“congrats on your first wedding” or “why I never get invited to speak at these sorts of things”

Haven’t seen my extended family in ages and I guess there’s no better place to get reacclimated to them than sitting at a table with 12 members of your own generation at your cousin’s wedding.

It was nice actually. At my age, I’ve been to so many weddings they’ve almost become a rote affair for me. Pick up a suit, sign a card, find the number with your name on it, identify the presence of an open bar and establish supply lines, check to see if the wedding party has reserved some hard liquor under the table, leave before the dancing. It’s gotten to the point that I can almost predict what recent pop culture reference will undoubtedly be made when the wedding party is introduced or apply the Wadsworth Constant to any wedding speech so I can tune out all the introductory comedy and save my active listening for when the meal is announced.

I have a lingering suspicion that people my age find weddings gradually more irritating the older and protractedly single they get, but for me I actually find the ritual of commiserating domestic commitment to be pleasing. I enjoy the chaos, the insane energy of a hundred people all awkwardly sitting around, excited and emotional. I like the predictably mediocre nature of the ceremony and inevitably poorly planned reception. I find the endless reserve of bewildered smiles from the wedding couple surprisingly reassuring as if, in this single moment, the Decline of Western Civilization and The Moon Nazi Menace doesn’t exist, and everyone can be happy. Weddings are also one of the few times I allow the idiotic misappropriation of pop culture fads, awkward dancing, and the indulgence of god forsaken small talk.

What can I say? I’m in a giving mood.

4-F Papa by Ruth Wallis

Sequoia National Park, CA

It’s good to see old friends again.

but I don’t want to go among mad people

I let it process. I liked it. I’m going back next year.

greedy little…

Apparently people are increasing their rates for car washes after Burning Man.

http://haighteration.com/2012/09/divisadero-car-wash-doubles-prices-for-burning-man-cars.html

Went to Loranzo Car Wash in Mountain View, got turned back, when I insisted, they told me it would cost $108. Went to the Shell station and got it done for $8.

The nerve of some people…

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire…

I’m not entirely sure what to make of the last week or so.

Biopic by way of a quick example: Imagine going out to dance at night, getting lost, yet still managing to have a good time, waking up in the middle of the desert with the sun coming up over the horizon, walking the half mile or so back home as quickly as possible to avoid getting dehydrated by the heat, then rushing to a scheduled seminar lead by a poly-amorous woman-identified accountant. How interesting you find that previous sentence depends almost entirely on who you are, perhaps ranging from “the most exciting night of your entire life”, to “a college Tuesday” .

I’ve been told that as a first timer I’m handling BM quite well. Well apparently I’ve always been amoral just extremely boring in how I go about being so. I never found anything I saw there shocking or offensive, although as a straight, single male, I belong to the least inclusive demographic with many barred doors thus frankly, never really had the opportunity to get shocked. In many ways the experience was quite mundane and ordinary, no more surreal than had I gone to London. In fact, it was a lot like my London trip: looking at interesting architecture and art all the while waiting in god forsaken queues and surrounded by people that appear to be speaking some indecipherable dialect of English. I suppose this is more an observation about myself than anything particular about where I’ve been.

People seem to range from the utterly hedonistic and self-absorbed, to the lost and emotional, desperate for some spiritual connection. The former aren’t as interesting to me as good times are probably had much easier and far better in the haven of euro trash electronica that is “Anywhere but most of America”-stan, but the latter held for me a strange obsession. They seemed so deeply invested in their own egos that I couldn’t stand to listen to them talk about their hardships and struggles at the Temple, or how amazing and spiritual an experience they had on the playa, or their particular insightful observation about an artistic exhibit, even as I restrained those same impulses in myself. I think what really bugged me was that I’ve really heard it all before. Remove all the interesting nouns and what you have left are people who are deeply affected by the loss of a loved one, or so incredibly happy they’re getting married they need to tell the world, or so lonely and disenfranchised they cling to an ideology, or demanding of appreciation and success they don’t get elsewhere. At the core they’re no different than any other people I’ve met in my life, and I guess that’s supposed to make me love and appreciate them all the more, but in actuality it just makes me hate them as much as the rest of humanity. It would be pithy and dismissive of me to group Burning Man with BBQ slideshows, work sanctioned mixers, and online dating, but would it be wrong? Same drama, just less clothes.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I utterly missed the point of Burning Man and I’m not quite sure how that makes me feel. At the very least, I think it’s worth going again next year with an open mind, and more importantly, better foresight and planning to see if switching up the variables leads to a better experience.

Not that I had a bad time, everything and everyone was incredible and uniquely enjoyable, I’m just having difficulty assigning an inherently spiritual value to the entire experience.

I’ve never felt so alive yet so empty before.

Black Rock City, NV

You’ll likely get better pictures from other sources or the media.

Drove 17 hours, slept for 15, going for a few more.

They used to call poetry the gay science before you came along, bob

The Men Who Don’t Fit In

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

Robert W. Service

life is a hitch

“Installing a hitch can be one of the easiest modifications you can do to your own vehicle.”

I don’t know where I heard that, like inception that idea was planted deep within my psyche, slowly but insidiously until it consumed all other thoughts, yet try as I might, I could find no trace or recollection of how I came upon that belief. It was an idyllic vision, to carry the bicycles of my passengers to Burning Man so that we may rideth in comfort across the “playa”, so naturally I jumped at the chance to throw cash at shiny new toys. I was so full of unexamined confidence and purpose.

“… so including labor, that comes out to $1092.”

Ha.

Not on your life Subaru Parts Manager… more like $263 from an online retailer delivered to my freaking doorsteps. I read the online PDF and bookmarked a dozen DIY youtube videos, all I had to do was take a look at the videos after the boxes got delivered to my address.

How hard could it be?

“Wow, there’s a lot of metal drilling involved here, isn’t there?” I thought to myself, “Especially considering the instructional comes with a picture of a giant drill in a no sign overlaid with giant words reading NO DRILLING REQUIRED”. I was still at this point, cautiously optimistic, so I plunged in.

My most immediate problem was the removal of two giant mufflers which impeded any sort of access to the frame of my car, and in all honesty, I could probably cut this story short by pointing out that I never managed to do this and that every single goddamn problem I had stemmed from this failure. It was insanely stupid. I started off with a dusty old 12V drill I found, but regardless of what combination of wrenches, socket, ratchet, or otherwise, I could not get the damn mufflers disconnected from the exhaust pipes. I went to a hardware store to pick up an 18V, then a high impact drill, but nothing worked. I briefly considered a pneumatic torque wrench, but the $5000 price tag somewhat defeated the purpose of doing your own automotive work. It wasn’t until the next day, in the light of the morning dawn, that I saw that the bolts appeared to be rusted through and stripped, a surprising casualty and something I wish I had noticed hours before.

And that was basically it. Over the course of the next few days I tried all sorts of alternate solutions, such as attempting to drill a 5/8th of an inch hole in a steel beam using a power drill at a 45 degree angle with a metal can the size of a computer impeding my vision and motion. Or perhaps, prying off the rubber bands suspending the mufflers so I can bend them out of the way, which is completely within manufacturer’s tolerance, a deep conviction and faith in the Bible tells me. Or seeing if I can just glue the damn thing on. It wasn’t that the activity was complex or difficult, but rather that I was simply not equipped to deal with the problem and in the face of repeated and unrelenting failure, I endured and preserved for hours on end, because when all else fails, spite prevails.

I ended up taking off the rear bumper, which was it’s own little drama of trying to understand how these damn “popit” clips worked. Couldn’t even find a decent description online, people just glossed over the concept as if everyone knew. It wasn’t until I literally tore one off then dissected it in an alien autopsy that I discovered you simply wedge a flathead into the tip to pop the stopper out that I finally got the bumper cover off. I then used a piece of wire to thread each bolt into a hole in the frame, using smaller carriage bolts I bought with jury rigged washers instead of wide head flange nuts because I couldn’t get in and drill holes for the proper bolts. I’m not exactly sure what the load capacity of zinc plated low carbon steel is compared to chrome plated high carbon steel or stainless alloy, and how much difference 1/8th of an inch in diameter makes, but that’s for the driver behind me to find out as I’m going 90 mph on the freeway.

God I hope that holds.

Oh, also the actual installation of the hitch was done in a sea of ants crawling over every inch of my skin, a horror worthy of Lovecraft. Granted, these ants were very tiny so the bites weren’t too painful and produced no swelling despite being incredibly numerous and incredibly maddening, and once the insanity died down, I found it helped me focus. Also later that day I covered a half acre area with ant spray.

Like I said, when all else fails, spite prevails.

ain’t no rest for the wicked