The electric snowcone

Burning Man was brutal this year. We had duststorms every day. More like sand storms. In one of them, the whiteout was so thick that you needed a GPS to navigate through it. You couldn't even see an inch in front of your face. Some people wandered lost for hours at night in the chill winds. It was an ordeal, but we survived!

At one point, at the depths of my dismay with the weather and the dust, sometimes so loose and sandy that it was impossible to bicycle (or even walk) through it, I started ranting: "I hate Burning Man! I'm never coming here again!"

But of course, all that misery will fade and by next summer all I will remember are the highlights. Like this moment, when I told a new story, "The Electric Snowcone" on the main stage. I can't tell you if the audience was in rapt attention, or just so exhausted they couldn't move. It was a rare, calm sunny day, but the dust was so thick that I wore goggles on stage.

Now if I could just make sure they don't have a drum circle pounding away while I tell a story, it would be perfect!