Going back through all the decisions...

...that lead up to a stupid fucking slap in the face.

Deciding to randomly stop by S4 on Friday and pick up some work: It felt great at the time, how the managers were so happy that I'd come back to work for them, how they offered me as many shifts as I wanted and booked me to dance for a few special events right away.

Deciding that, hey, fuck it, I'll take that open slot this Sunday night. I could use the quick cash.

Deciding to drive to work in my parent's truck that I borrowed to road trip to Burning Man because I'd just put gas in it, instead of my own car.

Going in to work on a rainy night knowing that nobody was going to show up to tip me. I could have called in, but even the base rate to just show up for work is better than not having any money at all.

Getting in close to ten and not finding any parking in the employee lot, so I decide that I'll park down the street in the spot I have usually use on such occasions.

Leaving my $200 Oakley bag in the truck that's been with me to Italy, Germany, San Francisco, New York, and Burning Man twice. The bag that I would fucking sleep on in train terminals when I couldn't afford or find a hotel room in any of those places. The bag that had countless items that I considered the most important things to have on me at all times in it.

Not putting my ipod in my work satchel. No good reason, just decided to leave it there instead. I even unplugged it and put it in the glove box.

Imagine how fucking stupid I felt when I came back after work, where I made all of 4 dollars in tips, to find that the window had been broken and everything of mine, plus the truck's xm-radio-dvd-player-too-much-bullshit-electronics-to-even-have-in-a-vehicle stereo had been stolen.

Severely bruising my arm as I slam my elbow into the headrest over and over again, raging without thought against that unresolvable feeling of having been violated in some way, regardless of the value of what is lost, the meaning of what's been taken.

A streetwalker tranny coming up to the broken window in the rain, as I silently stare at the destruction done in the process of ripping the stereo out, and asking me over and over again if I can give her a ride to her house three blocks away.

Me finally looking at her and telling her she's going to end up looking like what I wish I could do to the people who did this to me if she doesn't fuck off.

Her asking me to give her my umbrella, the only thing in the truck now besides discarded receipts and my work satchel. Me screaming, with stupid tears for stupid things and anger at something I can't fucking control pouring out of me.

Driving home, feeling my skin tingle with cold every time a semi-truck drives by and splashes water in the window. Not able to say a word, beyond that now, stuck thinking about every stupid thing that led up to feeling like there's a rock of hate sitting at the base of my spine.

Feeling like a god dammed helpless idiot.

-Sean

As of earlier this week, I'm happily ending my neurophysiological poly relationship with Molly, Mary, and Lucy. They just don't get me off like they used to.

Sorry girls, this boy has a masters degree to get.

-Sean

I sat outside and read on my porch tonight, and listened to the seasons change. When I was a kid it was my favorite thing in the world to do, listening to the winds take new shape. I always hoped in it I could hear magic, hear something beyond the edge of reality that was measured in the barometric variations in gusts of air flowing through my geographic region.

Kids are stupid like that. Makes me melancholy all the same, and wish for simpler times when my decisions weren't so weighted.

I think I'm just going to shut up and DJ now. Music makes me happy.

-Sean

Burning Man 2009

Should I be writing right now?

Probably not.

But I need to. Burning Man this year was... well, I think I need a wide array of adjectives to actually address what it was.

I wake up every morning since, and I don't feel right. I don't have my comfortable rituals to engage in, I don't have a clear path ahead of me. Everything I've ever known as "normal" is gone, and all that I'm left with is a frightening path into a hidden wood. I don't feel like "me" anymore.

What did I manage to achieve going to burning man? Maybe I shed something away. I certainly did my best at eroding existing relationships down to raw nerves and irritation. I packaged this year's experience as part of a gift for someone, and somehow confused the message I was trying to send, or they got the clear picture, and decided they didn't like the screen.

I have no idea. My brain is probably only functioning at 25% right now anyway. Heat, sun, 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and shift driving across a total of 4000 miles have left me feeling bludgeoned and confused.

My dreams have been frighteningly intense lately, too. I wake up screaming, or wanting to cry, and not being able to remember why it was so important that I get that man off the train before it explodes. Just that it hurt my heart to think I wouldn't succeed.

I think that right now I feel unfinished. I had a goal with this whole trip, an intended plan, and somehow I didn't manage to achieve it. So now I'm left with this sense of things unfinished in every dream I have. I look at the schedule of things to do that I laid out for myself before I went, and wonder if its really my handwriting.

I feel lost.

-Sean