returned, with tan lines worse than ever

I'm back, bitches! Did you miss me? Of course you did.

Now that I've taken a long hot bath with lemon-thyme bubbles, immediately followed by an even longer hot shower, it's time to say hello to my gentle readers.

I suffered surprisingly little electronic withdrawal this past week in the internet-free desert. In fact, I quite liked antiquated living! To wit, a few examples from desert life compared to my normal lifestyle:

1. Desert: Friends drop by unannounced every day for lovely impromptu visits.

Normal life: Friend emails invitation to hang out at an event. Forget to reply. Five days later, re-discover email in horror. Apologize profusely. Friend points out with irritation that the event has already passed.


2. Desert: As friend is talking, listen. Appreciate the interesting conversation.

Normal life: As friend is talking, discreetly check blackberry under the table. When friend gets angry, protest that the email you're reading is actually from them, so you're not truly ignoring them.


3. Desert: Email accumulates over the week. Return home to find lots of nice reading material in inbox.

Normal life: Due to blackberry, constantly check email. Reply to 50% of emails within thirty minutes, making senders think they're conversing with some kind of loser with no life. Realize this impression may be accurate. Consider checking email less often, then decide instead to petition Gmail team to implement "delayed send" feature.

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Later I'll get my act together to post photos and journal excerpts and narratives of my Burning Man journey. For now, I'll leave you with a dialogue exchange that I found entertaining.

Mid-week, I'm talking to a male Googler and his girlfriend. She is wearing ropes tied in an elaborate bondage pattern, and no other clothing besides the ropes. He is holding one end of the rope. (I'm fully and normally clothed in this story -- don't get any wrong ideas.)

Me: [to the guy] These knots are really fancy. Did you find this pattern somewhere, or come up with it on your own?

Guy: I used the Google-branded search engine...

Me: What is that? Some kind of special Google-licensed search for bondage?

Guy: No, I mean that I used google.com. But as you know, if you say you "google" for something, it weakens our trademark. Thus, instead of saying "I googled it", you should say "I used the Google-branded search engine." And that's what I did, to find this rope bondage pattern, which I made slightly modifications to.

Me: That is the geekiest possible answer to a bondage question.

Bystanders: [chuckling]

Me: [thinking] So this is what Burning Man is like.