to visit later.
Monday was extremely dusty as well. Kean and I had to get up sort of early because we had barback duty from 11am to 12. Since the bar wasn't even built yet, we helped Shadow build it in the dome. A random helper named Robert was of amazing assistance because he was very sharp and knew exactly what went where, even though he had never seen the bar before. Helping build the bar felt very satisfying and made me feel like I finally contributed something to the camp.
In the afternoon Kean and I went for a bike ride. It was dusty, and we wore goggles and dust masks the entire time. We found a camp full of drums where we drummed for a while. We found a tightrope and walked on that. We found a camp called Deviant Playground that had a play structure, a seesaw, and a swing with a vibrating dildo that goes between your legs. I enjoyed Deviant Playground a lot. We also walked into a camp called Home that we vowed to revisit later because it wasn't fully open yet. It was a huge structure with a rotating platform in the middle and several little rooms all around it that all looked really cozy like living-rooms or bedrooms. It looked like a great chill space.
On our way back to camp, we heard a voice say "Free words!" I waved at the person the voice belonged to, and she was covered in orange. I said "Is that Orange?" It was but she didn't recognize me at first, due to my goggles and mask. I said "It's Vera!" and she said "I thought his tattoos looked familiar. Do you guys want to make some words? We even have a bike rack!" I said "I love words!" and we parked our bikes and sat down our dusty butts to make some words. I don't even know the name of the camp (something art-related) but Josie was working there too. This was my first true feel-good moment of this year's Burning Man. Kean made the word Obfuscate and I made Fangtastic. We also got to chat with a very cute Canadian brother and sister pair. The boy made the word Fellatio with an exclamation point, and he was very excited about it, and so was I. I told him that I thought he was manifesting his destiny for the week.
That night we opened our bar to the public. We opened it with the song Bela Lugosi Is Dead. That was only the first of many times I would hear this song throughout the week, as that was our opening song every night. We watched our vampire bartenders serve blood for a minute, and then Kean, Gerry and I took off to explore Monday night on the playa, my favorite party night since 2004.
We went to Arachnophobia, hoping for an industrial hour, but they didn't have anything going on yet. We found ourselves in the poppy field in the dark, and Gerry tried to fix one of them that had broken. We made a big circle around Opulent Temple, even though Gerry felt quite drawn to it, and found a smaller dance camp. I didn't feel much like dancing until this silly girl showed up who threw her legs into the air, and then I did that with her for a while, and even Kean joined in. Laughter abounded, and then Gerry, Kean and I tried to find Moonbass and when we didn't, we laid down on the ground and looked at the stars. That was extremely pleasant until it got too cold. We rode back to the Esplanade, and that's when Gerry said good-bye to us because he had to work the closing security shift at Spike's. Kean and I continued down the Esplanade and found a tilted merry-go-round. We played on there for a ridiculously long time, along with many other people coming and going. Many whoas were uttered by us and them. It was really fun hooking one or two limbs through one of the bars and letting the rest of the body just hang and fly in the circular wind. Then we headed to Home where we found a comfortable bed to do headstands on and lie around and watch other people enjoy themselves. A well-costumed robot-reptilian creature caught Kean's attention, and he started talking to him. And wouldn't you know it, it was Juicy, a lovely man I had met in 2006. A little later when we were kissing, Juicy said "Hey lovebirds, can I take your picture?", and he did, and we talked for a while. This time he didn't remember having met me, and I forgive him because I look and act very different than I did in 2006. Then we got tired and retired to the bus, but not before making one last walk through our bar first.
Tuesday was a beautiful day. The wind and dust were gone, and it wasn't even that hot. We decided to wear our double leash that day. We both wore collars and leashed ourselves to each other with a double-sided leash. Bikes were out of the question due to the leash, so we walked everywhere that day. I think this was when our camp decided that we were "too cute" and that Plague gave us the cutest couple award. This was also when it became clear that we were in trouble regarding food. There had been a miscommunication between Kean and me, and we now knew that we hadn't brought enough food. We didn't want to sustain ourselves on dried banana chips and cashews, so we set out on a hunter and gatherer adventure. I suggested Pancake Playhouse, but they had already stopped serving by the time we got there. So we walked into a neighboring camp called Beacon and said "Hi. Will you make us eat something? You can use this crop." The girl we met, Alibaba, didn't use the crop, but she did feed us a few things. Then we tried to get a drink at the Moonshine Tavern, but it was too loud in there, so we went to Deviant Playground instead and drank some of their hard lemonade. When we were sipping on that, a gaggle of girls put up a sign with a big pointing finger that said Weenie Roast on it. It also said Tuesday and Thursday 1 to 3pm. One of the girls said "Come have a weenie! We just opened!" So we went and had a weenie, and given our food situation, it was the best weenie I ever had. I couldn't stop saying "Weenie!" It was so delightful to have a wet weenie on a bun with mustard and ketchup after snacking on nothing but dried food for 24 hours. When I was done feeling excited about the weenie, we stopped by Mohammed's Martinis and Erotica. We were like "What kind of erotica do you guys do?" The people there had us sit down and showed us a thick hand-bound book that contained Burning Man erotica spanning many years. They asked us if we wanted to write an erotic story. We did. They gave us a piece of paper, and we wrote a story about the time I masturbated in the bus. We chose the words together, and I was the one moving the pen across the page. Then Kean read the story to a group of about twelve people while I sat there and blushed. We got lots of applause, and one guy said "I'll never look at Empire the same way again!" When we left Mohammed's, two people followed us and said "You guys are amazing and beautiful. Can we take your picture?" So we had a little double-leash photoshoot in front of the Shipwreck Lounge next door. These people clearly liked our energy, and that felt really good.
After we left, we found the bouncy castle, which I had been eyeing all day. Before unleashing me, Kean asked "Can I let her run free in there?" I thought that was the cutest thing ever, especially when he admitted that he had been preparing his line. Bouncing around in the castle was so much fun that I almost peed my pants.
Then we walked on the tightrope again--with the leash still on--and then we left the Esplanade and strolled inward a little. That's when we came across a bondage camp called Playfully Yours. A nice man named Jim showed us the ropes and floggers, helped Kean tie me up and then left us alone. I had a blindfold on and was standing up straight with my arms spread out and wrist restraints. Kean pushed up my top, and played with feathers, floggers and other things on my skin. My favorite toy was the spiked wheel. Then we reversed roles, and I strapped Kean onto the table in the front room, which was exposed to the public. I ran the spiked wheel over him, and then I turned him around with his head through the pillory and his arms strapped down. He was kneeling on the table, and I pulled down his pants, and people were watching. One of the Playfully Yours guys said playfully "This is our display couple." I flogged Kean and scratched him, and when I finally freed him, a guy from New York gave us two condoms. Jim said "You guys are welcome to camp with us; we have plenty of space." Before we left, we borrowed the camp's massage table and gave each other massages in the shade. We felt quite delicious.
On the way home, we came by a camp with a big canvas that said "How is your burn?" Kean wrote on it "Best burn ever (with Vera)", and it almost made me cry. We also stopped by a German bar that wasn't serving any drinks yet but that had a jar of pickles sitting on the counter. I asked "Can I have one of those pickles?" My wish was granted. Kean asked "Can I have one too?" And it was the best and wettest pickle I ever ate.
Later, Kean thanked me for being so adventurous and hopeful in our quest for food. He said I taught him something. I think this is something I learned last year: Don't try to control things; just decide on what you need and let it happen upon you.
That night our camp had a spaghetti dinner courtesy of D. It was the first camp dinner I actually enjoyed the taste of. Kean and I did kitchen clean-up afterwards. I was glad we got to do that on a night the food was enjoyable. It was still a pain in the ass though. Luckily Kean enjoyed scraping all the left-over noodles out of the pot with his bare hands. That helped a lot.
Before heading out into the unknown, we split an acid sugar cube. We also did a little centering ritual to help us feel safe. Kean was a little more nervous than I was because acid tends to be hard on his body while I usually enjoy it unconditionally. I suggested we head out into the open playa and watch everything from a distance while the trip came on. Kean liked the idea. But before we made it there, we came across an art car that was playing a cute song about a sugar lollipop. It went something like "I can lick your ice cream. You can eat my lollipop." We enjoyed that a lot and danced around for a while. Then we rode our bikes almost to the orange fence somewhere between 10 and 12 o'clock. We sat and looked at the lights on the playa, and we lied down and looked at the lights in the sky. And we started feeling very, very strange.
When it got too cold again, we found a dance camp on the 2 o'clock side. We danced together, and there was a guy who seemed to like us, and I couldn't decide if I found him friendly or invasive, but I definitely thought he was cute. When we left, Kean lost his goggles, which was sad. I had an interest in stopping by the False Profit party to see some friends, but as we approached we both felt that the party was way too big for us to feel comfortable there so we kept our distance. We found a ship nearby that was playing awesome grimy glitch-hop or whatever you want to call it, and we danced there for a while. Unfortunately I had a hard time really enjoying myself because I kept feeling torn about the False Profit party. But this is nothing new - False Profit in one way or another always triggers internal conflicts in me, and I told Kean this, and he just shook his head and laughed. Yes, I know it's silly but at the same time, it IS. I came to the conclusion that I don't have pure unadulterated love for False Profit and probably never will. We never did make it to the party, and I am a little sad because it meant that I never got to see Amy or Zachary or Nevada.
We did climb a pyramid though, and that was glorious. It looked like a Mayan pyramid. I don't know what else happened--we might have seen a very happy marching band at Center Camp but that might have been a different night--but eventually we went back to camp and had some acidic fun in the bus. This was when I decided that I was going to start saying "soapy bubbles" instead of "you're welcome." From then on, every time Kean thanked me for something, I said "soapy bubbles." I felt like a little animal in the bus that night, and it felt sexy and weird and cute, all at the time. Ah, as magical acid gets. I was wearing my new blue furry Tamo hoodie and a black tutu (for Tutu Tuesday), and I am sad that I don't have any photographic evidence of it.
Luckily, we got up in time for pancakes at the Pancake Playhouse. We each had a plain and a blueberry pancake with syrup. I didn't have a plate but the girl just put the two pancakes on top of each other and the syrup in the middle. Once again, we felt successful in tricking our unfortunate food shortage. We sat down our full bellies in the shade outside of the 7 Sins Lounge. They had a box full of maps for our perusal. Our playa-induced increased psychic connection became apparent when Kean dug out an Arizona map for me, which was exactly what I wanted to look at because I am going there soon. We looked at that for a while, and then Kean looked at a world map and I looked at all the people walking and riding by. I don't know what it was exactly but I was suddenly overcome with love for all people, and I almost started crying with happiness. Kean asked me how America had gotten so powerful. When I turned to the world map in Kean's hands, I at first found myself wanting to condemn those damn Europeans for monopolizing the American continent and stealing it from the Natives, but when I started talking about it, I felt nothing but compassion and realized that they had just been trying to create better lives for themselves, just like I am today.
While we rested in front of the 7 Sins Lounge, somebody came by with strips of bacon, and we each had one, and then we witnessed somebody giving somebody else a segway lesson. My belly and heart both felt warm. Then a member of the 7 Sins Lounge took some pictures of us. He said we were their models, and that they would use one of these pictures on their website soon. Did I ever mention that I love modeling?
Most of the members of the 7 Sins Lounge were men in their 50's. They inspired me to, in all seriousness, imagine my dad on the playa and what he would be doing right now and which parts he would enjoy. I already know he loves being nude. And then I imagined my mom hula-hooping and swinging on the swing at Deviant Playground. And then Kean imagined his mom hula-hooping, and then he imagined his dad building shit and feeling really proud of his set-up.
We asked our new "employers" if they knew of a body-painting camp. And they referred us to Star Factory down the block whose platforms and cage and pole we had already used for a photoshoot, and it just so happened that the segway teacher turned out to be Jerry, our body painter.
We had to wait for quite a while because three girls got painted before us, but eventually it was our turn. We were at Star Factory, and I already had stars on my arm warmers so I decided to get some more stars on my arms, leg and back. When Jerry found out that I was with Spike's Vampire Bar, he said "That's my favorite bar. I have a gift for you." And he gave me the same rubbery black necklace he was wearing himself. Also, one of the girls waiting in line before us gave Kean and me each a chapstick on the string. Chapstick on a string has always been one of my favorite Burning Man gadgets. I love gifts, especially when they are meaningful, and these two definitely were. When it was Kean's turn to get painted, Jerry put some fishnets on him to give him a reptilian texture on his arms.
With our new painted bodies we went back to the Moonshine Tavern dome because some pretty tunes were emerging from it. There were only two people dancing, one of them screaming softly, and we just sat and watched and enjoyed the music, and Kean played a drum. I lied down on my back and almost started crying again because life was so beautiful.
We went back to 7 Sins Lounge because our friends had requested earlier to see our painted bodies when they were done. We asked them if they knew where the Orgasmateria was. A girl said "For the dildo making workshop? That's what I was wondering too!" And it just so happened that that's what we were hoping to find, so we took her with us, but we never did find the Orgasmateria, and we never did get to make dildos.
When we got back to camp, Bret and Adrienne showed up. I had just wondered the night before if they were having a good time since it was their first burn. They seemed to be doing just fine. We sat and chatted for a little bit, and then we played with them on the ghetto seesaw, and then we parted ways because Kean and I wanted to go to a partner yoga class at the Bubble Wrap Trap. The class was already in full effect when we got there, and we just joined in. We only got to do about five poses before the class was over, but it was still very fun and relaxing. At the end they fed us Girl Scout Thin Mints. They also had us do a little ritual where we looked into each others' eyes and honored each other and our connection. It was very romantic.
It turned out that Kean's friend Liz had been in the same class, and we hung out with her and her friends for a while. One of them was Doctor Catalyst, a chiropractor who was offering adjustments to people. We both got one. We also sipped on coconut juice straight from the coconut and had some fresh orange slices.
-- Go on to Part II --
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.: posted by Vera
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It's September and I am back
Betty the short bus is in Oakland and still needs to be unpacked. Pictures and story coming soon.
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.: posted by Vera
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