LA Lady

The last entry captured the feel of BM, but here are more specifics:

I camped with a ragtag team of about 15 people, mostly from LA. We had a graffiti tent, trampoline, and a kitchen in the back of a truck.

Each day you wake up by sweaty-time, make eggs or pbj, find a green community bike (or walk) and explore.

you bike to art projects in the desert, or stiltwalking workshops, or to a bar with frozen drinks.

you walk to the camp next door for pancakes or center camp for hula hooping lessons.

Along the way you take pictures for your photo project, collect random meetings like postcards, and wander into meditation sessions or daytime raves.

You might be naked, might not be. I biked critical tits and was surrounded by more topless women (attractive ones!) than I've ever seen in my life. there are kids around. there are older people. it's a real city, but better.

By the time the sun falls behind the mountains you head back to camp for night clothes. you add glowsticks to your outfits so bikers and art cars (and drugged out friends) can keep track of you all night. You add layers to fight off the pre-dawn chill. You dose yourself over dinner.

Bathroom breaks and early leavers aside, you make it out of camp by dark to head into the playa. Music upon music, the ultimate nightclub- unlimited rooms of diverse music. Get bored? move on. Dubstep, techno, minimal, glitch, world, funk. Sometimes you watch people burn huge things and the fire looks like a orange waterfall. People spin it twirl it hoop it spray it breathe it.

Some nights you rave till your body (and 3l3tronic's excellent sunsrise DJ set) gives out and you walk home by the warmth of the sunshine. One night you lose all your friends and end up wandering the playa with DJ Joro Boro who you literally run into at a rave. Together you watch your friends Freebase perform. One night your homeboy DJ Small Change gives you mushrooms and funk music.One night your friend eats too many brownies and doesn't wake up to go out till way after you are gone, with a cold quesadilla as a consolation prize. One night you flirt endlessly with a girl and get stoned and eat peanut butter and banana chips. You curl up in balls of body heat to sleep.

You realize how the new york burner scene has prepared you for all of this. You've been training unknowingly for years.

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In LA

I went to malibu with the two girls I met at burning man and everyone kissed everyone and did booty dances and somehow I learned to sortof surf.

We drove into topanga canyon AKA hippieville and drank champagne in a magical christmas light forest restuarant and had plates of exotic cheese.

Conversation led to sexual experiences and impromtou class was in order- older and wiser to the young and fresh for cherry picking. I love teaching about masturbation and clits and orgasms.

(watch out for an upcoming blog: on making love- to yourself and others)

Spent another day in venice and santa monica eating super spicy hole-in-the-wall indian and running around in wonder trying on powder wigs and sailorsuits at Aardvark- a west coast thrift shop chain that's a costume junkie's wet dream. walked up and down enchanted hidden alleways with boys I barely know.

Saw slam poetry for hours and hours that had a line out front and a cover to get in. Audience on the stage. snaps for everyone, even if you forget your line. the kind of place I'd want to read if I could manage to make words I write come to life on a stage. Somehow, I can't read my poems with confidence. Or read them at all.

When back in new york I plan to spend a substantial amount of time attempting to read my goddamn writing to people I don't know. in public. *gulp*

That is, if I get my whole life packed up in the next 36 hours.

Then I can move it all. all over again. what a trip.