Bling Bling in the ATL

I'm going to Burning Man. Prehistoric dry bed of a lake, it’s the opposite of Savannah. The last time I camped in the desert, I was on a family trip to Yemen tagging alongside another important man in my life. We brought our cat, who more closely resembled the carvings on the pyramids than her fluffy contemporaries Jack and She-ra. She had oversized ears and eyes, a slender neck and short, stubbly fur. Jam-Joom came with us to Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, experienced snow on a Pennsylvania farm, and died shortly after quarantine in Honolulu. She came to Samoa too fat to run, never having known trees, and was eaten by a feral dog, then thrown in a ditch by the neighbors kids. We buried her in a small Samoan mound by a waterfall, and decorated her grave with shells. Strange life for a cat.

The Yemenis have curly brown hair, high cheekbones, hazel eyes. The eastern end of the peninsula is mountain country. The boys herd goats, walking up steep paths, hands on hips. They wear short wraps from waist to knee, fragrant vines in their hair and jeweled knives on their belts. At the market, they would not let the women in my family out of the car, and refused to sell my father a knife. We hid our daytime meals until we were sure ramadan had passed, lived in a square canvas bedoin tent on a mountainside, and wore scarves and abayas. I don't have those clothes anymore, but I feel like they would be perfect for Burning Man. In a dry, hot environment, its actually more sensible to be fully clothed. Coldland sunlovers wear sunglasses, minis, shorts, wifebeaters and babytees. Our precancerous limbs dehydrate and burn.