Certain people are trying to convince me that I want to go to Burning Man this year.

Now, I've been before, several times, starting back in the olden days before all this business about streets and security and two hundred dollar tickets. For fear of sounding like one of those feebs who goes on about how Burning Man was so much better before, I'll stop there. Burning Man wasn't better before, only different, and much, much smaller. I think anyone who hasn't been yet, and has even a little teeny artistic freak side in them, should go. Really. There's nothing like it.

In previous years I took a lot of pictures, some of which are still languishing in a hidden directory on my other website. The last time I went I found myself not taking pictures of anything, despite my bag full of film and two cameras. I just didn't feel into it. It felt like I'd had enough, that I'd been there, done that. I didn't like that feeling. With my Burning Man experiences, the pattern goes like this. One year, I love it, I can't believe how great it is, I'm blown away by all the cool installations and I'm suddenly riding around on a giant nebulous entity wearing a glow in the dark tutu giving earth-goddess blessings to people and howling at the moon. The next year, something hits me wrong - either the weather sucks, or I get sick, or I end up sleeping through the whole thing. I think I slept through the entirety of Burning Man 2000. At least, I slept when I wasn't freezing to death or getting rained on. I then vow to never go to Burning Man again. After all, I could really use that couple grand that always seems to get blown on glow sticks and shade structures, no matter how many times I swear I'm going to just cut down on costs and re-use everything from last time.

But this year, a lot of people are going who I really want to see - now that my friends are spread all over the country, Burning Man might be the only time I see them all in one place. Even though I literally am down to my last few hundred bucks, I'm finding myself fantasizing about that week in the desert. I can't even afford the ticket. It was one thing when I had that kushy dotcom job to come back to, but now that I'm doing freelance work here and there just to baaarely cover the costs of going to my ridiculously overpriced school it seems like such a completely absurd proposition.

What do I do?