Left Brain, Right Brain

OK, I'm sure the geekier of my friends (you know who you are, admit it!) have already had a lot of fun with the new Street View on Google Maps, right? Only a handful of big cities are available right now, but I was able to get within a block of where I lived when I was out in Queens, NY, which was kind of cool.

So anyway, I've been turned onto a couple sites that have some of the weirdest/funniest images from this new thing, and they are great fun! I've seen Google Sightseeing and Streetviewr so far. What's especially cool is that I found an art installation, called "Passage", which was at Burning Man two years ago, and now lives in the Bay Area!! Originally, there was fire dripping from the mother's hand into the child's hand, and flaming footprints in the ground behind them as they appeared to walk towards The Man. VERY beautiful. It's so neat to see them again in a new location, even if they don't have all the fire around them.

The other cool thing is that there were some images of police investigating a homicide, but those images have now been removed. You can still zoom out and go up or down that street, but the images directly around the crime scene are now just black. WHOA.

Other crime scenes are visible, but they are less extreme, such as speeding, urinating in public and (possibly) breaking and entering (what is going ON there??)

So yeah... If you have some spare time and want to see some true slice-of-life stuff, check out Google Sightseeing and Streetviewr.

ETA: Oh, and I almost forgot, Wired has some stuff too.

I GOT 'EM!!!

(Burning Man tickets, that is... at the $185 bracket! I can't believe it took 2½ hours. Dayum.)

5:57 pm Edit: OK, it actually took almost 4 hours now that everything has been said and done. When I thought I got my tickets, I was waiting for the confirmation screen to appear after I entered my payment information. When I got home, I found out that the ticket sales server was not actually up and running until about 45 minutes after I thought i purchased. So I did it again from home and got confirmed right away!!! Yahoo!

I wore these ALMOST every night at Burning Man, and they were PERFECT for the nights! I am so proud that I actually knitted these. There is TONS of fake fur on the playa (they call the really decked-out girls "Playa Poodles" with their little wristbands and skirts and headbands and fuzzy bras). I probably looked just like everyone else, but I bet most of them just bought fake fur or even bought their costumes pre-made. Amateurs!
( Lookit me! Lookit me! )

I decided to come to work at 9 this morning instead of 8. Why? Because I was tired and cranky and didn't want to wake up in time to get here by 8. Plus, I reasoned to Jon as I was getting ready, I usually stay about 15-20 minutes late anyway, so it all evens out in the end. I think he is going back to work today, probably this afternoon. I invited him to come have lunch with me here in the cafeteria. I don't have any leftovers in the fridge at home and don't know if I feel like making something from scratch for lunch today.

And yet, even though I took my time waking up and made sure I felt nice and not-rushed when I left the house, something is not quite right. I got here just before 9am, and it's only 10am now! How can time move so slowly?? Seriously, to repeat something I said yesterday, what did I used to DO here???

On the playa, I spent a lot of time relaxing in the shade, walking the city, chatting with people, and COOKING! My favorite part of Burning Man is food preparation. I love feeding people! Our friend Jesse spent a lot of time at our camp letting me feed him, so that really made me happy. When we got home, I did a lot of cleaning and putting away and organizing and cooking and list-making. This makes me happy. This makes me feel productive.

When I am here in my office, I spend a lot of time waiting for someone to email me with something to do. I spend a lot of time biding time. I do petty things that end quickly. The projects I do have, I don't enjoy... not in the same way I enjoy feeding people ;)

To me, this all adds up to tell me that I should be a housewife! I would have no problem with running a household full-time, for no pay. (Although it would be really neat to get paid for it!) The way I see it, running a house is just like running any other small enterprise. You have to keep tabs on all kinds of inventory, pay bills, keep the place clean and organized, keep records, work with contractors, etc, etc, etc... And someday maybe, there would be kids to work into that mix. There's a big portion of the day - keeping up with those...

I want to feel dirty and busy and happy. I want to be out in the sun during the day. I don't want to have to wear clothes that need ironing and shoes with heels every day, only to change into my "real" clothes when I get back home to my "real" life. I don't want to HAVE to wear makeup every day. I want to be able to wear as much or as little clothing or makeup as I want to feel happy. Sometimes I want to pile on so much makeup I look ridiculous but feel "pretty". Sometimes I don't want to wear a shirt. Or bra. Or pants or ANYTHING. Sometimes I want my hair to be all crazy looking. Sometimes I want to just wake up and wash my body and call it good for the day.

I want to have more time to be able to plan meals. I want to share more recipes with my relatives. I want to dance while I walk. I want to have more moments in the day where I have to stop... and LOOK... and say, "Holy shit, look at THAT!"... EVERY day.

Done rambling. Transmission end.

I am spending FAR too much time on ePlaya today.

I am hungry, and bored, and anxious to GO GO GO!

I found a lot of good leads yesterday for possible rides for Jesse. I feel happy about that. It sounds like several of them would/could work out great. :)

I bought a lot of our non-perishable food supply yesterday. Today I will finish with the last few items I was unable to find yesterday. Also, today I will write up a final list of perishables to buy in Winnemucca. I already have a rough idea of what I'm planning, but I like to make things final and official, so I feel better prepared before we even hit the road.

Leaving in 3 days!!!! Eeeeeek!!

I just want to get on the road so I can relax and know that there is nothing more I can do, so I don't need to worry about it anymore. Even if I don't get everything done that I wanted to, at least I will be off the hook once we hit the road.

I was thinking about how mouse_gerald said he wanted to take his time getting out there, and come back in a hurry. We kind of do it the opposite way. zebracar and I drive hard on the way to a destination, because we are eager to get there and get started with our setup. On the return trip, we are exhausted and reluctant to leave, so we relax and take our time coming back to "reality." The journey back is just the beginning of the decompression. Getting back into "real life" is hard after living in such a bizarre place. I hope I do ok here at work when I get back.

Holy smokes - Burning Man is 2 weeks away!! Ack! This whole past year I have been having dreams and worries about not being ready with all necessary plans and supplies when we finally get there, and now it's kind of looking like that might (partially) be the case! ( Read more... )

What a week this has been! I got my poi in the mail yesterday, and today I got my white lift-off bike basket (and OH is it super cute!!!) and my dingy little bike bell. It's not the kind that goes Brrrrrring, but the kind that has a little hammer on a spring and has a really loud, clear DINGGGGG! I fell in love with these things when Jon took me to Lake Calhoun to rent a recumbant bike to ride around the lake while he rollerbladed. The bike I rented had a dingy bell and I just went nuts for the thing. Love that bright little "Dingggggg!" noise! (Of course, it annoyed the HELL out of Jon when I kept DINGing at him, and he threatened to just leave me there alone if I kept doing it.) but now I have one of my own and I can DING to my heart's content!

The basket is SUPER cute, too! I ran down to the garage with it right away to make sure it fit my bike, even though it SAID it should fit most bikes anyway. It fit, of course, but I think I was really just excited to see it on there and be happy about that. It is a nice little rig - no "installation" is really necessary. It has 2 hooks that go over the front middle part of my handlebars, and then a little rounded brace kind of thing that rests against the part where my handlebars go into... what's that thing called? It's the vertical piece that splits off into a Y shape so that it can attach to the front wheel..... ANYway, the basket has a hinged handle on it, so I can just lift it on and off the handlebar really easily, even when it's full of crap. I'm SUPER excited about it!

The poi are really nice - they are just basic tennis-ball ones with kind of nicer loop handles and really long nylon streamers that are orange with little yellow "flame" bits on the sides of the streamers. I like the streamers a lot - they really do give me a much better idea of how straight my spinning is, and whether my poi are traveling in the correct directions. I'm quite pleased. (^_^) I still think this will be a very good way for me to develop my large motor skills, which we all know are really not that good, since I am a clumsy girl.

On an unrelated note, I won a set of 6 crochet hooks on Ebay for a really good price 2 nights ago, but still haven't gotten any shipping information from the seller. She has not sold much yet, so maybe she doesn't know that people appreciate that, but I did email her tonight asking for a tracking number and/or an ETA. Hopefully I'll get those hooks by Thursday so I can go to "Stitch 'N Bitch" with onewomanshow at Crafty Planet, and maybe get some help getting started on the cute top i found a pattern for...

*edit* Oops! I just noticed that Stitch 'N Bitch is every 2nd and 4th TUESDAY, not Tuesday and Thursday. I guess I'll have to wait.

Today FedEx delivered my headlamp! It has 4 super bright LEDs that can be set to 3 different brightness levels, plus strobe. It should come in VERY handy this year, as we will be having a new moon and the playa will be extremely dark.

Last year we had a full moon. It was so cool, like running around in a dream. You could see your own shadow in the dead of night!

I just ordered a pair of beginner's poi. I had been playing around with spinning long socks that had smaller socks balled up inside the ends (DON'T LAUGH!), and it's really not that hard, even for a clumsy girl like me! So I did some poking around on Home of Poi, and found some not-too-expensive but still decent cloth ones so I can start trying to get more serious about this. I went with a pair that have tails, so I can keep better track of where I am twisting my hands in the wrong directions or making mistakes, and they will also look more neat when I am doing it right!

For those of you who are wondering, the poi I am referring to is not the gooey purple starchy Hawaiian food made from smashed taro root. "Poi" is also the Maori (natives of New Zealand) word for "ball (on a cord)." They are twirled and spun in the hands, often lit on fire for an amazing performance.

Last year at Burning Man, I was very impressed with nicotinequeen's poi spinning (she even used fire!) I told her that I wished I could learn how to do it, but that I felt I was too clumsy and uncoordinated. She told me that anyone could do it, that she had only started doing it AFTER the previous year's Burning Man, and that it could actually help build coordination. I always remembered that, and even looked at the Home of Poi website a few times since then, but I never really bothered trying it with a beginner's set or even socks like I am doing right now. However, now that I have actually tried a few basic moves, I am seeing just how quickly I am able to learn, and how this could really help me get in better touch with my body and become at least a little more coordinated. (Plus, it's actually a nice little cardio workout! I never realized how it can get your heart pumping!)

So today I am being brave, I am doing something new and physically challenging, which is typically outside my comfort level. And right after I ordered the poi, I noticed that they are being shipped out of New Zealand! This might take a few weeks.... ;)

Bought my ticket to Burning Man yesterday. Now that I know Jon may very well be an annoying drunk the whole week, at least it will not shock me. I plan on avoiding him as much as possible if he decides he wants to drink. .... but I hope he doesn't.

I still think the desert is a place that is perfect for cleansing. I hope he figures it out in time.

Last year it was so cold all week. Near the end I sprawled out in the hammock hoping to warm up in the rare sunlight, and forgot to put on sunscreen. Bright red belly and a little bit sick the next day. Slept for hours in the truck. Ick.