Buffering Read online

  Don’t listen to him, he’s got a “backie”—that’s a person you’ve always got on the back of your mind.

  Not much negativity, though I feel like everyone has this weird reverse passive aggressive thing going on.

  Out of the 60K people who arrived . . . How many full sets of golf clubs are here?

  Grilled Cheese Camp

  Burning MANtality—it’s a mix between camping and a rave

  Burning Man is just a way for people to convince you to take your clothes off.

  I went to Burning Man in the summer of 2011. I had been invited to go as the guest of a frequent Burner who worked at YouTube’s corporate office. He reached out and told me that he thought I would have a great time and that it would be an awesome place to make an episode of My Drunk Kitchen. This would only be the twelfth episode of the “show,” but I was already scrambling for concepts. Burning Man started in 1986 (Just like me! #twinning!) and can be described as the world’s biggest pop-up event. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s really a sudden city in the desert where everyone gets in touch with their bodies, their minds, and their spiritual sides—and these days they get to try out new apps there, too. Burning Man has changed, man.

  Before accepting the invitation I called my soul sister Morgan and asked her for advice on whether it was safe to go. Morgan has been in my life for as long as my biological sister Naomi has. They actually met first, when they were both two years old. Morgan had been to Burning Man before and knew all the right questions to ask, like how well I knew this guy and whether I trusted him. I told her that he worked for YouTube, was older and married with kids, and his wife would be there, too. He seemed like a techy dork who just wanted to get high in the desert. I wasn’t worried. After that, her main concern was whether I could afford the trip, because going to Burning Man had become increasingly expensive over the years. I reassured her that my ticket and transport into the camp were covered and that all I had to do was fly myself to Reno and back. She also asked about my plans for bringing water,4 and I told her that I would be in an experienced camp of Burners, some of whom had been attending since the very first festival, and that they were going to take care of everything for me, including all my water, my gear, and even my food. “You totally lucked out!” she said. “Go and have a great time.”

  I landed in the Reno airport, and when I saw people in massive fur coats holding glow sticks, I knew I was heading in the right direction. I took a smaller plane and then a jeep to the camp itself. When I arrived it was still early in the setup. At Burning Man there are four days of build (when everyone builds their massive statues or experiences or pillow forts or whatever) and then four days of burn. Or maybe it’s six days of build and two days of burn? Or four days of build, two days of burn, and two days of afterburn? I don’t really remember. Regardless, I planned to spend three nights there. I was nervous about traveling solo, and that much time in the desert with strangers seemed like plenty.

  There was no cell service anywhere, so I had to just kind of navigate my way toward my friends by asking people. I found them pretty easily because it was still early in the build stages and people were just kind of milling around, waiting for the rest of the city folk to arrive.

  The first day and night I didn’t partake in much. No booze, no smoke, no nada. I just wanted to get the lay of the land and gauge the people I was camping with. I wanted to take in the experience with my senses unencumbered. Initial observations included: lots of white people, lots of dust, lots of butts, lots of boobies, hard to sleep without earplugs. I wanted to ease in at my own pace, so I kept to myself. I was probably a bit of a bummer burner, but that was fine by me. We all need to process at our own speed.

  I slept in a pup tent in our camp, and everyone was pretty respectful of my hesitance to join in. Nobody was in a rush, it seemed, and since supplies in camp were limited, whatever goodies I didn’t want just meant more for everybody else. I didn’t start to relax and let my guard down until the morning of the second day, when I woke and took a walk by myself around the camps. It was dawn, and I watched the landscape around me change from red to pink to white.5 Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock Desert on the dried-up prehistoric lake bed of Lake Lahontan, which everyone calls the playa. The ground is cracked and covered in an incredibly fine silt. According to the Burning Man website, the silt has a high-alkaline pH, which makes it incredibly corrosive. That, in combination with the sudden windstorms, means that dust gets into just about everything. A fair amount embedded itself in my bones, I’m pretty sure.

  As I wandered the various camps, I saw people on bikes and people making food and people doing yoga and people being tied to a wooden post and whipped in a BDSM camp. There were many things to observe. I kept my head down for the most part, not talking to anyone and jotting down random sentences in my journal in hopes of turning them into jokes I could use to film My Drunk Kitchen the next day:6

  OVERHEARD ON DAY TWO—BURN WORLD PROBLEMS:

  * “REI has really gone downhill.”

  * “Dropped my headlamp in the port o’ potty, but the batteries are still good.”

  * “Meet us between the giant beating heart and the Cheshire cat playing dubstep.”

  * “A shame they don’t sell the Costco carport anymore.”

  * “When you get nervous, picture everybody naked. Oh wait, they already are.”

  As I walked back to camp, the dawn coolness had worn off and the temperature was rising fast. I was a little lost and decided to retrace my steps using landmarks. I wasn’t really nervous, but I was becoming hot and uncomfortable. Anyone who knows me is well aware that I am an absolute water fiend. I’m almost oppressive in my need for hydration. I want everyone to drink as much water as I do all the time.

  But like a big ol’ dumb-dumb I had forgotten my water bottle. It happens. Nobody is perfect.

  I passed a camp with a water tank and decided to be brave and ask if I could have some. Everyone around me seemed comfortable sharing with strangers, so maybe I could be comfortable, too. I walked up to the group, all sitting on rugs on the ground looking like they were born to burn, and asked quietly if I could have some of their water, half hoping that no one would hear me.

  Unfortunately, I was noticed right away, and someone said that I was more than welcome to have some of their water, but did I have a cup? Of course I didn’t. I had left my Nalgene in my tent like a double dumb-dumb. So I just stood there, distracted and dehydrated and now wanting desperately to find my way back. Someone else in the group eventually took pity on me and asked if I had anything I could trade for one of their cups. I blanked. I had my black journal and my pen, but I didn’t feel like I could part with either. I also had my goggles and my bandana (which I used to wipe the goggles and wrap around my face to protect from sudden sandstorms), but my companions back at camp had told me that those were the only things I shouldn’t really trade. Plus they were borrowed.

  I stared at them, and they stared back at me while I thought.

  Burning Man functioned (and functioned well!) on a barter system. There was no money, but you could trade goods for goods or goods for services or services for goods. I couldn’t trade any of the goods I had in my possession . . . but maybe I could trade a service? I tried to think of things I was good at. I’m good at giving massages,7 but giving massages to the sweaty and semistoned seemed like a little too much too fast. There was something else I was good at, but it seemed kind of lame. But it was that or nothing.

  “I have a pen and some paper. I could . . . write you some puns? Or a poem? Or both?”

  I was grateful then for the heat so they couldn’t see my face turn bright red. Suddenly there was laughter, and with laughter came relief.

  “Yeah, that’s awesome, you can have my cup. Can you write me something about a turtle?”

  The guy who asked wore a wooden turtle around his neck, and I wrote him a poem about being a turtle safe in its shell but never getting to see the world. Or somethin
g like that. I wish that I had made a copy, but at the time I was so excited about accomplishing my goal that I just ripped it out of my journal and handed it to him. He thanked me, and they offered me drugs or booze free of charge, but I just took my cup, saying that water was fine, thank you. The Playa provides.

  I returned to camp excited to tell everyone about what I had done. I was elated. I had taken care of myself as a stranger in a strange land, and I was ready for whatever came next. I felt like I belonged.

  Naturally, that meant that I was ready to party.

  My last night at Burning Man was the first night of “The Burn,” which is when all the burning of the wooden idols happens. Sounds pretty pagan, right? It is. Or at least its roots were very earthy and spiritual. Actually, watching it all unfold is sort of like watching a bunch of Bay Area artists and tech people gathered together in the middle of the desert to forsake their clothing and their privileges (and in some cases their marriages), in the hope of connecting with something—something greater, something smaller, just connecting with something, anything again. I know that’s what it was about for me. Aside from the marriage-forsaking part. I definitely wasn’t married. Still not married!

  BURNING MAN—DAY THREE

  * Getting in touch with your natural self. The self that isn’t concerned with people seeing you in shorts, sneakers, and socks above the ankle.

  * I’m with a camp that is all about manifesting your inner self into reality. I told them that I wanted to look like Disney’s Aladdin.

  * Someone asked me if I wanted to sleep in a four-person tent.

  * “Burning man is the best ppl can be, made me like people again”—old white military dude

  * “blessed be the cracked, because they are those who let in light”—people crying camp

  * “Welcome to the vacant heart of the Wild West.”

  Where was I? Oh yes. It was the last night at Burning Man, and I was about to take MDMA, otherwise known as Ecstasy, for the first and only time. Oh wait, I’m skipping ahead.

  At that point I had drunk the Kool-Aid and was in full Burning Man mode. I had changed my name (to something sacred that could not be written down for the human eye to see but only be spoken for the human heart to hear8) and had my arms painted blue with “tribal”9 symbols. I wore the same white tank top I had arrived in and had borrowed some Aladdin pants from a costume camp that made me feel like a god.

  So when a cute little lady wandered into our camp to make friends with my Burner family and then pulled out a capsule that looked like a dirty vitamin, I was happy to let the good times roll. And roll they did.

  Before I go any further, I’d like to inform you, gentle reader, that I was a nervous nelly about taking this drug. I asked a bunch of questions, including who in our group wasn’t going to be taking drugs and whether there were safety precautions in place in case anything went wrong and what the effects of the drugs were going to be. My CAMPanions10 were patient and parental and soothing. They told me it would make me feel relaxed and happy and awake but not agitated. Everything will just feel more beautiful. The effects would last only long enough to round out the night. And that I shouldn’t mix anything with it since it was my first time. I felt young and inexperienced but also free and reckless—a novel combination for me.

  The Girl Who Wandered Over11 told me that the only real danger would be the comedown,12 and then I’d have to ask myself whether or not I wanted to keep rolling.

  “How will I know when I’m coming down?”

  “When all the judgment starts to seep back in.”

  A night free from my judgment of myself and those around me? Sign me the fuck up.

  So I drank some tea and took the drug and left my notebook in my tent.

  As darkness fell, I kept asking myself whether I was feeling anything. I wanted to pinpoint the exact moment when the drug took effect. But the actual change was subtle, and I never really felt as if a big shift was happening. I just knew I was having an amazing time. A blissful and relaxing walk through the dusk. I stared at the ground and at my feet. Every step I took looked like a breath as the dust puffed up around my shoes. I loved those shoes. They did such a good job of keeping my feet safe. Shoes were really wonderful when you stopped and thought about it. Were any of the others thinking the same thing about their shoes? Someone had lights on theirs! I bent down to examine the lights rubbing at the dust to see if there was more light to reveal. There was. It looked magnificent. I had to tell the wearer.

  “Your shoes are magnificent.”

  The person laughed. “Thanks, brother.”

  Wait. Who was this person? One of my friends? Who knew? Where were my friends? Oh there they were!

  “Thank you for being so kind to me.” I hugged the Girl Who Wandered Over. She was magnificent, too.

  She smiled and put both hands against my face. Her eyes were filled with light. My friends (they were my friends!) were so sweet to me. And this girl, who had been a stranger an hour before, was now someone I knew I could trust. We all trust until we’re taught otherwise. I reached out to stroke the fur of her jacket, and it was so soft. It was like a pillow. I hugged her again and she laughed, and it felt like the jacket was warm and living. It felt like the jacket was hugging me, but since she was wearing it she must have felt like it was hugging her, too. All of our clothes hug our bodies. How wonderful to think that we are always being held by these fabrics. Our fabric family.

  My sweet YouTube friend was there, too. He was so kind for bringing me. He was shining brightly because of the wonderful butterfly bike he was riding. What a beautiful bike. How did they get the wheels to light up? Everything was lighting up! The lights all felt so warm, and I was so glad to have those lights around me. I bet there are lights within me. I bet our cells are wrapped in lights. Someone should make a room that looks like a cell but all the mitochondria are lights.

  We walked into a room filled with jellyfish. Real jellyfish13 were floating above us! But they didn’t sting? How marvelous to find these jellyfish that didn’t sting! Where had they come from? I loved those jellyfish. I loved those people. My friends.

  Then we walked into a room filled with mirrors. Strange, the mirrors weren’t mirroring me. Or were they? My face looked different than I thought it looked. When I raised my hand, it didn’t look like it was being raised in the right direction. That room was strange.

  “I don’t like it in here,” said the Girl Who Wandered Over.

  She was right. This room was not as inviting as the jellyfish room. Were they going to light the bonfires soon? We should go toward the bonfires. They were so bright, and there was so much smoke. And so many people. Too many people? I wanted to be alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about that weird mirror. Was I myself only when I was with other people? Could I be myself alone? Did I have a self alone?

  I’d be fine. I just needed to take a walk. Walking always worked. Walk until you see a new perspective. Like an ant crawling along the surface of an orange. That’s what Mom always said. You may not see a way out, but you can always change your perspective.

  My eyes hurt. I needed to look at something else.

  I walked into the desert, away from the burn and away from camp. It felt colder out there, and the lights from camp were specks on the horizon. Brighter than specks. The fires looked like fireflies from there, but they were nothing compared to the sky.

  Woah.

  I lay down on the playa to look at the stars. It was so dark, and the stars were so bright. I was alone.

  “But I’m not afraid,” I whispered into the night.

  I spread my arms out to make a dirt angel, feeling the earth below and the sky above me.

  “Thank you.”

  I heard something crack beside me. I thought of Mom again.

  You know what another word for fear is, Hannah? Intelligence.

  Probably time to walk back.

  I stood up and headed back to camp, feeling the judgment creep back in as they had said it wou
ld. I had wandered a little too deep into the dark desert night, and I wanted to be back with my friends and the lights and sounds. But I was also feeling ready for bed. A healthy distance between my desires and my actions was returning. The difference between impulse and instinct was being restored in my mind. What did I need? I think I needed to sleep. My lips were chapped, and I was thirsty.

  I saw the people from my camp and the girl. They were standing in a tight circle, and no one looked very pleased.

  “Hey, guys.”

  “Hey. Cool, so do you wanna keep rolling? We were just talking about heading over to the rave camp—”

  “They used to call it Techno Ghetto.”

  “Whatever, so do you wanna keep rolling or—?”

  I didn’t have to think about it for very long.

  “No, thanks. I think I got what I came here for. I still feel pretty good and I leave early in the morning, so I think I’m just gonna head back and sleep. But thank you. Thanks for everything.”

  I hugged the girl. But now her jacket felt itchy and stiff. It wasn’t really very fluffy. The fur was matted. Reality could be so strange.

  By the time I was back in my tent it was almost 4 a.m. I was leaving at 8 a.m., but I didn’t think I would sleep much. I didn’t write anything in my journal that night, but I lay awake for a long time trying to remember what it had been like to live without judgment. Trying to remember what it had been like to live without fear.

  After that experience, which felt so complete, I decided never to do MDMA again because I didn’t want to tarnish what felt like a perfect memory. These days, as hokey as it sounds, the closest I can get to regaining the feeling of peace I found in the desert is through meditation. I use an app called Headspace that offers guided meditation and makes the practice easy and approachable. I’ll sit in a chair while I listen and visualize myself in that space in the desert between earth and sky, in that moment where I felt so connected to both. I try to meditate on that feeling so I can keep it with me. I want to be able to recapture it whenever I need it. That’s the goal I’m working toward. Drugs are just an artificial way of getting to that feeling. They’re like a shortcut. Only that shortcut can change you. And the feeling it produces is only temporary.