Incendia

I rarely take burlesque gigs on New Years Eve. In a market over-saturated with performers of all stripes that are willing to work on this most glittering night of the year, finding a booking that pays a rate that is worth the time and travel can be frustratingly difficult. I much more enjoy the time to take my loves out on a date to ring in the new year. In the past we’ve attended lock parties and the like, but this year I was offered the opportunity to work for security at a burn in Atlanta.

While my public persona is mainly focused on my performance life, I have been working in security in some form or another for over a decade now. It’s primarily what I do when I’m not performing or teaching at conventions and I very much enjoy it.

So this year J and my best friend D bought two tickets to attend the burn and myself and E got our delegated areas to patrol. We worked under a friend of the pack, Mohican, so nick-named because of his predilection for wearing his hair in a mohawk. It was a warmer night for a January, so E and I enjoyed walking the edges of the dance floors, pacing around the multiple bonfires and keeping an eye on the participants. Most of security work is really just being around, as most people who attend the kind of event are there for the event and have no interest in really straying to the parts of the compound that are out of bounds.

Kisses on the New Years were dispensed between the pack, our specific poly habit being to kiss on the midnight in each of our respective time zones. Our lead cut us at around 2 am, and, since this venue is very low-key amenable to, ah, “stimulating,” substances (enough so that it was impossible to avoid dense clouds indoors) our entire group felt the need for pancakes. To be fair we were all still very awake. And so we enjoyed a last round of teasing and swapping stories of various trouble making attendees while we squashed in a booth at the nearest IHOP.

Not a night of dance, but still… a good way to ring in the New Year.