Mr. Beligerent and Offesive Reporting

So I'm sitting in a clients' office out West putting the finishing touches on a pretty big app that goes live tomorrow morning. Getting here required I get on a plane, which required I get to the airport, which required I take a shuttle van down.

Since I was out here a month ago, prior to that trip I'd set up a reservation for the said shuttle. When I called last week to revise it to match my new departure, there was no record. My original departure was for a 4:00 am pickup monday morning; imagine how happy that would have been to be waiting for a shuttle that never came...

So I was already a little miffed at the company when the driver showed up 30 minutes early to pick me up. I hadn't even packed. And the house still needed several little things done before our first open house. The driver let me know that the other passengers had been ready on time and that she had another 12:00 pickup, which was my scheduled time. I let her driver know I'd need the full 30 minutes and that perhaps she should pick the other person up first; this she declined.

So I kicked into high gear, threw all my shit in a bag, and vacuumed the living room. At about 11:50 she nervously asked if there was anything she could take out. I pointed to my bag and kept cranking on getting the house ready. At a minute before noon or so she worriedly told me "Mr. Callahan, we *really* need to go now." My stressed response was a not-very-nice and very curt "I have a 12:00 pickup, it's not my problem that you guys fucked up and double booked. I'll be ready at 12:00." She walked away, I finished drying the 2 last glasses I'd just washed and followed her. The van's clock read 12:00 as we pulled out.

At 12:05 we picked up the other 12:00; a tall quiet guy. On the way to get him one of the other passengers (a photographer) noticed my Burning Man shirt, which admitadly I'd worn to fly the flag and see what would happen. We started chatting about it and the other passenger, a photo student was also interested I get pretty excited talking about BM and both of them were pretty into it too and asking lots of questions, etc.

Anyhow, so tall guy gets on, the other 3 of us are gabbing on about BM; I ask if they want to see photos and they enthusiastically say they do. I pull out the laptop, and from where I am in shotgun climb back to the middle seat between tall guy and the photographer. The student slid over to be behind us where she could see. So we're looking at these photos; I turn the sound up so they can hear, which admitadly is not very loud against the road noise of the van. Seems like tall guy is trying to sleep or something. I don't pay much attention to him. So the 3 of us finish up the photos about 15 minutes from the airport and pass the rest of the time talking about cameras and shooting in the dark.

I catch my flights, etc, and upon arrival in CA check messages to see if my client has called me back with directions to his house. I get a message from the owner of the shuttle company curtly informing me that "this is a polite request that you not call us any more and we won't call you; we're done." or something like that. At this point it's past midnight in Maine.

Today first thing after a shower and getting dressed I call the guy back to see what happened. He tells me he got a phone call from tall guy at the airport complaining that I was beligerent and offensive in the van, or maybe he said disruptive and that the driver had said something about profanity. Wow. If you know me at all, those aren't the first descriptors that come to mind. As calmly as I could I explained my perspective on the story, that 3 of the 4 passengers were talking and looking at photos, that his company had double booked me and that yes, I was irritated and could have responded better and apologized. That basically, I'm not that guy and that I needed his services and to let me know if I could clean the situtation up at all. He was very gracious and told me he'd talk to the driver and see what she said.

So I guess things are cool; I'll call him again this week to check in. I guess I'd feel a little bad if the whole thing weren't so laughable, but whatever...

Stories Writ on Walls

So we're getting our house ready for the market. According to our realtor, whom we trust deeply to be advising us how to play the real estate game, the things we need to to do are first and foremost maximize curb appeal and secondly remove our touch from the house so that potential buyers see the house, not how we live in it or artifacts of our lives such as personal photos.

So far this hasn't been that big a deal. I mean, just cruise along cleaning, decluttering, organizing and getting rid of stuff that has been needing to be done for months, and finally getting around to all those little projects that have been lingering since we moved in.

Today though, I was sitting on our entry bench taking off my boots from painting the foundation (curb appeal, baby), and saw some pencil marks on the wall. And it hit me; here's the only reminder of a Raelin story that I would otherwise forget (story in a sec while I wax nostalgic). And I wonder how many of those there are in the house. Same thing in her closet. She knows enough now (we think) to not draw on the walls, so what of those once-in-a-lifetime sketches and doodles that must be erased forever? I've not had the heart until now to get rid of any of her marks on the house; they serve to remind me of her and the moment she did them. I'll never forget the puffed chest and proud look she gave me after yet again taking a crayon to the walls (and then leading me in to show me), this time in our bathroom while Kelly was showering. Of course there's some not so great ones, too, like the mess of divots I just filled in today where she repeatadly whacked the wall with her wooden hammer, or the crayon in the grout of our bathroom floor, which will likely be there until the floor is torn up.

See, the thing is, our lives are so full that I don't have/take the time to really process these major changes. When I was at Burning Man there was an afternoon that wasn't much fun as sleep deprivation caught up with me. One of the most enlightening experiences of the trip was that day, as I was walking with a couple buddies from lunch to their chill space to keep talking. They knew I was having a rough time and offered to hang with me as long as I felt I needed it. Just before I got to their dome, I had a flash of emotional insight, of standing at the edge of a precipice of emotional pain that is the response to my dad's accident. In that moment I saw the depth of what I've been avoiding feeling, of just how hard this is on my folks, and how hard it is on our family. I've been more or less skimming the surface of this; to see it and feel its shadowy depth was unsettling to say the least; enough to have me putting therapy on my to-do list.

This revelation came front and center today in that instant where I realized why the swirling pencil strokes are on the wall there; to what extent do I on some level insulate myself from the emotional reality of my life through being incredibly busy? I'm guessing a fair amount, especially with the upheavel of the last few months: having a second child, the accident, parenting a toddler, and now selling our first house. Lots to ponder...

Anyhow, on to the story. So a couple of years ago when my folks were out for a visit my dad and I (though mostly my dad) put together a built-in bench in our entry way. While it's admitadly pretty rough, it does the job =) Anyhow, as my dad was marking off a level line and where the wall studs fell on that line, Raelin was standing there watching him. As I recall she asked if she could help, or hold the pencil, or something. She ended up with the pencil while my dad carried on with another measurement. In the blink of time he wasn't watching her she proceeded to make a good-sized doodle on the wall, and his initial response was "no, don't do that." So she then proceeded to find every mark he had made and scold him for each one. At the end of it all he didn't have the heart to erase her scribble, and so it has stayed since that day.

Burned...

It's no coincidence that Burning Man has grown to be one of the most profound experiences of the year for burners while being held in one of the most inhospitable locations on the continent. The Black Rock Desert is not a physically easy place to be. Fine alkali powder coats everything and over the days cracks and breaks skin and irritates sinuses. When wet the cracked playa surface instantly turns to a sticky paste of unknown depth. Even the slightest breeze kicks up the dust; frequent winds create whiteout dust storm conditions that can last for hours. The only shade is from tarps that if improperly set up can become solar ovens. There is no water. There is no food. Life itself is scarce; even insects are few and far between let alone plants and larger animals.

In this physical space a city of 39,000 people grew for a week of celebration, expression, and introspection. The desert's lack of pretense facilitates a similar sloughing and release for the human visitors; emotional breakdowns and release are common and for the most part are well-supported by fellow burners.

Black Rock City and the adjacent Playa are things that defy narrative description; there is simply no metaphor to explain. Similar to trying to describe the Grand Canyon to someone that has never left an island in Maine, actually communicating Burning Man to a non-burner is somewhat of a lost cause.

That said, I'm kinda brimming over with the experience so here's some highlights:

-at the beginning of the drive up with David and talking about how much the RS means to me and how I feel so held. His response was "you are well loved here."

-arriving and having friend after friend, some old some new give me huge welcome home hugs and telling me how glad they were I was there. It didn't take long that first morning for the tears and sobbing of emotional release to begin. Adam had done me a huge favor of more or less informing folks of the challenges I'd faced and my maxxed emotional state. There was more support than I knew what to do with; a loving friend was never more than an arm's length away.

-late one night getting hungry and riding out to the Ambience Ambulance to get some grilled cheese. When I finally found it and no sooner put my bike down and walked over to say hi to Bob and give him a big hug I heard my name from behind me. Turning I saw Bob, rrrus, and Jill all in a cuddle pile on Martha, one of the Space Cowboys' art cars. Bob got down to get back to it with the ambulance and I happily took his place. We spent the next long stretch of time first hanging out at the ambulance cuddled up under a blanket, then I threw my bike in the back of Martha and out we went into the Deep Playa for a tour of art installations. I didn't see much as I drifted in and out of sleep cozied up with one of my favorite buddies. At some point they dropped me off right at camp and I caught a couple hours of sleep before another day rolled in.

-Making a slow morning tour of the Esplanade and getting "french toast and hugs" for breakfast.

-Watching people coming to the catherdral for sanctuary and being able to see its towers and arches from anywhere on the playa day or night.

-All the countless long hugs and warm cuddles. The support to simply reach out and be held.

-Bumping into friends out on the playa, in art cars, or the cathedral. Even folks I barely knew, or knew me only from the email lists sending the same message: "I love you and are glad beyond measure that you are here."

-Hearing about a guy Adam saw holding a big cardboard sign that read "my arms are getting tired."

-Just hanging out in camp watching the Playa and growing the kind of friendships that come from just shooting the shit, giving and receiving back and foot rubs, and letting the conversations seamlessly roll where they will from howling with laughter at low-brow jokes and stories to tears of deep sharing.

-The burns, burns, and more burns. Watching the Man burn with most of my adopted camp (I soon jumped ship from Cathedral to much smaller and more intimate Conscious Craving). Joing tens of thousands of other burners in silence as the Temple of Hope went up. We got there early enough to sit at the perimeter for the temple burn. After making a short pilgrimmage to the temple's embers we hauled over to the Belgian Waffle and were only about 50' or so back from the perimeter as the massive structure went up.

All that said, there's just so much going on that there's no way to get to everything, see everyone, and hear all the tracks. That said, some things that I missed:
-Lorin Bassnectar spinning anywhere, which was one of the main motivators for me making the trip
-The Unimog in action
-A match at Thnderdome
-Tracking down any of the people I had planned on finding
-Spending any time in the city, especially at night

Not a bad little list there. I'm already making plans to return next year...