Burning Man is a music festival yeah?

no no. theres actually very very little live music. there is a lot of techno stuff but its easy as hell to avoid if youre not into it.
its a gathering of about 50,000 people in the middle of the desert, and people come together in the spirit of survival, creating, and community. And FUN. LOTS of fun and adventure and silliness.
You all come and just participate. Thats the key. Participate, dont just observe. theres extreme weather conditions - boiling days, freezing nights, high winds and insane dust storms.
Its incredible.

next year the theme is "evolution" so im working on making a small artcar using a gokart or a golf cart, and forming a mechanical steampunk inspired fetus, with gears and lots of metal parts and moveable too. im actually really really excited.
Im also orchestrating a mac and cheese booth.
Theres no purchases of any kind between people (except at center camp where the burning man people sell ice, and a select array of beverages including coffee and lemonade). One of the biggest things is to leave no trace of having been there. 50,000 people come, 50,000 people leave. And theres to be no sign any of them were ever there. its beautiful.
I miss it. And its weird being in the real world.

lol I assumed it was one of those rave festivals where everyone is on Ecstasy dancing all day and night in the middle of nowhere..
The way youve described it sounds alot more fun..sounds pretty amazing actually.

it really is. The thing is there is SO MUCH going on that you can choose to do anything, any time, really.
If youre a hippie and you want to hang out with hippies, you can. You can also hang out with goth kids (if theyll have you, and you can deal with them saying "fuck you hippie" all the time), or you can hang out with the ravers, the philosophers.

The thing is its an array of SO many kinds of people, but i would say all of them have something in common, and theyre all crazy and eccentric and weird...and so its impossible to really HATE anyone unless you choose to. You can meet and talk to anyone...

its encouraged to be friendly, giving, sharing, helpful, caring, loving and whatever...in whatever form you feel. Thing is it was my first year, so while i am a very friendly person who is warm and touchy feely...i still felt like a creep if i looked at someone too long or if i wanted to hug someone or strike up a conversation or sit in the middle of a gathering of people and jsut talk, or just sit next to someone who was alone....
KIND OF. it was a strange thing, but it was something i was ready to embrace, although be it a little foreign. The thing is, people expect that everyone around them is high as a kite...so wether or not you are...if you display some form of attention in a positive form, its going to be appreciated. You can compliment people, give them a quick hug, even smooch em, and walk away smiling and chances are, more often than not, theyll be smiling too.

AHHH i miss it. i cant wait for next year.

I love how happy you sound!
I think I need Burning Man fever ha!

"Fuck You Hippies" haha I fukin love hippies!..

I thought of the Queen Of the Damned movie when I thought of Burning Man, like a concert in the middle of the desert, or One Perfect Day...Thats an amazing Australian movie.

Its very mad max (the movie with tina turner) and tank girl..and...generally...just kaos and mayhem.
In fact, in direct reference to mad max, there was in fact the THUNDERDOME. and i did, in fact, fight my friend. And its no jokes in the thunderdome. you FIGHT eachother. its amazing.

PHOTO REF! (this was the burningman thunderdome)


ITS AMAZING. My life is richer for having fought in the thunderdome, thank you very much.

EXACTLY.
still one of my favorite videos of all time, i cant help myself.

Ohhh you look soooo beautiful on those pictures... :) Tell some stories.. yayaya I wanna hear :)

Holy crap. *blush* Thanks a lot, seriously. I think it has something to do with how damned happy you feel out there. I really havent felt that amazing and strong in a long time. I walked away from that experience as a much better person. I was working on it before i left, but i really feel excited about my life and i feel like im capable of making others happy and being a positive role in their lives. Its awesome.

And as serious as all that sounds, it was SO MUCH FUN. It was like lessons were learned without effort...i was just having fun and absorbing and letting free. It was a huge celebration and there was SO much to do.
Ill post stories as journal entries. I think i might try to do illustrations as well for the things i dont have photos for.

AHHH im excited!
AHHH!

that sounds so extremely great... and it is good to see you that happy :)

and you're right you look happy and calm on the pictures... thats absolutely great.

I wanna go now too...

if you did, you and I would go on so many adventures. if you really think you should go, you should read more about it on the burningman site, and definitely feel free to ask me any questions to see if it could be something you think you could manage doing. Its not abnormal in ANY sense that people from outside the US come to this. The wonderful part about it is that you make friends from around the world there.

If you think you could go, seriously, im soooooo into helping you figure out what you need to do.

thtas totally sweet of you... I go to the site and message you than :)

OMG!!!  You make me wanna go!!!  That looks awesome!!!  You look amazing in the shots!!!!! BEAUTIFUL!

HEHEHHEHEHE

Thats awesome. This place/event deserves a lot of love and respect. it takes so much work to get there, its insane.

And thank you SO much. Like I said, i just FELT happy and gorgeous...it is so strange how that place brings out everything good in you.

you are beautiful.
i've heard only good things about burning man... someday i will go!
and i haven't been to seattle in 3 years... do you ever come across the border? =) <3

youre too freaking sweet. thanks for the compliment, its flattering.
Burning man is awesome. you should come hang out with us kids in seattle so that everyone could get to know you and would be down with you camping with us if you want to come next year.  If you cant make it down here for some reason im going to pout really hard, but i get it. Its hard for me to make it up there. My family lives in Bellingham and i can barely manage to make it up there **EVER** to see them.
The last time i was in Vancouver was my 19th birthday (suprise, huh? haha), and that was 3 years ago too.

I need to get my passport i think in order to come over there...isnt that the law now?

that would be SWEET. well i hope we can work something out! yeah, i believe passports are mandatory for crossing the border now.

:)
i <3 you.