out with a whimper

Welp, camp is over.

These past couple weeks were blurred by a lack of personal space and an excess of yellow food- I was never able to finish a rubber Sysco omelet without at least two toothy campers trying to pants me at the table, or choke me dead during a sit-down piggy-back ride- so it kind of flew by in that "fuck i'm tired when will this end" sort of way.  But the best summer of my average life is nearly done and I didn't even cry so I'm obviously made of stone (seeing as I cried two weeks ago when I learned that pizza was for dinner, it's clear that my priorities are way out of line).  Perhaps it was the promise of eating vegetables some time in the near future that kept me from sob-drooling all over the final campfire, or maybe it was the stomachache from the previous night's bean-chugging competition that prevented me from feeling anything at all.  Either way, I held my shit together, and that's a phrase I've never used.

I guess when it came down to it, I just didn't have the time to get sappy.  Up until the last minute at camp, I was racing from cabin to cabin, scrambling to find a camper's hat that I'd lost.  The hat belonged to Tatumn's (a blonde nine year old who insisted on climbing any and all adults in the room) stepmother, a 22 year old Russian named Katya.  Thank god it turned up, I don't have the shoulder strength to defend myself against a mail-order bride from Kiev.

During this last session, I had yet another group of 4th-5th graders, half of which struggled with illegal levels of dumb.  Unfortunately, Great Scott and I were split up for these last two weeks, a decision made by the support staff in an attempt to "switch things up" and "challenge ourselves to work with other people".  Due to this horrific idea, I was left to torture my new co-counselor RJ with talking about how great Scott is for two weeks.  Which was unfair, considering RJ is an incredibly interesting human being.  The dude is an EMT and golf child-prodigy, with an unhealthy obsession for driving fast cars and arguing that motorcycles are safer than minivans. I'm eternally thankful for his insistence on taking "counselor time" a few times a day, which meant hiding in tents and eating secret trail mix, but I still missed workin with Scotch Tape on the daily.  If RJ wasn't so committed to being sober and healthy all the time, I'd buy him a million beers.  By the way, at the staff banquet, Glass of Scotch and I were awarded the "Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Award" for being attached at the hips with killer fashion sense. So.  

Despite my ungrateful, ass-faced demeanor, I'm gonna miss a lot about camp.  Predictably, I'll miss dancing on dirt roads with Larry, sleepovers in the theatre haunted by taxidermic mountain lions, and participating in campfire skits that only the counselors find funny ("yoogle," google search results acted out in real time).  But most of all, I'll miss our dear Chef Norman openly griping about his hemorrhoids at logistics meetings. Few things bring me greater joy than that man's behavioral choices.  I'll never forget hearing about the time when Norm entered the dining hall to announce breakfast and shouted, "Today we have eggs and bacon.  Daaaaaaamn!" to a crowd full of appalled twelve-and-unders.

It'll be annoying re-adjusting to life with regular(ish) showers and without "Baby Shark" verses sprinkled throughout my day.  Can't say that I'm looking forward to it.  There's no doubt I've changed quite a bit since May.  I now think farts are funny, I wear at least five bracelets on each wrist, I have an almost-tan from giving up sunscreen halfway through the summer, and a half-formed dread on the right side of my head from a lack of personal hygiene. I also lost all interest in pursuing comedy as a career, which I realize may only be temporary, but as of now, I'll claw my eyes out before you can convince me to write a shitty sketch about Kooky Astronauts on July 4th with a bunch of other assholes in a windowless room.  So fingers crossed this whole Move To Boulder And Continue Converting Into a Flirty Tree plan works out, because I've found what I want to do.  I wanna camp forever.  I love this.  With dirty fingernails and bug bites all over my ass, I've had more fun these past few months than I've had ever.  I'm happy, and I'm terrified of being a sick and miserable student clad in faux fur in the city again.  I'm scared shitless that returning to Columbia, resuming everything I placed on pause over a year and a half ago, will reverse all the progress I've made on being a positive, relatively put-together person.  Colorado works for me.  For whatever reason, in this state and this state only, I have an unusual amount of patience for all sorts of idiots, I get offered jobs at REI by charming zipliners, and handsome blondes go out of their way to flirt with me WHY FUCK WITH THAT

But wow, I don't want to waste any time here stressin or biting my nails until they bleed- that's lame.  I've got big mountains to look at and Leah's to eat chocolate stuff with.

SEE YA, GONNA GET NAKED AND DRUNKISH AND SWIM SOMEWHERE,

Kay

P.S. I'm not heading home until august 20th, which gives me some time to bounce around colorado with some of my favorites for a while; I'm not sure what we're doing, but I know that we're goin to sand dunes and hot springs and we'll be climbin some mountains and i'm so excited how am i this lucky

dumb

I'm sick now.  I guess it was inevitable, running around for 12+ hours a day and trading in sleep to watch the live action Scooby Doo and skinny dip under the moon. 

But with the exception of one camper with a crippling attention disorder who miraculously introduced himself to Steve by saying, "Hi! I'm Joe, I have ADD!" all of my campers over the past two weeks were boring.  Cute-ish, but I won't remember a single one of them starting yesterday.  It's probably for the best, seeing as I'm still mourning the loss of Eric and the other four (two of the four, to be honest) Black Bears from too many weeks ago.  I get all emotional and weird every time I'm reminded of the good times we had taking selfies in the van and getting carried away with violent games of capture the flag.  God, here I go again.  If I have any more charming campers my eyes will bleed. 

With the stupid amount of fun I had that second session and the few meals I’ve shared with older groups in the dining hall since, I have no doubt that I’ve found my target audience: 12-13 year old boys. Little dudes that age think I'm God of Fun.  I made a table of Black Bears laugh until they cried while explaining Jay Z's (my devoted husband of 15 years) future concert locations- all of which were performances for charities that supported a variety of neglected disabled animals- a barn in Massachusetts for goats in need, a large outhouse in Little Rock for Vietnam veteran spiders... the kids were all on the floor by the time we got to discussing his February 2015 concert on the moon for autistic lava rocks.

Although the time with my 4^th-5^th grade kiddos was largely drool inducing, our brief Leadville backpacking trip (two nights, 3ish days) was an unforgettable disaster.  We hiked in on the first day while the sky threw a tantrum- crying and pissing all over our tents and stuff, which meant that we were all wet and desperate when we realized that we were given the wrong fuel for our stoves, forcing us to rely on Scott’s soggy campfire skills to cook weird grits.

Meanwhile, Xander, the quietest camper of the bunch, neglected to bring his medically-required-to-have-at-all-times Epi pen in his pack for the trip, which was a huge deal, considering he’s severely allergic to bee stings and fire ant bites.  The moment we learned that Xand-man was without his epi on the second day, we immediately packed up and hiked everybody back down beside the highway for fear that his throat would close at any moment.  That grass lot was the only place where we had a single bar of cell phone service, and Great Scott and I figured in the case of an emergency, we could flag down a family-friendly car on the road and hitchhike our way to the nearest hospital.  However, despite our many calls, voicemails and text-pleads for help from camp, we never heard word from anyone, and had to wait anxiously for our pre-scheduled pick-up time the next day at noon.  I didn’t sleep a wink, and I'm eternally pissed at the anaphylaxis that never came for taking whatever spooky dreams I could've had that night away from me. 

On top of all that shit, I got my monthly-ish slap in the vag from Mother Nature early in the morning on the second day.  I brought one tampon.  One.  Without stealing guaze from the expedition med kit, the best solution I could think of was to sneak off into the trees every thirty to sixty minutes and wipe up with leaves.  I used my only tampon that night, and shoved a bandana down my pants for the long car ride back to camp the next day (I burned that bandana in a ceremonial Fuck You Fire later that night) because the gas station we stopped at sold no tampons. By the way, it's criminal for a convenience store to sell paintings of dying wolves, york peppermint patties and fishing licenses, but zero feminine products.  I briefly considered buying a pack of adult diapers, but my sobriety quickly shot that idea dead.  I have to be at least five (two) beers deep to consider slapping on some pampers.

Obviously I wouldn't have made it through the trip without my co-counselor Scotch Tape.  I've explained before why Glass of Scotch is a superhero, but here are two more instances of his Indiana Jones instincts: 

1. Within seconds of discovering that one of our campers got a bloody nose, he pulled a knife from his pocket, cut a piece off his sleeve, rolled it tight, and shoved it up her nose

2. He sprinted down river the moment he saw that our clumsiest camper dropped her water bottle cap over a waterfall, and emerged from the trees five tense minutes later with wet pants and cap in hand

I, on the other hand, cried real tears when pizza was placed on my table for dinner the night we returned from Leadville.  I was so surprised and overwhelmed at the sight of unreasonably cheesy pizza after a couple of mildly stressful nights, tears fell without my consent before a table of terrified campers, convinced they'd been assigned to share a meal with a shit show.  And to be perfectly honest, they weren't wrong.  I've settled into my place here.  I know my role.  Halfway through the summer, when others were promoted to Head Girls' Counselor or Director of Camp Spirit, I was promoted to Queen of Random, a position I’ve taken with great pride and responsibility.  In accordance with my new title, my relentless commitment to triple dog daring my campers to eat without their hands during dinner and my insistence on dancing while facilitating a conversation about conquering fears earned myself a 2/3 for “Maturity” on my staff evaluation.  One of my kids casually mentioned to another counselor that he has a "pretty sweet set up," because while Scott is the counselor that "makes us do stuff and learn things, Kaylin is just here to have fun".  Whoops.

Despite my incompetence, underlined by my campers now calling me a number of unapproved nicknames like Nose Ring, Daddy Pig, and my personal favorite, Kissy Kissy Eyebrow, I must be doing a mediocre job, because the "Counselors of the Session" gift card things were awarded to Scott and I today, and I’m feelin all sorts of butterflies.  Confused, self-doubting butterflies.

Lastly, I want to take a minute to brag about my final day off before the end of camp, which I spent entirely with my other half, Leah, better known as Larry, a beautiful goon from Massachusetts who shares my love of morning dance parties and irrational leggings.  Subsequent to sucking down a choco-milkshake in a store that sold "Pork Chunks" unironically, we made a visit to the Bailey Country Store, where there's a small but very convincing Sasquatch sighting museum (? Not sure what else to call it, seeing as it was also a grocery store and internet cafe) that played the Mama Mia soundtrack exclusively, where Larry purchased a phony raccoon hat, and I had an uncomfortably long conversation with the cashier about her daughter’s decision to study digital art at Chapman.  After swallowing multiple slices of pineapple pizza (duh) on a porch while some dude and his hound dumpster dived in the corner of the parking lot, we wrapped up our adorable day-long date by laying out our sleeping bags in the theatre and fell asleep with mouthfuls of m&ms as Monsters Inc streamed on the TV.  However, my blissful slumber was rudely interrupted by Larry in the middle of the night, who was convinced that there was an animal in the trash because "the bag was moving" and the rustling had woken her up.  I gave her a healthy dose of shit for her nighttime rodent paranoia during the following days, but it turns out that she was right.  There was a mouse living in the trash can.  RJ, another counselor, noticed it while guiding his campers through some rainy day activities a few days later and threw it in the dumpster out behind the dining hall.

I'll never hear the end of it.

BYE,

Kay

P.S. I’m applying to transfer to CU because the thought of spending another 2.5 years in New York City is nauseating and I’m happy here do I need another reason DAD

typical

Mooooooom,

It’s been a very emotional few days, and none of my reasons are legitimate.  Most recently I found myself crying after biting into the second half of a pepper after naively assuming I was capable of coping with spicy red things.  Like an overconfident nacho enthusiast, tears streamed down my face for fifteenish minutes while I downed an embarrassing amount of water and shoveled enough tasteless rice down my throat to feed the House of Representatives on Cinco de Mayo.  

I also remember tearing up at some point while watching Homeward Bound on VHS last night, which is unacceptable under any circumstances.  My only semi-justified instance of crying in the past 48 hours was when I had to say goodbye to my favorite camper that I've had thus far (and probably forever), Eric, a witty little shit capable of knocking me off my feet in a single look.  The fact that I'll never see that kid again is making me tear up even now, as I wolf down 400 calories of Hersheys bars on a multicolored couch that wreaks of hamster bedding.  Eric and I spent most of the past two weeks shootin the shit, from making up pick-up lines while brushing our teeth, to brainstorming which celebrities we would marry if we had the chance (he beautifully mis-stated Morgan Freeman in place of Megan Fox, causing me to choke on milk).  I had more fun blowing bubbles in the cabin with that goob than I've had all summer.  At one point I was struggling to breathe between laugh-honks while failing to remind myself that I was technically an adult.  From our short time together as Black Bears (our group name thing), I learned everything about his two rad moms, his hopes and dreams of becoming an inventor, and our mutually shared love of Will Ferrell.  I'm gonna miss his habit of styling his hair in the reflection of other people's sunglasses, his respectable talent of sneaking 80+ selfies onto my phone, and his incredible ability to see right through me.  Fuck. I didn't realize I would ever get this attached to my campers.  Just, awful.

My last session of campers certainly weren't perfect (our picky eater fell into hysterics when asked to eat a spoonful of salsa at dinner, and another grabbed both of my breasts without hesitation during a handsy game of Ninja), but I had so much more fun with those hormone-plagued yuppies than I did with the younger kids the weeks before.  The older boys liked me better than my co-counselor Scott, which was a weird and uncomfortable change of pace, but it felt good to feel like I was somewhat useful.  They were fixated on asking me about my age and who I was dating, so obviously I told them that I was 69 years old with 3 children and 69 grandchildren, to which one of my campers responded, "Your kids need a new hobby".  I was also sure to mention that I'm happily married to Jay Z, and that his "marriage" to Beyonce is simply a publicity stunt.  Of course, good ol' Steve was kind enough to point out that the only one of my campers to believe that spiel literally had brain damage (looking back, I realize I probably shouldn't grossly lie to victims of in-the-womb drug abuse).  Even so, it was better to share a poorly-planned fib than to tell them I'd spent the past few years collecting dust in my bajingo.

But my fondest memories of the boys are undoubtedly from our five day backpacking trip through Routt National Forest.  I had a stupid good time, mostly because I was focused on having a stupid good time.  Backpacking is tough, and if you're not constantly thinking of ways to inject conversations about pizza into the day, shit can get miserable fast. The highlights:

1. Leave it to my idiot self to get so excited when faced with a quarter pound of hot chocolate all to myself after a few days of mild hunger, that I would join my campers in drinking a concentrated bowl of what we called "chocolate soup", and within a half hour, throw up, and then shit everything else into a hole dug by the river, lazily hidden by a mossy rock the size of my left ass.

2.  For a reason I can't remember, I let the kids draw all over me with pen with only one rule - Don't Draw a Penis. What ended up on me was a mustache that looked suspiciously like a penis, “I Love My Chest Hairs” scribbled on my left arm, "Avid 4" beside another penis (transformed into a rocket ship by my request) on my right arm, another penis beneath my left armpit, and some sort of target on the center of my throat.  They really respect me!!

3.  After a relentless nosebleed from three to six in the morning, Jacob agreed to shove a tampon up his nose as he lay in the dirt waiting for a clotting miracle.  Unfortunately, the tampon expanded as it absorbed his blood (why we didn't see this coming i'll never know), so we had to pry it out using a syringe and scissors while the poor kid sobbed from the pain of having his nostril stretched to an unreal diameter.  It wasn't nearly as funny at the time as it was a day later, when Jacob referenced the incident as his "nose's first menstrual cycle".

4.  To keep the swarming mosquitos away from clogging our body's holes (eyes, mouth, etc.), we wore full rain gear and ski masks in 80something degree weather.  Yet I still managed to get 15-20 bug bites solely on my ass (despite the fact that my bum was covered by multiple layers the entire time - aside from the few instances where I was violently shitting bowls of hot chocolate).  To prevent this hell from ever repeating itself, any one of the boys living in Silver Spruce could confirm that the day I returned to camp, I placed 45 pairs of bug pants in my REI online checkout cart. $563.21.

All in all, I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I'm halfway through summer.  It's been the best couple of months of my life, and there's clearly no light at the end of the funnest tunnel ever- just school (Columbia) - a dank, piss-scented cave with sky scrapers and philosophy books.  All I can do is savor the moments that make this summer great - such as tonight, when I found myself grooming my downstairs in a moldy shower stall while 3rd grade campers were teaching each other how to fishtail braid no more than eight feet away.

Sweet dreams,
Kay

P.S. Graham is our Trip Coordinator here at CMC and he's a blessing to us all.  Here are a couple quotes from the past week to prove it:
"I've made myself throw up before.  Mostly at bar mitzfahs."

In response to a camper saying, "Chocolate is like beer for kids", he stated: "I don't think you know what chocolate or beer is from that statement."