It was about the time that the guy carrying the giant bunny head under his head walked by that I took full stock of the crowd: a bunch of leaping, costumed or festooned,

Bunny-head man and I were both at a Valentine’s night event thrown by Lucent Dossier, one of the many Burning Man-inspired crews that throw massive arts/music/theatre mashups. These guys have a base near the Toy Factory lofts, a hipster outpost in a truly industrial neighborhood with sightlines toward downtown.

They’d blocked off two city blocks and put up three DJ stages–full on, massive soundystem stages–one of which doubled as a stage for their Cirque Du Soleil-style circus acrobatics. It was a California Cold night, which is to say it was somewhere around fifty degrees. Folks acted like it was the arctic and dressed appropriately.

Most of them were in what we call “Playa Gear,” big colorful fuzzy coats over skimpy or outrageous outfits. Bunny-head avoided the need for additional clothing by wearing a full costume, which I’m sure was boiling inside, thus the need to remove the head. He reminded me of that character Frank in the movie Donnie Darko. I was dressed down for the crowd, in a sari-fabric tunic that was very Slumdog Millionaire meets Lt. Uhura.

What about race? (It’s an inevitable question I ask myself and that other folks ask me.) Well, I saw more black folks at an event like this than I have ever seen before. I’m not talking “Wattstax” levels, but significant. One of the headliners was DJ Marques Wyatt, who I gave a big hug before his DJ set of Detroit-style house-meets-electronica. Big props to Z-Trip, who was one of the pioneers of the modern mashup and put on a great set despite some audio problems. I went with a friend who used to DJ (and I hope will again some day) and she had a big fat smile on her face.

The thing that really stuck with me was that we were old. I didn’t see that many people I would peg as twentysomethings; and I saw plenty of people over 50. Most of us were in our 30s and 40s.

In other words, people who plugged into tech culture, DJ culture, or Burning Man culture… or a mix of all that plus circuses, Steampunk, whatever…. are growing older as a cohort. Instead of this scene being Logans Run-esque, it remains age-inclusive. That makes me happy. I can only imagine mortifying my children (as yet unborn) by rocking, say, a floor length velvet cape over a long dress and platform boots when I’m sixty.

Of course my mind turned to the question of what we are missing, all of us growing older together. A friend from the Midwest said her friend and family were worried when she and her husband didn’t have kids by 30. With one exception, all my friends were in their mid thirties before they had kids. Some were in their forties.

I am nearing forty and still hope to have children, but I wonder if my work hard/play hard lifestyle has been a mask for other desires. Many women I know take Beyonce’s call for independence to new levels (traveling alone internationally, for example, and not in particularly safe places either). I know I kept hoping for the day that everything would just “settle down”… and I would too. Now, at least I realize that you are the one who settles down and things settle around you.

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As I write, listening to: Caetano Veloso