Around this time each year, Guilty Pleasures is usually a complete wreck, not to mention a little moody.

It comes from staying up late to finish sewing costumes, fixing broken tent poles and figuring out how a 50-gallon water drum, a giant shade structure, three bikes covered in faux fur, 10 plastic totes full of everything you need to survive in the desert, and six jugs of vodka will all fit into a rental passenger van.

But not this year.

This year, Guilty Pleasures is taking a break from Burning Man, the massive, weeklong counter-culture event held in the middle of northern Nevada's Black Rock Desert. It begins on Monday.

The reason: It has just gotten too massive. About 47,000 people from around the world showed up last year to become citizens of the temporary Black Rock City. (That would be like if everyone in Richland grabbed some glow sticks and left town to party in the desert for a week.)

Of course, Burning Man's growing popularity isn't the only reason for the year off, but after seven consecutive trips to the "playa," Guilty Pleasures needs a break -- from the actual event, not from what Burning Man stands for, which is about building a community in which radical self-expression is the norm. In which your neighbor helps you out without expecting anything in return. In which lifelong friendships can be forged over a warm can of Tecate.

Several of those people that Guilty Pleasures has met at Burning Man are now scattered across the globe -- in India, Iceland, London -- and this year's vacation time should be spent visiting them rather than goofing off in the desert.

That's not to say there won't be moments of tearful regret over not going.

It's pretty likely that sometime next week, there'll be an uncontrollable need for techno music and to see wild art installations that shoot fire -- or the inevitable slip-up when Guilty Pleasures accidentally wears knee-high platform boots and GlowFur to work.

* Guilty Pleasures is a weekly look at whatever Guilty Pleasures wants to look at.