This one's not that interesting.

Birthday festivities were entertaining this year, but never to be compared with the whiskey, cigars and limericks of last. We held a Greek Syposium of sorts, and you might be interested to know that despite the modern connotations of the word "Symposium," which to me implies an open and lovely gathering with maybe a specific topic in mind, originally it referred to a men's party with lots of drinking, flutegirls, and sex. Ours was somewhere in the middle (or maybe just on the outside of anything), I suppose, for we drank some wine, diluting it with ice cubes in the beginning of the evening, and lessening the dilution as time progressed. We discussed philosophy, but not as diligently as we on the Pinewoods Crew are known for: we actually just gossiped. Also, we played entertaining creative games, and Dan wrote me a contradance, which we tested out. The dance is called "The Colonel," named affectionately for the Great Big Hobart Mixer, which I taught him how to use in the kitchen. We all wore fancy and/or sexy clothes for the occasion, and it was indeed very classy. We took a break (we broke?) midway to venture into the world of the campers, for it was skit night, and there are often entertaining things that go on. Amelia and Emily performed with their Rapper team. Nothing very eventful happened, but that is just fine. We had a lovely time, and enjoyed each others' company, and I am satisfied.

What I am not satisfied about is that I had the flu last week and I am still feeling its repercussions. I sound like a dead duck when I talk, and I have to make sure that I rest a lot, which I wouldn't mind, except that this is International Week, my absolute favorite, and I hate to miss the dancing! So frustrating, but I can deal, yo. However, I don't really like all this "do things in moderation" business. I like extremes, because I am young, and although I can see the reason behind moderation, I must reach end-to-end and full-breadth NOW to fully feel all that I can, and then the moderation will come naturally later, I'm certain of it. So that is that.

Night and Day

Swollen with laughter I occupy my days. Never have I thought that being around the constant stimulation of human beings could bring so much energy to my soul, without wearing it out completely. But the favorite shirt that is worn until its final thread snaps may be said to have been a happier shirt than the one that was only shabby because it had been used as a garbage disposal rag one too many times. This is a new experience, satisfied exhaustion. My creative insides are oozing everywhere, for there are many on the Pinewoods crew sharing my interests and reasoning tactics, or at least who are willing to let me tell stories when the need arises, and not squirm with my awkwardness of telling. And still there is plenty of time to read and write, though with the opportunity of speakspeakspeaking so prevalent, writing isn’t as much of a necessity than a joy.
But what I am most of all fascinated by currently is that I have been having nightmares almost every night since I arrived. Some of them are really scary. Many of them are perfectly normal dreams, with an extraneous flash of terror not pertaining to the rest of the dream. In one, I had a sudden image of myself walking into the basement of my mother’s house, with a man dressed in black clothes running fast towards me and then leaping into me as I woke up. In another, My brother and a friend of his had my dog and a miscellaneous Dalmatian stowed away in an attic, and I snuck in to take Nina back, but there were so many doors, and we were almost out when the final door closed. Bennett had locked me in. All of the dreams are disturbing in different sorts of ways, and I wake up really disoriented. There is a similar darkness in each of them. I have a couple of theories about the origins:
It could be that I have been feeling so vigorously satisfied all day everyday, almost to the point of leaving the ground with joy (I really can’t contain my laughter), that my mind needs some place to expel the "negative" emotions, so it takes advantage of the night to do so. It’s true that there are things that disturb me in the world, personal and otherwise, but right now there is too much immediate wonderfulness to bother with them Idiotically or Egotistically, only Superegotistically (I don’t think one can use those Freudian words that way, but I did anyway).
Or, it could be that I am deep down fearful of the END of the happy time. To be so high has an equal and opposite low. I can’t help but wonder when it will come and what I will do when it does, so I dream of terrible things.
Or, my cabin could be infested with dark spirits, but I don’t think it is. Only lightbulb-infatuated insects.
So, I’m not really concerned about the nightmares. They are entertaining, as all dreams are, like watching a scary movie. There are sometimes when I don’t even want to wake up because my dreams are so interesting. Which makes me think, that the opposite scenario of what I am dealing with is probably much worse: to have a life that I dislike so much that I go to sleep to find better. I’m sure there are people in that state all over the world. Sometimes I am in it in the wintertime. But, I shall consider myself EXTREMELY fortunate; for the mold is only in my head, not in my bread.

Water is wet

Yesterday I took my first dip in the pond of the season. The rain has been raining STUPID amounts of rain, and causing the bodies of these young workers to be saturated at all times with wet water*, so the ponds have not been so inviting as they would be if we were in the desert of midsummertime. But yesterday, after such a long spell of inconvenience, and after sweeping rooves of irregular buildings until my jeans were so stained with caterpillar guts that I felt like an insecticidal horror film, I stripped and jumped into Round Pond. Ah! It was so pleasant, rather chilly, but very refreshing and today may just be warm enough to do it again. Swimming makes me feel so loooooong like an eel, slippery like a squid, and freer than a space man. I anticipate at least 2 swims per day for the entire summer, but I'm sure some days will elicit even more. I feel like I'm in Herland.


*When I was in High School, and Ms. Krauss was my English teacher, I wrote a paper containing a sentence which stated the obvious. Ms. Krauss' red-ink response was "Water is wet." This comment infused me with laughter for days, and nothing makes me happier (except swimming) than reliving the faux pas forever and ever.

IKEA

I went to IKEA today with some mates from Pinewoods, the folk dance camp I'm working at this summer. We ate meatballs and drank pear cider and nearly tipped over with affection for the fair nation from whence IKEA came. I have convinced Amy and Dan to happily learn Swedish in the car with me, using the Berlitz tape we got at the Plymouth library, and which was published in 1989. So, we rode in the rain (because MY how it has been raining!) to Stoughton and found that Saturday is the day that the entire of the population of Massachusetts shops for Swedish home furnishings at reasonable prices, which means that there were 6,349,097 shopping carts being pushed around blindly by overstimulatingly dazed consumers. Despite that, it was great! The food was yummy, I bought a giant, red shoe horn and some herrings in mustard suace, and felt like I took a little weekend trip to Scandinavia. There were a suprising number of Swedes there, I think, though I realize that I can't yet recognize when a foreign accent is Swedish rather than something else. A fine Saturday, "Saturday" and "Sunday" indeed. ('scuse the private joke).