Burning Man is not relevant to me.

I think a pair of albatross (albatrosses, albatrossi, albatrossae?) is circling our bay.  They're playing on the northerly gusts, soaring high, arcing wide and sweeping low to the water to execute these shallow dives that leave a wake behind them.  They float for a bit and start again.  All the other birds seem to have taken the day off.

This is a gull.  This is not an albatross.

Maybe they aren't albatross.  But it's the first time I've seen them, so I'm calling them something other than gulls.

This week, I hear folks are heading out to the desert for yet another installment of legitimated freaking, fucking and philandering.  I hope the recession has not diminished the supply of furry boots and bikini tops.  I question how the festival itself has remained recession-proof, although people buy iPads too, so I guess there are still plenty of coke-infused greenbacks lining mattresses in preparation for the burn.

I went to Burning Man once.  I tossed a molotov cocktail into the desert pitch and jumped on a lot of trampolines.  I hear that people bring their children now.  Usually, I don't like kids I don't know.  They're supposed to live a separate life from me.  We don't really have to share the world until they get a little older and become better qualified than I am to do anything I might like to try.  Until then, they should keep to themselves, programming in C++ or whatever kids do for fun these days.

That's the albatross.  He doesn't want to be photographed.

Yesterday, I took a walk on the beach.  As I was thinking about how little I like ugly kids and how much I miss my dog, a boy of about nine approached, his giant german shepherd actually leading him to me.  "You want to pet him?" he asked.   "Sure I do."  I made friends with Riley the dog and the boy told me that Riley is really nice.  The mother of Riley and his boy joined us, yanking two smaller lint ball dogs behind her.  She confirmed that Riley is "a good boy."  We all said a few more things about Riley and parted ways.

An ugly kid marched toward me dragging a tree trunk in a jagged, unpredictable line.  My first thought was, "he's ugly; I don't like ugly kids."  Hearing my thought, I chastised myself and demanded that I justify the brash opinion.  "Why is the kid ugly?  He's just a kid moving a dead tree."  The kid started yelling for his father who was camped out on the seawall, probably unwilling to associate himself with such an ugly child.  The kid yelled into the wind and I felt sand scouring my cheeks.  His dad didn't move so the kid repeated his shrill yell, adding, "lookit, lookit, look, dad, look!"

I let myself off the hook, deciding that it was a visceral reaction and I should be grateful that I don't have kids.  I would hate to ignore my own ugly child as he struggled to move the detritus of ancient rainforests directly into the path of solitary walkers who want nothing more than to pet a nice dog and avoid the hazards presented by ugly kids.