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Aug. 27th, 2014 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreThings:
- This past weekend, my mother, sisters, and I went to Women's Own, which is Grown-Up Girl Scout Camp*. It was absurdly fun. The great thing about being at camp as an adult is that you get to do whatever you want. There were schedule events you could attend if you wanted and meals were always at a certain time but other than that, you get to figure out whatever you want to do and do it. We did various arts-and-crafts things, went swimming in the Hood Canal, did a little hiking, and spent most of Saturday sitting in a chair reading a book, which I haven't done for far too long. There was a camp fire and a talent show and a night we all dressed up in make-shift 1920's regalia to play bingo and roulette to win cheap-ass prizes. And everyone was friendly and helpful and welcoming, but willing to leave you along if that's what you wanted. We are already planning to go back next year and if you are a lady who lives in Washington and wants to go to Grown-Up Girl Scout Camp, I thoroughly recommend it.
- Also, I bought a gorgeous Girl Scout pocketknife in the camp store because I have always wanted a good pocket knife and it was beautiful and I am an adult and can buy myself knives if I want to.
- While at camp, I read about 200 pages of The Stand, which I haven't read in about 10 years. You guys, that book is still pretty great. Though of course I'm not quite sure if that's because it was definitely one of the Books Of My Adolescence. I read The Stand a lot as a teenager - it's one of those books I can point at and say, "That is where I learned this thing".*** It's not quite as scary as it once was, but the little creepy things remain very effective - the dead soldier with the soup in his eyebrows, those first few glimpses at Randall Flagg, "Come down and eat chicken with me, beautiful - it's so dark". (It's possible that I think that whenever I am in dimly-lit staircases.) I am unsurprised but a little ashamed to find that I still really identify with Harold Lauder in a lot of ways. Look, I was - am - a pretentious nerd and while I like to think that I wouldn't really go to the Dark Side, if you'd caught me at the right point in my lonely pretentious nerdgirl adolescence, I can't promise that I would haven't. Like Eleanor Vance, my identification with Harold is undeniably present and undeniably uncomfortable (I am not ashamed of my continuing love for the Trash Can Man.) The fact that I have never yet managed to read The Stand at a point when I don't have a runny nose always adds to the experience somewhat.
- It is the last week of Summer Reading which is always both a little melancholy and a little bit of a relief. Now, of course, we get a bunch of emails about our annual All Staff Day, which is coming up in about a month and about which I am not excited. The higher-ups really want us to be excited, though. This year, there is apparently some sort of after-party. I cannot imagine who will be attending that - after a mandatory 8 hours of meeting and socializing while seated in uncomfortable chairs, all I want is to go home. At least now it's on a Thursday instead of Monday, so I don't have to go to choir right afterwards.
- Choir starts in two weeks! I'm so excited! I haven't sung properly since April and my range has probably atrophied terribly, but I'm still so excited!
*My mother always wanted to be a Girl Scout but never got to be. Thus, all of her children were, for varying lengths of time**.
**I stayed in the longest and made it to Juniors. (Got my wings, baby!) Sometimes, I regret not sticking with it for longer, but my troop kinda sucked and I wanted to take taekwondo, so...
***I don't think it's the first book I read in which abortion was mentioned, but it's definitely the first book that connected it with coat hangers. What an odd thing to remember. It is also the book where I learned about That One Yeats Poem Every Horror Fan Knows.
- This past weekend, my mother, sisters, and I went to Women's Own, which is Grown-Up Girl Scout Camp*. It was absurdly fun. The great thing about being at camp as an adult is that you get to do whatever you want. There were schedule events you could attend if you wanted and meals were always at a certain time but other than that, you get to figure out whatever you want to do and do it. We did various arts-and-crafts things, went swimming in the Hood Canal, did a little hiking, and spent most of Saturday sitting in a chair reading a book, which I haven't done for far too long. There was a camp fire and a talent show and a night we all dressed up in make-shift 1920's regalia to play bingo and roulette to win cheap-ass prizes. And everyone was friendly and helpful and welcoming, but willing to leave you along if that's what you wanted. We are already planning to go back next year and if you are a lady who lives in Washington and wants to go to Grown-Up Girl Scout Camp, I thoroughly recommend it.
- Also, I bought a gorgeous Girl Scout pocketknife in the camp store because I have always wanted a good pocket knife and it was beautiful and I am an adult and can buy myself knives if I want to.
- While at camp, I read about 200 pages of The Stand, which I haven't read in about 10 years. You guys, that book is still pretty great. Though of course I'm not quite sure if that's because it was definitely one of the Books Of My Adolescence. I read The Stand a lot as a teenager - it's one of those books I can point at and say, "That is where I learned this thing".*** It's not quite as scary as it once was, but the little creepy things remain very effective - the dead soldier with the soup in his eyebrows, those first few glimpses at Randall Flagg, "Come down and eat chicken with me, beautiful - it's so dark". (It's possible that I think that whenever I am in dimly-lit staircases.) I am unsurprised but a little ashamed to find that I still really identify with Harold Lauder in a lot of ways. Look, I was - am - a pretentious nerd and while I like to think that I wouldn't really go to the Dark Side, if you'd caught me at the right point in my lonely pretentious nerdgirl adolescence, I can't promise that I would haven't. Like Eleanor Vance, my identification with Harold is undeniably present and undeniably uncomfortable (I am not ashamed of my continuing love for the Trash Can Man.) The fact that I have never yet managed to read The Stand at a point when I don't have a runny nose always adds to the experience somewhat.
- It is the last week of Summer Reading which is always both a little melancholy and a little bit of a relief. Now, of course, we get a bunch of emails about our annual All Staff Day, which is coming up in about a month and about which I am not excited. The higher-ups really want us to be excited, though. This year, there is apparently some sort of after-party. I cannot imagine who will be attending that - after a mandatory 8 hours of meeting and socializing while seated in uncomfortable chairs, all I want is to go home. At least now it's on a Thursday instead of Monday, so I don't have to go to choir right afterwards.
- Choir starts in two weeks! I'm so excited! I haven't sung properly since April and my range has probably atrophied terribly, but I'm still so excited!
*My mother always wanted to be a Girl Scout but never got to be. Thus, all of her children were, for varying lengths of time**.
**I stayed in the longest and made it to Juniors. (Got my wings, baby!) Sometimes, I regret not sticking with it for longer, but my troop kinda sucked and I wanted to take taekwondo, so...
***I don't think it's the first book I read in which abortion was mentioned, but it's definitely the first book that connected it with coat hangers. What an odd thing to remember. It is also the book where I learned about That One Yeats Poem Every Horror Fan Knows.
