Anyone home?

After almost three months, I'm back. It's been a while since I've had regular Internet access.

I've spent the day scrounging up some more miscellaneous writing [old and new], which I'll be posting over the coming little-while [i.e., I'll have another post up within a couple days], but thought I'd throw up a quick scatterbrained update just to assert that, yes, I'm still here, and no, this particular blog hasn't yet been hucked into the virtual landfill of countless abandoned webpages.

Oh! For starters, I've been published by Rebelle Society again. A poem this time. I actually wrote the poem when I was seventeen, but hadn't submitted or shared it until now [it's taken me a while to get over my poetry-sharing jitters and biases]. And here it is! Bam!

Otherwise, in case anyone's interested, this is a brief summary of where I've been:

--On the playa for a couple weeks--the first of which was spent working exhaustively on Skyler's Escapade: the big, bad fire-shooting monstrosity built mostly by our five-man crew, that was to sit atop the sixty-five foot bamboo Control Tower [pictured below]. At one point, this involved my getting on top of the Tower in nothing but a climbing harness and hard hat [not pictured below]. Then, of course, there was the whole Burning Man thing itself.

Control Tower at sunrise; photo by my friend Miko

Dancetronauts party in front of the Control Tower.
Not pictured: the flame effects crew [which included myself] gleefully pushing buttons while yelling cathartically.
Photo: Jason Mongue

--Hedonistically decompressing, first at a snazzy oceanfront property in Capitola, mainly with friends from overseas, then in Reno for a week, where I was overloaded with decadent cheese and beer and stayed up past sunrise nightly talking and laughing with good friends, clearing some deadwood out of my life.

--Up in Oregon with my co-person, where we spent three days at a new intentional community/boarding school: a huge post-apocalyptic wonderland comprised of several huge-former-Christian-camp buildings--among them treehouse cabins a la Peter Pan's lost boys and a large auditorium--being reclaimed by a Rivendell-esque rainforest; garnished with a meadow-turned-edible-garden and two lakes. Then we left and headed vaguely southward governed by our whims, which led us to prodding at farm animals, skinny-dipping on a private beach after dark, geeking out over Salvador Dali originals, late-night-shitty-motel-acrylic-painting, and so on.

--Working hard on a friend's farm, having good clean scatological fun [like landing on top of a tampon-pooping dog while attempting naked acrobatics], read my first book in a while [Haruki Murakami's novel, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle], reclaimed my sense of personal power through some rather uncomfortable introspection, and had a great Halloween fueled by lipstick, whisky, and the sunset.

So it's been a good run. I look forward to having a bit of time to organize my thoughts and work on some writing and music. Been laying low, visiting family and some old friends I haven't allotted enough time for. Next week marks my very last Thai massage class, which I imagine will be somewhat bittersweet.

Etc. 

Alex is right; I ought to get a camera and start taking more photos, rather than relying on whatever it is my smart-phone- or camera-wielding friends elect to record.

Etc.