Well, Friday on the playa was another one of those glorious (ugh) recovery days, so let’s skip ahead to Saturday!

The Boy’s blue fingernails. Blue glitter fingernails, I should say. Hawt.

Corinne very graciously loaned me her purple goggles on Saturday, and thank the Lord, because I needed them all day. I had brought clear goggles with me, and although they are perfect for night they don’t work so well during a sunny dust storm. And “sunny dust storm” pretty much sums up the weather ALL DAY Saturday.

Corinne breaks out her rainbow stockings. Ooooh yes.

Well, we all fell in love with Donovan, who is from Salt Lake City and camped with us. A good portion of our Seattle campmates grew up in SLC. There must be something about growing up around oppressive Mormons that turns some people into really cool people. It was Donovan’s first Burn–but from his flamboyantly decorated bike, to his ridiculous costumes and wigs, to the way he strolled into camp Wednesday morning after being up all night wearing gold leggings, high-heeled platforms and a platinum Afro wig and announced that he was making coffee–no one would argue that he is a born Burner. I found out later that he used to be a “phenomenal” drag queen, and now it makes sense. He is fabulous!

The three of us went out with Donovan on Saturday to cruise around camps and meet new people and hopefully find cool drinks. This was some sort of “Museum of Weirdness” (I don’t remember the title), but it wasn’t that weird and the people there weren’t very friendly.

And by not very friendly I mean they didn’t even offer us a drink at the bar! What the hell.

The “Mystikal Misfits” camp was friendly, however.

They had a swing that various people were taking turns swinging on. You can make out the girl’s feet on the left. She was screaming with delight. They also had a full bar and lots of snacks–I ordered an orange soda, and the bartender said, “Well, that was easy!”

“Suck ‘n’ Fuck Saloon”–ha ha, only at Burning Man.

We were all drawn to this “touch me, feel me” box–but when I stuck my arm in (twice), I didn’t feel anything. Hmph.

Donovan did.

At the time I thought this was another spider art car, but it kind of looks like a crab now.

Donovan suggested we ride out to the temple, which was a fabulous idea except the weather decided to give us a big fat white-out, and we couldn’t even see the temple on the way out there.

Finally, it emerged through the dust.

The idea is that you write down something painful and on Sunday the temple burns it up.

The temple was covered with sad stories and photos of dogs and dead people and pain and regret and suffering, and you don’t visit the temple without witnessing several people just openly sobbing. I was prepared for all this, but I think it took Donovan by surprise.

Sigh. I miss GHB.

I just happened to have a Sharpie in my backpack (you never know…) so I added my message to the temple.

Corinne’s message.

The Boy’s message.

Whew, what a dusty scene.

Wanna know what you look like after spending hours riding around in a dust storm?

THIS! Ah hahahaa. The mustache is a nice touch, eh?

Look at the inside of her nose! Intense. Playa boogers are gnarly.

I got a nice preview of the Boy with grey hair.

Ooof dah! I will save the last batch of photos for tomorrow. Burning Man was only last week but already it feels like it was ages ago. Today is more moving, and the day after that, and the day after that…phew. Every day has just been moving moving moving then collapse then ice cream. I finally stepped on the scale today for the first time in a long time and it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

Then again, I’m still smoking! Until September 20th, when my favorite vanilla ciggies become illegal! Thank God. Cough cough cough.