Rotate the foodstuffs!

Hey there--

Just thought I'd say that I'm home, back in Baton Rouge, camp now being over.  I'm currently going through the post-camp withdrawal/depression period, which I knew was coming but forgot to prepare for.  It's basically a long bout of loneliness, when you're suddenly no longer surrounded by people day in and day out.  I'll be better once I've slept a night in my own bed.  Anyway, Kate and Kevin, I got your messages, but teardown lasted until 6:30, and then there was the eating and drinking.  Now I'm just worn-out (I think I was teetering toward a major heat-related illness today, what with the flushed skin and dizziness), and don't really want to subject anyone to my mopes.  I'll call you both tomorrow, K?  Sleep well, everyone.

Really though, it's raining quite heavily right now.  I'm a little disgusted; I hate driving in the rain to begin with, and when I get to Lafayette, we'll have to load the moving van (you guessed it) in the rain.  So I looked at the forecast to see what the rest of the encampment would be like, and it's a little depressing.  Solid scattered T-storms all the way through the 18th.  On the 19th, the last day currently forecast, they think it'll be partly cloudy; bet it rains.  Oh July in Louisiana.  What a ridiculous month you are.

See y'all in a couple of weeks!

I cannot find a lantern battery to save my soul.  You all know the batteries I'm talking about, the ones with the little conical springs sprouting from the top.  I have an incredibly cheap-ass flashlight that takes one.  I use this light not because it's fancy or anything (like I said, it's cheap-ass), nor because it's light and packable (it takes a lantern battery, for chrissakes), but because it throws a whole, whole lot of light, yet I don't worry about losing it or breaking it, since it cost me something like $5 dollars about an equal number of years ago.

But I can't use my giant flashlight, because I can't find a battery.  First I tried at Albertson's, a long shot to be sure, but it's the closest store, and they have ziploc containers, some of which I needed.  I couldn't even find the batteries there, so I gave up on that jaunt.  I then decided to make a drive out to Target, because hey, it's a bigger store.  And if Wal-Mart carries lantern batteries (as I'm pretty sure they still do), surely Target does too.  No luck.  Seriously, I looked all over that blasted store, and there is nary a lantern battery to be had.  They have lanterns in their sporting goods section that appear to require them (although an increasing number seem to be plug-in-rechargeable, which may explain the sudden dearth of gigantic single-use batteries that have no other conceivable purpose), but no batteries.  It's maddening.

You also can't buy a 4- or 6-pack of AA's anymore, I think.  I had to buy 16 AA batteries -- what is that?  I just don't use that many batteries.  I was only barely consoled by .99$ key lime-white chocolate cookies in the checkout line.

So, yes, in about 30 minutes I'm headed out.  I'll have my phone with me, but I generally have it turned to silent in camp situations.  Feel free to leave me a message, or maybe I'll even be both free and aware of the flashing screen.  What an idea!  I'll be back from training the night of the 6th, unless it's like last year and I get sucked into dinner and drinks in Lafayette (or was that just after the encampment itself?  I can't recall).

Thank you all for your comments on my last entry.  I want you to bear in mind that I do appreciate them, despite whatever else I may say.  You should also know that I just went and re-read them, and I'm reacting much more positively toward them; but this is based off an earlier reading, which stewed and led to a big bout of introspection.

I really should have disabled comments before I posted that damn thing.  Here's the deal: I know you meant well, but I don't take criticism well.  Sure, I can pretend to take it well, but in actuality even slight criticism elicits a seething defensiveness inside my head.  I get ridiculously steamed.  It's a flaw I'm working on, with middling success - hard to take constructive criticism, even from yourself, when it pisses you off.

What's that you say?  You weren't critical?  We-e-e-ell.... yes.  It's true, you weren't.  I know this intellectually.  That being said, the comments, to my diseased mind, lightly imply a lack of perspective on my part.  And my diseased mind further extrapolates that to criticism.  And then my panties spontaneously bunch.  Like I said, middling success.

Anyway, clarifying: the problem I mentioned yesterday is not a question of making things work together harmoniously, or of a fictive exclusive choice between options.  Y'all seem to think I meant that, and I blame it on the verb mesh.  In fact, it's a question of timing and scheduling.  It's just shitty timing, really.  No, not everything has to happen right this second, but right now I'm in a little bit of limbo, not even knowing where I am next year and the years after, so it's a mite stressful.  I'm also feeling a little bit like I'm betraying myself, like I'm in danger of abandoning a writing dream, which really upsets me.

I'm flighty.  I know I am.  I rely more on emotion than on logic and reason in my decision-making progress, I always have.  There is an inherent danger in this: I run the risk of latching onto the new and interesting rather than the deep and enduring.  Luckily, I've got enough practicality/healthy sense of self-preservation to enforce a sort of waiting period in which to discern which category my newest idea belongs in.  And in the end, it's an acceptable risk, because I think I do better with this sort of thought.  Although I always think of practicalities, my emotional response to my environment is very important.  Also, without getting all spiritual-weird, I think I'm more open this way to an understanding of what my 'calling' is, and that's important to me.

Going at this from a different angle, let me just respond a bit to various ideas that have been floated to me both in comments and in IM chats.  First off, I don't, at least at this point, wish to do anything with a writing camp.  Maybe I might get interested in it at some point, but it doesn't really strike me as something I want to do.  A writing component in a more generalist camp perhaps.  Really, though, if my pipe dreams were coming true I'd be getting my MFA, then working on site at a camp (as a ranger?  director?) and writing *not* as a part of my job.

Second, it's been suggested that there are camps that might be nearer to wherever I end up next year.  This is true, there are.  However, for the moment at least I am quite committed to Camp Bon Coeur.  No matter where I end up next year, I fully intend to come back to Louisiana to work camp.  People come from Ohio, New York, and New Jersey to do so, not to mention Scotland and Germany -- surely I can too.  The main difficulty is that I don't want to be just a counselor/instructor, I want to become more involved in planning and development (which is the course I'm currently on)-- that's hard enough from an hour away in Baton Rouge, yet more so out-of-state.

A final note here: we would desperately love to have our own facility, instead of renting.  This is way out of reach for us.  Luke, Andrea, and I sat around on Tuesday night plotting to marry old rich people Anna Nicole Smith-style, and we even sent a video to that show Ty Pennington does, although the project's WAY bigger than anything they've ever done.  Seriously, we're thinking so far outside the box we can't see it anymore.  In all honesty it was more joking that anything else, but the sentiment's real.  So, on the extreme off-chance that someone knows of an individual or company that's trying to find a worthy recipient for a generous donation, you can inform them of our camp.  We're very professional, we do a world of good for our campers, and we can guarantee that the money would be well-spent.  Just so you know.  It's either that or sell ourselves into indentured servitude, probably to an oil company.

I'm off to Alabama Sunday AM, not to return 'til Wednesday evening.  Since apparently I've forgotten to tell anybody about this, an explanation: it's the American Camp Association's Heart of the South Regional Conference.  Education/training/etc.  Anyway, yeah.  I'll have my phone on me, although it'll probably be mostly turned to silent, and I haven't the vaguest idea as to reception quality at Camp Sumatanga, Gallant, AL.  Nevertheless, I'm reachable if it's necessary.

Talked to Mr. Daigle (my Cajun speaker) today, and it went quite well.  He, his wife, and I talked for a good 3 hours almost, and I had a lot of fun.  She doesn't speak much French at all (although she's trying admirably to learn), so it was sometimes a bit crazy with the multilingual.  They talked about maybe organizing something later in the Spring for Frenchy folks, a cookout or whatnot, which would be all kinds of fun. 

Relatedly, I'm quite proud of myself.  I finished my dictionary review work I had to have done before I left, AND I finished transcribing a 2-minute section of my interview today, which means I don't have to schlepp my laptop with me à l'Alabama, woohoo!  And I just finished laundry and packing, so that's not left to the morning.  Damn I'm good.  Anyway, Luke and Andrea will theoretically be here to pick me up in a little more than 7 hours (yeah, that'll happen; I'm betting it'll be more like 10 than 9:30, but whatever), so I need to brush my teeth and go to bed.  Night.

I'm back in BR.  Family Camp was wonderfuliforous, although I'm currently about this close (*holds thumb and forefinger 2.4 picometers apart) to falling asleep right here in my chair which would be bad because then I wouldn't get my contacts out and then my eyes would bleed and I would wake up screaming in pain at 3am plus I wouldn't be able to finish this wretchedly run-on (runned-on? ran-on?) sentence ach what a pity.

Plus I decided to go have food and margaritas in Laf. with CBC folk instead of rushing home to catch West Wing and Grey's Anatomy, so I'll have to download those (bugger.) -- no one spoil me, K?  Thanks.