The Big Decompress in Reno

Well it's over, and I'm back. We burned the Man. We burned the Temple (although I didn't see it get set on fire this year---long story). We biked. We drank. We [censored]. We saw incredible art. We made lots of friends. Weddanced a lot. We even twerked (a word I didn't even know until this year's Burn. I came back to find everyone using it in reference to something Miley Cyrus did on television).

Sean and Michele are at Lake Powell by now, possibly with Kevin and Neil. Stefan is back in Zurich. The Four Swedes and their RV are back in the Bay Area. Okki (aka "Okkistyle")  and Ash (aka "Ashram" aka "Phoenix") are back in Boulder. Ash is probably groggy in his cubicle at his job working for the large cosmodemonic computing company on the Diagonal.

For the past twenty-four hours I've been holed up in my air conditioned room in the Best Western next to the Reno Airport, sprawled out on my king size bed like a rockstar. I just took the best bath of my life.

Rockstar---that's one of Okki's favorite words to use. Do you feel like a rockstar? he likes to ask me, from time to time, when we are out having fun, whether in Boulder or Black Rock City.

I think it started last month when we in his mobile home trailer, about to head out on our bikes to that Czech wedding (Boulder is one of the few places where you can live like Burning Man all year round in some ways).

"How do you feel?" he asked me, looking for a boost of vicarious enthusiasm.

"Raucous," I replied, using a word that had been on my lips lately.

"You feel rockstar?" he said back to me, in his thick accent.

Yes, Okki, I do. I do feel rockstar.

But out on the playa they don't call me the Sheik for nothing. But that's another long story.