Friday, August 24, 2007

Off to Black Rock City




In just a few hours, my buddy Stephen and I are off to Black Rock City. I need a week of sunshine, laughter, craziness, friends and yes, even dust. I can't wait! I got my hair braided yesterday with some fabulous colors and beads. Pictures will be following. The above is from last year.

Stop on by Iron Rose and say hi. We're on the 4:30 Plaza at G. (Truly 4:30 Plaza at 7:00, but people get confused not remembering the Plaza is a circle). We're having a hafla Tuesday night and you'll be able to find me bartending while the lovely ladies of my camp belly dance. Come by and shake your groove thing around 8pm.

It's good to be going home to Burning Man.

I'll be back after Labor Day. Y'all take care.

This moment of antici.................................pation was brought to you by the letters B, R and C and the number 365.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Messy

It's been awhile since I've posted. Not because life is boring. It's just been crazy.

First, the mundane:
- After attending a buddy's wedding a few weeks, I ended up with food poisoning. Talk about miserable!

- I tried rock climbing a few days after the food poisoning. I got about half way up a wall and just started laughing as I had ZERO strength.

- The Violent Femmes were back in town a couple weeks ago and so hung out with them again. Always a good time.

- The next night I got to see Eddie Izzard live which pretty much rocked my socks! He's priceless and I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

- Burning Man preparation is in full force and I'm a bit stressed. Been sewing like a mad woman and trying to get everything sorted and figure out what I need to buy.

-Went climbing again last night after essentially two weeks off. I'm amazed at how quickly things fade - my callouses, my grip strength, etc. Was a bit frustrating, but ended well all in all. Need to work on my technique as I'm fighting a harder battle as it is w/ the not so hot strength-to-weight ratio. I still love it and am hopefully going again on Sunday. It will be a much needed break from playa packing.

Second, the not so mundane and the real reason I've been MIA:

My favorite uncle died Friday, Aug 3rd. This is the one I posted about awhile ago. He was the last one left on my mom's side. I'm now officially out of grandparents, parents and uncles...at the age of 30. Woe is me? You bet your ass I'm having a pity party over here. Uncle Jack has been a part of my life since before I can remember. I can't believe he's gone.

My brother, my favorite cousin and his family, another cousin and one of his sons and I all met at UJ's lake house in nowhere Texas. We spent the week going through the house and cleaning, sorting, taking to the dump, taking to Salvation Army, etc. When we needed a break we'd take the boat out and water ski or swim. It was good to be with family and we had a lot of laughs. I seem destined to be the one in the family who finds the polaroids. I found them when cleaning out my mom's house and now my uncle's as well. My eyes, my eyes!

So check out this timeline:
Grams and Dad die in '94
In 2000 (6 years later) I decide I really should start to work on dealing with it.
A few weeks later I get the call that mom was sick.
In 2001 mom dies
In 2007 Uncle Jim (mom's oldest brother) dies. Not a real loss for me as we were never close.
In 2007 (6 years later) I decide I really should start to work on dealing with it.
A few weeks later I get the call that Uncle Jack died.

So clearly I should decide to just not work on stuff as the track record is pretty shitty.

Ever since I've been back from Texas I'm a bit of a mess. I'm in a weird head space and can't seem to break out of it. I'm not thinking clearly and am exhausted all the time. Yesterday something that was minorly disappointing happened and I just lost it.

I'm not good at being a mess. I don't know how it's done. I hate it because I don't know how to deal with it. I'm not good at being lost.

I had a session with my trainer today where he worked on me. Not surprisingly, everything is out of wack right now. I think I sometimes surprise him that I'm still able to function based on what's going on internally. Of course, it's that toughness that causes him to have to hack into my system (painful!) to be able to work on everything. What he didn't know is how impressive it is that I can occasionally cry these days. There was a period of time where even though I wanted to, I couldn't because I'd forced myself not to for so long.

My homework - to be honest with my feelings and let them happen. How exactly does one do that after years of numbing them and bottling them up? Buehler? Buehler?

This woe-is-me moment was brought to you by the letter M and the number 5.