Sandy, the Patron Saint of Playa Virgins

The other night Pet and I talked more about Burning Man. It seems like almost every time we talk we end up talking about it. I decided we needed a deity or entity for playa virgins like ourselves, Pet suggested the name Sandy, and so Sandy the Patron Saint of Playa Virgins was born. I said we should have some sort of ritual to invoke said deity and Pet seemed to think that rolling about in the playa dust upon arrival to Black Rock City would suffice, haha. I am so ridiculously excited! The more I read, the more I research and plan the more I realize how much I really do want to go. Lately I've been thinking a lot about my fabulous wardrobe I'm building and for the first time in (quite possibly) ever, I have been very inspired to sew my own clothes. I'll be scouring thrift stores and free piles for fun thing, but I also want to make some of my own unique pieces. WOOT! Happiness!

Dreams/Conflict

I have these two dreams that sometimes I feel are tearing me in half. On one side, I want to move, to shake, to travel, to take chances, to meet all sorts of different people, to be a gypsy and see the world. I want to experience the weird and uncommon, I want to have wild love affairs, I want to find and love kindred spirits, I want to see the most beautiful sights our Mother Earth has to offer. I want to do all sorts of crazy and amazing things I will remember with a grin when I am wrinkled and white haired. I want to have stories to tell to shock and delight the young people who will visit me. I want to DO, I want to feel alive, to feel the delicious electricity of life surging through me, filling me to past bursting. I want this so bad it makes my heart beat fast and my eyes water. I am impatient to stretch my legs, to wander and explore. Yet on the other side, my heart yearns for a perfect place to put down roots, a real life home. A place where I can love the land and the people, a place where I can grow my heirloom tomatoes and my old fashioned flowers. A home filled with friends and the family of my heart, where kindred spirits gather and linger over good home cooking. Where a warm fire and making music (or making love) is a common occurrence. A place I can stay and still love ten, twenty years later. I know I can't have both at the same time but I also know I have a lot of time. I think I can have both in this life, in fact I know I can. It's just a matter of deciding when, how and where.

About Pine and I'm a good barista!

I had a long, late night conversation with Pine last night. It was good to get some of that out. I am happy to know that man, I don't think there is another person I am more comfortable around. I can tell him things that I rarely, if ever, speak about. That is a wonderful thing.

Earlier this week one of the supervisors at the coffeeshop told me that I am one of the best baristas he has seen there since he started. Granted he's been there less than a year, but the guy seems to know what he's doing and people say he makes the best cappuccinos. So...cool. I just think it's fun making drinks. I'm sure I'll get tired of the place after a while, just like at my last job, but at least this one is easier with fewer responsibilities! Ha. (and I make more tips, so bam!)

Time to get my toast on and work on a puzzle. It's been a while...

BM and Wolf's bday

I watched Children of Men last night. It was quite depressing and I ended up writing about depressing things for an hour afterwards. I was afraid I'd have nightmares so I burned lavender and sage and danced before I went to bed. It worked.

The employment options are piling up. I'll just say I'm keeping busy.

I bought my ticket for Burning Man on Friday. They started selling them on Wednesday and by the time I got around to it they had already sold over 20,000 tickets. Craziness! This morning I've spent some time looking at pictures of peoples' creative costumes. Also craziness. I've started thinking more about what I might like to wear when I go. I'm going to give myself a very modest amount of money to spend on wardrobe, so I'm not going to get too wild, but I'm hoping to come up with some good outfits. Woot!

I talked with Wolf yesterday. His 40th birthday was the 18th! I finally finished up his present last night and I'm hoping to get it in the mail this week. It was great talking with him. I miss the dude. I'm so looking forward to seeing him and Rabbit again this summer. We talked some about what we've read about the Appalachian Trail. It seems I'm looking stuff up at least several times a week. I'm going to be super prepared for this adventure...I've been thinking of ways I can physically prepare for such a long hike, like taking shorter hikes and gradually increasing the length of the hike and the weight I carry. Of course there is the Katy trail that goes to St. Louis, but it's mostly flat and the AT is definitely not all that flat. Then last night I remembered the Ozark Trail. So, something else to research. Woot!

More Appalachian Trail

Mcafee Knob, Virginia.
Originally uploaded by asafantman

Also quite awesome....

Appalachian Trail

This is what I'm talking about...how awesome will this be? WEEE!!

I've been reading bits and pieces of The Complete Walker IV, I've been joining hiking and backpacking groups and I've been doing more research. It just gets me more excited....

A Year of Como

Welp, it's been a whole year to the day since I moved here. Craziness. It's been almost ten months since I moved into this house, the longest I've lived in one place since I first moved away to go to college. Also craziness.

For a laugh...

One of the most amazing outfits EVER. Not really, but I had fun putting it together. When Pine was here for a visit I was playing with all my funky clothes and putting together the weirdest outfits I could for Burning Man. I really doubt I'll actually wear this at Burning Man, but I had fun wearing it for a little while. Besides, how often do I wear a bikini AND thermal undies?

I'm busy this week. I worked both jobs yesterday and will do it again tomorrow. Today I had an interview with the health food store and starting next week I'll be working there as well. Although I am now officially off the schedule at the juice bar because of major changes in the business, which is fine with me. Just means I won't have to quit. Tomorrow will be my last day. I'm just a little bit sad, but it'll be very good to shake things up as being there can really get on my nerves. And I don't think I could actually stand to work both jobs per day. If yesterday was any indication, then I'd end up feeling very drained all the time. Mmm, no thanks.

This weekend I'll be going out of town with my friend Pet. It's going to be a surprise as to where exactly we are going, so that's kinda exciting. Oh, and ole Wolfie's 40th birthday is on Saturday! This evening I'm going over to a friend's place who has kindly offered the use of his sewing machine so I can finish Wolf's present. It's looking good so far, so I'm excited to see how it will eventually turn out. I'll post pictures soon.

Monday night I spent some time hooping inside one of the places I clean that has a lot of room AND a way for me to play some music. It was nice finally having some room to roam about with my hoop AND have good music, instead of one or the other. I worked on shoulder hooping for a bit and I think I've almost got it! I'm really excited because that will open up lots of other possibilities for tricks and moves and whatnot. WOOT!

The whosat and howyoudunnit

I have been totally unmotivated to blog lately. There's been stuff to write about though.

• Pine's visit last week that included wandering around downtown, cooking dinners, long serious talks and a long walk down the trail, playing with our toys (hoop, poi, devil sticks, trampoline) during a beautiful 70 degree day, relaxing and a lot of enjoyable conversation and bad puns. I'll have to admit though there were a few times I could've had a bit of time to myself.
  
• I finally taped my hoop! (red and purple of course). I'm so happy to finally have it done and it seems to work better taped. The only problem now is I'm a bit worried about scuffing it up.
  
• Pine very kindly gave me a pair of his practice poi after we had so much fun playing outside. I learned my first move today: the 3 point weave, woot!
  
• The health food store in town finally called to ask if I was still interested in the job I applied for, so hopefully that'll pan out. I've had some issues figuring out my work schedule between two jobs, so now it'll get a little more complicated but that's okay. I need to save some money so I don't mind working more.
• I talked with Owl and found out that he is not coming home like I always felt he was going to. That was the final push I needed to move on, although it did bum me out for a while. I felt it physically, not just in my heart. Something changed. I no longer have a desire to be with him and that feels really, really good.
• After Pine left and after I talked with Owl, I was quite down for a little while. I was finally able to get in touch with Rabbit and we had a long, refreshing conversation. It was kinda depressing talking about how crazy the world is and how frustrated we are and how we feel so out of place. Although I always know Rabbit's around and feels the same way I do about things, I neglect to remember that when I start to feel really alone. So it was uplifting and made me feel better.
• Last night I actually went out, can you imagine? Me going out on a Friday night? Ha. It was different and I'm glad I did. I went to a party at a coffeehouse that an artists' collective was throwing. There was art on display, several musicians, some slam poetry and even some hip hop. It was pretty cool! I wore a rather bohemian hippie outfit and brought my crochet along. I hung out with a few people I knew (mostly from work) and talked with a few I didn't. Later I went to a party, then met someone at a bar, then back to the party. It was alright. It at least served to remind me why I don't go out much.
• I started on a Burning Man list...all the things Pet and I need to talk about. I'm excited already :-)
• This afternoon I went out to a wilderness area for a long hike. It was awesome, good weather for a hike. I almost got myself lost (it's a good thing reading the map wrong didn't hurt me too bad), but was able to backtrack just fine. I saw a lot of forest though, I can never get enough forest. I still had enough light to go outside when I got home and play with my hoop and poi a bit.
  
• I left this last bit of news for the end, it is the most exciting. When I was talking with Rabbit, she asked if I would like to go on the Appalachian Trail with her and Wolf. I said yes! Actually I think I said "hell yes!" Her and I were talking about how frustrating this modern world is, its ridiculous status quo and how it's so effed up that one has to follow all these crap rules of society and not do what you really want to. So I guess you could say this is a "fuck society and let's go do what we really like doing" thing. And of course it would be ridiculously amazing, a crazy ass challenge but one so worth taking on. I mean come on, how often do you drop modern life for six months at a time to walk over 2,000 miles? So, hells yes bitches, I'm taking on the Appalachian Trail. Of course we are leaving ourselves plenty of time to plan and prepare as this isn't going to take place until the spring/summer/fall of 2009. I'm fucking excited as hell.

So yah, that's what's been going on.