My dear, dear Burning Man friends. By now you will be deep into packing mode. Or perhaps you’re driving. Or maybe you’re already on the Playa. I hear the first few days are the best if you know what you’re doing.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

For months you’ve agonized over your outfits, your gear list, and your schtick and you can’t wait to show the Playa what you got. I’m so there with you. I’ve been with you through the entire creative development process. You even had me going a few times. I’ve got the boots, the metalic mini, the classically inappropriate fur, the slightly twisted shades of make up. Oh yes, I’ve got cool goggles. But damn if anyone has convinced me to go. Last year I nearly went. I was ordered to pack my stuff and head towards the Winnebago. Would I? Not on your life. Hell, I had a plane ticket to Electric Picnic to work a Carnie Art show with the “Hot Toddies” but bailed at the last minute. So glad I did. I hear the weather was torture. Okay, it is Stradbally in the summer.

Clipped from: www.fireonthemidway.com (share this clip)

I am so in love with my Burning Man friends and relatives. (Those of you who know me well know that I am a first and kissing cousin to Charlie Smith, father of Hearth and Fleeble Flobber, and Art of Such ‘n Such partner.) They delight me to no end. Their banter, their energy, their ideas, their color. It’s enough to make me party all night. Until I fall asleep. I’m a sleepy groupy with a short attention span.

Okay, so before you go writing me off as a fuddy-duddy, let me “splain” something. My biorhythms are all about morning. Truly, I awake at 5 AM. If I’m on vacation I force myself back to sleep so I can respectably rise at 7 and look normal. From a Burning Man perspective, that’s bedtime. So what would I do from 7 AM to 11 AM? Talk to myself. Okay, that’s a cool Burning Man gig. “The woman who tells lies to herself. Catch her between the hours of 7 AM and 2 PM.” Right, like that’s going to draw a crowd. Then, I stagger around from like 2 to 8 PM grabbing as much art infusion as I can before I collapse into a diabetic coma or compulsively hunt for my flannel jammies and head for bed. From about 10 PM to 3 AM, I’m begging for the noise to stop. I mean really, by the time you all start partying, I’ve been up for 12 hours. Hello.

No my friends, as much as the art looks wonderful, the stimulation sublime, Burning Man is not for obsessive compulsive, ritualistic, sleepy head pseudo-Bohemians. It’s for the real Bohemians. But for sure, I’ll be so rested when you return, I’ll sit still through your entire slide show!!!! And I’ll love it. Expand on the meaning for our civilization and revel in the fact that there are people out there prepared to sacrifice to bring us the spectacle that is Burning Man.

I applaud you. Please send pictures. I CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR THE STORIES!