The week/weekend before Labor Day is a special time in San Francisco. It begins with a large number of citizens packing up vans and trucks with all the water, art bikes and sand goggles they can carry and then leaving for the desert in Nevada, creating what is sometimes referred to as #burningmanrapture ("Burning Man Rapture" if you don't read hashtag). This blissful week is characterized in the city by an availability of parking spots, tables at popular brunch locations and hands-on assists in yoga classes. For me, it is also tinged with sorrow. My uncle was one of the original Burning Man dudes and I have always secretly wanted to go. Every year it gets worse, with more and more of my friends going and more and more of me having a job, no car and no discretionary spending money. I always wonder what is so great that is happening over there in the hot sun? Is it really a perfect spiritual/artistic utopia? Will I ever get to join that elite group of 50,000 having SUCH A MAGICAL TIME in the desert?
This year though, I only let my jealousy consume me for a minute. Then everyone left town and I realized the only thing I could possibly do was have the best week ever:
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