deja what?

I've had some very odd dreams lately. They usually include some reference to camp. Other than that, they're pretty random. Last night, in the middle of the part of my dream where a little girl gets kidnapped by a very frightening man in a red shirt, I had dream deja vu. I literally thought, in my dream, I've had this very dream before. I'm not entirely sure if that's true but it was very weird nonetheless. I woke up feeling unsettled.

This weekend has been fairly enlightening. I discovered that it's much easier to trash talk someone to their face when they are drunk. OK, trash talk is a bit strong. Let's go with telling someone that you really think they're a dirtbag because of certain things they've done to certain friends. I also discovered that it's easier than I thought to be friends with someone I didn't really want to see again a short three months ago. And taking a step back as I have now makes me see clearly the reasons that we didn't have a whole lot of contact for awhile. Funny how those things become blurry when you're up too close to someone. I also discovered that as a girl I should apparently be defining myself as "so and so's girlfriend". Well, I have a few problems with this. One, and mostly, I am no one's girlfriend. Two, and really just as mostly, if I was, I would not introduce myself as such. I happen to be my own independent person. This came about because I was at a party with people I didn't know. I sat at a table with three other girls and we did the whole introductions thing. One looked at the girl named Erin and said "Oh, you're Phil's girlfriend." Erin said yes, and oh you're so and so's girlfriend, right? The first girl then looked at me and asked, "Are you anyone's girlfriend?" I replied no and thought to myself when did we start simply being someone's girlfriend?

A continuation of the things I'll miss about the South list
~ma'am and sir
~country songs playing at bars
~prah-leens
~men holding doors for women
~cowboy boots and dresses/skirts
~girls tailgating in cute sundresses

indiana bound

i'm tan and proud as a result of hanging out at the pool for approximately 4 hours yesterday. it'll probably fade soon. i've been missing taco day at camp so i made my own for dinner tonight, complete with yummy homemade guacamole. i would like to say that i'm a decent cook. next on the list: pie. without the help of renee, the pie guru, which could prove to be very difficult.
in other news i'm moving. i'm taking my sweet black and white fuzzy couch and moving back to indianapolis. i feel like a bit of a hypocrite since i spent so much time this past year talking shit about people who graduated and moved back to our home town. this is not the same though. i mean, i went out and experienced the world man. i have good reason. i got a job at a children's magazine in marketing. i'm pretty freaking excited. except that leaving north carolina will be very sad. i love it here and am quite sure that someday i will end up in this lovely state again, preferably in the mountains. i am going to keep a running list of things i will miss about the south and nc. here's a start.

*the mountains and the beach in one state
*perfect strangers saying smiling and saying hello in the street and me not having to worry too much about them being pervy because people are just more friendly down here
*sweet tea, which i've started drinking recently
*southern accents
*people freaking out about 2 inches of snow

i have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be very hectic. or i will put off preparing for the move until the week before i leave, which will be the week after our trip to ithaca so even better, and then i'll be losing my mind right before i go. yipeeee!!!!!

it's only life after all. yeah.

i feel a bit weird posting bits of my life on the internet. this is an awfully public place to be writing about my life, isn't it? oh well, the personal element often gets left out. seriously just look at my facebook profile if you want personal. you'll see that my religion is worshiping the brits, my music taste is "goodbye earl" by the dixie chicks and that i look hott playing kickball in pink pantaloons.

tonight i was talking to my mom about something that had happened last spring in bloomington and i realized how long ago that seems. in reality bloomington was only a year and a half ago but so much has happened since then. i feel like i've lived a whole other life in that year and a half.

i'm back in raleigh at the moment. well not literally since i'm home in indianapolis right now. i moved into a cute apartment and am the proud owner of a black and white fuzzy couch. i'm going through camp withdrawal, as i do at the end of every summer. i think i can safely say that this ties for my most wonderful summer ever (with my second summer on staff). i ended up having junior line instead of hillside, which meant 8-11 year olds. honestly i cannot imagine having any other girls. i loved giving hugs and holding hands and being all out silly with my sweet junior mints. i have also never been so endlessly proud of a group of girls. every single day one of them did something that made me smile a mile wide. how can girls so little stretch themselves so much? i see so much potential in them. i watched them grow so much over just five and a half weeks. and my staff. i cannot compliment them enough. i would've been lost without such an amazing group of counselors. and we all had so much fun. good summer camp fun. lots of lake jumping in our clothes (especially after hot days at the barn during june camp), nights in town, even getting pulled over by a cop, lots of late nights up in the office, random and ridiculous adventures on days off.

now i'm writing a lot more. i'm looking for a big girl job. i'm wishing i could run back to the mountains where people look up to me and i'm a somebody.

where the rhododendron grow

i've been at camp for a little over a month now. time has absolutely flown by. june camp is over and i'm sitting at bette's house in charlotte waiting to finish my ridiculous amounts of laundry. tomorrow we head back to tuxedo to get ready for the 5 1/2 week session.
during june camp bette and i tackled the job of heads of riding. we got the fun task of making the schedule each week, which entailed putting 140 girls in lessons for the whole week. good thing half of them were group ones and we only have something like 3 group one horses. despite the many schedule glitches i think things went fairly smoothly. we have a wonderful riding staff who are all knowledgeable and eager to learn about the green cove way of life.
i'm living in the villa, which is a counselors only cabin, so no little kiddies of my own to take care of 24/7. i wake up right before breakfast and go out in the evenings if i want to after alls done at camp. most of the time though i found myself staying up late in the head counselor's office doing paperwork type things or just passing out at the early hour of 11pm. i am being more social this summer, which is suprisingly fun. mingling with other people, fun? craziness i know. bette's house in tryon has become something of a hot spot you could say. both our days off during june camp ended there with large gatherings. one night included british drink concoctions and a hot tub. the other involved PIE and cookies. basically magical. of course summer isn't summer without bette's tryon house. it's in the middle of a horse-y town with a 3 stall barn next to the house, which is small and adorable and filled with horse-y decorations. the front porch, complete with rocking chairs, overlooks the pasture where their horses get turned out and in the horizon is the misty outline of the mountains.
i'm honestly very much looking forward to main camp. no more ponies, which is sad, but i'm moving up to a linehead. i'll get to be in charge of a group of cabins - counselors and campers of the age 13-14. great age, i know. new challenges await i'm sure. meanwhile the job search continues and i'm trying not to think about the hassle of moving that awaits me in raleigh at the end of the summer.

the romance equation

I just finished a wonderfully hysterical book called Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. It's sort of a parody of the Jane Austen genre. Now I do like Jane Austen but I love a good parody and laugh even more. Nothing better than a little sarcasm and over the top dramatic and flowery descriptions and overdone characters. An excerpt from the book,

"She knew from experience that intellectuals thought the proper - nay, the only
- way to fall in love with somebody was to do it the very instant you saw them.
You met somebody, and thought they were 'A charming person. So gay and simple.'
Then you walked home from a party with them (preferably across Hampstead Heath,
about three in the morning) discussing whether you should sleep together or not.
Sometimes you asked them to go to Italy with you. Sometimes they asked yout o go
to Italy (preferably to Portofino) with them. You held hands, and laughed, and
kissed them and called them your 'true love'. You loved them for eight months
and then you met somebody else and began being gay and simple all over again,
with small-hours' walks across Hampstead, Portofino invitation, and all."

I like this quote because it rings true and there's a certain sense of silliness to it as it doesn't take itself too seriously. For instance the set up, that this is the way intellectuals fall in love, mocks the way people have standards and formulas for love, which doesn't follow a formula. But of course this is the way it should be done. This method for falling in love works today too though. I mean how many times have you or one of your friends met someone at a party, walked home with them discussing the possibility of sex at three AM, "fall in love", and a short time later moved on to someone else? Happens all the time. You make plans, it all seems so easy and then it's over. Really just a fabulously annoying pattern that maybe one day will lead, completely on accident of course, to the right one. Dating is a pain in the ass. As is being single. Done and done.

Tonight I miss Bloomington in a way I haven't since I've moved. The weather has temporarily cooled off for a bit and it feels like a late spring/early summer night in Indiana. Bette and I are determined to finish the large amounts of Corona that Ang's cousin left in our fridge last weekend. So I opened one up, took it out to the front steps along with my laptop and started making a mix (or three). All I could think of was last year around this time when Marnie, Sam and I would sit on the porch and drink beer or play beer pong in the front yard or watch tv in the living room with all the windows open. I miss my roommates and I miss those nights second semester. Funny how when I look back on them I don't remember all the drama with Jaime or the stress of graduating or the family stuff that exploded in my face right about this time. I like that I remember that time as just peaceful.