NEWSFLASH: Cameron Grant (regional BM Rep for Nevada) has graciously asked me to sign on to the Board to help set up the Las Vegas regional event in April 2010. The people who are also a part of this will definitely bring some new and exciting energy to the event. The good thing for me is I will have responsibility while there and gives me something to focus on, so no getting f’ed up. I can stay sober and still enjoy things. Yey for me.

I am going to be a big advocate for a center camp where actual art can be displayed and people can congregate. I am also interested in getting Nacie (ButchPirate) involved with her Starfucks and Tea thing there.

Nacie also had a great fundraising idea we put on the table and I am looking forward to what can happen with all that. I am so excited.

Our community is changing here in LV and I hate to see some people phasing themselves out because these changes are too different than what they have know. Some of the people I have grown to look at as “mentors” have taken issue with the shifting sands and pulled back an awful lot.

I want to see Dark Skies rival the event they had in 2007 and want people to WANT to come and WANT to participate. The lifestyle aspects of of the LVBurners are becoming more community focused; thanks to Cameron and other people backing off a little. We have some great blood POURING into this group. I love it… these people have kept me sane in a crazy world.

There are a bunch of parties and event on the 24th. I want to go to them all… but am focusing on one of them for now. I bought elements for my costume yesterday. The last time I did this was when I lived in Boston. I am sure pictures will follow. They usually do, used for evidence against me. Ugh! ha ha ha

– Fetish and Fantasy Ball: a lot of Burners are going; love my freaks! ha ha
– Erotic Ball: gay Ball at someones house. I actually have to audition to go; seeing the host later today. Wanted to bring more people with me, but who knows?
– Bonedance: with the Vegas Vortex group; hearing they will have a Samhain… really want to do that!

So many choices…so little time.

It appears I was offered a job today, but there was a problem. They need me to have my own laptop. Ugh… it seems like an interesting company and I am looking forward to working with these guys. It is a temp to hire position on the other side of town.

That’s good news, not cast in stone yet though. The hiring manager is going to get back to me and ask if I this is a deal breaker. I felt really good at the interview yesterday, I think it helped it was an hour after my session with my therapist. Maybe I should see therapist then go to appointments.

I was nervous a bit… but felt confident actually talking to someone about something I knew. yey…

…I’ll update more on this later.

So, I have been reflecting on a lot of things and about a year or more ago I got to the point where I realized that my biological father was never going to be a good influence on my life. I counted on one hand events in my life that were good experiences:

1. riding with him on my little green Honda dirt bike (I mean it was small and so was I back then)
2. when we drove back to Illinois together following the death of my grandparents (Note: this is where he pointed out what a horrible drunk my grandad was by showing me his PILE of discarded Jack Daniels bottles under the house)
3. when I enlisted in the Air Force
4. when he was sending me off to boot camp months later
5. … and when he helped me with some funding for culinary school.

But what happens when those things sorta fade when I can count well past all appendages the horrible and awful things he has either said or did to me.

NEWSFLASH: I have been seeing a therapist recently trying to get myself back on track and trying to refocus on the things that are important. Yesterday was very profound as I had this discussion for the first time with the doctor… she had me do an exercise that had a strange result.

I told her about the things he said to me through my teenage years:
1. “you are worthless”
2. “you are not worthy to have my name”
3. “you are a loser”

These are all phrases and words that still play in my head to this day. I find myself vulnerable right now because my self-esteem has been a little shipwrecked with the lack of employment, lack of interpersonal relationships right now, lack of a lot of things… but I do count my blessings (cover those later).

The exercise was for me to picture him across from my sitting in a chair there and shout back that he is wrong… right. When I closed my eyes I see the man at the same age I am right now. When I tried this exercise (mental visualization) as much as I shouted back I had no voice. I could not make a sound. Fucking weird…

1. I could only see the man in his 40’s
2. I could not make a sound no matter how fiercely I tried to speak

Oddly, when she first told me to yell back I told her it would be like talking to a stone post. sigh…

So, I pay attention to the world around me and I am not unaware that life gives us subtle messages in the background. Whether it is circumstantial or not… it can cause a reaction. Which is why I cut ties with him.

I was working one day and Dr.Phil (a show I hate) was playing in the background and I heard only one line as he was talking to a chick with a fucked-up dad saying “your dad was a bad man but you have your own life so get over it”.

Get over it? Sounds cold, but I agree. The biggest thing I have to deal with is… how much like him I am. I HATE the idea I am so much like him. I hate that I am sound like him, react like him, treat people like him. I have been fighting like crazy for the last year not to be like him and trying to change that. Even my mom agrees.

He is an asshole; in the classic sense of the word. I have been an asshole; in the classic sense of the word… I try not to be but somehow it just naturally comes out.

All I can do is do my best to be a better person. I pray nightly that I can be a better person than I was yesterday and so on and so on and so on….

Started trying to get rid of some of the junk I collected over the last decade and all the bad mojo going along with it. Sold some shelves and the sideboard I got from IKEA with Adolfo. So that means there is a lot of other stuff floating around without a place to go.

1. A bunch of technical and old school books need to go somewhere… preferably somewhere I can or someone can benefit from. Me – I’d love to get $ for them but not holding my breath.
2. Chachkis galore, bricabrac and other stuff that was cool when I had a household and a nice – in the box – relationship bu just dead weight to a single guy like me.
3. Tons of old clothes I have not worn in years… either because I am too fat or they are just out of style.

I need to get a lot of spring cleaning done before the end of the week. I need a deadline and I need to get my wheels rolling. I keep procrastinating for everything and as I sit here checking every day to see if my car has been reposessed yet. Yep – still out there. I am officially 3 months behind today on payments and SO HATE to lose that car. It kills me, but we should never hang on to tangible objects so much.

It’s time to clean house.

The Las Vegas Decompression is over and done this last weekend. It took me a while to sit down and make some comments about it. It started off so nicely, a perfect day, with the best sun ever. The guys built a lot of really nice structures with cool lighting and a video show that was totally bitchin.

Friday night it turned bitter cold, but Burners could not be detoured! We just cuddled up with a burn barrel and it was good.

Yet oddly the next day was cooler and slowly the winds picked up and continued until they were over 50mph (or these abouts). Yes, white out conditions and the previously mentioned structures were blown all over.

I was getting so bitchy and I find that on these burner events, screwing with my sleeping patterns, it tends to happen. But – I had an attitude adjustment and was good, ended up staying up til sunrise. It was good. It was very good.

I need a David Bowie song about now.

Yes, this has been some interesting times with the end of Burning Man and catching up financially. I let a lot of things go for that trip and coming back, I knew that there would be this domino effect of changes to follow. How do you go to an event that huge and be touched by so much and not experience changes.

The urge for change is like a big furry beast jumping up and down on my back. The urge to get rid of a lot of the junk I have in my life is also plaguing me. Furniture, junk, files, papers, chachkis galore … ugh.

Since being with Adolfo I managed to collect an insurmountable amount of crap. Some of it is very good crap, but it still needs to go.

The Flying Toaster is leaving me this coming week and going away; going back to Honda. I think that is a good thing because it frees up more than 50% of my average income per month to go to other bills and keep myself from doing a few nice things for myself. I LOVE THAT CAR but I can’t maintain it anymore. The payments are just too high. Really, we should never hold on to anything tangible like that anyway.

Something better is coming my way.

for anyone reading this parade of horsecrap that is my life, there are some updates on have been commenting on. Namely John – David – Mark…

JOHN: has been back hanging around from time to time. I suppose he had to explore this german douche he was kicking it with and see if they could make something of it. I just do not know I could erase people I care about so easily so I could explore a guy. “Bro’s before Ho’s” is still true in my mind, at lest until the Ho turns out to be someone that stays around. Right? I mean – if I dated someone and they became #1 it would have been after a long time of dating and trust.

DAVID: had a going away gathering last Saturday. We talked one day (previously noted) and cleared the air on stuff. So I think we are cool. As time passed, we got to be cooler and all. He’s off to explore more of his life and he seems happy about it. Glad for him. I think we might have been better freinds at some point but… who knows what the future holds. He is off to Canada and will be volunteering at the Olympics… his big dream. yey.

MARK: ugh, who cares. He is leaving for SFO next week.

So, whatever I feel about people who are my friends it is that anyone who is a friend… emphasis on the word so it sounds hard and solid… is that they are the earth moon and sun to me. I have people I consider really on this level, but almost all of them are not here in Las Vegas. I guess distance DOES make the heart grow fonder. One does not deserve this status, but we’ve been freinds a long ass time.

level 2 freinds are almost as important. I want someone I can count on and who knows they can count on me. In vegas, this is a foreign animal. BUT, odly enough, on some levels many burners are right here. My mom might think I have lost my mind with hanging out with this crowd, but most of these people are pretty bitchin.

level 3 is getting more vague. Basically I do not trust people readily. I have literally been screwed over by 95% of the people I have known in my life in one way or another. It tends to jade a person. I try my best to tunr off my expectations on people, but when you make it into level 1 or level 2 of freindship with me it’s precious. BUT, people still will screw you hard and not in a good way.

I’ve screwed up enough on my own to prove it. Yeah… yeah.

We drove out to the DECOMP site today and set the gps where we will be setting up. I am excited about getting out there and enjoying the event. I am also glad we are not doing this at the lake as usual.

Cam is taking the lead, but it is good seeing who is out there helping out. I went out with Melissa and PirateRon was with us. But other interested parties headed out as well. I know some of them were there just to take care of their own projects/installation on the playa surface. But I really enjoy most of them.

Decompression is 10/2-10/4 and there is information posted about it on LVBurners.com as well as other information on how to get on the mailing list of the meetup for the events.

Spaghetti dinner is at Cam and Melissa’s house again on 9/25. We are gathering pictures from Burning Man 2009 where Mikah will put them into a slide show. Bring your pics on a disc.

When I try to capture something profound in my own head, I see it like a movie. Like, I saw my life as a walk along a long forest trail. Sometimes there were breaks in the road, forks in the road, barriers and other things. Sometimes the road curved hard around a big tree and there were times when the path disappeared but was visible up ahead.

Somewhere along the way, I may have joined the wrong road or I may have skipped something I was supposed to experience. When the road vanishes it is debilitating. A strong person will find the road again and hopefully find the right one or find the right place.

So, I have hit a lot of broken road on my journey. I skipped ahead and fell way off course. Still not sure if I am walking in the right direction. ENDING THE METAPHORS at this point… but it is not surprising how so many people I know just do not get me and my view of the world. My parents are those people.

At least my mom is a hell of a lot closer than my dad is, but my dad might be surprised how much alike we are. I absolutely HATE that reality. I see how much I am like both of them. I do not want to be like him and I do not want the cloud my family has of dysfunction and remorse and anger to follow me. BUT it is me. Is that just being Irish Catholic?

Mom is horrified right now, because I know she reads this blog. I appreciate it and she will start commenting back I hope. She rocks.