8.24.02
The damage count from the past three weeks is exceptionally high. One screwed-up shoulder, two broken toes, a painful back muscle, sore abs, the beginnings of a cold, a variety of bruises, and probably a hundred blisters, cuts, and scrapes.
And that’s just on me. I can’t speak for the hundred and fifty campers and/or twenty-some staff who I’ve spent the past three weeks with.
On the upshot, after popping my daily pair of Aleve, I feel like I can type for pages and pages about the adventures of the past week. This is a personal-growing experience, something for me to look back on and grin at, so if you don’t want to read my personal reminiscences, bug off. There will, however, be some cool stories.
Three weeks ago was Girls’ Rock Week, which was definitely my favorite week. It was all girls, which meant it was cheerful and friendly and fun – no competitions, no bullying; the kids were intelligent and sweet and loved what they were doing and a lot of them did some really cool stuff. They were quiet and well-behaved, and it was just a fun week.
Tuesday, after lunch, we did the zipline. This is a 350-foot aircraft cable, which stretches across the lagoon (aka ‘The Pit’) at the climbing site. Most kids love it, and I wanted to try it…so Stine and I decided to go together, Aussi style. (Meaning the tether is clipped to the backs of our harness instead of the front.) I’d been told (and had told the kids when I get the zipline orientation earlier) that Aussi style hurts a bit, but it worth it. So Stine and I jump off the thirty-ish foot cliff for the ride. It hurt. Lots. I was laughing, so was she, but my harness was just below my ribcage and forcing all of the air out of me. Plus, it gave me an enormous wedgie. We reached the far size, and Kevin decided it would be funny to not catch us and let us swing back into the middle. Thank you. The moral of the story: ziplining is fun, tandem Aussi is not.
I honestly didn’t go out much that week; I came home tired and wanting bed. Wednesday before belaying at Peak I went down to the 42nd street boulder with Noah and Jeff and Stine and Alex and Trevor (and Trevor’s fuckin’ paddle), but that was about it. I think most everyone went out at night, but I didn’t know enough people to be really included, so I just sorta chilled and got enough sleep. Well, not really enough, since I did that weird thing where I dream like I’m awake…I do it during play week; I wake up running cues, thinking ‘I can’t sleep now; we’re in the middle of a show!’ I did much the same thing with camp that week…and still do it every few nights now. It sucks. Anyway, Thursday Tobin told us about a play – Into the Woods – which was free and going on that night at eight thirty. I met Jeff there, and me and him and Tobin and his girlfriend Michelle and Stratton watched the first act. It was ten, and we were all kind of sleepy…so when the curtain closed, we were ready go to. Except that they hadn’t taken the curtain call, and no one else was leaving. Fuck that, we decided; the other three went home, but Jeff and I wandered around the park for a bit and ended up on the swings at a playground.
It was near-dark, and we were the only ones out there. It was lots of fun, just swinging and talking a little bit. We talked about life and god and camp and climbing…it was nice. Two friends, shooting the breeze, acting like little kids again. When we decided it was time to go, Jeff realized he’d dropped his knife. Unable to find it in the dark, we walked back to his car, got his headlamp, and spent ten minutes searching. It never turned up…odd how it defied all laws of physics.
We walked, arm in arm, slowly back to his car. We held on to each other for a long time before parting…it was the last chance we had to be alone, and while nothing spectacular happened, it was comforting and safe-feeling…and I know that I’ll miss that a lot. He told me not to miss him while he was gone…to be like Kira and pretend he was dead. I can’t do that, but I’ll have to ignore the fact that I guarantee he’ll ignore me. He did the entire last week of camp; like every other male there, he flirted with Christine and wouldn’t give me the time of day. The following Friday before I left work, I asked if he’d be around at all the next week. He said he’d either see me on Monday or in January. That was it. So I left, pissed. I did see him Monday night – a brief greeting and briefer goodbye – and I got a hug on Tuesday before he left. But I think I was working myself out of what was just a brief summer fling even before he left. Maybe we’ll pick up where we left off when he gets back in January…or next summer. Part of me thinks it’d be cool; he’s a great guy. Part of me hopes I won’t have to hang onto the memories of him that long. Part of me wishes he was here, and part of me is glad he’s gone. Either way, he is gone and I can’t control that, so I might as well suck it up and keep a small part of myself wondering about what will happen when he gets back – and counting on nothing.
Anyway, that Jeff-rant aside, when I got home the Friday after the play, I was absolutely exhausted. Still, since Nana was here (which is another rant entirely), we went out to Kabuto’s and I froze, somehow, in front of a raging fire. It was fun. Got home and crashed.
One of the coolest things about the
week, though, was a girl named Rebecca. She
was ten or eleven, and she was scared out of her mind on the rappel…so on
Friday, when I was working the zipline, she was a little sketched out by it.
(Understandably.) She was in
tears, and told me that sometimes she wanted to go, and knew it would be fun,
but then she got scared. So I told
her to wait until she wasn’t scared, and go.
I blinked, and she’d run off and did it.
It was possibly the coolest
thing I’ve ever seen a kid do…it was so exciting…and when I saw her at the
closing ceremony, she had a huge grin on her face.
The next day, she came into Peak for a sampler, and she seemed really
happy to see me…it was an ego boost, sure, but was also awesome to know that
I’d made some iota of difference in her life.
She was really cool, and I hope she’ll come back next year.
Saturday, for some odd reason, I was back at Peak, working. I know I said my last day there was the 26th, but they’re understaffed, and I’m fully trained and still in the city. It wasn’t that bad, I guess…I closed with Veronica and bouldered for a bit with Graham and Gabe. The problem with those two is that I’d be on the wall, ready to make a dyno, and they’d say something nutty and make me laugh. For example, when I put on my new, need-to-be-broken in climbing shoes, I commented that they hurt like hell. Gabe grinned and said that I couldn’t say that anything hurt like hell unless I’d been shot, because that really hurts like hell. Then he went on to talk for a solid five minutes about how much it would suck to be shot in the kneecaps. Line of the night: “If you can hold on to that hold and giggle, you can make that next move. Now do it.”
I don’t really remember Sunday; I think I just sorta hung out at home.
Monday was another day, and I swear it was Special Ed week at Passages. The kids were not only impossible to control, but stupid. Just…stupid. I refuse to name names, but lord, it was insane. There were a few that were pretty cool - like Joey, who was seven years old, forty-two pounds, didn’t weigh enough to go down the rappel, and talked like Sean Connery – but not nearly enough. The kind of kid who’s throwing rocks at a hornet's nest.
Stupid kid: Why not? ::throws rock::
Counselor: You’ll get stung.
Stupid kid: ::throws rock::
Hornet: ::stings kid::
Stupid kid: Ow!
It stung me!
Tobin:
We call that justice.
So I was frazzled by the end of the day, and Ned called a whole bunch of us over to talk. He’s got a lake house up in Deltaville, and was wondering if any of us would want to go waterskiing. Of course I wanted to go, but convincing my parents took some doing…they had to call around, figure out what was up, talk to some parents, figure out who was going to be there, and then I got to go. I drove up with Ned and Jeff and Rob…it was interesting seeing the three of them together. The foul mouths came out, they gossiped more than most girls I know, and we listened to the tossed-salad sketch, which still makes me giggle thinking about it. Ew. Anyway, Stratton and Suz and Suz’s friend Tiffan came up in a different car, and the seven of us got one run each. I discovered that I can’t waterski at all, but was still a good deal of fun, hanging out on the boat and watching Stratton take some magnificent falls. (I took some myself…) We hung out at the house for a bit, showered, ate Brunswick stew, and got home just after midnight. What fun.
Tuesday Grant was getting an aid climbing demonstration at Peak, so, naturally, a whole bunch of us showed up to hang out. I ended up climbing mostly with Stratton, who is a very cool person, and I really met Trip (instead of just saying ‘hi, I’m Erin’ which is what I’d done the day before when I saw him for the first time.) He was there with his brother Conway, and we climbed together a bit…both boys are very cool. Since we got kicked out at closing, we [myself, Jeff, Rob, Trip, and Conway] rented Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and settled in to watch. I’d never seen the movie, didn’t get a bit of it, and had to leave a half-hour into it to get home without getting yelled at. As it was, I got into a bit of trouble, but I covered for myself fairly well and didn’t get shot.
Wednesday was another fun-filled day at camp, and I actually went home to shower before belaying at Peak. (Wednesdays the kids come to Peak and we all belay. It’s fun…basically a regular Peak birthday party with cooler kids and free pizza. We watched one of Trip’s kayaking videos, and I was very impressed, even though I knew next to nothing about kayaking. I very vaguely was aware that Trip was a ‘someone’ in the kayaking world, but since I’m barely in that world, I was just content to know that he’s a fun, interesting person. Turns out he finished third at the world championship last year in his division…which is just nifty. So we watched his video and ate pizza, and then we played on the low ropes course at Peak; set up a slackline and goofed off. I don’t remember who all was there, but at one point, I was hopping around on the pilings, and missed. It was dark, I was tired, and I have no depth perception, so I went to jump to one and wham, missed entirely. My little toe snapped as it hit the piling and I landed hard on my right shoulder, which is still pissed. Trip suggested I stay on the ground where I’d fallen, since it was hard to get hurt down there. (Lee subsequently pointed out that this was excellent advice from a guy named ‘Trip’.) My shoulder hurt like hell – I could barely turn the steering wheel on the drive home – and the next day I couldn’t belay. I still can’t, really, but popping two Aleve a day is helping, and while I’ve since rebroken my toe and broken the matching one on my left foot, I’m feeling pretty good about doing something stupid.
The next day I ended up playing
Grill-Master when Jeff had to leave…grilling with the handle of a flyswatter
was interesting to say the least…as was fending off fifty hungry kids when we
ran out of propane and had to get more. As
Trip said it to Tobin: “You know how we usually grill, with gas, on Thursdays?
Yeah, that’s not happening.” What
fun. We eventually got the grill
going, and the mystery meat was an entire
cow’s heart. Despite being mildly
grossed out by it, I tried it; it tasted like chewy steak.
Still, not a bad thing to put on the resume.
I’ve noticed myself diving in headfirst to the new stuff more and
more…things like the public speaking with the zipline orientation, the making
and hanging-out-with of new friends, and eating all sorts of weird shit.
It’s fun.
Thursday night was supposed to be a party at a local quarry, but when it thundered, the president of the quarry decided to be a dick and wouldn’t let us in. So we started out at Trip’s house, where we watched Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels again (a GREAT movie), and then sat around and eventually decided to go urban caving.
What’s urban caving?
It’s a bunch of goofball kids strapping on headlamps, lighting candles,
and running around in the storm drains underneath Windsor farms.
Sixteen people headed off down the street; at one point, Jeff and Rob
were seen giggling and skittering away from us…they reappeared later on a
longboard and rode tandem alongside us. They
showed us a put-in a few blocks from Trip’s house, and we spent a few hours
running around in thirteen-foot high tubes, jumping out and scaring each other,
being a little sketched out by the idea of a storm in the area, tramping through
a few inches of very iffy water, and
eventually ending up, all sixteen of us, in a four-ish foot high tube while Rob
tried to pull out a manhole. He
failed, and we turned around, somehow lost Stratton and Noah and Rob and Jeff,
and the remaining twelve of us hauled ourselves out onto a sidewalk in the
middle of who-knows where. It was an
adventure with my gimpy shoulder trying to pull myself up a few rungs and then
mantling onto the street…Trevor fed himself into a two-foot tube to cheer
people on…we got a lot of boosts
from Brian’s muscled friend…and it was probably the coolest (and most
illegal) thing I’ve ever done. We
caught up with Jeff and co. a few blocks later, toting the longboard, and headed
back to Trip’s.
Most people left after a little bit of time spent at Trip’s; Jeff tried to do Stratton’s four-four-forty challenge (four quarts of water in four minutes; hold it for forty seconds); he failed. I looked at a few pictures of climbing stuff, and headed out before they broke out the tequila. Apparently the made some brilliant toasts, one such might end up being my senior quote (“to health, travel, going big and being broke”), and then Trip, Conway, Jeff, and Trevor broke back into the quarry, bruised some ribs, got stung, and ripped a finger on some barbed wire. A successful night for all involved; I, myself, got plenty of sleep.
Friday, again, I didn’t realize how tired I was until I got home and got on the couch. I crashed around seven, woke up around nine, went upstairs, got into bed, and slept ‘till almost eleven the next day. I met Noah (school-Noah, not camp-Noah), Carter, Danny, Andrew, and Kitz for lunch in Carytown, and then met Jordan for school shopping. We sorta wandered all up and down Broad street; I got gas, he got jello-pops…I didn’t get to go boating with him and his friends that night because my parents were being mean, so I stayed home, dyed my hair red, and got yelled at for not doing college productive stuff.
That’s right, kiddos. School’s not even started yet and already I’m being nagged. I have an eleven o’clock curfew in the middle of summer, and some nights I’m not allowed to go out ‘just because’. My parents have become something of a camp joke…Trip especially keeps trying to convince me to not let them have control…and I’m not, within reason. (I’d rather not get disowned/lose my car.)
But whatever. I’ll deal with it; I’ve been dealing with it for years.
I avoided my summer reading on Sunday
by agreeing to work 2-5 (still not sure why…) and climbing at Manchester with
Clayton and Stratton. I’d never
been outside climbing before, and it was TONS of fun.
I didn’t lead anything like I’d kinda wanted to…it was a little
frightening, and my shoulder wasn’t really cooperating.
Still, it was awesome, I’m really glad I went, and I’m pissed that I
agreed to work; everyone went up to Deltaville again, but I couldn’t because I
had to work. So I went to work,
grumpy, and came home to write a college essay.
Ew. Still, Manchester was
fun, and I laughed a lot. Both
Stratton and Clayton are great guys and a lot of fun…Stratton’s only at Tech
(where I plan to visit a lot this
year), and Clayton’s around for the semester.
Yay. And I learned that
‘mono-dot’ can be inserted easily into all conversations.
Right.
Monday I got up early, went to get shots, and halfway there my phone rang. It was dad, saying Elissa had just called and was wondering if I was still going to pick her up. Shit. I’d totally forgotten; I’d told her to call me and remind me; glad she did, or I’d’ve been out at the island before I remembered. I swung back around and picked her up, and was only a little late.
After work that day I went down to the quarry with Trip and Conway and Jeff and Suz and Ned. We sat on the dock and they talked about people I didn’t know…I wasn’t there for that long before they all left, so I did to. I attempted to do like Trip and Suz had done and cartwheel off of the dock…I think Jeff’s less-than-graceful splat into the water looked better than my attempt. Did I mention I have a gimpy shoulder? Everyone was meeting at Katie’s that night to watch Zoolander, and I told them to call me when they knew what was up. I ended up going to Becca’s and begging a shower and dinner. I felt like such a loafer, but she didn’t seem to mind. It was nice to hang out, too…I’ve not seen her in weeks. I eventually said goodbye and headed out to Katie’s to watch the movie…very, very funny. After Rob and Suz left, Katie and Rob and Ned and myself stayed and talked about the gym, mainly…politics and people. I’m shocked at how much people have to say about the gym and the camp and the people that run it…it seems like a fairly politic-free zone, but it’s not at all. So after we bitched about everyone we knew, I went back home by way of Kitz’s house. Hung out with Carter and Cush and Noah and Kitz; we swam for a bit (I was in three bodies of water that day…plus Becca’s shower and my own), and Kitz and I spent a half-hour or so talking at his front door. I’m really going to miss him…I really already do. But he’ll be back soon enough, and he knows I’ll not forget him and miss him greatly.
When I got home I got in trouble for
going to Kitz’s without asking. Go
figure.
Tuesday at work I went for an unscheduled swim. There’s this lagoon in the middle of the climbing site which I call ‘the Pit.’ There’s a log floating in the Pit which Zippy the zipline has a tendency to get caught on. So for some odd reason, Megan and Stine and Christine and I decided we needed to get in and push the log out of the way and rescue Zippy. We spent an hour or so shoving that damn thing through seriously sketchy water…we finally girth-hitched a piece of webbing to it and wedged it under the dock, which was fine until we realized that we couldn’t reach the webbing and I had to swim under the dock to untie it. Drowning wasn’t on my list of things to do that day, so I avoided it, but I was still a little alarmed. And despite the kid-spit and who knows what else (George swears there’re corpses…), I didn’t glow or grow any extra appendages or anything. So yay.
There’s this one staff member, Dave,
who’s got this phenomenal talent for jumping onto anything in the area.
Poles, trucks, whatever. It’s
impressive, but I’m always afraid he’ll fall.
On Tuesday, coming back from the island, he did
fall. His shorts caught on the pole,
I think, and he racked himself really badly.
I saw it happen, and remember thinking ‘oh my god, he’s dead.
He just killed himself.’ He
wasn’t dead; he flopped forward over the pole and slid down it (we were
pushing kids along at this point, torn between keeping them away and helping
Dave) and, amazingly, stood up. We
could tell he was in significant pain, but he walked a few steps before he
realized there was blood running down his legs.
Trip took him to the hospital and that was the last I heard of it. It was
easily the most frightening thing I’ve seen in a really long time.
That night I came home and only went back out to get a pair of sandals and a new bag…ended up hanging around Peak for what was, apparently, too long…got yelled at when I got home. I went to bed around ten because I was tired, and was, oddly enough, awakened at eleven by my cell phone ringing. I grabbed it; it was Trip, saying that there were people at his house, he was sorry I wasn’t called, and I should come over. I mentioned that I’d been sleeping; he said I should come on over, crash there, and go to work from there. I said if I did that, I’d get shot. And then added that I was going back to bed. I may have missed the chance to go look for Indians on the Pocahontas parkway with them, but I got sleep.
Continuing on to Wednesday, the day was fine; we played flour-bomb capture the flag in the morning, went for a swim (which effectively turned the flour into paste – yay) and the day continued as normal. Turns out Dave had torn his urethra, and had had two hours of surgery the night before. We went to visit him after work – I piled Elissa, Aaron, Trevor, and Trevor’s ubiquitous paddle into my car. (Incidentally, when I made a sudden stop, the paddle slid in between the front seats and gave me a heart attack.) Dave seemed to be doing well…sitting up and laughing and talking and surrounded by friends…and he got out of belaying at Peak that night.
After Peak, we climbed for a very short while. I took a massive whipper in front of a group of fifty-some kids who’d never climbed before…got a round of applause and a few gasps. It was nifty, especially since I’ve not taken in a whip in…well, a long time. Fun, too. Shortly thereafter, several of us went down to the Fourth Street Café, had coffee and milkshakes, and I got home on time, miraculously. Coming out of the diner, Trip put his arm around me and staggered down the sidewalk, pulling me with him (the guy’s huge…it wasn’t hard), singing loudly. So I can cross ‘pretending to be drunk’ off of my list of things to do; it’s right between paddling and learning to drive stick.
I did that Wednesday, too. Trip was driving Stine and myself back in the clot (the old beat-up camp pickup.) I commented that I’d never driven stick, and he made me get out and drive. No big deal; apparently I did everything right, until I stopped (he neglected to tell me that I had to do something specific…I’ve since forgotten what.)
And on Thursday I went paddling with Stratton. It was tons of fun…even if the river is really low…I got damn good at pushing myself off of rocks. And I only bailed five or seven times. At one point, I hit a rock and got pinned between it and a current of water. I heard Stratton say ‘oh, that’s a bad place to be.’ As he said it, a wave found its way into the boat, it filled with water, and I sank. His paddle got away, my shorts and keys got totally soaked, he almost lost his keys and camelback…but I can say that I ran Pipeline and didn’t die. And it was lots of fun. I’m going to make someone – probably Conway – teach me how to not sink this fall…it’s a great sport that I’d love to get into.
We got to the take out and I tried (in vain) to wring all of the James out of my shorts…I put my keys on the roof of his car while he tied down the boats, and didn’t realize until we were almost back at Tredegar that I’d left my keys there. Miraculously, they were still there…got caught on the racks or something. So we both almost lost our keys in the span of a half-hour…he called it bad karma. I guess it was.
I headed down to Peak to wash the river off of myself and get ready to go out again; John was having a party at his house, what fun. I’d told Trip to call me when he was finished with dinner and we’d hang out before the party…it wasn’t until ten, I didn’t want to go home, and it was his last night in town. Apparently he had trouble finding my number, so I didn’t hear from him until nineish. I spent some two hours at Peak, got dinner at Sheetz, and worked on my prodeal stuff. I got to Trip’s in enough time to hang out with him and Conway for a bit, talk about life and Jones Soda, make coffee, and carpool to John’s. The party was fine; I got to see Amy, who I’d not seen in months, and it was rather nice to chill on John’s roof and joke about throwing things at people. The problem came when I realized that I had no reliable way to get home. My ride there - and most everyone else with a license - was…er…not available to drive, which wasn’t a problem except that no one was getting in a car. Fine – I lose all respect for people who drive drunk. But I needed to get back to Bradley, who was a good ten minute drive away. But I figured my parents would understand, so I hung out a bit longer than I should have. It was actually Trip who said I needed to get home…and he was absolutely right. So I drove him and Conway back to his house, said goodbye (he’s in Wisconsin for a few weeks), and Conway drove them back. I got home super-late, and got in trouble without my parents even knowing there was drinking.
I tried to keep that out of the story, but it made my case sound pretty lame. Honestly, I had enough friends there that someone would have taken me home. But since none of my friends from school drink, I figured my parents would flip if they knew there’d been alcohol (they like to flip for reasons that really aren’t any good…) and I knew they’d be loathe to let me out with that group again. I, personally, didn’t drink, there was none of that peer pressure bullshit that I’ve been scared with for the last few years…and I was responsible in finding a ride back to my car. The only mistake I made was not leaving sooner…but fuck that, I was having fun.
So I was in trouble from Thursday, which didn’t stop me from going swimming after work on Friday. I wasn’t wearing a bathing suit, though, so I made do with what I had. We jumped off of a thirty-ish foot high bridge piling on a rope swing into probably three feet of water…but it was still lots of fun. And while it was odd to be wandering around in a bra and shorts (my white staff t-shirt was just extra weight), I was comfortable with the group I was with (Elissa, Conway, Stine, Christine [also shirtless] Aaron, and Clayton.) After some random kids showed up at the rope swing, we decided to go down to Pipeline and swim. I’d never swum through a rapid before, and I was a little concerned about the whole dying thing…but it didn’t happen, (that’s twice through Pipeline without death…a good record), and we got to climb, too. (There’s a huge rock above a huge pool of water just upstream of the rapid. It’s boulderable, and fun.)
I got home a little later than I’d expected, but I didn’t get in trouble. I just crashed, as has become my idiom, around nine, and slept ‘till eleven today.
And so went my last three weeks.
And holy shit, this entry is long. I’m on my ninth page, and I haven’t even gotten to the metaphorical rambling shit. So I won’t, right now. I feel, though, like I’m a different person that I was at the beginning of the summer. It has to do with the feeling of immediacy that comes with everyone going away; that if-I-don’t-do-it-now-I-may-never-get-the-chance-again feeling…but it’s also that, for the last three weeks, I was drop-kicked into a group of open, friendly people with the same passions I have. It was awesome, and I can look back and say that I did some incredible things…from urban caving to eating cow’s heart to wandering around downtown half-naked to going through rapids to driving stick to making some awesome friends.
And now summer’s almost over. Jeff’s gone, Kitz’s gone, Jordan’s gone, Trip’s gone, Rob’s gone, Stratton’s gone, Suz’s gone, Kira’s gone, Danny’s gone, Sno’s gone, Lee’s gone…I’m still here. But so is Stine, Conway, Christine, Clayton, and Aaron. Trip’ll be back soon for a bit before heading out to college, and I fully plan to visit everyone I can. I hear there’re some great liberal arts schools out in Oregon…and closer to home, there’s Tech. I have a dozen friends there, and it’s only an hour from the New. What could be better
I start school on Tuesday, and I still have some seven hundred pages to read. But I don’t care. I’m working on Monday to keep my mind off things, and it’s gonna be great. I’ll be a senior, which means I have free periods and hot chocolate and senior parking and cool classes…my schedule’s as close to awesome as it can be. I’ll be eighteen in four months, and hopefully with college on the immediate horizon (finally!!), my parents’ll give in and let me take the trips to visit Trip and Jeff and Ned and Josh and Lee and Sno and Rob and anyone else I may want to see.
The summer was an adventure, and the
school year will be boring, but I’ll make it fun.
I’ll find things to keep me occupied, people to keep me company, and if
all else fails, I’ll pick up the phone and reminisce about running around
under Windsor Farms, or swimming in The Pit.
I’ll go back and read what I’ve written and write what I’m feeling.
And in a year, I’ll be somewhere else, thrilled to death to be starting
something new. I can’t wait.