And so beginneth the chirping of the crickets.

Camp has ended. Ennui has begun. Despite my best efforts to maintain my role of camp counselor at a camp not needing anymore camp counselors, my failure has become apparent. Life at camp is over, and so I must return from the safety of the Commons sans herpes to the real world, which, at the moment is a harsh reality: I am living in my old room at my old house with my rather old parents until I leave to travel to a rather old part of the world (although, scientifically speaking, all parts of the world are the same age). With this onslaught of unrestrained free time, trampelling me with its unbearably omnipresent occupation, my life needs abundant interesting activities to pacify my mind, to say nothing of my ass, which I can already feel taking root on the chair in front of this computer. The short solution to all of this is obvious: I ought to clean the house, organize all of my belonging, and prepare the unnecessary items for storage and the necessary items for complacency. I ought also to plan for my European excursion, a hobby which is now bordering on obsession since the Urbandale Public library decided to loan me a dozen books on European travel, all of which have proven helpful at least. Trip planning is a lot of fun until I realize that I would rather be tripping (not onto my face, which I did enough of in the darkness on my way up the hill to Tawama, my 7-week residence at Camp Hantesa) instead of steadily increasing my awareness that I cannot possibly do everything I want and must accept the reality of the limitations of the concepts of space and time.

In mentioning the Urbandale Public Library, I would be remiss to shirk my explication of my recent reading of a literary work that rivals even The Catcher in the Rye as my favorite book. Without any possibility of doubt, I laughed more at Joseph Heller's Catch-22 than any other book. I managed to read it during the last week of resident camp when I more or less managed to convince everyone that I was so busy with everyone else's unit that I couldn't possibly help theirs. Naturally, this left me a lot of free time (the good kind: much like cholesterol, free times has both good and bad varieties). In between naps, which I took daily from about 1:30 until 3:30, I was able to read and read and read. Parts of that book (Major Major Major Major and his orders that no one could see him while he was in his office, for instance) made me laugh so loud that I nearly woke up the 8-year-olds sleeping in the nearest cabin and parts of that book (the graphic description of Snowden's entrails spilling onto the floor, revealing his secret that man is garbage without the spirit) made me react with a physical shudder and a psychological solace. At any rate, I have been inspired by this book to enjoy other books, which isn't to say that I wouldn't have enjoyed other books without the inspiration of Yossarian's exploits and beautiful b.s. detector, and I have checked out a few Kurt Vonnegut books, all of which I have somehow avoided over the years.

My next topics come from my miscellaneous category. First, I will miss my camp friends tremendously. Never before have I been around a group of people for 24 hours per day, and all but 21 hours of the week without wanting to kill them. My camp family was such a great joy and I already look forward to the small reunion I hope to have in Prague, Krakow, and Budapest in October. Second, I promise to tell more stories of my week on the St. Croix River. It was an adventure (completely safe and hassle-free, but good stories ought to be shared). Third, as a result of a lot of things, none of which could be found in horny camp movies and none of which actually resulted in anything, I am no longer willing to categorize myself as asexual. Tit's nice to have some good 14-year-old libido again (did I just say Tit's? I meant It's. At any rate, hooray for boobies). Fourth, a drank a 46 ounce margarita on Tuesday. It was as big as my head. Fifth, I threw my contacts into the woods on Wednesday. Hopefully, a raccoon has better eyesight now. Or maybe a bat, although it would have to be a very big bat. Sixth, as much as I love my fellow counselors, they are all a bunch of nancies when a live snake is discovered in the drama center. I managed to capture it and relocate it the middle of the woods with minimal help, not that I needed any help. I felt a bit like Jeff Corwin, to be truthful, and that means I just that much closer to landing my television show with Animal Planet. Seventh, a Russian named her Hantesa monkey Brian. After extraordinarily little investigation (Me: She named the monkey Brian? That's my name. Other counselor: She knows, trust me), I discovered that I am not only apelike in appearance but also more charming that I could ever have imagined. Eighth, I have no eighth. Ninth, young girls and older girls love my reading of Bunnicula. Perhaps I should start quoting Bunnicula as a pick-up line--nah, I'll stick with saying "we were driving" in Portuguese. That is all. So it goes.