TOO! MUCH! COFFEE!

If my internet connection went down, I'd get a lot more work done.

I was gone camping from Friday morning till Sunday afternoon. I get back today to find more than 125, possibly 150 posts to the blogs I read. I read too many blogs. Also, you all were a talkative bunch this weekend. Please stop posting! I'm still behind.

Normally, I don't talk about my activities because I obsessively photograph everything and post the pictures, but I felt like drunken car camping was a risk to my camera. Cola, Heidi and Becky, who I just met, packed up a car full of camping gear friday morning and drove for several hours towards the camping spot. I will niehter confirm nor deny that inebriation was involved with the non-driving passengers, however, I think I had one of the most surreal grocery store experiences of my life. I just wanted some donuts, man, but I couldn't buy less than 2 pounds of them. And, well, it was just weird. We all sort of just wandered off and took a loong time to reconviene

We bought OJ and some other necessities and then pitched camp and relaxed with some Compari and OJ. Car camping is civilized You get to drink apertiefs. There was merriment and drinking and I did some BBQing on my tiny grill, then set a big fire in the fire pit. The camping spot was in the central valley. hot as hell. Next to a river. There was a cool breeze right off the river, but every other part of the campground was an oven. I purchased a raft which doubled as an inflatable paddle pool. I drug it over to where folks were lying around and lay amongst them in my cool pool. I knew nearly nobody of the 30+ people in the group, so I was mostly quietly relaxing. while others speculated at the probably extremely late arrival hour of the remainder of our group.

And in the middle of the night, there was extreme merriment. Fireworks were set off. I got up at like 3:00 am to use the bathroom and it seemed like the late comers had just arrived, or perhaps the party celebrating their arrival had not wound down. The next morning, stuff was everywhere. People crawled from their tents for breakfast. Somebody brewed a ton of coffee. Beer was loaded into coolers. I dumped Compari into the remainder of the OJ. Rafts were inflated. We climbed onto a bus with a trailer. Rafts were put in the trailer. People jammed onto the standing room only bus. The bus driver was blasting country music and a large portion of the bus, apparently, made up of locals, were singing along. Being surrounded by large groups of heterosexuals actually alarms me a bit. I don't want to stereotype country-music fans, but I do know that there was a promised "family values" section in the next day's eddition of the local newspaper. I feel comfortable stereotyping the central valley as red state Governator voters. anyway, the bus had no brakes, which ought ot have been more alarming but wasn't, maybe because I was hung over. who knows.

We got to our destination without incident and unloaded the rafts from the back of the truck and carried them to the river. the water was cool and slow moving and the sun was beating down at 106 degrees farenheight. (apparently 41 C) I was slathered in sunblock and wearing a long sleve t-shirt. in low humidity heat, wearing something with long sleeves that you can dampen is a great way to cool down and keep the sun from beating on you. anyway, I tied the compari oj to the outside of my raft so it was cooled by the river and we started boating downstream. Cola's raft was made for children and had an inflatable dragon head on the front and a dragon tail in back. It was too silly. after a while, I tied my raft to hers and then tied on to Heidi and eventually tied on to other groups and then onto yet differnt groups until we had something of a tangled floatilla, like the Raft in Snow Crash only not. We stopped a couple of times to eat and drink. Some of the other bus passengers in a different group had a beer bong. I've never seen beer consumed so quickly. I went to a women's college, where beer bongs were not common, you know. Weird idea.

We floated for hours, drinking and relaxing in the direct sun. I was covered in spf 45 and wearing long swim trunks, a long sleeve shirt, shoes and socks, and a very wide brimmed hat, so now only my ankles are really sunburned, where my socks rubbed off the sunblock. My raft/paddle pool came with a pillow, so i was reclining fully. I heard someone behind me talking about how I clearly have a full grasp on the concept of relaxing. I think the speaker lives in NYC. I love that NYC people think I'm mellow. Not that I don't have a talent for lying around doing nothing.

We arrived via the river, back at the camp. All the Compari OJ had finally caught up with me. I was fully baked from the heat. I drank much water then injested addtional inebriation and lit a cooking fire and then lay around, trying to cool off for a long time. I was very confused. I am unsused to partying, I am.

Woke up the next morning in the tent/ sauna and started packing up. the trip organizer's step dad started having a seizure. I took first aid / cpr in 1998, so went to see if I could help, but it's definitely past time to get recertified. Somebody in the adjoining camp was a firefighter and she was much more help, so I backed off. He went to the hospital.

On the way back, we stopped at an IHOP. I hadn't been to one for years, but had been pondering organizing an IHOP protest on april 1st in 2002 or 2003, I can't remember. We were going to dress conservatively and demand that IHOP rename itself to "Unilateral House Of Pancakes." The nation was in an ungly mood. It was a dark time. I didn't organize it because I was afraid we'd be mistaken for real fascists. And I'm lazy.

Came home and lay around for a while. Band practice was cancelled. I felt somewhat ill. Nicole went out and drank more. Ye gods. I'm not drinking any more for a good while I think. we went through half a bottle fo Compari between the two of us in the weekend. Normally, I just have a single glass of it with OJ before making dinner.

And this morning, I decided to go ahead and brew up a full pot with my insanely large french press. Most people don't know that french presses come in such large sizes. Soon, I will calm down to normal and then embrace all kinds of temperance.