Goodbye Burning Man 2008. I wish I could have known you. Last night The Man burned. Tonight would be the “temple” burn. This day is usually a very somber day. The party is over, things are coming to an end, lots of people are leaving.
I really missed it all today. Similar to Monday (the beginning), but not quite the same.
So right about now I would normally be turning off i80 north onto exit 43 if I am not mistaken. Then a mere 77 miles or so to Gerlach. At that point nothing else matters. You could walk from there. It is always about 2 hours from the turn. Single lane two way streets with zero shoulders slow everything down, but there is no road rage here. I have been replaying that end-drive through my mind every time I realized what the date actually is. Sometimes I even catch myself off-guard and think that it is more odd that I am actually at home. I can feel what it is like with the windows open, the music down/off, the dry alkaline air. The tight turn just in front of Pyramid lake with the crazy cliffs.
I always got a feeling inside when you take that one last bend and see Gerlach. And then just off in the distance you can see BRC. And you know that once you pass through Gerlach, it is only a few miles left.
So I have decided to make my own sub-blog. I imported all my old stuff from LiveJournal. I don’t really get into the whole community thing there, so it didn’t make sense to keep any of it there. This way I have all my content in once place that I can manage.
This is quite possibly the strangest dream I have EVER had.
I was downtown MPLS, but hennepin and Lake were there so it was like a cross between uptown as well. I was in a skyscraper for some reason. I think I lived there or was there on a regular basis. I went a floor above to see someone. We were sitting by the window when I saw the floor below me twist out from below us. I could clearly see everything under us, but nothing was wrong. The building was not breaking, no one was panicing. It just warped out and then back in again. That is when I knew things were wrong. When I went down to the street level, Peole were clearing out Hennepin and Lake streets. They paralleled each other in the dream and were a block apart. At first, I had thought that it was for a parade. By the end of the day, the two streets were empty of cars and people were loading old sewer lines onto trailors to be carried away. I went into the skyscraper (I think it was work) and came back out around noon. They had started ripping up the two roads already. I though it was strange because they were not very old. They were digging a ways off as well. By the next day, there was a deep trench all up and down the two roads. That is when things got really out of hand. I looked out my window and saw another sky scraper twist and wind up and curl, then straighten out. I went to the elevators and they were strange. I could really never get to where I wanted to go exactly. Nothing fit together. It was like a crashing video game. But everyone around me thought everything was fine. So I thought it was me that was crazy. I went to go see a doctor and crossed over hennepin to go to a different building. The trench was now about 30 feet deep. The doctor was the only person who knew what was going on, but she could not tell me. She asked me about the digging. “do you know what will happen eventually?” she said. I nodded and said “they will break through”. She nodded back. We also discussed leaving, but that would have the same effect. To get to the end of where we could see would be disasterous. I had no idea why they were digging. But I knew that they would go to where they were not supposed to. After more general weirdness here and there, it happened. They broke through. Buildings shook and the strangeness that was happening was beginning to crumble along with the reality of it. The trenches filled with a black oily water. I went out and stood at the end of the trench. I now knew after experiencing a lot more in the other tower that this was some alternate reality. Not many people were left, and when I got to the other side again, there was only one person. But this person was like me. Trapped here, not just part of the illusion. We talked a bit and went back down to the trenches. We both thought about it and created bridges to cross where we were. I Just thought of making the bridge and it unfolded before me. I don't remember how I got out, but at the end, I realized I could do anything here.
I shaved my unibrow finally. It never really bothered me before. But it is something I have noticed a lot more. I was amazed at how seperated some people's eye brows are! They are like 3 inches apart it seems. (no, not really). Anyhow, I think I look far better with no unibrow. What is next? Rogain? Ultracarb (yes, I thought of both). Oh how I cling with iron fists to what remains of my youthful looks. I am at the top of the hill being able to look at both sides now. I don't want to go down any sides.
Very bad dream this morning. I woke up at 4:20am as I did the day before. I hate that. I sit around for hours not ready to get out of bed and not able to go back to sleep. I had a nightmare though that was very strange. For some reason, I was on the run for something. I am not sure what started it for sure. I was killing anyone who questioned anything about me. Almost always it was a shotgun blast at close range. The odd thing is that I never had a gun, I would just point both of my hands at them and “shoot”. They would really be shot though and it was often resulting in immediate death. Then I got to this one guy. He would not leave me alone. All I wanted to do was to get home or to get somewhere safe so I could figure out what I was doing. Be he followed and followed, badgering me. I tried to shoot him as well and the first time wounded him quite a bit, but it did not kill him. He started drawing much more attention to me so I tried to shoot him more. But each time my “shot” got less powerful until I was simply holding my hands out and nothing was happening. He saw I lost what edge I had and he kept following me. By this time there were for sure people who had heard him yelling and had called the police. I had thought I heard police sirens in the background, but my attention was focused on losing him. He was not to be lost though. I tried to trick him this way and that and had almost gotten away. I was trying to enter my house through some odd side type entrance (my moms house actually, although it did not resemble any house I have ever known for real). I had almost made it in. It was sort of behind some type of wood pile and so I was trying to get behind it. I did not make it. The police were coming and I could hear the sirens for sure now. I knew it was all over. I knew I was spend the entire rest of my life in prison. I was so mad at this one guy for just not leaving me alone. Somehow putting all the blame on him for my situation.
I was in a very strange area. It is difficult to describe, but I would equate it to a playground sort of. There were lots of bars all over with corigated metal for floors/walls here and there. You could only get to it through one doorway. In my dream, I never really saw what was on the other side, but where ever it was, it was where I was from. I came in to this place because it looked like fun to play on I think. But the freinds I was with feared it. I didn't really know why though. I was sort of playing around and then something changed. I was in there to talk to an entity of some sort. It showed up as a parrot and would only come to me when I hid in a corner. It could communicate telepathicly and read all my thoughts. It's wisdom was far beyond mine. It gave me great comfort, Letting me know that it understood. I wanted to know so much, but the danger the others sensed was about to show. (I don't remember this part so well any longer….) There was some type of creature (dog?) that was protecter of this place and did not want anyone else to be there. There was also a lady figure that was guardian of the *dog*. It was to chase me and kill me or do something to remove me in a manner I didn't like. The parrot flew away and the chase began. I remember well navigated the playground like structure. Grabbing the bars with this hand or that, feet here and there. It was sort of like in slow motion and graveful. It was all about flow of energy. I could change directions, heights, slip through holes and everything with a fluid motion. It did take effort, and I was sweating, but it was not tiring me. I was making my way back towards the door where I came from. The dog/lady did not want me to leave. I did end up making it back after some time and my freinds opened the door as I ran the last part of the way on the ground. The door shut and I woke up shortly after that.
The day after tomorrow I will start my old job as Symbiant. It has been exactly one year from when I put in my two months notice. I am sad to go back in that I feel that I will now be kept here. But mostly I am happy to go back for the money and respect that I had. The money part will allow me to further accomplish my dreams. Although they are different dreams then when I was in SF. I came so close so many times to going back to SF. Moby was a large part in that. If I would have been able to sleep in my explorer all by myself….. I don't know. Now I know this great (seemingly anyway) girl out there. Maybe I will go back there when I retire. When my family is gone and I have the means to do so. Then I can go to the ocean at nights and watch with the others as the sun moves past us to wake the neighbors. I have never seen such a beautiful sunset as I had when I was there. I hope to god that I will be able to make it past retirement age so I can enjoy these things. At my current rate, I feel that I will not. As of today, I am still drinking heavily. About 1/2 liter of vodka each day. I am still living with my parents. I have no money. I see no future really. My motivation is something that I used to see out of the corner of my eye, but is now all but gone.
So I quit my good job, went to San Francisco, came back broke off my ass, took at job at Best Buy making about 1/3 of what I did before and am getting dicked around. No girlfriend (not that anyone would touch me with a ten foot pole). Living in my parents basement, and going downhill still. I have no hope for the future. My zeal for life is gone. And people can see that in me. Only thing left now is to please myself the best I can before I die.
I was in a chevy blazer (newer) driving down the road with Josh and some semi-distant friend of his I did not know really. I realized that he forgot his wallet on the hood of the car because I could see it sitting in the back seat. We stopped and got it at a light (we were in some town). Then we found three other things on the outside of the car and worked hard to get them. We did end up getting them all. So we continue driving, all of the sudden Josh is driving instead. Even though I don't remember them changing and we never really stopped. Josh looks to him and says something about Erin Sweet, asking how she had been, knowing I was trying to find out about her. The other guy was like “oh yeah! Erin! Jon, you remember Erin right?” I said “erin who?” kind of nervously. Then I looked forward out the window and instead of a road, we were drivng on a river. It was OK at the time because we were over the river, but we were coming to a small damn of some sort, only a foot or two drop. But that is when we realized we were not on a road anymore. Josh looked at us and we both shrugged back not thinking it too bad to be driving on a river. We figured that if we were OK then, that this drop would be OK. As soon as we went over the end, it became real water and we sunk fast. Tumbling end over end for quite some time. I had no idea how far down we were, but it was quite a ways. Water was coming in fast and the truck was upside down. I remember looking at the window with the water (a muddy brown) just wating to get in. I was thinking to myself, “this could very well be the last few minutes of my life.”
Then I woke up with a racing heart beat.
