Sunset in Paradise
Mood:
special
The sunset at Jughandle State Reserve, the evening of November 14, 2005, is one of the most spectacular visions I've ever been fortunate enough to witness. After staying inside all day long, I noticed the light coming in through the windows was pure gold, and casting some interesting shadows around the living room. An urge to see the sun before it left for the night came over me, and I knew that if I didn't hurry up and put some clothes on and get out the door, I wouldn't see it. After I donned the same garb I'd been wearing for the past few lonesome days, I grabbed a bottle of water, for I had a suspicion I might be away for a little while and might require some refreshment later. Out the door, key locking the house, key unlocking car and igniting the engine, and I'm off, down the road, with a glimpse of sunshine through the trees. Driving along the coastal highway, I noticed there were some pretty marvelous looking clouds in the sky that were going to be changed some amazing colors after the sun sank, but I couldn't take the time to look at them much until I was at my destination, which was still uncertain. Skipped by Russian Gulch, it just didn't seem to be the time for it, so I zipped on over to Jughandle, which I'd only been to once, and that had been months ago, but I had a good feeling about it. In such a rush, I veritably skipped/jogged through the thin amount of trees so I could get into viewing range. Once out of the trees, I found myself in an open field of gold, for the color of the sunshine was already golden, and it was being shone upon dry hay, so it practically glowed with life, even though it was dry and dead. The field of grass, no more than a hundred yards wide, ended right at the edge of a cliff that dropped about 100 feet down to a beach that was mainly comprised of large dark rocks covered in emerald green moss, with a few scattered tidepools. The trail that I was walking on followed right along the edge of this cliff, no more than two feet away from a fatal fall. Large waves were washing into the bay and crashing against those dark rocks with so much force that if you were between the wave and the rock, you'd be crushed like a can. The light of the sun was being cast upon the waves and creating navy blue shadows, that in combination with the backdrop of the clouds catching the golden pink glow, produced one breathtaking sight. It brought up a wellspring of emotions within me so intensely that a leak opened up in my eye that I didn't even bother trying to patch, so strong were the emotions of joy and wonderment. How truly good it is to be alive and able to experience such incredible beauty!!! As I skipped onward towards The Point, I saw that I wasn't the only person out enjoying such an phenomenal sight; there was also a middle-aged woman who was taking photographs while her young daughter and younger son were rolling around and doing carthwheels. Not being able to contain myself, I had to exclaim at how glorious of an evening it was, with which she agreed. Continuing with my walk, I reached The Point. A place where the rock came to a point and then dropped off, allowing you to see both of the bays, the one to the left and the one to the right. The one to left was the one I'd walked by, and was where the sunset was soon to occur. And to the right was the other bay, in which large waves smoothly rolled in to a sandy beach, nestled between the cliffs, with a bridge that spanned the gap behind it. Right above the bridge and the heavy green forest, the moon was rising amongst a netting of pink and purple clouds. To the west, above the ocean, the sky was rich with color, blues and yellows and pinks and oranges and purples, so many wispy clouds that were catching the last light of the sleepy sun, that began to lay its head down against the soft pillow of the ocean, and it slowly settled into bed, its eye becoming a mere slit of gold, before winking out. As the sun slumbered, its dreams began appearing above it in the sky, appearing in the most vivid colors and detail, was a flight of angels winging their way towards the light, to follow the sun and stay in the eternal sunshine. And to the east, the moon was climbing into the sky, higher above the trees now, brighter, and gaining light, as if it were absorbing the rays of the sun until the sun had dwindled away, and leaving the moon fuller and brighter than ever as the sky grew a darker shade of blue with every passing moment. As the sun sank into the sea, a strong wind began to blow in off the ocean, carrying flocks of birds along with it, all flying in the same southerly direction as the sun and the angels. A massive white bank of purple fog appeared, right above the whole horizon, as if the sun sinking into the sea creating a large cloud of steam. Other clouds fluttered across the sky, looking like long white feathers drifting in the wind, left behind from the passing of the angels. As it grew darker, the wind blew harder, coming inland from the ocean, carring a strong chill that almost had a voice, that spoke to you, telling you to run home and go indoors before the cold and dark come to get you. but I had no ears for it. Standing in the midst of the field, I watched the color of the once-pink angels melt away and become grey, and still I watched as the angels themselves dissipated and became mere wisps of my memory, until almost every drop of light had dripped into the ocean. The emotions that had taken a grip on me thirty minutes ago, before the sun had even sank, still had a grip on me. The sky was growing darker, and the moon was growing brighter. Spinning and spinning about in the reflected light of the sun, laughing merrily while I danced with my moonshadow, I realized, as I often do these days, how very blessed I am for being in this place at this time and getting to see such an incredible sight, a sight that no one else was there to witness, for the mother and children had gone well before the light was fading. Since no one else was there to see this sight, I realized it was not only my blessing to be able to experience it, but it is my duty to try and share it with those who were not fortunate enough to be there. Waving goodbye, I left this beautiful space, even though the merest bit of light lingered on the horizon, deciding there's no reason to dwell on the darkness, the death of the light, for it's all part of the cycle that ends and begins in rebirth. Heading home with a wind at my back, a bright moon above my head, and a purpose in my heart.
Burning Man
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: (partial story)
So we left on Monday morning to drive there, 3 vehicles. I wasn't driving very much because I'd eaten a potent brownie the night before and was still pretty wasted.
It was about an 8 hour journey or so to get there, and I had this mildly crazy guy riding with me, which sure made things interesting.
We get out to the playa, (spanish for beach) which is just a big wasteland. There was a duststorm blowing when we got there, so visibility was shit, and everything was getting coated with white dust right from the start. The wind made it pretty hard to get our camp sent up, so we only put up the tent that evening, before it got dark.
A friend and I decided to go ahead and visit our good friend Lucy that night, so we grabbed her and wandered off into the night, completely unfamiliar with the layout of the city. I knew that there were 7 streets in a semicircle, all with blown names like Delirium, Ego, Fetish, Catharsis, and they were interconnected with roads that were times, like 1:00 2:00 3:00 and so on.
This semicircle that Black Rock City was made up of was 2 and half miles across. So my buddy and I go wandering off into the darkness, completely unfamiliar with the city, not knowing or expecting anything that Burning Man might have to offer.
We wander out into the city, and I am just BLOWN AWAY. There is all sorts of music being played, there were these huge dome tents that wer e basically nightclubs, where they had DJs spinning music, lights dancing all around, and people having a wild time.
The people who were out and about were wearing the craziest costumes, and then they were covered in flashing or glow in the dark lights. It looked like a combination of Tron and Mardi Gras.People were just letting loose and being themselves, doing pretty much whatever they feel. I remember riding on top of this mutant vehicle (a double decker bus that was a party on wheels). I was on top, and I looked down and saw a ninja go skittering off the side of the bus and jump onto a different one.
The nighttime scene was amazing. You're out in the middle of nowhere, so there's no glow from city lights and whatnot. and they do the festival during the week of the new moon, so there's no glow from that, either, and this area is so absolutely flat that you can see for miles and miles and miles in every direction.
The heavens were so large and mighty, then you look around you, and all those lit up people and dancehalls and vehicles cover the horizon. You're looking out and it seems as if the world you're in is part of outer space, as if you're walking around through the cosmos and meeting all these strange and alien people.
The trippiest place I've ever fucking been to.
The nighttime scene was just spectacular, never seen anything like it before. There was such an air and energy of love here. 30000 people who are all together in the same place for the same thing. To let loose and have a good time. There was so much love, just being given out freely from everyone.
The whole concept of Black Rock City is about giving, and being generous. Not just with physical items, but with yourself.
During the daytime, there's so much going on, also. The landscape is COMPLETELY different than the night time.
The lights and all start fading away in the late hours of the morning, but the music continues on all day long.
The party is nonstop, it's always going on, someplace, somewhere.
There's a lot of lights and sound going on at all times, bou get used to it. There's so much to be done that you're pretty much constantly active all day long, doing something or other, being out in the hot desert sun can be pretty draining just by itself. And then at night, the galaxy comes alive, and you can't just sit around your camp, no matter how damned tired you are. There's so much to be experienced that it would be a total waste! You should be totally exhausted by the end of the night and have no problems getting to sleep.
So you end up having a long long day of going around to all these different radical workshops. Such a variety of things that people bring with them to do! You could stop by someone's camp and jam out with them, or watch porno and eat some eggs. Go critique vaginas and penises, even.
Look at all the liberated naked people wandering about getting nice suntans. People give so freely of themselves, they open up so much, since no one is here to judge or criticize. Fat ugly people walk around naked completely unabashed, and no one decries them for it. They are actually embraced more for letting go like that.
Quite liberating, really.
It's such an enchanted, place, really.
I swear that this place is made of pixie dust.
The crazy friend we brought with us seemed to fit right in for a while, had such a great time running around naked and being odd since no one was giving him shit for it. Seemed like it was a pretty good and healthy thing for him, really. He was having such a great time.
Until the end. He hadn't spent too much time at our camp during that week. He'd come back every once in a while during the day with some homosexual man he'd met during the day. He pretty much never ate from what I noticed and I think that someone fed him some bad drugs while he was off wandering around.
Coke and ketamine kombo.
No bueno.
So he really started losing it during the last few days we were there, just not making quite so much sense, not being quite as coherent and he had been.
And when the Burn was over and we were heading out, he decided that he didn't want to leave the playa, that this was his home. He decided he wanted to join the rangers who clean up the playa and get things set up and arranged, but they didn't want to have him there. Its something you have to arrage well ahead of time, and they don't really care for having to take care of crazy people.
It's a major drain on the people and the finances. So they came and told us that they would either send him to county jail or to the asylum if he didn't leave with us that morning.
He didn't want to go, it was soooooo hard to get him to just get into the vehicle with us. I really had a bad feeling about him riding along with me, because he had really changed. Totally lost it.
He hated everyone in our group except for myself and one other person, so we had to coax him into coming along with us. He sat in between us in the front seat because my car was completely crammed with stuff.
He talked and talked and talked and just wouldn't shut the fuck up. Kept saying how "our friends were evil and spreading their evil through the world and how they must be stopped, those fucking bean counters, they should give me everything I want whenever I want it, the fucks!"
He's communed with the 'zeit geist' and he has said that "this is the way it is, no more heaven, back to hell, are you takin me away from eden? I'd rather die in the desert than go back to the hell you came from!"
(basically what he was saying, except not quite as coherent as I just said it)
It was getting really really really fucked up and hard to deal with. Driving us crazy.
Welllllll, he tried kicking out the windshield,
and then he punched my dash and car a bunch.
Then crawled into the back seat, on top of all the stuff that was piled up. It's kind of illegal here not to have a seat belt on, so I knew we were gonna get pulled over for it since there were so many police cruising the roads.
Wouldn't that have been wonderful? Getting pulled over while having a schizo bastard in the car talking about how evil we are and how there are literally tons of drugs in the vehicle (which there weren't) but even then we would have gotten searched and it would be SUCH a fiasco.
So we're cruising along and he's on top of the pile of stuff, screaming and flailing and being a complete asshole.
And what do know? One Mr. Piggie drives by and turns on his cherries.
We're all worried, waiting for him to turn around and come back and pull us over.
Which never happened.
Apparently the line of cars was so damned long that he just didn't even bother with it. would have been too much hassle.
Things were getting way too intense in my car, dealing with Mr. Loony Bin, so I had to pull over. We were going fucking nuts having to deal with this fuck.
My buddy gets out of the car, and then the insane dude follows him out. Friends in the vehicle behind us pulled over, but the truck with the trailer didn't pull over. We were thinking of tying him up and putting him in the trailer so none of us had to deal with him while we were driving,
since he was quite a liability, what with his thrashing and all, he could have killed us.
And he was excited to get us pulled! So we're standing outside the vehicles, waiting for the truck to come back around, wondering what the fuck we are to do.
Dude starts flipping out, running around and shit, then he runs towards my friends car and jumps and the open door. One of my friends was standing between the car and door, and got smashed between
Then the crazy guy jumps on the hood of my car, then up on the roof and starts treating it like it is a trampoline, big grin on his face, caving it in further with each jump.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT?!?!?!?!?" I jumped on the trunk and then dove into him, tackling him onto the hood, then we pulled him onto the ground. He laid there going "Oh it hurts *cough cough*" just trying to get attention and make us feel sympathy for him
Then the fucker runs off into the desert.
We stand there going "What the fuck do we do? We can't just leave him here, can we?"
So my buddy and I, the ones who weren't considered evil by him, we ran after him and brought him back and got him into the car. He sure did show us a lot of respect and love for being the ones the he actually liked, by yelling at us and kicking at us. He wouldn't stop talking about his crazy shit, except for maybe 3 seconds, then he'd be rambling right along on the crazy train again.
He started getting violent, kicking the roofs and punching the back window. We're trying to get him to stop, to shut the fuck up and be calm.
And then he told us "Hey guys, I'm going"
With two swift kicks of his shoeless feet, he puts out one of the passenger windows. And starts climbing out feet first, while I'm driving 70 mph down the road.
Fortunate for him, I slowed down and pulled over before he hit the ground. I'm sure he cut himself up on the broken glass a bit, heard him saying ouch a bunch.
"Bye guys, I'm gone."
"I'm going."
Runs off into the desert towards this lake, wearing jeans, a tshirt, and a pair of socks.
No water. No food. No wallet. Flipping us off the whole way.
The people who have been so tolerant of all his bullshit, the people have supported his crazy ass and helped keep him in line, making sure that he's loved and t aken care of.
And he thinks we're evil. This is how he repays us, after everything we've done for him.
He'd been doing really well before the festival.
I guess it just isn't a good place for people with mental instabilities to go.
He wasn't able to cope with the loss of paradise, and felt that we were taking him to hell, even though we're going to a place almost as wonderful as that land of joy.
He couldn't cope with the disappearance of this land he felt so free in.
Poor soul. He's pretty intelligent, even has his moments of brilliance at times, but that got washed away, dissolved.
We just left him out there, on an Indian reservation, that lake was a holy lake that they keep watch on to make sure no one is swimming in it, so I'm sure he's been found and taken away by now.
We can't say that we didn't at least try. We coaxed him away from the playa, took his dangerous ass with us, risked our own life and limb to try and help him.
Brought him back when he took off, even after he'd trounced the roof of my car in.
Busting out the window was just the last straw.
This just happened yesterday. Gotta call my insurance company and tell them about it. I'm pretty sure my policy doesn't cover crazy people damage, though. :oP
I hope I can remember more of the crazy shit that goes on in my life so that I can tell all the stories someday.
Such a long time it has been
Mood:
happy
Now Playing: Snippets of classical songs that constantly run through my head
Such a long time it has been since I have posted anything on my site, anything at all. You all must be thinking that I've dropped off the face of the planet and ignored you all. Sorry! I didn't mean to! The clown pushed me, I swear! Actually, it has nothing to do with clowns, but then again, it has everything to do with them, since I myself am a clown of sorts.
So what's been keeping me? Work! Scultping! Drawing! Sleeping! (Though I get so very little of that anymore) The main thing really is that I don't have access to the internet anymore, so I rarely am even able to check my email, much less get on my site and write to you all. I wish I could be on more often, but the only chance I get to be online for more than a few minutes is when I am at me mum's house, which is very rare. But fortunately, I'm spending the day here! I got off work at 3:00 (in the morning) and a co-worker took me out to eat before I made the two hour venture. And here I shall spend the day, doing laundry and updating my site, and hopefully getting to communicate with a few of you via MSN messenger. I may not be able to, unfortunately, so I'll just have to write a lot in my blog.
What's been going on in the world of Anseldom? As I said earlier, WORK. I've been working third shift for the past 3 months in a foodservice warehouse, going around and picking the cases of food that are to be shipped out the following day. It's a pretty strenuous job, can be kind of taxing on the body. Especially now, since I'm working in the freezer section, which is usually about 35 degrees (Farenheit) below zero. Brr! I get all bundled up in winter clothes and look all funny, especially when I go out to eat lunch (at midnight :oP). People give me the oddest looks, moreso than usual, because I'm wearing all this winter clothing in the middle of summer, not just because of the piercings and whatnot. I'm getting kind of tired of my job, though, getting burnt out, though it is some very good exercise! My body got all toned and fit during the first month there, I'm nice and cut now, my abs show quite nicely. ;o) Sexy little me, hehe.
Though having a great physique has done little in the way of finding ladies. That's been a crazy affair for me. The girl I went to see last year, Candace, hasn't been talking to me the past few months. Never returns my calls or messages or anything, which is quite saddening. We kind of fell apart, since we were both working a lot and our schedules were so off, never got to talk, and we got all distanced. Not like we weren't distanced by 1200 miles in the first place. :oP But, it always sucks when something that makes you so happy dissipates and becomes merely a memory. Oh, if it weren't for lost love, I'd have no memories at all..... *long sigh of lament*
Moving on, as time has a habit of doing. That's something I've come to realize. Time doesn't stand still, it's always moving. There's no reason to get hung up on something and be stuck on it. Only brings you down and keeps you caught in the past, instead of going on and keeping up with the times. One must always keep moving. We keep moving. I'm 20 years of age now, I've seen two decades of life. I think I'm finally growing up, becoming a man, no longer a boy, no longer a child. One gets responsibilities as one gets older, and it takes control and confidence to make sure those responsibilities are fulfilled. One has to do things like WORK, and watch their finances, all that goddamn grown-up shite which I've hated all my life, and now I must become part of that world. I still hate it, of course, how could I not? I may be growing up, but I shall always remain a child at heart. (Keep telling yourself that, Ansel)
I may be working all the time so I can pay my bills, but I still find time to play. I haven't been hanging out with friends or roommates very often, I don't get to see anyone very much, (what with working third shift and all), so instead I spend my time mostly in solitude. Not complete solitude, though. I have my works to keep me company. My drawings and sculptures keep me well occupied, keep my mind focused and yet let it drift away into abstract realms in which I escape the duldrums of the routine.
And I've also been working on my juggling skills. I go downtown so that I can hang out with people for an hour or two before work, and I always make sure to bring my juggling balls with me so that I'm not just sitting on my ass wasting time like so many others do. I keep myself occupied, and also entertain the populace while I'm at it. I'm only practicing whenever I juggle, but random people come up to me and let me know I'm pretty good. Some even hand me money! Though I don't do it for money, I do it for personal entertainment and enjoyment. I actually try to give the money back, but no one ever takes it back. They feel I deserve it. Which is awesome, I won't put up any complaints about that. I've been thinking about doing some street performances sometime. All the college kids are back in town, so the population has risen dramatically. Lots of people to entertain, more chances to make off with some loot. :o) I was actually asked to come juggle at a fair this coming Monday. Maybe this could be my big break? Surely not my big one, but maybe a break, nonetheless. As long as people are entertained by my spectacle, I'll be happy. That's all I'm out for. Pleasure. Pleasing makes me pleased.
Well, I'm fucking tired. It's 7:30 in the A.M., I worked a 9 hour shift tonight. Only had about 4 hours of interrupted sleep, as has been the norm during the past few weeks, so I'm going to hit the hay. I hope I see you all later, later this day, or another one, sometime in the future.
I'm still alive and kicking, you'll hear from me again. Hopefully sooner than later. ;o)
Squiggle McGiggles
Clicky the Circus Midget
~Ansel
a-ok
blue
lucky