Well, my father's in the hospital right now. He has blood clots in his left leg. Fantastic, my parents are now old enough that from time to time they will spend a few days in hospital. This is no way to run a civilization.

Also, this post is long and I'm tired; so, there's a high probability I won't bother to proofread.

Memorial Day Weekend
I spent the better part of the long Memorial Day weekend camping with Zach Nie!'s Lansing friends near Traverse City. Because I am so inclined, I shall divide the weekend's experiences into several catagories.

The Conditions
I hate camping. Hate. Not half-joking hate, like "You already have that CD? I hate you," but real honest-to-Bog hate, like "I hate fucking Nazis." I like having everyone grouped together (instead of setting a time of day to meet, you start hanging out with people as soon as they feel like emerging from their tent), but why is it necessary to sleep on the ground to achieve this? Couldn't we all chip in and rent some kind of cabin? Sleeping on a hardwood floor is so much better sleeping than the ground. I hate camping. Thank Bog it wasn't really camping: there was a bathroom with toilets and showers less than a five minutes walk from the campsite. Being an extremely self-righteous, highly-selective purist, I did not shower, but it was nice to have the ability to brush my teeth. The weather was, on the whole, fairly cooperative, though we did have an overnight frost warning for Saturday morning. Rain did not fall until Sunday afternoon, and even then it was a drizzle compared to May's monsoons. The temperature was generally highest around eleven a.m., rising to shorts weather, but you would need to put on pants and a sweatshirt by three p.m. Very strange.

The City
These people know how to camp. The tents were arranged around "the cul-de-sac"; my little pup tent behind Zach and Sarah's tent (cue "Zak and Sara"), generously provided by Sarah, was charmingly referred to as the "slave quarters." A large hexagonal tent housed the legion of coolers as well as the camp stove. Two other large, open tents housed picnic tables and functioned as counters. Almost everyone has an air matress, which I'm sure would have mitigated my hatred for camping. Most of the tents belonged to couples - Zach and Sarah, Laura and John, Josh and Patrick, Angie and Damon, Erin and Paul, Katie and Steve - and the only other singles were Dave and M.J., both gents, though M.J. only stayed one night.

The Company
I have two opposing lines of thought here. On the one hand, I had a wonderful time. Despite the wretched sleeping conditions, it was a ball. I laughed, I enjoyed the gossip about strangers as best I could, and I was made to feel very welcome. On the other hand, these are not my people. During Sunday's rain, when we all sought shelter in the food tent complex, there was a discussion about who "should have" won the latest installment of Survivor. I only wish I was talking about the Chuck Palahniuk novel. The only reading materials I saw all weekend, aside from my own, were People and Entertainment Weekly magazines and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. ("I'm reading it for, like, the tenth time to get ready for the movie.") Also, they made repeated reference to Troy as if it had been a horrible movie, as if the accepted wisdom of the group is that it was a stinker. I was beset upon all sides by idiots. On the gripping hand, I was invited to join the group as the new fat guy, since apparently I am far less whiny than the current fat guy. But really and truly, I did have a lovely time.

The Pasttimes
Seriously, what's more fun than a game of fourteen-player volleyball? Well, maybe the six- to eight-player drunken volleyball that followed the "water" (beer!) break. That was Sunday, antedownpour. Friday night was consumed by arriving, going out to dinner, and then trying to start a fire with wet, cold kindling. More on that in "The Fire." Saturday... the March of Death. Everybody has been to the Sleeping Bear Dunes, but how many of you have hiked all the way to the beach? It's only a mile and a half as the crow flies, but quite a bit longer as the tired, out of shape human crawls. It was awful, but the kind of awful where you really enjoy it. I look forward to doing it again; March of Death, I mock thee! I took a rock from the shore, upon which I have festively inscribed "M.O.D. '04". We played Risk, and as has become commonplace in the "Who Dares Wins" era, all eventually bowed before the terrible might of the Black Raj.

The Fire
Fire pretty. There really is nothing like sitting around a camp fire. We had problems getting the fire started each day, but it wasn't really our fault. We had newspaper and we had dry firewood, but all the local sticks for kindling were soaked from a solid month of rain, exacerbated by the nighttime's cold temperatures. Surprisingly enough, wood doesn't burn very well when cholk full of ice crystals.

The Drive
Prior to this weekend, I had never driven more than, say, an hour and a half by myself. The trip from lovely Grand Blanc to scenic Empire, Michigan requires a solid four hours. I had to say thought at the end of both Friday's drive to Empire and Sunday's drive to Grand Blanc: I wish this was longer. I have no explanation as to why, but both times I felt myself in a very comfortable groove which I wish could have continued. Hmmm, maybe instead of flying to visit Skeeter, I should drive.... The Mousemobile in the Big Apple, I can see it now. On the way up, I listened to one of my recent purchases, the two-disc collection Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes: The Best of This American Life. Ira Glass, you're a beautiful man. On the way back, having loaned Zach the two discs, I listened to two CDs he felt obligated to loan me as collateral. Sweet fancy Moses, even the mix CD was awful. (Though the second half, everything after Edna's Goldfish, was much improved.) Still, long drives are fun and I look forward to more of them in my future.

Crap
Coheed and Cambria

H-A-D
Have an industrial day.