1.) I realized I forgot a couple of good things from the trip. (Yep, still putting off talking about the bad stuff. I reserve the right not to be bitter today.) Like being able to take Mark to Wrigley Field for his first time EVAH with my Dad. After the chamoole finally stopped calling it a stadium, he confessed to having profound penis envy over my hometown ball park. Unfortunately, it appears that for the same reason that Mark’s family asks him not to attend Bengals games because they lose when he’s present, it seems Mark’s visit to our fair Cubbies, beginning with the game we took him to in which Soriano injured himself, had similar results.
Of course, this is the Cubs. Love them as I always will, the only people who need to be in attendance to assure they lose is…the Cubs.
(For the record, it looks as if Mark and I can finally stop saying we’ll do X if he comes home, and go back to when. They were doing the final checks on the car repairs today, so chances are very good that he can get on the road in the next two days so that he can be home by the end of next weekend. Jeez. I told him today that it was getting to the point where I felt this idea we had that the fates wanted us to be together was perhaps backwards: given we started long distance, and by the time he gets home now, will have gone a whole month without being together in the place where we live, it’s possible the fates instead wanted us to be together apart.)
I got to go to the library branch where I spent many a childhood afternoon and hand-deliver my book. Whether they’ll shelve it or not remains to be seen, however, not only did I get a rockin’ Library Journal review which in a couple weeks alone seemed to land it in three times as many libraries as before, my editor today said it looked like we even had backorders for libraries. This makes this girl from the wrong side of the stacks very happy indeed.
2.) For the last two days, I have inexplicably been unable to get the word dirigibles out of my head. Or my mouth: I just had to say it out loud when I typed it, and was glad for the excuse. Thankfully, I remain home alone with my dog, who, while perplexed by my shouting it out at her every few hours, is at least without the power to institutionalize me for it.
While in Cincy, I found Pez Dispensers of both Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc., which resulted in me pulling out the Mikedispenser and shouting “Mike Wazowski!” Dirigibles seem to have wiped me clean of that, but I’m uncertain it’s an improvement. Can you develop Tourette’s with corprolalia later in life? I know, it doesn’t seem like this is Tourette’s, given that I am not shouting out obscenities, but bearing in mind what exactly I do for my living, and all I hear in a given day, I think we can agree that even determining what obscenities would even BE for me proves a challenge.
3.) I was looking over some photos of friends from Shambala today, and I found myself feeling monstrously old. By this, I don’t mean feeling old in a way that I have changed due to age, but feeling old in a way where I missed a boat that friends not that much younger than me didn’t seem to, which is a big part of why I have zero desire to ever go to Burning Man.
To whit: while I appreciate and dig how glorious those folks look out in the great outdoors with kooky fur and shiny duds and crazy shoes, for the life of me, I can’t dig up even the slightest desire to go camping and have to give half a thought to what I’d wear, what it looks like, or even if I smell, sparing smelling so much I’d be chased by wild animals. Camping to me has always been a wonderful escape from presentation and appearance — even the kind that’s not oppressive in the least, but creative and fun. My joy of camping is really meditative, more about paring life down to the absolute minimum and delighting in simple tasks. I can do it socially and enjoy that, but I often enjoy it even more when it’s largely antisocial: when I’m either alone, or with someone or someones where a minimum of noise and conversation or even interaction is the order of the day. If camping felt like a fashion show — not saying it does for my pals, just that it would for me if everyone wasn’t wearing cut-offs and flannel shirts — I’d feel robbed of camping.
So, yeah: I don’t get it, and not getting it makes me feel crusty. And not in the good, I’ve-been-camping-in-this-gross-but-cozy-salt-stained-t-shirt-for-a-week way.
(Edit: I feel like this may have been/might be read as a jab or a judgment, but that’s not at all what I intended it to be. In fact, I’m envious, and sort of wondering if this isn’t yet one more way I just can’t have a good time where others so clearly can, which has been a bit of a running theme with me lately I’m less than thrilled about. I’d also hope folks — especially my friends — would know me well enough by now to know I’m not one for hidden strikes, but just in case, there ya go.)
4.) When I go to San Francisco for the sexual literacy awards ceremony, I not only get to finally meet my wonderful editor, and not only get to go to the ceremony with her, but we’re also taking a road trip up north a couple days later to spend some time in my favorite area of this whole country with Anne. Renee and I are strongly considering picking up a different bottle of wine for glugging when we get there every winery or so.
We may need to rent a larger car than usual.
5.) As it turns out, Toni Weschler is practically my neighbor, living just a couple of miles away. We had the most wonderful long morning coffee yesterday, and it was just what the doctor ordered; we talked everything from how we feel about giving the youngest women information on charting to book-writing trials and tribulations to birth control to how so many people don’t seem to get that Judaism is often more about heritage and race than it is about religion. It’s just so freaking swell to spend time with other dedicated people in my arena who not only get it, but who got it before I did, and who are also just great to gab with. After all, I learned how to chart with Toni’s first book when it first came out (and as it turns out, at the same age she learned herself: very odd). Suffice it to say, I’m seriously elated we connected and greatly looking forward to doing it again.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
In terms of #3, I’m not sure it has much to do with age. We had several members of our camp in your exact age bracket, and Burning Man is outrageously popular with 40something San Franciscans and aging deadheads. I think it’s just a matter of taste and cultural leanings — outdoor festival frolics certainly aren’t everyone’s idea of fun, any more than ren faires, ska shows, or rock climbing are. We all like different things, and while certainly peer group plays its part in who likes what, I’m not sure you can point to your age as a reason this particular culture doesn’t resonate.
As for me, I love the contrast. After growing up grubby in the woods and turning into an urbanite, there’s something delicious about combining the two aesthetics … and incongruity that tickles me. Then again, Disco camping is also just TOTALLY RIDICULOUS and I am a huge, huge fan of such ridiculousness.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
I do agree that #3 doesn’t have much to do with age Heather. I’m not much into that kind of camping myself. I grew up spending summers out west with family friends in the Shoshoni. We’d go out for a week or so but it wasn’t with the frills that most people associate with camping these days. We ate off the land.
And as for San Francisco and I hope I do not give away my age . . . If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
Safe travels.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
My burning man experiences involved going to sleep around 10 or 11 every night and getting up with the dawn to meander through the installations all by myself in the cool morning air. Not on purpose, that’s just the way it happened. I don’t really like extended time with large groups, but the artwork was phenomenal (and silly, sometimes) and I think I got a lot out of it. I also liked afternoon siesta time, in the hottest part of the day, when we’d sit in the shade and drink margaritas and talk while just about everyone else napped.
I don’t know that you’d get the same kind of inspiration out of it I did, and there was plenty of stupidity and thoughtlessness to deal with (like the girls who peed in the temple in our art installation one fine morning, and all the people who drove away and left their trash). I don’t plan to go again, but I’m glad I went.
On the other stuff, wineries! and I’m glad to hear Mark may be on his way back. I hope he has an uneventful trip!
In the evening after my latest CT scan, I went to a birthday party and was fairly loopy. At some point in the evening, I just randomly shouted out “Mike Wazowski!” Not sure what caused it, but apparently it was pretty funny.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Heather- I’ve tried sending you several emails, but they seem to keep bouncing. I’m interested in volunteering- give me a call (I think I’ve sent you my number before) or email!
August 20th, 2007 at 8:15 am
We (as in, you, Jonathon and I) should sometime pretend that we could take a whole week off and go camping in this fantastic little out of the way forest in Montana that he and I visited on The Great Roadtrip of 2003. We had to drive up a long, dusty dirt road that was blocked by dozens of cows to get there, and it was seriously the most magical place I’ve ever, ever been. Green, leafy, mossy…quiet, ‘cept for the nature sounds. It was a national park, I think. Cost something like $3 per night to camp there. Can you imagine anything wonderful costing only $3? It’s unbelievable. It would also be a wonderful place to do some nudes in nature, and oh, hey, look, we’d both have a willing model for just such a thing!
Also, I think you might sometime like The Hostel In The Forest, which is my favorite place on earth. (And, granted, I haven’t been that many places, but it’s at least one of my favorites thus far.) They have a lake, and baby ducks, natural pools and community vegetarian (and usually vegan) meals. People sometimes in the organic, community gardens and pick berries right of the trees. Oh, and also, composting toilets. Which kinda freaks some people out, but I think is really awesome and interesting and self-sustaining.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Um. I just re-read that, and the last paragraph should actually tell you that people pick berries out of bushes and fruit out of trees, and that there are composting toilets that I think are cool. No one picks berries out of the composting toilets, because, um, EW.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:14 pm
So I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I realize that I completely overlooked the biggest issue with the age/disco camping issue … something struck me as initially not quite right in the logic, and I thought it was the age thing (which I’ll still stick to), but realized that it’s actually something much simpler: camping and music festivals are different activities that shouldn’t be compared. I call this error in logic the TENT FALLACY, because although there are tents involved in both outdoor activities, in most other ways they are quite opposite.
Shambhala isn’t camping — It’s an outdoor electronic music festival. You don’t go to a music festival to commune with nature … you go for music culture, which is inherently social and functionally the opposite of why one goes camping. One goes to a music festival not for the nature (although it’s nice to enjoy music outside) but for the music and people and cultural excitement — including fabulous fashion.
I love backpacking and my camping trips outnumber festivals 2-to-1 … and I certainly didn’t wear festival finery when backpacking with my dad and Andreas last month. I wore sweatpants and the same tshirt for 4 days. I sat quietly and drank tea and played with river stones. I walked to the top of a ridge and listened to the wind.
Anyway, I still don’t think this has much to do with age … but I also don’t think it really even have much to do with how your views of camping differ from your friends’. Camping is one thing (quite, nature, away from it all). Music festivals are another (loud, cultural, social). I enjoy both outdoor activities. Sounds like you only one. No problems there, but I would resist confusing the one you enjoy with one you don’t by lumping the two together simply because tents are involved in both.