The Camping.
I am: home. Under a ceiling fan. Sitting beside a loudly purring cat. Alone, alone, mercifully and finally alone. Sunburnt and happy. Did I mention the ceiling fan?

Back from the mentoring conference and subsequent jaunt from the beach on which I live, to another, more remote beach for a camping weekend with old and new friends, where I:

was gifted with and wore all weekend long, the world’s ugliest, $5 bejeweled flip-flops.

laughed harder and in merrier company than I had in a long, long time.

climbed giant sand dunes.

kept reenacting portions of The English Patient on said sand-dunes, till my one friend said, “Hm. This is just an English Patient kinda day for you, huh?” after which I stopped.

got passive-aggressively scolded by a lady in one of those beach convenience stores for bringing in an ice-cream cone from another beach-convenience store down the road.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess I can just stop selling my ice cream, here.” Followed by big smile. Weird.

ate the best campfire grilled fish, ever

read a novel in two sittings. (The Bird Artist by Howard Norman. I didn’t like it at first but then suddenly was halfway through it and then completely. And it’s still reverberating around my head. Let me know if you’ve read it. I want to talk with someone about this book.)

saw more stars than I’d remembered there were. No. Really.

made new friends/kept old.

This summer-vacation-from-school thing, I’m beginning to not hate.