burner party!!!!!!!!!!!!! and back to the future of high school

i came back to sf just for the burner decompression party last night! and boy was it a doozy!

[the location sucked, a really nasty street, under the freeway, which smelled of sewage and was right in the middle of the dogpatch industrial neighborhood. but in a way, it's kinda cool they got thousands of burners to go down there! they have a huge clean up after party where they try to leave the nayb better than they found it. so all's good in the hood! and since i bought into an up and coming indy-turned-residential neighborhood in the south, i know how hard community groups fight to improve their neighborhoods!]

i met up with many fellow campers from polyparadise whom i adore; especially one man and his girlfriend who are one of the coolest couples i've ever met.

they came to my thanksgiving potluck last year and, even though we'd camped together, i didn't recognize them with their clothes on!

they just had a big blow up at a sexuality institute where they'd been living and working. unfortunate but i think i could have predicted it. it was one of those cult of personality places which are so popular for brief times and then go up in flames through discord.

but this couple are really evolved. we sat around for hours on thanksgiving and talked deeply about everything till the wee hours of the morning! and last night, we discussed the possibility of my renting from them in berkeley when i return to the bay area so i'm excited! i'm going for coffee with them tomorrow! can't wait!!!!!!!!

and i was very happy to see a guy i had a crush on at burning man whom i'd gotten to play with. he seemed to be happy to see me too and we got to hang out and explore the party - for both of us it was our first time. he is just simply gorgeous and is very humble - seems to have little idea of his affect on women, and a total gentleman. (and that's really rare!) i felt so thrilled when he touched my back and held my hand. just like the crushy feelings you get in high school.*

we saw the flaming lotus girls' mutopia and got to push the buttons that make it flame up! i got to whack a hammer at fandango! we ate hot fresh beignets and delicious chicken curry!

i danced my patooty off at ripe and opulent temple's deep end. amazing djs, flaming art, fabulous food, and stunningly gorgeous people and costumes!







*speaking of which, i had my 30th high school reunion this weekend. and i didn't go. it's my first time to miss it - we have it every 5 years. so my old boyfriends and my still current girlfriends all called me from the reunion!!! (i was at a movie about sex addiction with my bisexual lover - how much farther can i get from my republican religious right upbringing?)

one of them even played piano for me ON THE PHONE! i had a huge crush on him in high school. (unrequited unfortch!) he was one of the most popular guys, witty and talented. (my mom liked to brag that only he and i got incredibly high IQ scores on our tests - they called in his mom and mine to announce that we were gifted.)

i was a cheerleader, and an officer in the same club as him so we'd often travel together for sports or civic events. i remember so well him being in my hotel room, kissing another girl, and wishing it was me. but he'd written me the sweetest letter a few years ago, when my dad died and described him as a legend and a really important mentor for him. that really touched my heart.

and the first boy i ever kissed got on the phone too and called me by my intimate nickname. (my maiden name rhymed with a word for derrier and he liked mine so he made up a lewd little song about it. hahaha! he sidles up to me and sings it in my ear at every reunion! i know this is extremely shallow but since he married the head cheerleader and homecoming queen, this gives me great pleasure since it makes her jealous. wow, hard to believe i'm really that immature!)

of all the boys who proposed to me there is one that my mother just can't let go of. he inherited a family biz which made him a millionaire. my bro is his lawyer (and that made my brother a millionaire as well.) he lives in a mansion just down the street from my mom and she will sigh when we drive by and say: "you could have had all that!" i remember he took me to the top of the roof of his business after we'd dated only months in college and proposed. (he actually had told me that if i married him, i could "have all this" meaning the wealth he'd just showed off.) i was stunned! i felt like jesus being taken to the top of the mountain by satan and being offered the world. i broke up with him pronto!

instead i've chosen a life of poverty and independence. and i'm so glad!

it's still hard to believe i grew up at private schools, with horses and sailing and pools and country clubs, and then married a lawyer who became a multimillionaire and then left him for a life of poverty. i'm still truly shocked some times. especially when my finances are tight like now!

i truly have lived hand to mouth ever since my divorce. i usually have not known where my next paycheck was coming from since i'd quit any job i didn't like, to savor my independence.

i do own my house out right and my car and i have no debt so i'm actually better off than most single moms by a long shot! and my ex pays for their college and grad school (and ridiculously opulent lifestyle!) so that's good for my kids that they've never had to struggle.

but sometimes it feels so strange when i wake up in a hostel in a crime ridden neighborhood (since i can't afford a fancy hotel any more) next to three total strangers (snoring messy but adorable british girls who are half my age) and climb into a dirty shower, and then go to ride the bus with the lunatics or pick up my run down, beat up car.

i could have had everything, but i chose independence.

and i'm happy! i have my self! and that's something that none of my southern fundamentalist married women friends can say.