So No Shit, There I Was...

On fire in Union Square.

Not my poi.

Me.

How did this come about? Cast your mind back if you will.

Arrived yesterday at 4:30 in Union Square for our fire performance. We do our safety checks with the fire marshall, and the performances begin. My group was the last group to go. There were 19 of us in this piece which is A LOT of folks for a small stage! The people who were supposed to go before us didn't show up, so we were a bit rushed getting to the stage. Our spinout area was very small. I had spun out and was walking past that area and someone else spinning off got a little bit of fuel on me. No big thing, figured it would evaporate as white gas does. We go out, light and start our performance. We were in our lines, had stepped out and someone got a little wild with their poi and hit me. Next thing I know there's a lot of heat coming my way. I look down and my chest is on fire. I turned my back to the audience and start trying to pat it out, but it seemed that it took forever. The flames on my poi were quite large so I didn't even notice that my leg was also on fire until someone pointed it out. I pat that out and keep performing, even kind of laughing about it. Then the music starts skipping and stopped so we were all lost in our piece. The same guy ended up hitting my poi again which messed me up, but no biggie there and no fire. We finally finished the performance which at that point was a bit of a joke. The crowd was really sweet to us though which was nice.

It wasn't until after the performance and the adrenaline stopped that things started hurting. Penguin, Sue, Jodi W and her mom, Karen, Jodi and Loren were kind enough to come see our performance. A huge thanks for coming out! After the show was over we headed to Walgreens to get me some burn salve and some Second Skin. Then Penguin, Sue, Kristine, Karen, Jodi, Loren and I all went to King of Thai for some food and beers. I wasn't planning on drinking, but you bet your ass I had a couple beers! It was fun!

My eyelashes are definitely shorter than they used to be, the end of my left eyebrow is singed, I lost a lot of hair in the shower today (yes, it's all relative and you wouldn't even notice) and my neck and chest are sore. I'm still using the salve and the second skin.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm totally lucky. Nothing seems to be blistering, I still have eyebrows and at least half the length of my eyelashes.

When you play with fire, you know the risks. You know you will get burned. But somehow I always pictured that happening because of something *I* had done. Not because someone else set me on fire! The best part - the guy who did it a) has no idea that it even happened and b) certainly doesn't know that he caused it. That's fine - it's not like it was intentional. Just makes me laugh.

As I said to Karen when walking to my car, "Only me." She said, "Only you would catch on fire, but then still be grinning throughout the rest of the performance." I had to laugh, but hey, the show must go on!

So other than being a bit sore, everything turned out for the best. It still gets filed in the "So no shit, there I was" story category though. :-)

This moment of giving a whole new meaning to en fuego is brought to you by the letter F and the number 2.