Playa dust does strange things to a man's mind...

THAT'S RIGHT, YOU MUTHERS! I'M BACK FROM THA GODDAMNED DESERT AND I FEEL LIKE I'M GONNA KEEP YELLING FOREVER!

FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER!!!

Actually, OKAY. That's not true. I was just fucking around.

You don't REALLY have to go right now, do you?

You can keep reading this, right?

Oh good, good.

I DO have to admit, though: I would sorta like to puke up a mildly sorted desert tale on you. Can you stand it?

I'll try to keep it to just a little splash on your left pant leg, in terms of length and granularity of detail, while you sit glassy-eyed in the passenger seat of my tinted-window-having Passat, okay?

What's that face all about? WHAT?! You're not BUGGED by that, are you?

No, you're NOT! LOL!

Well, then... in that case... onward, onward...

You see, Burning Man died for me this year. Just this year. It ended. Done.

It just wilted and crusted under the waves of dust and blinding white sun like everyone and everything else out there. Right in front of me.

Right in front of my dusty feet, before my squinting, burning eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Burning Man has always been my New Year's. Always was, ever since the first time back in '97.

But this year, in some small way, I went out there for a different set of reasons too: to see if I could somehow, someway, recreate last year's idyllic time, while getting to know the same intriguing young woman I shared last year with...

Anyway, I went. I went with no concrete expectations.

Just a few extra condoms and some good cologne.

But once we met up, it became 100 percent clear to me that it wasn't gonna be anything like last year at all.

In 2003, we truly had NO expectations. We didn't know each other.

This year, having that same simplicity just wasn't possible for either one of us.

We've hung out, like, a dozen times since the last Burning Man. Had sex maybe two, or three of those times. All good, but still: nothing too substantial between us. VERY early on, if there was anything to be "early on" about.

But now, here I am narrating the story instead of just telling it.

Oh, I don't know how to put it exactly.

Just... my lack of proper preparation for our road trip meant a lot more "wasted time" to her it seemed. Lots of silent pressure building.

Nevermind that I had just spent the previous week planning, coordinating and executing a move across town, seeing my brother off to his last year of college, getting rid of all my extra stuff with Neil over the course of three days (including a queen-size mattress), synchronising my alternating housing details and plans with Banjo Dave, and taking care of all the transportation details for both of our ways back to Black Rock City.

I guess she was trying to be cool, but it was obvious to me that she was only passive-aggressively accepting the situation... and being a bit too helpful while she was at it.

She offered to help me with my packing, so as to speed things up a bit and all that.

"That much closer to the road" she said.

"That much closer to your friends already waiting for us on the playa," I thought pessimistically.

But I had already thrown a wrench into our thinly sketched out plans and that wasn't going to be forgotten. She was holding onto it. Holding it in her mouth, like a bitter peachpit under her tongue.

A wan smile played across her face, a sing-song in her voice, as she quickly and efficiently folded and rolled a lot of my stuff into the ziplocks we had picked up at the Safeway near the house.

Despite her forced reassurances, I knew I better get it together quick.

I felt like I better hurry the fuck up-- I didn't feel like I was about to go on a relaxing drive to my home on the Black Rock playa with a woman I was interested in.

I found myself getting more and more stressed out. I was apologizing over and over to her for the slightest oversights and every simple mistake.

As one of my former students used to say, I was doing too much.

But I just couldn't stop it. And I knew she couldn't either.

We hadn't even gotten out of the driveway yet, but I knew that my hopes were suffocating like a puppy in a plastic trashbag.

"You ready now?" she asked me yet again, tilting her head slightly and smiling a little artificially.

~~~~~~~~~~ TO BE CONTINUED ~~~~~~~~~~

Listen, there's WAY more to this story, but right now I'm just too tired. I'm sorry-- I don't mean to tease you.

Stay tuned for chapter two... coming sometime in the future.

Right now, I'm just gonna go chill and let James Taylor shower the people I love with love.

Watch a little "On Demand" on cable.

Forget all the others that I don't, or won't, love. All those others that I just can't seem to work it out with.

Yeah, there's a lot of them. But, hell, I can't force it.

My relationships are driven by a mutual excitement, or they just stop happening-- I'm not one for continually winding broken clocks, you know?

A minimum of running around like a goddamned chicken. Anyway, I'm fucking beat.

Peace be with you, my tiny audience. I really do like and appreciate all of you.

÷-xX{{-Long Live EBN-OZN-}}Xx-÷