Burning Man Changed My Brain

Think a festival is just loud music and long lines? Try building a city from nothing, losing your tent to a dust storm, getting adopted by strangers, and watching 70,000 people cheer a sunset after the sky finally breaks. We go deep on Burning Man’s origin and layout, the wild generosity of the gifting economy, and why art cars, late-night DJs, and a “library” with severe late fees can add up to something close to a spiritual reset.

Heidi takes us inside her first burn: a three-day drive with a near-stranger, the shock of dust, rain, and mud, and the kindness that appears exactly when you need it. We talk about flaming octopi and sheep-shaped sound systems, disco-themed porta potties, survival in scorching heat, and the moment the city shifts from spectacle to community. Her self-protection habits start to crack, and a different kind of courage comes through.

We widen the lens to festival culture at large—from the Pythian Games to today’s explosion of music festivals—and why gatherings like this are popular. There’s a reason the phones go quiet and the conversations go deep. We unpack how to bring the best parts home: more play, more art, more purpose, and a renewed commitment to real human connection. Curious but not ready for the big burn? We point out regional burns like Alchemy near Atlanta as a welcoming on-ramp.

If you’re craving less doomscroll and more aliveness, you’ll find ideas, laughs, and hard-won tips here. Hit play, then tell us: would you brave the dust for a week that might change your mind? Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

Chapters

• 0:35 Welcome And Festival Theme
• 1:04 Burning Man Origins And Scale
• 4:41 Stats Game: Global Festival Boom
• 8:47 Festivals’ Ancient Roots
• 10:11 The Destruction of This Year's Burning Man Orgy Dome
• 10:57 The Drive With A Stranger
• 12:42 How One SF Journalist Went From Anti-Burning Man To a Believer
• 13:53 How the Black Rock Fairy Shrimp Are Like the Burning Man Attendees
• 17:08 How the Burning Man City Was Structured
• 19:17 Heidi Worked at the Burning Man Public Library
• 20:21 Burning Man Soulmate Exchange
• 20:47 Burning Man Fake I.D.s
• 21:18 Heidi's Vanity Plates
• 22:36 Heidi's Weirdest Moment at Burning Man
• 23:15 Heidi's Funniest Moment at Burning Man
• 26:34 Heidi's Grossest Moment at Burning Man
• 27:36 Showers at Burning Man
• 31:09 Heidi's Favorite Porta-Potty
• 33:56 What You Should Bring to Burning Man
• 34:54 Jane's Grilled Cheese at a Grateful Dead Show
• 37:48 Art Cars & DJs at Burning Man
• 40:22 Cell Phone Coverage at Burning Man
• 40:59 Jane at The Great Went in 1996 (or 1997)
• 44:31 Jane's Sister and the Ganga Bread
• 49:12 Jane's OCD Versus Porta-Potties
• 54:45 Relieving Yourself in the Woods
• 57:40 Returning To Everyday Life With Lessons Learned
• 1:02:27 Planning Less To Experience More
• 1:05:50 From Lollapalooza To Backstage Moments
• 1:09:52 Mini Burning Mans

Transcript

[00:00:00] Heidi: I was part of the BlackRock Public Library where you can check out books for one year and one day. 

[00:00:04] Jane: What? 

[00:00:05] Heidi: And the late fees are severe.

[00:00:09] Etienne: Did you tell them that? Every time.

[00:00:11] Heidi: Yes, it's very playful. It depends on the librarian. It could be a spank, it could be. My penalty was gonna be tell me your most embarrassing story. yeah. Others were into flogging people.

[00:00:25] Jane: Wait. What? 

[00:00:28] Heidi: I mean, 

[00:00:28] Jane: Etty's like I need to go and not return a book. 

[00:00:32] Etienne: Welcome listeners. This is The Women Are Plotting. I'm Etienne Rose Olivier and I'm here with my friends and co-hosts, Heidi Willis and Jane Gari.

[00:00:47] Etienne: On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about festivals, all different kinds of festivals, so music festivals, cultural festivals, possibly film festivals, anything that qualifies as a festival. And, Heidi is gonna be starting off our fun and or interesting fact for today.

[00:01:04] Heidi: Yes. I just got back from Burning Man, my very first time going, and so I thought I would talk a little bit about the origin story of Burning Man. So it originated on June 22nd in 1986 on Baker Beach in San Francisco. And it was just a small function organized by two guys, Larry Harvey and Jerry James, and they created a effigy a man and burned him on the beach. And then it's just grown from there to what it is today. At its peak, there's about almost 80,000 people who have participated. The attendance has gone down slightly over the past few years since COVID. So I believe, they're hovering around 70,000 participants, but people go into the desert in Nevada and create a city out of nothing basically.

[00:01:54] Heidi: And, it's centered around art and theme camps and music and just people kind of letting their inner child play for nine days. So, it changed my life, I can honestly say. And, as cliche as that sounds like I will have a time period of before Burning Man and after Burning Man. And I don't know, I'm already making plans for next year. It was amazing.

[00:02:20] Heidi: It took me until probably yesterday or today to kind of decompress and like get over the funk that everybody goes into post Burning Man because it was just so intense. So just life altering that yeah, coming back to real life is jarring to say the least. And I think not having cell coverage out there during that time kind of helps 'cause you're kind of getting a digital break as well as having these deep connections with people and experiencing this insane art and music.

[00:02:50] Heidi: Yeah, the everything about it, the intensity, well, and even the storms and having to rebuild several times and the diversity that you encounter out in the desert. It's all part of the experience. And I don't know, it definitely alters lives and I get it now. I get why people keep going back, even though the weather sucks. You're using porta-potties and you're barely showering. But there's something about the place. We're all talking about the group that I was with, we're all talking about the dreams we've been having, like we're all dreaming of still being out there. In fact, I had to change my alarms, 'cause I always have music or songs with my alarms. And a lot of 'em there were electronic or dance music and it was sending me into those dreams and I was sleeping through my alarms.

[00:03:36] Etienne: That's really cool.

[00:03:38] Heidi: So, so yeah, I had to change all my alarms 'cause I'm like, oh my gosh, this is sending me back there. So I had to change from electronic music to rock, like a rock song and that would wake me up and, okay. Yeah. It was a very intense, very, very intense experience. It continues today. Like I did a sound bath meditation at noon today, and the visuals I got were like I carried all this baggage to Burning Man and through the storms and the experiences and everything, that baggage got blown apart and exposed and I had to sort through it all and untangle it all. And I don't know, it was almost like two weeks worth of spiritual work that normally would take two years because it just felt like I got through a lot, a lot of garbage and baggage in a very short time. Yeah. So anyway, those was are all the fun

[00:04:33] Etienne: Yeah, we know we're gonna be getting way more into

[00:04:35] Heidi: wrapped up in one.

[00:04:36] Etienne: at all.

[00:04:38] Jane: Yes,

[00:04:39] Etienne: Yeah, just a pre, yeah.

[00:04:41] Jane: That was a preview. So Etienne, what is your fun fact?

[00:04:44] Etienne: Okay. Mine is gonna be a little bit of a game, guys. So let me switch over here. So this is according to Jambase, which keeps the database of festivals, which calendar year had the highest number of music festivals. So you all get to guess. Who wants to guess first?

[00:05:00] Jane: Ooh 

[00:05:02] Etienne: Okay. What about you, Heidi? What year do you wanna guess 

[00:05:05] Heidi: What was the question again? What year had the most

[00:05:07] Etienne: It was which calendar year had the highest number of music festivals?

[00:05:11] Heidi: I'm gonna guess sooner because they got really popular and there was, it seemed like there was one every weekend somewhere. I'm gonna guess right before COVID hit, so maybe 2018. 2019. 

[00:05:24] Etienne: It is 2024 is the answer. I know, I know. Crazy, right?

[00:05:31] Heidi: That's so crazy. I didn't think that they bounced back.

[00:05:34] Etienne: they have like with a vengeance, but I have a few more questions 'cause it's just fun. This is just all like 

[00:05:40] Heidi: Okay. Yeah. This 

[00:05:40] Etienne: So what was the number of music festivals in 2024? Mm-hmm.

[00:05:45] Jane: Oh, we don't get a range. We just 

[00:05:48] Etienne: You just gotta guess. Yeah.

[00:05:49] Jane: Like 

[00:05:50] Etienne: Yes. Globally. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:52] Heidi: Oh, globally, oh geez. 

[00:05:53] Jane: 3,560

[00:05:56] Etienne: three. I'm gonna put that on 3000. I'm gonna put your guess down. 3,560. Okay. Yeah. So what. You think yours is 500 is your answer Heidi? Okay. Are you changing it because of my tone of voice?

[00:06:11] Jane: This is like the price is right one, I say one.

[00:06:14] Heidi: uh, 1,555.

[00:06:18] Etienne: less than Jane or one more than Jane. 

[00:06:23] Heidi: It's, it's 

[00:06:24] Etienne: One dollar

[00:06:26] Heidi: and I always feel bad for that. Oh yeah. $1. Everybody's super 

[00:06:31] Etienne: think everybody's gone over. No, you guys are gonna, well, I mean, Jane, you did go over 'cause it was 2,840.

[00:06:37] Jane: Oh

[00:06:38] Heidi: Wow.

[00:06:39] Jane: Gonna be my first guess. 

[00:06:41] Etienne: That was definitely, you're like, no, that was not a big enough number we got. Okay, the next question. Which country had the most music festivals? 

[00:06:51] Heidi: Uh, US

[00:06:52] Etienne: Do you think that's right? England. Okay. No it was the US. We did win. Okay, so but how many music festivals did the US have? In 20 24 out of the, I was, no, no, no. Hold on. You wanna go back to 5 55? Because remember the answer for total music festivals 2,840. So

[00:07:11] Heidi: yeah 

[00:07:11] Etienne: How many? 

[00:07:12] Heidi: 5 55. No, five. 

[00:07:17] Etienne: Oh 5 55. Okay. Jane, what do you think? 

[00:07:19] Jane: 1200. 

[00:07:20] Etienne: Ooh, Jane's really close. It's 1,168. You're so close. Yes. I was shocked. That's, that's a large percentage. I mean, that's, not quite half, but it was, yeah, it's close. Yeah.

[00:07:33] Jane: We rule the music industry

[00:07:35] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. 

[00:07:37] Etienne: Okay, so here's, we have two more questions. Which state had the most music festivals? 

[00:07:42] Heidi: California 

[00:07:42] Etienne: Yes, it's California. And how many was that? How many festivals would you say California had? 

[00:07:47] Heidi: At least a hundred

[00:07:48] Jane: I 

[00:07:48] Etienne: I know. 560

[00:07:58] Jane: Five five.

[00:07:59] Etienne: What you think Jane? 

[00:08:01] Jane: I think California had 666. 

[00:08:07] Etienne: Jesus. Going 

[00:08:09] Jane: I'm sorry. I'm in a weird mood 

[00:08:11] Etienne: like mark of the beast number. Okay. Oh, Oh, You're so close. There. It was 146. Oh, I thought you said 133. Damnit. I missed the 300. I said 

[00:08:28] Jane: Just trying to cut my, my devil in half with like the Trinity, Trinity, Trinity.

[00:08:35] Etienne: so 

[00:08:35] Jane: Right. I'm gonna stop now. Something. I'm not even caffeinated. I have no excuse.

[00:08:39] Etienne: Oh, you're making my face hurt. 

[00:08:40] Heidi: I did.

[00:08:44] Etienne: Alright, Jane, it's time for your fun fact.

[00:08:47] Jane: All right. My fun fact is very serious. Um, it's no, mine is actually just that Festivals have really deep historical roots. 'Cause I was like, how long have people been gathering intentionally for some kind of cultural woo. Yeah. So the first known festival in recorded history was the Pythian Games in ancient Greece and it started in 582 BC and they had music and poetry, and people also stood up and gave speeches, which doesn't sound too fun, but It 

[00:09:21] Etienne: It could be like Ted Talks, the, you know, old times Ted Talks. Sorry.

[00:09:27] Heidi: Spoken word, political rants, I don't know.

[00:09:32] Etienne: gosh. 

[00:09:32] Jane: Probably philosophy. I mean, I would've been totally down. I would've been like, laying on me, what's going on?

[00:09:40] Heidi: What's up? Socrates. 

[00:09:41] Etienne: Wow. That's crazy. See, I was gonna guess like, oh, I bet it was Sweden. I bet it was Sweden and it was some kind of like, you know, summertime festival, but no, makes sense. Ancient Greeks.

[00:09:51] Heidi: Yeah

[00:09:51] Jane: They were just like, having the amphitheaters and putting on plays and that kind of thing. So they were just all about it and there's probably like, I don't know, maybe an orgy or two on the side. Maybe that's how all that kind of stuff happened at

[00:10:03] Heidi: basically the original Burning Man. 

[00:10:05] Etienne: That's like backstage pass only back in the time, like to go in the orgy tent.

[00:10:11] Heidi: You guys heard about the orgy dome being destroyed

[00:10:13] Etienne: I just read about it 

[00:10:14] Jane: I have not heard of an 

[00:10:16] Etienne: I didn't know they hadn't. Well, yeah. What is happening? Is that really what is, is something bad really? Is orgy really happening in Dome or what?

[00:10:23] Heidi: I guess. I don't know. I didn't, I think they had like a substitute up somewhere. Someone was talking about it, that there was parties going on there, but. I never made it to one, so I did not see, did not get to experience that. 

[00:10:38] Etienne: So well, I mean, I'm just impressed that now, you've said it's was such a significant event for you that now you're thinking, you know, there's before Burning Man time and now after Burning Man time. And that's a big statement.

[00:10:50] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I feel utterly changed. 

[00:10:53] Etienne: Who did you go with? Who were the people that you went with? 

[00:10:57] Heidi: This is the craziest part, is I went with total strangers. Pretty much 

[00:11:01] Etienne: what? 

[00:11:02] Heidi: Total 

[00:11:03] Etienne: You drove 

[00:11:03] Jane: Tell us how 

[00:11:04] Etienne: with total strangers and like. 

[00:11:06] Heidi: Yes. Well, they, okay, so the guy I rode with, he's really good friends with friends of mine in Des Moines, so not total, total strangers, but basically. Yeah, friend of a friend had talked to him a few times on the phone about Burning Man type stuff. But, he like prepped me before I went to flip side with my friends in Texas. So, I was friendly with him, but like, we were not friends. We didn't start off as friends really. Got to know each other through the drive. 

[00:11:37] Etienne: And how old is this guy? I'm just curious. I have to get a picture of him in my mind. Okay. 

[00:11:41] Heidi: Yeah. So we're similar. Yeah, we had similar, yeah, I guess generational knowledge, so

[00:11:48] Jane: What kind of vehicle are you driving? And I want to like really be in the car or the van.

[00:11:53] Heidi: I can't remember the type, or the model or whatever. But it was a pickup truck with the backseat, big bed and then trailer, and we had a trailer. 

[00:12:03] Jane: How many people are in the vehicle? Just you 

[00:12:06] Heidi: Yeah, just, just me and him. 

[00:12:08] Etienne: What? You and him. Wait. You're driving for how many days? You've never met him? I barely met him before. Now you're in a car with him for three days. 

[00:12:16] Heidi: Yes. Yeah. It could have been a serial killer. 

[00:12:19] Etienne: This sounds like, the kidnapping like, 

[00:12:22] Heidi: Oh, 

[00:12:22] Jane: It's a reality 

[00:12:23] Heidi: Hey, I, I've already started a whole screenplay based on what all happened. The basis of the characters are me and him, but the characters I've come up with are completely different. But yeah, I'm excited about it. I got a whole story that's gonna shine a really nice light on Burning Man itself. 

[00:12:42] Heidi: 'Cause I think it's gotten because of news stories going out about the orgy dome and someone being murdered there or baby being born. Like it's got all this weird press around it where they kind of lose sight of what really happens there, which is like deep human connection.

[00:12:58] Heidi: There was a opinion piece in the SF gate of this guy who was just very anti Burning Man, just thought poo-pooed it and all these people dressing up in weird costumes and didn't like the music. And by the end of the article, as he's meeting these people and he is just like, okay, I'm convinced.

[00:13:15] Heidi: Like, yeah, I see the value in this and see how this can change people's lives for the better. So, yeah, it was really interesting to read that and go, yep. Even the most Scroogiest, scrooge hearted person can go to Burning Man and be like, wow, okay, yeah. This is how life could be if we all just connected more on a personal basis and let the garbage kind of fall away, and let your inner child play, be creative and try and make this community of people who just take care of each other. There's a saying that they have, the playa provides, so whatever you need, you just happen to get it. 

[00:13:53] Heidi: And oh gosh, there was a really cool story that a girl I met on the very last night, I think her name is Bendi, but she was talking about how, and I should have looked this up, but I guess there's fairy shrimp that lived deep underneath because where they set up Burning Man is BlackRock desert area. And it's an old lake bed. So there used to be water there and there's these fairy shrimp that live deep underground, and I guess they've developed like a neuro network amongst each other, kinda like mushrooms. And they're all constantly checking in on each other, like, What do you need? What do you need? That's how they're surviving as like a community. 

[00:14:31] Etienne: Wow. 

[00:14:31] Heidi: Deep underground is like they're sharing resources and she was comparing it to how what happens when we all get together in the desert in Nevada is we're creating this neural network. It's somehow, whatever you're needing, someone has. It's miracles all the time. And I saw it happen, during the dust storm. People just coming and helping each other. And when my tent got destroyed during the windstorm someone had a box truck that I could sleep in and so I had shelter. Yeah. So things just, it, it's wild. Like any kinda little problem that sprung up there was a fix or someone to help or some solution that landed in your lap. 

[00:15:09] Etienne: Oh. 

[00:15:09] Heidi: So what she was talking about, she was relaying it to, and I'm like, yeah, we're totally developing some kind of telepathic neural network where we're communicating with each other. 'Cause serendipity just happens all the time there. And so when you get so used to that, living that way, where you're just so connected with people and then you come back to this very disconnected world, it's very jarring. Very, very jarring. And then facing yourself, you know? 'Cause I came back to my old self staring me in the face and, all right, well, we've got some things we'll work on and look at. And yeah. So yeah, just the interchange with that girl about that story, I just thought found it fascinating. 

[00:15:51] Etienne: Yeah. 

[00:15:51] Heidi: Profound. 

[00:15:52] Etienne: And you said it was fairy shrimp, right? I'm hearing this right, right. Okay. Like shrimp that you would eat

[00:15:59] Heidi: yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:00] Etienne: fairy like 

[00:16:01] Jane: They live in Stone Mountain too. There's these shrimp that will lay in these old lake beds or in Stone Mountain, it's actually in the granite itself. But there's like these shrimp that they'll lay eggs and the eggs stay dormant. And then when it rains, they come through life, like in the puddles and stuff like that. But they can lay a dormant for a while and it's just weird. It's like these places where you're like, how are there possibly shrimp here? And it's because there were at one point, and then they just keep regenerating and that they lay eggs, and the eggs wait. And then they're like, Ooh, rain or whatever, you know, some kind of sort, yeah. Seriously. And then they just kind of, they're like these little sea 

[00:16:34] Etienne: Oh yeah. Yes. They 

[00:16:35] Jane: add water and then they come to life.

[00:16:37] Heidi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like sea monkeys, that that must be what they are because yeah. Sea monkeys are dormant and so you put 'em in the water and then they come to life. 

[00:16:45] Jane: So Heidi, for our listeners, could you walk us through kind of like chronologically you arrive at Burning Man with this half stranger who now is no longer a stranger. 'Cause now you've been traveling for three days together in a truck with a trailer, right? So you get to Burning Man. What is it? Is there a sign in process? Do you have an assigned campsite and you just start building your little village one little hut at a time?

[00:17:08] Heidi: So, there's actually teams that arrive about a month before we all do, and they're the ones creating the roads and surveying everything and kind of plotting out the city and the way the city is organized is like a clock face almost. So they start off at usually two o'clock and go all the way to 10 o'clock, and then the rest is out here is like the playa where all the art installations are, and there's no roads out there. And then they go in A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. I think K is as far as they go, oh, I've got a map right here. I could look. 

[00:17:47] Etienne: Sorry, just 

[00:17:48] Jane: second. I was, I thought you were gonna go through the whole alphabet, and I was like, Heidi, what did they do to your brain out there?

[00:17:55] Heidi: I was, oh yeah, it did go to K and this year it was, oh, you would love it. They did, author names. So it was Atwood, Bradbury. 

[00:18:04] Jane: Of course. 

[00:18:05] Etienne: You have, tell us all the names now. You can't stop there. Sorry.

[00:18:10] Heidi: Well, I'm not gonna go through all of 'em. Um, but we

[00:18:16] Jane: Come on you. You said the 

[00:18:17] Heidi: Okay, Terry. So we were on Dick for Philip K Dick.

[00:18:21] Jane: Oh, I was like,

[00:18:22] Heidi: We were, we were four 30, well, like 4 35. And Dick

[00:18:27] Jane: Sorry, I'm 12. Sorry. 

[00:18:30] Heidi: Yeah. Oh, everybody. Yeah. Everybody on Dick played it up. So, then Ellison, then Farmer, then Gibson, Herber

[00:18:39] Jane: Wait. Gibson for William Gibson

[00:18:40] Etienne: That's what I assume, right? 

[00:18:42] Heidi: Maybe, I guess

[00:18:43] Jane: I that's because I love him. I'm going with Yes. Okay.

[00:18:46] Heidi: Herber, Ishiguro.

[00:18:48] Jane: Yes

[00:18:49] Heidi: Jemisin. Kilgore

[00:18:52] Jane: Yes. Jemisin. Have you guys read her Stone Circle stuff? I mean her stone. Um, 

[00:18:58] Etienne: No. 

[00:18:58] Jane: She wrote the 

[00:18:59] Etienne: Oh, she's got the, she just held the map 

[00:19:01] Jane: with a name.

[00:19:02] Heidi: Can you see that? Can

[00:19:04] Jane: That's really cool.

[00:19:04] Etienne: Wow. That's 

[00:19:06] Heidi: And there was hundreds of theme camps. Hundreds. We have 'em all listed on here. Hundreds. Yeah. I would need reading glasses to be able to read. 

[00:19:15] Etienne: Oh my God. The names are on there. Holy 

[00:19:17] Heidi: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And they had everything they had. Radio station they had, I mean, I was part of the BlackRock Public Library where you can check out books for one year and one day. 

[00:19:28] Jane: What? 

[00:19:29] Heidi: And the late fees are severe.

[00:19:33] Etienne: Did you tell them that? Every time.

[00:19:35] Heidi: Yes, it's very playful. It depends on the librarian. It could be a spank, it could be. My penalty was gonna be tell me your most embarrassing story. yeah. Others were into flogging people.

[00:19:49] Jane: Wait. What? 

[00:19:52] Heidi: I mean 

[00:19:53] Jane: etty's like I need to go and not return a book.

[00:19:56] Heidi: People intentionally do it. They intentionally go and they're wanting the punishment. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Bars galore. There was bike repair places. I actually had to go and find one of those places to get my bike repaired. Yeah. 

[00:20:12] Etienne: Hmm. 

[00:20:12] Heidi: Well, our camp has camp bikes and they're all pretty old and been abused on the playa, so yeah, I went there for fix it. 

[00:20:26] Heidi: They have a place called Costco, which is like the soulmate exchange depot or 

[00:20:27] Etienne: Did you say Soulmate exchange. 

[00:20:30] Heidi: Soulmate. So you bring like a friend and then you say you're turning them in or whatever, and you want a new soulmate, and so you fill out a whole questionnaire. It was a lot of fun. So somebody got my sheet and I got their sheet, and so I got two different met really fascinating, really cool people that way. 

[00:20:48] Heidi: I also got like a fake id, you know, basically just like an all access, BlackRock City, identification card, just silliness.

[00:20:58] Jane: What was your name on the card?

[00:21:00] Heidi: Plot Twist. 

[00:21:01] Etienne: Ooh 

[00:21:02] Jane: Oh 

[00:21:02] Etienne: Nice. Nice.

[00:21:05] Heidi: Yeah, that's my playa name, Plot Twist. 

[00:21:07] Jane: Did you choose it yourself or does someone name you?

[00:21:09] Heidi: Well, I got it at flip side because of my license plate, so yeah, I just easy to transfer over to Burning Man.

[00:21:18] Jane: Wait, what do you mean because of your license plate. Does your license plate say plot twist and i've never known this.

[00:21:22] Heidi: Yeah. It, oh well. I just got it last year.

[00:21:25] Jane: Oh, okay. Okay. I was like, I, I totally would've. 

[00:21:28] Heidi: Just got 

[00:21:29] Etienne: Wait, why? Oh, you're just basing this off of your, but your car wasn't there, right? Like you drove with him in the truck, right? 

[00:21:35] Heidi: No, but this was at flip side. 

[00:21:37] Etienne: Oh, flip side was the one outside of 

[00:21:39] Heidi: the Texas, yeah. Yeah. Yep. 

[00:21:42] Etienne: Okay. 

[00:21:43] Jane: So your license plate says plot twist. Does it say, is it like PLT? Like does it leave out the vowels? Okay. Yeah. Yes, 

[00:21:50] Etienne: P-L-T-T-W-S-T. 

[00:21:53] Heidi: I actually had a guy, I was in Oklahoma getting gas and the guy came running out, wanted to talk to me just solely on the plates, wanted to know the backstory, and then was disappointed I didn't live nearby. He was actually kind of cute.

[00:22:08] Jane: Oh,

[00:22:09] Heidi: He's like, you sound really fascinating. I wanna keep talking to you. It's like, well, I am just driving through.

[00:22:16] Jane: Oh my goodness. But that's very fitting. You said that you've had some deep connections with people at Burning Man, what was, okay? What's the weirdest thing? If you had to pick the weirdest thing that happened, not necessarily the most fun or like, you know, the 

[00:22:30] Etienne: deep. 

[00:22:31] Jane: the weirdest. I want weirdest and then I want grossest, and then you can tell us whatever 

[00:22:35] Etienne: There you go. I like that. 

[00:22:36] Heidi: Weirdest. I guess the sunsets were kind of freaky to me because we would have these huge storms that would test everybody and then the skies would just be otherworldly, like sun rays going through the clouds and just shining up everything. After one of the bad rainstorms, we had one of those sunsets, and I'm telling you, the entire city erupted in cheers and like, yay and just woops and it was incredible just to see and hear. So I guess that was kind of weird because it was just supernatural. I don't know. There's just so many ways that miracles were happening all the time. I don't know.

[00:23:15] Heidi: Something funny that happened was, so one of the camp mates, he reads outside the porta-potties and he reads from this book, and I can't remember the name of it. It's something like anal pleasure and keeping of anal, whatever, whatever. And it was written by a doctor and it was all about the importance of anal pleasure in taking care of the anal region. And it's very clinical and funny. And when he uses his like academia voice, hilarious. So he's reading this book outside the porta-potties and people are just cheering and,

[00:23:47] Jane: Wait, is he on some kind of scaffolding and you guys are waiting in line to go to the 

[00:23:51] Heidi: No, no, we have our lawn chairs. We purposefully brought our lawn chairs, our water and just sat there and he's reading, by the Porta-Potties. And he is reading this book with, with, with a, megaphone. So I was like, well, we have the shiterature sampler here too. So he read two stories outta that. I heard one of 'em. He said that people were clapping for fold and wipe. I didn't get to witness it or he, I just heard about it. But he read, fold and Wipe to a crowd of people, and people were clapping for that story. And so my idea for next year is to laminate a bunch of the books and put 'em all in the Porta-Potties

[00:24:33] Etienne: Oh, that'd be so good. 

[00:24:34] Jane: Wow. All right. So for audience members, the Shiterature sampler is like the beta version of Flush This Book, this project that Heidi and I worked, Flush This Book is available as an ebook, but we're trying to get a traditional publisher for 'cause it really needs to be a physical thing that 

[00:24:49] Heidi: Yeah. 

[00:24:49] Jane: the 

[00:24:50] Heidi: And I think we need to go back to shiterature. 

[00:24:52] Jane: A hundred percent. But literature was like the original name because it's literature that you read in the shitter, but it's all just true stories about poop. And we put together this book of about a dozen stories of things that had happened to us or friends. And so you bring a couple of copies with you two Burning Man and somebody is reading them then to people in front of the Porta-potty. That's amazing. And Fold and Wipe is the story of like just a septic tank disaster that happened at my grandparents' house when I was young. And it just like shit everywhere. But it's a really appropriate thing to read actually front of

[00:25:24] Heidi: Yeah, well I got to hear him recite Postpartum Decompression, which was hilarious to hear a man read it. Yeah, he did so well. And yeah, people were clapping and cheering and I had a few books with me, so they came by and got some, and then they were giving them out at the library and people were wanting them signed and stuff. So it was really

[00:25:46] Jane: That's so great.

[00:25:47] Heidi: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:48] Jane: I mean, yeah.

[00:25:50] Heidi: Yeah. It was a perfect gift for the gifting economy there. 'Cause that's a big thing is giving, so I have so many little gifts that I got stones, little pieces of art. Stickers. Pens. Yeah. So I have a whole little collection. 

[00:26:06] Etienne: So wait. Yeah. You were also supposed to tell us the grossest thing that happened while you were there.

[00:26:10] Heidi: Oh yeah. So many gross things.

[00:26:13] Jane: Was it also by the Porta-Potty? Oh, and quick plug, you can read Postpartum Decompression for free on amazon.com. If you look at Flush This Book, it's actually the free sample that is given away. Flush This Book. Yes. If you, if, if you're curious about what it's like to take a shit after having a c-section. But, all right. So other gross things. Heidi's grossest moment at Burning Man.

[00:26:34] Heidi: The porta-potties got pretty nasty. So the night I went out dancing with my friend Danny, he dressed up like a carrot, and I had a skeleton onesie. And we're just riding our bikes around like we're 10 riding from DJ to DJ, just dancing our maniac butts off, oh God, it was such a great night.

[00:26:53] Heidi: But at one point I had waited too long to go pee, and yeah, I did not make it all the way, so I kind of peed myself, but I'm like, well, it's mixed up with the sweat and I'm in this onesie. Oh, well

[00:27:08] Jane: In your skeleton onesie.

[00:27:10] Heidi: My skeleton onesie. So yeah, 

[00:27:12] Etienne: Oh my God. 

[00:27:13] Heidi: I had wet myself a little bit, but Oh well. I was like, I haven't showered in days and I'll shower tomorrow. And I did. I showered the next day. So, oh, which by the way, I got over my public nudity thing real quick because Oh, you're so naked in front of everybody for these showers. 

[00:27:31] Jane: Wait, 'cause you're showering. What? Like gym class style circa 1985. Like you're just there. 

[00:27:36] Heidi: They had two little things that they had kind of Jimmy rigged next door. We were getting water from them and they had set up these shower things that they technically had for set, like a door and everything, but it was like illuminate, you could see through it. So, so yeah, you're showering, but you get so desperate that you're just like, whatever. I don't care. 

[00:27:59] Etienne: Um. 

[00:28:00] Heidi: There's so many naked people running around, it doesn't matter. Like you can just be one of many. That first shower after all the storms was amazing. It was the reset I needed. 'Cause it was right after I kinda had a mini breakdown. 'Cause it was, I don't know, right in the middle of one of those bad ones and I just 

[00:28:17] Etienne: were these 

[00:28:18] Heidi: the storms? 

[00:28:19] Etienne: storms? What kind of storms were these? 

[00:28:20] Heidi: The first one was a dust storm and it was like 15 mile per hour winds just sustained. I mean, just like nonstop. No, we were outside. My tent fell apart that day. I was trying to save it. I was on the outside with goggles, face mask, trying to save it and to no avail. It was garbage from the beginning. Very frustrating experience with that tent. By the third or fourth storm, 'cause we started getting rain and the next storms there were wind and rain and mud. And we were constantly having to tear down and rebuild the library over and over. And I just, I don't know, had a break down. I felt so alone 'cause I was there with strangers and almost everybody had a partner or a friend that they came with or had been going for a while. So they knew what's up. Not me. I had nobody, like all the first timers, they had somebody it seemed like. So yeah, I just had a breakdown and cried. And then me and one of the other first timers were just like, let's go take showers. So we showered butt-ass naked for everybody to see and she was shy too. And we're just like, I guess we're just getting over ourselves and. Yeah, but it was a glorious, even though it was like just kind of this weird contraption with this water pump that you would use for a pond or something. 

[00:29:36] Etienne: Oh, it actually had a pump because I was imagining, 'cause you can get those camp showers or camping showers I guess, where it just looks like it's a bag of water that's 

[00:29:45] Heidi: yeah, yeah 

[00:29:47] Etienne: held up basically. Somebody just hold it for you and just let it trickle on you, that kind of thing. So that's 

[00:29:53] Heidi: Yeah. They actually had some pumps and you're not supposed to put anything on the playa, you know? So they had the plastic down that was collecting the gray water and letting it evaporate or

[00:30:04] Jane: wait, so you're just kind of standing in a puddle of your

[00:30:06] Heidi: No, no, no, no. It's up on platforms and it's going through and going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank God. No. Yeah. So yeah, they have like a little system and I'm so grateful they had it. 'cause I can't imagine being there those nine days and not showering. That would've been horrid. But as it was, I only took probably four showers the whole time and I was there for 10 days. No, 11 days. Yeah, 11 days. So yeah, peeing myself a little bit. Just going in there period. Especially when it's middle of the night and the place is trashed. You're just like, okay, whatever. I'm probably gonna get pee or poop on me, somebody else's pee or poop on me. But it is what it is.

[00:30:49] Etienne: I can never go 

[00:30:52] Jane: No, I mean, that happened to me at a festival that I went to, so I'm just like, just 

[00:30:58] Etienne: You peed on your onesie at a festival?

[00:31:00] Jane: No, no, no. Just like the whole, like, 

[00:31:03] Heidi: Having to deal with everybody else's poop and pee. 'Cause the porta potties. Yeah

[00:31:08] Jane: Yep.

[00:31:09] Heidi: Some of the camps took over certain porta-potties and like decorated 'em really nice. And my favorite was the disco in space. And I have pictures for you guys 

[00:31:19] Etienne: Disco in space. Okay. 

[00:31:22] Heidi: Oh God. It had like little fans going in there and air fresheners and they had totally decked it out and had hand sanitizer and lotion and extra toilet paper in there. It was, yeah. I would wait in line for that sucker. 

[00:31:35] Etienne: oh man. 

[00:31:36] Heidi: it was, and and it had like, a picture, had a picture of Donna Summer on the moon and they were like, Donna Summer singing on the moon. Just so, just ridiculous 

[00:31:47] Jane: Random. 

[00:31:48] Heidi: Totally random. And, yeah, they were playing disco music in there and they had lights going so you could see it, you're like, oh, there's the disco Porto. The next to it was Hawaiian themed one and they had Hawaiian jungle noises going and yeah, it was all luau and 1950s, sixties kitch of Hawaii. Um. And then they had like a French one you could hear, I don't know, they got it maybe from a French porno, but just like French people talking. And then, and then you would hear someone moaning, you're like, oh my God, what is happening? But it was all pictures of Maria Antoinette

[00:32:23] Etienne: Oh, with the big 

[00:32:24] Heidi: that movie. Yeah, it had pictures of the movie, just French everywhere and it was all elegant inside. But yeah, those theme Portos really helped with get through the week. I think. 

[00:32:38] Etienne: Oh 

[00:32:39] Heidi: Especially if you had to take a shit, you're like, all right, I really wanna take a shit in the nice, smell good one that is entertaining. And it was halfway comfortable because yeah, during the day, the temperatures were brutal. Well one day I got really sick from the heat, which sent me to the Portos over and over and I'm sitting in there and it's like a freaking sauna. You're being cooked while you're 

[00:33:02] Jane: we talking? 

[00:33:04] Heidi: I don't know. I should bring a thermometer with me next time, but at least a hundred plus in the portos had to been 110, 120 because like, it just, we get so stifling hot. Yeah. ' Cause it got near a hundred on a few of the days. It was the high nineties. Yeah. Friday and Saturday were really hot. They were up to a hundred. But yeah, it was later on in the week after it rained so much, it got kind of humid and so the humidity with the heat just really got to me. And so I was sick for a whole day. Yeah, running to the Portos to shit, and that was no fun. But, being able to get into the disco Porto was nice. So yeah, kind of like a break from the heat. But yeah, I would come back and just be drained and have to chug water for an hour straight. And then, yeah, that was a bad day, but was able to bounce 

[00:33:52] Etienne: Yeah. Did you have to like, bring your own food? Like how did you, even in your wa your own water

[00:33:56] Heidi: Yeah. You have to bring your own food, water, everything. Everything you would need. 

[00:34:00] Etienne: that's. 

[00:34:01] Heidi: Yeah. Water. We didn't have to worry about too much. I mean, we still brought enough to get us through the initial setup and then tear down. The camp next to us had a big water thing delivered several times. So we got our water from them. We would go over there and get our jugs all filled up from them. And then there was an ice place and that was the only place where you would actually use cash for, everything else is cashless. Like, it's just a gift. So any bar you went to, you just drink whatever they were giving you for free. So, if it was a food camp, they would give their food away for free. So there was a camp called Scone Fuckers, and they made different scones every day plus a bar. What? 

[00:34:43] Etienne: I'm just curious how they would bake, like how did they, did they, have like a camper 

[00:34:47] Jane: am sure they brought generators and

[00:34:49] Heidi: yeah, yeah. There's people, they set up full kitchens over there. Yeah. I mean, 

[00:34:54] Jane: like a Grateful Dead happenings. Like I spent time following the dead to different location was like in a former life when I was in my very early twenties. But, there'd be people who would bring a little mini generator and then there would just be like the grilled cheese dude. And all he would do was just like, make grilled cheese sandwiches and give them to people. Or sometimes they'd charge a dollar 'cause then they were trying to like get money to buy a ticket to go to the show. 'Cause, these were people who followed the Dead around. That was their entire lives. I was just like, this was just my summertime. Or if they came in the fall, I would go see them or go to another city or just a couple cities in a row. There was just always people, it was that kind of culture, a lot of bartering. But people would have these little generators and they would cook or like little propane stoves. And then they were just making tacos and making stuff. And, I definitely, I ate a lot of veggie tacos and grilled cheese sandwiches from people who definitely had no kind of like health code passing anything, but you're watching them do it, you know what I mean? There's just like a stack of breath. And that was when you just get high and eat a grilled cheese sandwich from a stranger, which my current self is like, wow, you did that? And you know what? And i'm still 

[00:35:57] Etienne: Yeah, you lived, oh my God, you lived. 

[00:36:00] Jane: I never got food poisoning. And they were like the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had in my life were at Grateful Dead shows. So weird.

[00:36:09] Heidi: Yeah. There was some grilled cheese people out there. We had one night, what did we have? I'm sure it was like right before one of the big storms when we went to like this Viking era one, it was like a big deal, whatever they had, they brought out the roast. It was like pulled pork. I don't know.

[00:36:26] Jane: with fairy shrimp. 

[00:36:27] Etienne: Oh no. Oh no. All the fairy shrimp.

[00:36:33] Heidi: There was midnight ramen came home to that one day. I was like, oh yes, I will have some ramen. That would be, that sounds yummy. Yeah. There was always somebody trying to grab you and bring you into their camp to offer you something. So one of the coolest campsite I found the very last day, was Shit Ain't Good.

[00:36:52] Etienne: Shit Ain't Good. 

[00:36:53] Heidi: They just ran a bar. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. Camp Shit Ain't Good. But they were awesome. Like the people that I connected with, there were just really good souls. Uh, I don't know. Had really great conversation. That's where that girl relayed that story about the fairy shrimp. And, I don't know, it was really cool. They were telling me about their camp and I look forward to seeing how it next year getting more exposure and seeing more. Hopefully storms will stay away and I can get the full week as it was we only got like half the experience. But they held movie nights. They would do games and yeah, they just had a bar going all week long, inviting people in for their shitty punch is what they called it. It was really good actually, yeah.

[00:37:40] Jane: You know what was in it?

[00:37:41] Heidi: no

[00:37:41] Jane: Oh

[00:37:43] Heidi: I have no idea.

[00:37:44] Jane: was it alcoholic or

[00:37:45] Heidi: Yeah, it was alcoholic. I have no idea, but it tasted good. 

[00:37:48] Heidi: Oh, another favorite thing to do there is getting on an art car and listening to the DJs play and, you know, going from art installation to art installation. Yeah. One of my favorite nights we all got on, there was a group of four of us went out and we got on the one called Alien Invasion. Two amazing DJs. I have no idea what their names

[00:38:08] Jane: Were they Rufus Du Sol? Because I know that they were a burning man, and I was gonna tell you that you should make a point to go see them because they're 

[00:38:15] Heidi: I, don't, I don't, I don't, think so. I don't think it was Rufus Du Sol But. I saw so many different really amazing DJs that I have no idea what their names were. No idea. 

[00:38:25] Etienne: oh. 

[00:38:26] Heidi: But one of my favorite art cars, well, two of my favorite, so there's El Poopo, which is like this metal octopus thing that shoots out fire

[00:38:36] Jane: Oh, I thought you were gonna say fake poop.

[00:38:39] Heidi: No fire, in sequence to the music. So it, it was amazing to catch that art car, wherever it would be posted up at, and just checking that out for a little bit. And then, Boz was like, this giant sheep had the best DJs. Oh my God. It was, it was,

[00:38:56] Jane: this

[00:38:56] Heidi: It was amazing. Yeah. The art cars ran the gamut. I was on a Flintstones, one that looked like the Flintstones car called the Abu Dhabi Doo. That was a group out of Reno. I was on with 'em for a night. 

[00:39:08] Jane: Now are they actual cars? Are they like floats from a parade 

[00:39:11] Heidi: No, they're actual, like, they're mutant cars is what they call 'em. So some are like one of those ones where you can just kind of flip 'em all down and it looks like a truck when it's out there. But once it comes into BlackRock city, like they unfold it and get it all set up. But yeah, these are crazy cars. Like they're 

[00:39:29] Jane: are they powered by?

[00:39:31] Heidi: Gasoline

[00:39:31] Jane: EVs? Oh

[00:39:32] Heidi: No, most of 'em are gasoline. Either used to be a bus and now they're this crazy contraption and they're giant too. Like two and three stories or they're double decker buses that have been turned into these

[00:39:45] Jane: What? Oh, that's cool.

[00:39:47] Heidi: Yeah. I'll send you guys some pictures, but yeah, or if you Google, for the audience, if you Google art cars Burning Man, you'll find a bunch of 'em. So, that was some of the funnest nights is going from art installation to art installation on these art cars and hanging out with people and getting to meet interesting people. Yeah. Listening to great music. Like it was just all encompassing, you know, just, and all the lights, everybody's lit up, person, the installations are lit up. The music venues are lit up. People are lit up, bikes are lit up. So it's just

[00:40:22] Jane: no cell phones.

[00:40:22] Heidi: Yeah. No cell phones

[00:40:24] Jane: see, that's

[00:40:25] Etienne: Is it because you couldn't like charge 'em or there was no towers 

[00:40:28] Heidi: No, No, the towers couldn't handle the amount of people, 'cause I did have service, like in the beginning, while we were building, before all the people arrived. So I had service up until Sunday. I mean, not much. I couldn't like watch videos or scroll at all. Like I could get text messages out and occasionally text messages would come in. But for the most part, I think that's just the cell towers can't handle the volume of people. So

[00:40:54] Jane: How many people

[00:40:55] Heidi: 70,000 move in so out of nothing.

[00:40:59] Jane: See, I thought that it'd be more, I dunno. I went to, what was it? It was called The Great Went and it was a Phish sponsored festival, but it was like art and music. But Phish would play like not, but not like all day, every day. But it was like a three day thing in Limestone, Maine In 1996? Yes. It, it was 96 or 97 'cause I just remember the apartment that I was living in at the time. But, when we got there, we were celebrating that we were like either the largest or the third largest city in Maine, just because there were over 240,000 people in this valley. Yeah. It was insane. Like a lot of people and it was just for three days. It wasn't like your experience, Heidi, and there were no showers for sure. 'cause I brought like a tub of baby wipes with me that everybody made fun of un until they needed them. But, same thing, like we set up a tent and then it rained really, really hard and we were stuck in the tents and peeing in a bowl because we're like, I gotta pee, but there's nowhere

[00:41:55] Heidi: Oh my gosh. I got one of those artificial penises for, for women, like the funnels or whatever that was that a lifesaver, I peed in so many bottles.

[00:42:04] Jane: I need one of those for the next time I'm stuck in traffic on a

[00:42:08] Heidi: Seriously, it is a game changer.

[00:42:11] Jane: But that festival was amazing. I like Phish, as a band to hear them live. And I don't like listening to them unless I'm there. But just the vibe and this was before cell phones, like nobody had any, but that sense of community, like somebody needs something and so you have something or somebody's tents all fucked up and you're just helping them with that or, I don't remember buying anything there. I just remember it was like a grateful dead situation where it's just like, oh, there's grilled cheese guy. And I was just like, I brought some stuff, and we brought a big thing of my boyfriend at the time was big on, he had just experimented with, he was growing a lot of marijuana at the time in a closet, under grow lights with seeds that he had brought back, but I was with him when he got them, in Amsterdam. And so there was some really famous strains, Northern Lights and Purple Haze, and they were growing in his closet. And then he made a hybrid out of the two, so it was really good marijuana. And then he took the leaves and cooked them in butter so that the THC would leach into the butter. And then he would make different compound butters out of that, so he would use it in cooking. And so he made some amazing zucchini bread that tasted just like normal zucchini bread, but it was not normal zucchini bread. And, fun story, my sister forgot about this. And, my sister does not do stuff like that. Generally, she's only done it a handful. I count on one hand and one of them was at the Great Went Festival 'cause she and her now husband were with us. And, this dude named Colonel who was their friend who I didn't know until that festival. And then, my boyfriend at the time and myself and that guy Colonel, who was like the fifth wheel of our two couples. And this dude, he didn't bring a toothbrush for three days

[00:43:51] Heidi: my God. 

[00:43:52] Jane: Um, and my car didn't have air conditioning. Like the drive from New York to Maine was long and my car kept breaking down. But we got there, because that whole trip from New York to Maine, we kept running into people at every rest area. There were people going to the same festival. There were all these VW bus situations and people, we all looked like a bunch of dirty hippies 'cause we all were a of hippies. And 

[00:44:13] Heidi: look too. You can

[00:44:14] Jane: Yeah. And you just know exactly, you're just like, you're going together. So you have friends before you even get to the festival 'cause you keep running into the same people on the journey. But the zucchini bread situation, we were trading zucchini bread for thing, but we were telling 

[00:44:26] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:44:27] Jane: you know, they were happy to have it. We were just like, I'll trade you grilled cheese sandwich for this ganja zucchini bread. 

[00:44:32] Jane: And my sister forgot it was ganja zucchini bread and it was raining and we're in the tent. And, she's just like, I'm so hungry. And we had food in the car, but we didn't have enough time. We had enough time to set up the tent. 'Cause we saw, it was when we first got there and there was thunder cloud rolling in because it was August. And we were just like, ah. And then it started pouring everybody in the tent, but the food was still safely in the car. But now we're like, okay. And it just did not stop raining, so we just went to sleep. And then when we woke up in the morning, my sister was just like, I'm so hungry. And so she's eating this zucchini bread and I was just like, oh, wait, you know? I was like, remember, it's ganga zucchini bread. And she's like, well, I saw you have some. How much did you have? And I was just like, oh, I only had half a piece. And I didn't wanna freak her out, but I was like, oh, well how much did you have? And she's like, I had two pieces. And I was like, oh, shit. So she was like, am I gonna be okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah. But in my head I was like, oh no, this is gonna be a problem. And so just waited 45 minutes later if you've never ingested that kind of product. It takes about 45 minutes and all of a sudden you're just like, whoa. You know? And, the first thing she said to me when it kicked in, she's just like, am I awake or asleep? And I was like, oh no. 

[00:45:36] Etienne: That's a question. 

[00:45:37] Jane: like, like, awesome. So I was like, let me babysit my sister. Oh. And she would, and I was so tired, 'cause she was eating it really early, the sun had just come up. And none of us had clocks or watches or phones. So I didn't know what the fuck time it was, but everybody else in the tent was asleep. And my sister's eating zucchini bread at the corner, like a heathen, and just like ah, you know? And I was just like, ah. And 

[00:45:59] Etienne: Like all of it without telling anybody and then you wake up and 

[00:46:03] Jane: That would've been terrible. But she had seen me like, I was actually really hungry too. And so I was just like, I'm just gonna have half of this. 'Cause I saw the sun was coming up and then when I wake up I'll just be high. It'll be awesome. But little high, not big high. She was big high. I kept kind of nodding off again and she was holding, like clutching my hand. She's like, don't leave me here. And I was like, okay. I was like, on this side of consciousness, I will not leave you alone. So I stayed with her and then we peed in a bowl and the boys were all still sleeping. And then when they woke up, the sun was coming out and her high was calming down a little bit. And there were people doing a Maypole, um, I dunno if you've ever done a Maypole, but I was just like, you have to come outside and then you'll feel better. She's like, I don't think I could go out there. She was just like, why don't we just stay in here in our own little cave with our bowl of pee? And just like, I was 

[00:46:46] Etienne: bowl of pee. 

[00:46:48] Jane: I was like, we have to empty this bowl of pee and we have to go outside. And we did. And then she had a wonderful time and we did a maypole and then somebody had a kite and it was just like fun. And I was, she's like, we should get rid of the zucchini bread. I'm like, oh, we're gonna trade the zucchini bread for all kinds of stuff. And so we just went on, like you were talking about Heidi, the tour of like, okay, well who needs something? And we could kind of have this trade thing.

[00:47:08] Jane: And then the music was awesome. And they had art too, and they also had an effigy, I don't know if they were trying to be like Burning Man. Like Burning Man Jr. In, in, um, limestone. But there was like a wickerman kind of situation. But, you were supposed to put in it, they had this thing where you could write down all of the things you wanted to vanquish for yourself. Yes. Yes. And then you put it, was that part of, is that something that Burning Man does too? Because I don't, I 

[00:47:29] Heidi: Um, that's what

[00:47:31] Jane: in the stuff. 

[00:47:32] Heidi: Did at Flip Side Burning Man? I don't think that was, I don't know. I don't think there was a place to put notes or anything at the temple. No. They have something that's totally separate. It's a temple and people put offerings and I wrote notes to my dead loved ones and it's kind of more of an emotional place. And then they burn that on Sunday. So burning the effigy goes on Saturday and that's like a big celebration with lots of fireworks and hooping and hollering and joy. And there's fire dancers and, oh man, it's like the coolest show on earth. And Sunday's more somber, there was like several people behind me crying. They got really emotional, so, yeah. You have kind of both like a celebration and then this very somber event.

[00:48:18] Jane: It's very cool. Like I do miss like that kind, like the Grateful Dead thing and the Phish thing, I do kind of miss that in my life and I get glimpses of it, like at a concert, but it's like short lived. 

[00:48:27] Heidi: You would probably like going in an RV so you have some comfort, but going to a regional burn, not necessarily a burning man burn, but a regional one, I think you might be able to get behind because then you can kind of control, with the hygiene stuff and kind of the germ stuff. You can kind of control that a little bit better if you have your own space, but then you can still experience the music and the art and the people.

[00:48:53] Jane: I might need the exposure therapy though. 'Cause, I used to go for days at a time. Like I wouldn't be showering. But I did always have baby wipes and mouthwash. I've always been like that where I had a stash. Um, because I remember giving mouthwash and baby wipes to that guy, Colonel, and he just looked at me, he was just like, what are these for? And I'm like, dude, for you, 'cause I you're in a tent with me and it's ridiculous. 

[00:49:12] Heidi: Yeah

[00:49:12] Jane: um, and you also went, yeah. And hand sanitizer back when people weren't even using that. I was like, ahead of my, I was just like, dude, you went to those porta-potties and they were just like, nothing. They did have these little sink things that you would like sit with your foot and just kind of pump it and you could hand wash. They had hand washing stations and stuff. But yeah, the porta potty thing, I didn't have to poop until maybe it was four day, I remember it was day three and I was like, I'd feel like I have to poop earlier, but then it just wouldn't happen. Like, I would get in line and it would just disappear. It was like, my body was just like, we are not pooping here. And I was like, but you have to. And then, but I wasn't eating as much, you know what I mean? I really was kind of just like living off of ecstasy and ganja zucchini bread. It's not a good diet and Gatorade and water, you know. But 

[00:49:52] Heidi: yeah, yeah 

[00:49:52] Jane: But I was like, I have to poop now. And I went going into porta-potty after porta poppy potty, and it was like mount shit more because like the poop had come up over the, over the lid 

[00:50:06] Heidi: Oh no.

[00:50:07] Jane: Like, so you couldn't, you're not sitting with like toilet paper go down and you know, like there were some that it was over, so I had to find one where it was at least under, but it was, it was approaching, it was a, I'm telling you, it was over 240,000 people, right?

[00:50:21] Jane: So there's a lot of porta-potties, but there's just only so much you can do and you can't. I did wander off into like the woods to pee, but then the grass was really high and. All I could think about was like ticks on my asshole. And I was like, I just don't know if I could do this. And then somebody came running out of the woods and said that they saw a moose.

[00:50:37] Jane: And I'm like, I don't know if I wanna be high and trying to shit in the woods and now there's moose. I'm like, this is too many things. So I was looking for a porta-potty that had a lower level of shit. And then I just had all the baby wipes and I was like, I just have to do this, you know? And my sister was just like, you got this, you know, she's rooting me on from behind. And I was like, I don't wanna be locked. And I couldn't even lock it 'cause I was like, if this thing doesn't open and I'm stuck in here with all the shit, I'm like, I just, she's like, I'll just guard the door. So I'm in there, it's like a mission and I was able to finally just do it. But it's spl, it's splashed, it's splashed. 

[00:51:07] Etienne: Oh. 

[00:51:09] Heidi: Oh, no.

[00:51:10] Jane: So it's, it's like my shit plus other people's shit. I was just like, there's not enough hand sanitizer or baby wipes in the world right now to deal with what just happened. Like it wasn't a huge splash. 'Cause I was like, it's splashed. My sister's like, oh my god. Like on all the holes or just one hole. And I'm like, I'm like, I was like, yeah. I was like, it actually just splashed on my cheek. And she was like, that's good, that's good. I'm like, I know, but I just, so it's, it's like hole adjacent, like I just need to, Ugh. So I had to like sit there with the baby wipes, just trying to wipe it from the cheek outward, like, so I didn't like because instinctually you're thinking like, you know, just 

[00:51:45] Etienne: you gotta go from the

[00:51:46] Jane: all

[00:51:47] Etienne: you gotta go from the, the, most important to the least important.

[00:51:50] Jane: Yeah. I was just like, so I'm wiping it cheek to leg first and to make sure, and I actually said, can you come in here and make sure that 

[00:51:58] Etienne: Oh, she did an inspection. 

[00:52:01] Jane: Oh yeah. I was just like, I just, I need to know like there's nothing too close to the hole that it's safe to now wipe the hole.

[00:52:08] Heidi: you and her would've been horrified at my butt cheeks.

[00:52:11] Jane: It was just, I, yeah, I wanted to make sure that whatever was on the hole looked like it originated in the hole, you know what I mean? This is something you can only do with a sister who you've checked each other's assholes after a hike for ticks, like your entire life of camping, which I've done. Like I've definitely grew up roughing it, and doing deep woods hiking. And then after deep woods hiking, you're checking each other, like a couple of monkeys. I don't have any hitchhiker, right? I don't wanna get freaking Rocky Mountain Fever or like Lyme disease. I'm not about that. I'm about hiking, but I'm not about the parasites and I'm definitely not about other people's shit on my body. Like, I don't even, and people, I don't know 

[00:52:50] Etienne: Oh. 

[00:52:50] Jane: um, I was all 

[00:52:51] Etienne: if their shit gets on you. 

[00:52:53] Jane: Definitely not that either, but it would be better. It would be. It would be more, um, none of this is palatable, but it would be better. I would be less grossed out because I could at least know the person and know 

[00:53:06] Heidi: what they ate and yeah 

[00:53:08] Etienne: Oh

[00:53:08] Jane: And that they're like disease free. Like I'm not gonna, I'm not getting like some kind of weird disease from, you know, some rogue nugget splashing up for me for my husband, but I don't know about a porta-potty filled with like 240,000 people 

[00:53:24] Etienne: Well, not in 

[00:53:24] Jane: three 

[00:53:25] Etienne: porta-potty. 

[00:53:26] Jane: I know, but divided over all of these porta-potties, like there's 

[00:53:31] Etienne: coming through and emptying those porta-potties. 

[00:53:33] Jane: No, not, not, until, 

[00:53:35] Heidi: Wow. We, we had ours emptied like twice a day, if not more. They were constantly there cleaning and emptying, and never got full. I never saw any of them. We would run out of toilet paper all the time, so you just bring your own supply. But yeah, they kept them clean. They did a really good

[00:53:53] Etienne: Did you learn the trick about how you can just slip out the middle of the toilet paper? The cardboard parts? You can flatten? 

[00:53:59] Heidi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:54:00] Jane: And 

[00:54:01] Etienne: Mm-hmm. Oh, yo. I just mean you can flatten so you can get more in your pack it away. There's more 

[00:54:06] Jane: that's so much better than what I was imagining. 

[00:54:09] Etienne: I don't know what

[00:54:12] Jane: I was 

[00:54:12] Heidi: Please explain. 

[00:54:14] Jane: That you're like, you're undoing that middle thing. Like you're unwrap, like the Pillsbury biscuit thing that like it pops open and you're just like peeling it now 

[00:54:23] Heidi: Oh, you're using that for toilet paper? I've done that before actually. 

[00:54:27] Etienne: my God. 

[00:54:28] Jane: I have not. But I 

[00:54:30] Heidi: I have been forced to. Yeah. And you've just taken a shit. Yep. That's what you'll do.

[00:54:35] Jane: Oh my 

[00:54:36] Heidi: Pillsbury Dough canister

[00:54:39] Jane: Yeah. Or you're just like, do I need this sock? I don't need two socks. I can just 

[00:54:42] Jane: Definitely,

[00:54:43] Etienne: Oh God. 

[00:54:43] Heidi: Do I need these underwear? Yeah.

[00:54:45] Jane: I have totally sacrificed a sock in the woods because, you know, 

[00:54:49] Etienne: I would probably just look around at the trees and try to steal some leaves 

[00:54:52] Heidi: I've used leaves before. 

[00:54:54] Jane: Yeah, I've used a 

[00:54:55] Etienne: Yeah, a stick. Ooh, 

[00:54:58] Jane: You can kind of like 

[00:54:59] Etienne: Can you put a leaf around the stick? And

[00:55:03] Jane: just kind of Ooh, that's a magic wand. You don't

[00:55:05] Etienne: I've literally never pooped in the wild. Like I've never had to. I've pooped in a porta-potty, but I've never had to poop in the wild. No, I've never camped long enough anywhere or been camping where there wasn't toilets, so I didn't have to do that.

[00:55:22] Jane: You gotta dig, there's a special shovel that you bring when you're hiking and then you dig a little hole. 'Cause you can't just do it out in the open. I mean, well, you could, but you are not supposed to. It's not good for the environment. Our poop is different. You're supposed to dig at least eight inches deep, and then you poop and then you cover it up. 

[00:55:36] Etienne: Okay. 

[00:55:37] Jane: Yeah.

[00:55:37] Heidi: etiquette. 

[00:55:39] Etienne: used leaves for peeing, you know, or just drip dry and forget about it. There's only so much you can drip dry, you know, like what are you gonna do? Stand there and fan yourself and like faster. 

[00:55:50] Jane: little like shake. 

[00:55:51] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I shake, shake, 

[00:55:53] Etienne: doesn't get at all. You're just pulling your underwear back up and you're like, okay, now it's gonna feel this for a while.

[00:55:58] Jane: Mm-hmm. 

[00:56:00] Etienne: man

[00:56:00] Jane: That's why I'm grateful whenever I'm hiking or at a festival and there's a bathroom and you can get rid of your stuff and leave it in the porta potty or leave it in the know. That's awesome. But I think that. Heidi, the sense of community that you were describing and just the sense of making connections with people and just all of the cultural celebration, just the digital detox and just everybody kind of having a moment of this is actually what it's like to be a person. It's not natural to be holed up in your house by yourself on some weird, endless digital scroll. Getting all clicking rage bait for something that's, it, it's 

[00:56:32] Heidi: it's gonna be meaningless in the two weeks. 

[00:56:35] Jane: yeah, you

[00:56:35] Heidi: You're gonna forget about it in two

[00:56:37] Jane: People right here, right now making something beautiful together. That's really awesome. That's what it is to be human. We used to live like that all the time. I'm not exactly like that, but small communities and people going like, oh, do you, I'm sorry that you're tense. Yeah, I'm sorry that your cabin burned down. Let,

[00:56:55] Heidi: Yeah. Let's rebuild 

[00:56:57] Jane: I guess everybody kind of was just more

[00:56:59] Heidi: and let's have a party afterwards. 

[00:57:00] Jane: Yes.

[00:57:01] Etienne: I think we miss it. I think we miss it as human beings, and we don't have that anymore. So that's why this has 

[00:57:06] Heidi: for sure. Mm-hmm.

[00:57:09] Jane: That's the solution. Everybody, everybody needs to go to some kind of, uh, 

[00:57:13] Etienne: A festival every year that lasts longer than a 

[00:57:15] Heidi: festival. Yeah. And just connect with people and get off the internet for a week. Decompress, it changes your brain. I feel like my brain changed while I was out there. 

[00:57:26] Jane: Oh yeah. 

[00:57:26] Etienne: Yeah. No, I mean, if, yeah. If you spend a lot of your day scrolling or even an hour or more every day scrolling, I think you're changing your brain by doing that. You know? So you can also do your own digital detox anytime you want, you know?

[00:57:40] Heidi: Oh, yeah. I was definitely coming back with lessons learned, like, okay, how do I incorporate some of the stuff that I experienced and, how do I incorporate that into my real life? I definitely wanna incorporate more play and art and just purpose and meaning and connection and just really make more an effort to connect with people. Even longtime friends like you guys, I'm just like, yeah, I need to make an effort to really solidify and deepen those connections and find more of my tribe. 'Cause I felt like I was just finding people who I resonated with at the end. Like I was like, ah, man, I really resonate with these people. Like everything they're saying I totally get, and everything I was saying they were getting from me, I was like, oh my God. It's just so, so wild to come across that, you know?

[00:58:30] Etienne: Did you leave there with a bunch of like phone numbers and stuff? Like, have you 

[00:58:34] Heidi: Not a bunch. It was weird. It was like, I don't know. Some of the interactions were very fleeting. You know, like I never got their real name or how to contact them again. And it's just like, oh, I just had that really profound conversation with that guy, but I may never see that person again. And that's okay.

[00:58:50] Etienne: So no love connections here then, I guess, or would've probably heard about that already, I'm sure.

[00:58:54] Heidi: Yeah, yeah. No, no. Love connections, but lots of friendships. I would say, like even the, even my camp mates, I didn't totally mesh personality wise with them. I don't think, you know, my WOOWOO side really gels with them a whole lot. They're all techies and science-based and I'm all about science, so I can straddle both worlds. But yeah, my woo woo side didn't get a whole lot of action while there, but I did connect with a lot of them and one of the girls. Said towards the end she's like, I really enjoyed watching you blossom. And that just felt really meaningful. Like yeah, I did kind of come out and really blossom and remember who I really am, like let my inner child play and get over some of these hangups I had just from years of self preservation, or stupid habits that develop to appease others or people please or Yeah. Got over a lot of that stuff. Let go a lot of stuff while there and yeah, I feel like 20 pounds lighter coming back ' cause I left a lot in the desert. Left it for the desert to transmute and change. Yeah, because this is not needed. A lot of the stuff that we let stop us from going down our path, going on our life's journey. We let other people's voices kinda dictate what we want or what we desire. And I'm like, Nope, I gotta live my life for me. And, and so, yeah, I don't know. It was a lot of freedom is found there. I think freedom to be yourself. 'Cause, there's just everybody's this creative expression of themselves, wearing elaborate costumes or dressing up in these really far out cosplay ways. The creativity I saw there was just astounding. I have so many ideas for next year. So yeah, I can't wait.

[01:00:44] Etienne: So you're the guy that you drove out with. Did you spend a lot of time with him while you were there?

[01:00:49] Heidi: Oh yeah, we were all like a family kinda eating together, going out together. So yeah, we're definitely good friends. No love connection there. He had a tiny crush on a camp mate. It was sweet. Yeah, I was hoping to find love there, but I think I found love for self more than anything. And yeah, I'm pretty happy about that. So maybe I'll find love next year, or in between. I don't know. We'll see. But I made a lot of really, really good friendship connections. So with guys too, and who knows, you know, maybe in the future it'll turn into something else, but right now, I am satisfied with just being friends with a bunch of really interesting guys.

[01:01:27] Jane: Very cool. 

[01:01:28] Etienne: That was very cool.

[01:01:29] Heidi: And a lot of interesting women too. Yeah. From all walks of life. I came back and all my crazy habits just like were facing me, and I saw it was wild. I kind of saw where they all stem from the genesis of these different bad habits of mine, and I'm like, oh wow, okay. So it's like took the blinders off and I'm just seeing all the things, it was a very overwhelming week to come back to, to all these realizations and it's like, oh shit, I've been in my own way this entire time. Yeah. But, I guess witnessing them is like the first step of actually seeing them. It's the first step to kind of resolving all of it.

[01:02:08] Heidi: But yeah, lots of work to do, but I'm feeling very excited about going back like even more transformed. 'Cause I know what I need to do now, right? Not only to improve my life in real life, but how to prepare for an even better burning man experience. 

[01:02:28] Heidi: 'Cause you know, I'll go back kind of knowing what's what not a complete newbie. So I'm still gonna go with no expectations. 'Cause I thought that was like key. 

[01:02:37] Etienne: I feel like you should do that in real life. You're gonna have a better life experience. 

[01:02:41] Heidi: Yeah. But, there's people that will get the schedule ahead of time and they'll like schedule out their days and you know, really wanna see this, this, and this. And then if it doesn't happen, they feel like, oh, I failed at this trip and no. 

[01:02:55] Jane: I feel like you're speaking directly to me, even if you're not meaning to, because I would totally do that. No, I would look at the schedule and 

[01:03:02] Heidi: Oh, I do too. That's why having only a few weeks to plan and get all this stuff, I had no time to really plan plan. And I thought that that actually worked in my favor this time. And so I know not to over plan in the future. Yeah. Having expectations or over planning something. Yeah. Especially at burning man. Like you don't wanna do it.

[01:03:23] Jane: You gotta just roll it. 

[01:03:25] Heidi: Oh yeah, you gotta go with the flow , ' cause you're gonna have a magical day no matter where you go. So it's like, why plan it? 

[01:03:30] Jane: That happened to me with Glastonbury in England. It was the summer of 1994. It was June of 94 before I came home, after living there for a year. And I remember seeing the poster for it that my friend was just like, we're gonna go to class and you have to go before you go back to America. I don't know what'll see you again, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay. And, I had no idea what to expect. And she got the tickets and she showed me the poster and she was just like, you know, we could figure out like where we're gonna go. And, it was so overwhelming. There were so many bands on so many different stages that I was just like, oh my God.

[01:04:01] Jane: And it was just the times of them and she's like, we could plan this out and see who you wanna see. And there were so many people that I wanted to see that conflicted, like they would at the same time and stuff like that. And I was just like, oh my God. I could learn a lesson from my 20-year-old self. I just said like, why don't we just smoke the last of this weed that I have 'cause I do not wanna get on a plane with this. And just see what happens.

[01:04:24] Heidi: Yeah. 

[01:04:24] Jane: 20-year-old me was a lot more like, just fuck it, you know, like, and, and I did see, I saw amazing bands. I saw Bjork, I saw the Lemonheads, I saw Oasis, but I'd seen them like a bunch in England 'cause they just, I don't know, they played a bunch. I saw Blur for the fifth time I saw Radiohead and Blind Mellon and Elvis Costello and Van Morrison and Paul Weller and the Pretenders and Jackson Brown. And I'm pretty sure those were all, but then I missed people that, I still tried, like I should, this is my, Heidi, you're giving the opportunity to let this go 'cause I did hold on to Glastonbury regret. I did not get to see Peter Gabriel 'cause I was high and I saw someone else instead. And I didn't see Rage Against the Machine. And I did not see Johnny Cash. 

[01:05:07] Heidi: Hmm. 

[01:05:08] Jane: And I knew that they were there. They were gonna be there. Right. But I was just like, how, where? And I, and it was so overwhelming and I couldn't read all this stuff. And then I was just like, fuck, I'm just going to let it happen. And then I did still hold onto a little regret, but you know what though? I had such a wonderful time and Michelle, who I was with is such an amazing person that I was just like, you know what? It was a great time. It was seriously, it was just a great time and it was just being outside and peeing outside. 

[01:05:37] Etienne: And I just feel all left out of it because I've never been to a multi-day festival of any kind. Mm-hmm. No. 

[01:05:43] Heidi: We gotta get on that. Let's look for one. All three of us can go to. 

[01:05:48] Jane: Went to the first Lollapalooza. 

[01:05:50] Etienne: I did. I went to the first Lollapalooza. Yeah. So I got to see Nine Inch Nails at the first Lollapalooza, right? Wasn't he? He was there. And 

[01:05:59] Jane: And Jane's 

[01:06:00] Etienne: Yeah. Oh, and wasn't what's his, oh God. 

[01:06:03] Heidi: Red Hot Chili Peppers, right? Was 

[01:06:05] Etienne: Uh, 

[01:06:05] Jane: That was the second. 

[01:06:06] Etienne: one.

[01:06:06] Etienne: Yeah. 

[01:06:07] Heidi: was second. Oh, okay.

[01:06:08] Etienne: I think it was, Hmm. I think that one of the guys who died, hold on, let me look it up now. La la. I know I'm gonna spell it. Oh good. It just came up by itself. Line up by year. Here we go. Line up by year. Awesome. So 1991 was the first year. Oh my goodness. 1991. 

[01:06:26] Heidi: I joined the Air Force. 

[01:06:28] Etienne: My gosh. Oh, shoot. I don't even know what day I was there because it's July 21st, 23rd and 24th of 1991 was the... so Jane's 

[01:06:36] Heidi: We'll look for, yeah, look for the Jane's 

[01:06:38] Etienne: Oh, well, Jane's Addiction, main stage Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Color, Nine Inch Nails, Ice T and Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band. Yeah. Oh, hold on. This one was not at mine, so I can't say that one. Not that one either. And I guess that was it, because they also Violent Femmes and Fishbone were at different ones, but not the one I went to.

[01:06:58] Heidi: Oh, Violent Femmes would've been awesome. 

[01:07:01] Etienne: Yeah, I definitely went to the second one too. So Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush.

[01:07:09] Jane: I was gonna say Lush was a, yeah, I loved them.

[01:07:12] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[01:07:13] Etienne: Yeah. Oh my God. There's so many things on the side stages. 

[01:07:17] Heidi: Soundgarden. Oh,

[01:07:18] Etienne: Let's see. If I went to 1993, Hmm. I don't know if I did. I must have, that was when I was still with that boy, with Vlad. So I must have been at this one. Yeah, I was literally, yeah. So I literally went to every, yeah. So I was, oh one, here's a really cool thing. So KROQ is the big rock radio station in Los Angeles. And, they did the KROQ weenie roast. So the first year that they had that, I think it was either the first or second year they had that I was there with Vlad and we were back. So if I was with him, of course we were backstage, or at least in the music industry backstage. You might not have been in the backstage. Backstage. There's like different levels of backstage to at least be with other industry people. And then you would see some of the actual acts and artists like filtering in and out of that area. 'Cause they do wanna like coalesce with the music industry people. They have to schmooze, you know? But it was at that weenie roast, the first one or second one that I met Gwen Stefani because he had grown up with her and I think he'd gone to high school with her and knew her from like, trying to be their band. Yeah, yeah. He grew up in Orange County, just right in Anaheim, where Disneyland is and that's where she grew up. Yeah. So he introduced me to her. You know what's funny, um, during this time, so she had like, um, like blonde hair, just like regular blonde hair, not like anything crazy and she just was very natural looking makeup. I had, I think white hair and red lipstick.

[01:08:45] Jane: Oh my gosh. Did she get, she was like, I'm gonna do that. 

[01:08:47] Etienne: I think she did. I think she did. And I mean, I stole my, my look 'cause I was very pale too, you know, I never, like, never sunned. So, and I was doing that from, still, from like my Madonna days. I was still like, I'm gonna be super pale. I'm gonna wear red lipstick, I'm gonna have white, white, white hair. And yep, she did that. Yep. 

[01:09:09] Jane: And then Madonna got it from Marilyn Monroe probably. So you guys were all really just like Marilyn Monroe in 

[01:09:14] Etienne: Yeah, were all stealing it. But she was very nice. Yeah. And I did run into her a few times, like after that too. And it, like I've seen, I've just like accidentally, but this was after Vlad, so I didn't say anything to her and she was like, of course super famous then.

[01:09:27] Etienne: And I was just like, yeah, I stood in line for the bathroom with Gwen Stefani somewhere and I didn't say anything to her at a very nice restaurant. But yeah, that was cool. But I think that's pretty much it. Like, I mean, me and Lollapalooza and like festivals go, unless we count like the writers, but those are conferences, so those don't count. I've never been to a film festival. I've never been to a cultural festival, I don't think. Yeah. 

[01:09:52] Heidi: So I might be getting into some little versions a burning man, you know, especially with the music, anyway. I think that would be really cool. 

[01:10:02] Jane: Maybe we'll have to go to a mini burn or a regional burn together. That would be fun. I did not know that that was a thing. So, I'm gonna look into that and see 

[01:10:09] Heidi: My new friends Lenny and Heather, they were a couple that joined us and it was Heather's first year too. I really connected with her too. They are going to one in Atlanta or near Atlanta in like a month or two.

[01:10:23] Jane: What? 

[01:10:23] Heidi: Yeah. So there's one in Atlanta. I'll get in touch with them and find out the 

[01:10:27] Etienne: Man, Atlanta now. 

[01:10:31] Heidi: are you both, are you both are getting on there? 

[01:10:33] Etienne: Oh, okay. Oh, Georgia Burners Regional Group. It says. Oh, okay. Hmm. 

[01:10:38] Jane: Oh my gosh. It's called alchemy. I have to go. 

[01:10:41] Heidi: You do. When is it?

[01:10:43] Jane: October 16th to the 20th.

[01:10:45] Etienne: Burn. Oh, okay. I see. 

[01:10:48] Jane: Oh, I'm gonna be in Atlanta the following weekend. 

[01:10:50] Etienne: Oh, October 

[01:10:51] Heidi: Well, maybe we can plan for next year. 

[01:10:53] Jane: Yeah. Because if it's called Alchemy 

[01:10:55] Etienne: Yeah. 

[01:10:55] Jane: And it's that close, I feel like that's the thing.

[01:10:58] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:10:59] Heidi: That's our show you've been listening to, the Women are Plotting. If you have a story you'd like to share or have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com and of course you can find us on all the socials. Thanks, and until next time, be safe and be excellent to each other.