My dentist removed my upper right incisor that had broken off below the gum line. To remove the roots he had to slice my gum up to where the cheek meets the gum and along that seam a bit, the worst extraction I have ever endured. Besides the difficulty eating, I had a stabbing pain every time I smiled or laughed, but that I did all the time in spite of the discomfort.
There were 170 men there. I knew most of them to see and half of them to speak to, and I made a point of talking to those I didn't know. I have never felt so comfortable there, which is such a change from the wallflower self I was when I first visited. I am often asked why I go to the Faerie gatherings when I am not much into dressing up and cannot access most of the BB facilities. I go because it keeps me heart-centered for weeks, sometimes months afterwards.
There were not as many costumes or parading on the deck during dinner times as there usually is. The atmosphere was more subdued. Keystone was the Queen Registrar and he set the theme as "Integrity and Transgression", so different from past themes such as "Passage to India". I have never seen a gathering where the theme made such an impact, where it was on everyone's lips throughout. On Thursday night, David 
Weissman showed his new documentary, "We Were There", about 5 survivors on the front lines of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s. It was devastating, and excellently done. Mark Lunetta and I held hands through the length of it, as we balled our eyes out like everyone else.
I enjoyed the hot springs the first two days but my lack of sleep from the previous week caught up to me Friday. After lunch I returned to my room to have a one hr nap and woke up just before the dinner bell. There was not enough time before the fashion show/auction that night to have another soak, and on Saturday I had the trots again--a perennial problem at BB with the change of water and food--and didn't risk a soak in case of a sudden bowel movement.
I hung around the lodge instead. Cuz'n found me there and asked me to be part of a dance/movement piece with four other men, though he wasn't sure what the performance piece would be. I told him I was comfortable doing it because of my disability, because I am so self-conscious and afraid of losing my balance, etc. He said that is OK and he'd be back to get me later. I tried to make myself scarce after that but he found me in my room an hour or so before dinner.
He had found his four other men, Crow Dog, Sparkle, Jonsie and Pussytoes. Jonsie also has a disability. We tried out several things in the library until we had something that seemed very interesting: The other 4 would lie on the carpet, one on top of the other from biggest to smallest and I came up from behind to place my right hand on Jonsie's lower back and my right on his shoulders. Then I lowered my forehead to Jonsie's back and held it there before we unstacked and formed a line of 5. We paired off and
the one on the end who was left out crumpled to the ground, then we reformed into different pairs and the fellow on the other end crumpled to the ground. We reformed the line with Sparkle and Pussytoes in the middle. Crow Dog and I took turns drawing horizontal black lines on their respective chests and Jonsie completed the picture by drawing a vertical line on Pussytoes' chest to make him "positive" and leaving Sparkle 
"negative". Myself and the other two stepped back to witness them. Sparkle hesitated, them embraced Pussytoes, rubbing his face over Pussytoes' chest and smearing the + sign onto his face. They pulled apart and removed and traded their swim suits while we turned away. That was it--it was over. It went over very well, in spite of all my earlier concerns, including a bout of diarrhea just before the performance. It was my first performance in 50 years, since I was 6 or so.
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