cybergeisha

I recently got my hair done (by the lovely and talented Anna, who I will recommend to anybody!) and am quite happy with it. Why? As you may have guessed, I’m going to Burning Man again this year! Synthetic dreads and a shaved undercut should prove to be a pretty good hairstyle - keep my natural hair from getting in trouble and be pretty non-fussy. (other hair pictures: One, Two)

Preparations to leave are now in full swing - I have less than 10 days before I fly to San Francisco and subsequently leave for Black Rock City.

So here’s a post you TOTALLY CARE ABOUT!

Stuff I’ve Packed Already

• 1 quart plastic bag (*snrk* thanks, airport security!) of small-sized essentials (you know… sunscreen, lotion, toothpaste, deodorant… uh… some other stuff I’ve forgotten in this list…)
• Goggles
• Scarf (you know, to breathe through).
• Sun glasses
• Some basic clothes: band shirts, black cargo capris, two black tank tops, my favorite long black skirt, my favorite medium-length black skirt, and a long, flowy black dress, socks, underwear.
• My priest cassock (yes, this deserved its own line)
• Death Guild Hoodie
• Some costumey fun items to wear at Thunderdome and stuff
• Makeup essentials: one black eyeliner pencil, one taupe eyebrow pencil, a 4-color dark-neutrals eyeshadow palette, reddish lip stain (what, you think I’m going to REAPPLY lipstick? I can even use lip balm over this stuff!)
• Digital Camera (sealed in a plastic bag, duh)
• 1 pair converse all star low-top sneakers (one black shoe, one grey shoe!)
• 1 pair ballet flat style shoes
• Various hair “stuff.” Scrunchies, hair ties, a small bag of little rubberbands for last-minute hair extension repair. Possibly some neat stuff to put IN my hair.
• Two books (Lord of the Rings and The Fabric of the Cosmos, if you’re curious) and a sketchpad (and a pencil, duh)
• A rubber spider for Kurt

This only fills up 1/2 of a carry-on rolling suitcase. Jesus! I’m a NINJA at packing, obviously!

To Be Acquired in San Francisco

(these can be put in the car, do not need to go in my suitcase)

• Pillow (which will have to be borrowed unless I bring my own)
• Sleeping Bag (which I will have to borrow once I get down there)
• Purple awesome New Rocks I’m borrowing from a friend
• Big bag of yogurt covered raisins
• A bag of grapefruits.
• Some hard candies
• A couple of those pre-made tuna salad with crackers thingies

Also, duh, much water and plenty of food, but I’m not going to list all of that. The ones listed are the ones I want to bring as treats. :)

So, I’m sure you all found that INCREDIBLY interesting!

Only nine days to go!

There is an enormous bullfrog sitting behind my car and he WILL NOT MOVE. This big fat amphibian needs to know that if he wants to NOT get run over, I’m not afraid (as every other girl in the house is) to pick his ass up and put him in the yard. Thinks he can get away with taking up the driveway. I think not, buddy.

Yesterday, Erik and I went to the Pacific Science Center.

It was so fun! When I was a little girl, it was my very favorite place to go in the entire world. Like, seriously - I liked going there more than going anywhere else. Maybe that’s why I love science so much as an adult - I was exposed to it often and in a fun, interactive way as a child.

There are so many cool things to see and do at the science center. It’s all geared towards kids, ostensibly, but it’s fun for people of all ages. It’s all interactive science - they have stuff like a scale you can step on that tells you how much you weigh on all the planets and a display where you can input different numbers into the Drake Equation and see the result.

There’s also a big display of animatronic dinosaurs that they’ve had for more than 20 years - it was my favorite when I was a little girl! The best thing is that they keep it updated and fresh, with new discoveries and science. Other favorites that have been there since I was young is a replica of the Gemini spacecraft - Erik and I climbed in and took a bunch of pictures, flipped the switches, and generally goofed around like we were little kids.

The switches and knobs all work, they light up, and it’s incredible to be in there and realize how freakin’ uncomfortable and tiny it is. And people went to SPACE in a tiny little thing JUST LIKE IT! It’s incredible. Science is so cool. Just thinking about the fact that humans have figured out how to go to space, carbon date things, synthesize natural stuff in a lab… wow.

There’s a big display of stuff called “Body Works” where you can do different stuff like see how you can transform kinetic energy to electricity by riding a stationary bike that lights up a string of light bulbs, try to balance on a pole, look at a human skeleton, test your eyesight, hearing and reaction time.

There was also an industrial robot against which you can play tic-tac-toe, in the robot display. Fun!

Their special exhibit right now is “Strange Matter,” which is all about strange properties of matter, like gloppy mud-like stuff that you can play with and then hit a button and it’ll “freeze up” because the button activates a magnetic field. Lots of stuff like magnetic liquids, man, I wish I’d gotten some pictures of that. Highly recommended!

Other favorites were teh shadow wall, where you can stand against a wall in a dark room, a flash bulb goes off and you can see your shadow, a tide pool display where you can touch sea anemones, and an oscilloscope where you could turn two knobs to change the tones and look at the shape generated.

And possibly most beautiful, they had an activity where you had to use suction cups to move a metal ball into a little cup and it looked AWESOME… but it was really difficult!

The Science Center is also home to the IMAX theatre and the planetarium. We planned to go to the planetarium show at 4PM, so we took a break after 2 hours of science fun and went to Bamboo Garden, our favorite Chinese restaurant in Seattle. All their food is vegan, but so delicious! You can’t even tell it’s vegan. I didn’t even know, the first time I went there! It’s right across from Seattle Center so we just walked there.

I’m not sure what was up with all those warning signs… It was a big empty PARKING LOT with no visible construction equipment or anything. Heh. Lunch was delicious, as it has been every time I’ve gone to Bamboo Garden.

We made it back to the Science Center with plenty of time to spare before the planetarium show so we poked around at some of the space-related exhibits, looked at the boa constrictors, and gave some love to Jupiter. It may be a failed star… but it’s not a failure in our hearts. Awwww.

The planetarium show was awesome. It was fun and informative, the guy who gave the presentation was funny. We decided we need to build our own planetarium. That’d be sweet.

We stopped before leaving and I went in to the Tropical Butterfly House (Erik didn’t want to go in, maybe he doesn’t like butterflies…). I hadn’t seen that before - it wasn’t there when I used to go to the Science Center as a child. But it was SO COOL! There were all of these gorgeous, exotic butterflies fluttering around! I took a few pictures, and one even landed on my head (no picture of that, unfortunately).

It was very warm and moist in the butterfly house, obviously, since it was a tropical butterfly habitat. The butterflies were EVERYWHERE! You had to go through this “air lock” sort of entrance and exit to make sure the butterflies didn’t get out.

I don’t have a lot of pictures of Erik and I together, since I’m usually the one with the camera. But I took a few yesterday. I’m really angry that my camera is broken, all these great pictures have a big dark patch in the middle. Afterwards, we went out for coffee at Vivace, and he gave me a hug and we went home. It was a ton of fun - yesterday was a good day.

I moved home from San Francisco. I will write more about it soon. In the meantime, I leave you with a picture of my buddha statue wearing my sunglasses, sitting next to my new purple orchid.

MOVING

Readers of this website have figured out by now that I have moved to the Bay Area. I posted, when I left. Well, I’d like to share a few stories and photographs from the drive down - it’s by no means the FULL STORY, or ALL the photos, but it’s the “highlights” of the trip.

DAY ONE

Erik and I loaded up my 1999 VW Jetta (named Vex) with as much stuff as I felt was necessary and drove down I-5 until we were too tired to continue. The adventures between Seattle and Corvallis mainly consisted of making silly faces, singing along to music, recording ourselves having stupid conversations, and videotaping EVERYTHING.

I told you we were making stupid, goofy faces.

One of the highlights of first part of the trip (pre-Oregon) was when we pulled off the slickest tire-squealing, spy-movie wannabe turn-around ever in Vader, WA. I’d been distracting Erik and he had taken the wrong turn, so we ended up driving down a country road and needed to flip a u-turn and go in the and even though the house looked like the type of place in which someone who would SHOOT TRESSPASSERS would live, we turned around in the driveway and BURNED RUBBER, SQUEALED THE TIRES, and took off like a missile. It was very funny and not too mature, but who cares, right?

While driving through Corvallis Erik called Caz to let him know we were near his place and he seemed amused. He’d have been more amused if he some of the dorky faces we were making shortly before calling him. While Erik was talking to James, I photographed those really cool dust devils - there were more of them, too - many more!

In Albany, OR, we stopped at Santiam Rest Stop and I shot some arty photographs of flowers and a portrait of Erik, we used The Facilities (so to speak) then headed back onto I-5. While looking for a gas station near some middle-of-nowhere town called Sutherlin, we accidentally took a totally surreal, freaky back-road detour that had the steepest banked offramps and onramps EVER and no actual gas station.

We ended up at the “BEST BUDGET INN AND MINI MART” which shared a parking lot with a Shell station in Sutherlin, OR.

Incidentally, I bet you didn’t know there’s a road called Dude Mask Lane in Sutherlin, OR. o_O

We were too exhausted to continue by the time we made it to Mt Shasta, CA. We made it from Seattle, WA to Mt Shasta, CA in under 12 hours, which isn’t bad.

We stayed at the Best Western Tree House Inn and ate ice cream for dinner (since the only thing in the whole town that was open at 11:30PM was the Chevron Mini-mart) and promptly fell asleep watcing Law and Order reruns on the hotel TV.

DAY TWO

The next morning, we shoved ourselves back in the car and took off for San Francisco, but got distracted when we reached Redding, when we saw a big road sign for THE CALIFORNIA WELCOME CENTER. We had to go in and demand to be welcomed.

Just before splitting off I-5, we stopped at a rest area to trade drivers so Erik could nap. First, I photographed the trunk of the car with my awesome InSoc magnet, and took artistic photos of a flower and a faucet. I’m so avant-garde, aren’t I? Heh, I supose not.

I think I need to alter the name plate on the back of my car to say “VEX” instead of “JETTA.”

In Vallejo we stopped at BevMo! and Erik goofed around with a clear plastic mini-keg labeled “MR BEER!” We also found “PURE ENERGY” energy drinks, which was hilarious - of course we had to try them. They were in pleasing glass bottles had a name reminiscent of an Information Society song - how could we not?!

The most beautiful rest stop on I-5, as far as I’ve ever noticed, is one just north of the Bay Area. It’s on a hill from which you can overlook the ENTIRE San Francisco Bay Area, from the Pacific Ocean in the West to the mountains in the East, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear day, it’s just gorgeous.

I was finally at the end of my journey when everything started to get screwed up - we got to the Oakland exit(s) and realized that NONE of them were the exit for which we were looking. Uh-oh.

The road signs were a little confusing (so many of them! and not enough warning to make the right exit!) and it was sort of hard to find the place (the directions were far, far less than clear) but we were able to get there, unload my stuff, move it into my new room and collapse from exhaustion. The next day, Erik flew home to Seattle and I was, like it or not, on my own.

WHERE AM I NOW?

I’m now living in Oakland with two roommates, temporarily, as I don’t like the East Bay very much but I’ll live with it until I can find a place in the city. It’s been sort of rough trying to start over from scratch in a new state, a new city, a foreign environment… It’s scary and lonely but it’s going to be okay. That’s what I keep telling myself.

I’ve been trying to keep busy - Kurt has been giving me a lot of advice on things to do and see in the area, and I’ve been extremely grateful for that. It’s nice to know someone who knows the city so well. San Francisco really is a beautiful place, and every time I feel really desolate, I leave Oakland and drive into San Francisco and do something. Invariably, I feel better afterwards - it makes me remember why I moved in the first place.

If you want to read my bitching and moaning about how hard moving is, you can read Everything is Wrong and I Hate It Here, my blog about trying to get used to life in a new place.