Monsters and Abiquiu

Another phenomenal day in Santa Fe. I woke this morning and started my day with some tea and cereal. And then I remembered something. Today was Monster Battle, at high noon.

I'd heard about it yesterday during the first session of BUST and immediately decided to go. But, like so many things - including Day of Silence, which I always break before I remember that it's happening - I didn't remember when I woke up and needed a few minutes for it to hit me. Which, consequently, was great because I got to be excited about it all over again.

Even last night I had no idea what monster I would be. I mean, I didn't bring any costumey stuff. So, this morning it was an additional challenge to figure it out. I first thought I'd just go get some fangs at a costume store, then thought better of spending money on more crap I'll only use once. Then I thought, I could be a zombie. Don't need much for that besides white make-up and dark eye shadow and perhaps some red stuff for fake blood and dirty clothes. But, then I thought, how boring. Which is when I came up with a fabulous idea - I would be The Fame Monster, Lady Gaga.

I got in my costume and figured out where the plaza was and headed off. When I got to the Plaza, there were only a few other monsters, so I decided to sit down on a park bench and wait for a critical mass of monsters to show up and start the fight. Surprisingly enough, one of the first monsters there was a guy I had met the night before at my host's cookout - which was awesomely delicious and fun. The battle finally started when a group of about 5 pirates showed up together. The rest of us just kind of ganged up on them at the beginning... Until all hell broke loose! I realized just before the battle started that I didn't have a weapon. That part had just kind of slipped my mind. So, I decided that my weapon would be DANCE! While other people were shoot nerf guns, water guns, wielding foam swords, throwing paper shurikens, throwing cantaloupe (? I don't know why), throwing flour, etc. I was dancing up on them singing "Just Dance". Oh the humanity! I knew I had defeated them when they gave in to sensual swaying, the catchy music and their own burning desire to dance. The mayhem was amazing. At the end, several monsters had choreographed a four on four fight scene that morphed into the dance from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" - FABULOUS!

Near that point my buddy, Cecil, texted me to say that the trip to Lake Abiquiu we had been talking about was on for sure and we'd be leaving soon. Though I had packed my bag so I could just go to the lake, the recent development of flour-glitter-cantaloupe mess that was all over me, prompted me to go home and rinse first. I had a bit of trouble finding the meeting place, so her friends just came and picked me up at home.

Cecil and I rode in the back of the pickup, which thankfully did have a cover on it. The ride was beautiful. It started raining a bit on the drive, but it was followed by warm winds and partial sunshine. When we got to the lake, it was still cloudy and threatening to continue raining. A couple of us ignored the weather and dove in anyway. We jumped off of high cliffs and dove in to the cold water. We climbed the sides of the cliff back up because we could and if we fell we'd only fall back in the water, but we didn't fall. We hung out for several hours, enjoying the warm breeze, the cold water, the delicious grapes, and making fun of the people in their speed boats below who just kept tooling around watching people jump off the rocks. Finally we decided it was time to pack it in and just then, the sun broke free of the clouds. We enjoyed about five minutes of sunlight before we got back in the truck and headed home. I got to ride in front this time and it was SO beautiful! It rained and cleared and rained. There were so many rainbows and such interesting light and shadows being cast on the beautiful desert (and not-so-desert) landscape. As the sun was setting, the clouds turned a slightly disturbing orange. It was like the time of afternoon when it gets dark enough to take off your sunglasses and you decide you want to take off your sunglasses to see the world more clearly, only I didn't have sunglasses on and therefore couldn't take them off or see the world more clearly. It was still gorgeous though. During the ride I enjoyed some great conversation with Zenan, a new friend, and the wonderful smells of the desert after rain.

It was dark by the time I got home, so I fixed myself some foods and sat down to write. Now it's still storming, smelling wonderful and only scaring me a little bit with all the thunder and lightning.

Realization for the day: I might be more of a desert person than I thought.