sand and grass

On Saturday my boyfriend and a bunch of his friends went camping, and on a whim I decided to go too, girly clothes and all. Billy and I drove up to meet them, picking up Dan on the way. We got to the campsite just after the entrance closed, and when we tried to sneak in by lifting the gate we were promptly accosted by a man so bitter and uptight, the guys nicknamed him "Sargeant Fuckwad". I think he owned the place, which partially explained his attitude. I mean, if you lived in a campground/trailer park all year, you might be full of rage too. You might take every chance you get to go on a long power trip. You might get off on threatening college kids with tough-guy lines like "If you can't follow my rules, then get the fuck out of my park." (Note: the rule we broke was driving faster than 15 km/hr.) You might also say things like: "Do you want to drive back to London? No? Then follow me, and GODDAMMIT, DRIVE SLOW THIS TIME." (He was so dead serious when he said this that I cracked up laughing in the backseat. Luckily he didn't hear me, or we might have had to get the fuck out of his park.) You might also drive a golf cart like it was a hummer (i.e. with a lot of machismo) except instead of actually driving it, you might coast on fumes just to piss off the college kids who are trying to drive in an actual car behind you. Then again, you might be a decent human being.

When we finally caught up to our friends on the beach, it was like stumbling into a scene from a summer movie. They were all drinking around a campfire, along with a few strangers they had met who looked like they were straight out of That Seventies Show. The guitarist's name was Marty, I think, and he was hilariously drunk, yet still managed to play the hell out of an acoustic. His hippie friends played the bongos. There was also a girl wearing clothes that looked homemade and probably smelled of patchouli. The whole thing was a lot of fun and a little surreal. I wish they had stayed longer, but not long after we got there they disappeared into the pitch black. I almost think they were wandering ghosts, or time travellers.

It was a perfect night, just cool enough to draw everyone in around the campfire. We drank and talked and laughed and drank more. I swilled white zinfandel straight from the bottle, but I almost didn't need it. The lake air was intoxicating, clear and tangy. I felt more alive than I have in a long time.

Then I got smashed. And smoked a little pot, which normally I would never do because the smell makes me sick and it's not really my thing anyway, but I was drunk on a beach with my friends and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I can't really explain my progression from sober to ridiculous, so here's a little photo sequence.

This is me making love to the bottle. David says I have a funny way of drinking; is he right?

As you can see, I've only had about half a bottle, maybe less, at this point, so I'm happy and fine and making perfect sense as I talk to Billy. I don't remember why he was pointing at me like that, though.

This is after Billy convinced me to "do weed" (sorry, inside joke, sort of). Everything became brighter and funnier and crazier. At this point, I think I was rambling on about a search light, which was really just the camera flash.

I was drunk, okay? And high, don't forget that either.

Awww, look, my boyfriend's helping me up. Don't be fooled by the shining display of chivalry, though. He was the one who took all the previous pictures, while I was begging him to stop. And those are some pretty embarrassing pictures, too.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of embarrassment, here are some nonsensical things I apparently said while in my semi-delirious state:

- "I'm hungry. Can we go to the pizza place down the road?" (We were on a beach. In a campground. In the middle of nowhere. I don't know what I was thinking.)
- "My feet are bleeding, and the sharks in the water are going to smell the blood and come after me." (I was barefoot and walking on sharp rocks, but they weren't actually bleeding. Also, there obviously weren't any sharks in the lake.)
- "Home is a place where you keep your memories in boxes. What do you do if you move?" (Okay, I have a lot of issues when it comes to "home" and "family" and the like, because I moved out under very difficult circumstances. Now that you know that, can you make any sense of those two sentences? If so, leave a comment, because I'm completely confused by my own subconscious.)

I don't know how well I've expressed this, but it was a crazy, magical, once-in-a-lifetime kind of night, and I don't regret any of it. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it."

So, where were you while we were getting high?