The trip was fun! There were about 13 of us? Yes. And we all pitched (Ah! You see what I did there?) in to make this quite a memorable experience. We all met at my place in the morning and configured what went where and who was in which car and what we still wanted and etc. with the 5 W's. After a... late... start, we headed out to the La Jolla Indian Reservation, located in sunny not-La Jolla. I know, right? The drive up was fun... my friend was jamming really hard to techno music and he punched me in the head, and that was perhaps the most entertaining part of the drive.
When we all got there we set up camp. My friend has a HUGE tent that we all slept in. The men set to work using rocks and hatchets and other manly things (not penises) to stake in the tent.
After establishing our micropolis of civilization, a group of us set out to go hiking. There were shoes EVERYWHERE.
I even picked one up thinking it belonged to one of my friends, but shrieked in disgust upon discovering that it wasn't. At certain points we forded the river, but...
Everyone's shoes kept getting ripped off their feet or broken (Retard Award to all of us for wearing sandals), and after a point we realized that our legs were absolutely COVERED in little black slugs. After a very shameful moment of us all screaming like little girls, thrashing and slogging toward the shore and brushing the things off in a flurry, we recovered, decided that they were NOT leeches, and trudged on. Still, at one point I looked down and there were so many on me that I let out a good 5-second scream.
We carried on like that for about two hours, until finally returning to our site wet, itchy, and voraciously hungry. We ransacked the turkey burgers and sausages, lounged around in the creek a spell, and at some point or another each person dozed off. I had a lovely little shut-eye bit on a huge rock. Even though rocks are very uncomfortable to lay on and make terrible beds, you feel tragically beautiful lying on them. My friend had a nap on one across the way and she looked like a dead mermaid. That's right, a MERMAID.
The fire in the evening was warm and we all managed to find a seat around it. Things escalated from there; some things I'd rather not relate, but I will say that certain persons streaked... and it was fun. Wink wink. Other times, however, it just seemed like people were trying to force sexuality in the trip when it would have been just as entertaining to tell a scary story or mindlessly gossip. But hey, we're kids. COLLEGE kids. Ooh, I like saying that. No frontin', I feel pretty cool being an official kollege kid. Coolness aside, I felt very ugly on the whole trip. I was covered in dirt and slugs and debris (and probably urine), had no make up, my brush denied my hair, I was living off of burgers and alphabet cookies... just, no. Wasn't feeling it. And the feeling of ugliness only seemed to reaffirm itself more and more as the trip progressed. I could blame camping...... yeah, so I will.
We all went to bed around 2am I think? The top of the tent was see-through mesh, so we could see all the stars. It was magnanimous. So far removed from all the lights of civilization, we could see every single constellation in the sky. It looked like a print-out from a science museum stretched above our heads. Everyone fell asleep almost instantaneously.
The night was so cold! I had my sleeping bag, which is some heavy-duty down thing made for people traveling to the Arctic, but it was fully unzipped, and it was too dark and I was too unmotivated to bother with that confuzzling thing. I tried to compensate with a big Mexican blanket I brought, but my toesies were cold all night :(. Being short-sheeted is one of the worst sensations in the world. I awoke the next morning feeling slightly off, but I set to work, cleaning up the site in a catatonic, zombie-like state. It's difficult to shake off the night and be bright and chipper the next morning. I tried-- oh LAWD how I tried-- but I just wanted to lay on the floor and shut my eyes.
And that's precisely what I did when we came back home. My friend and I were hanging out at my place. I introduced him to Nutella; now I think I have an inkling of what it feels like to take someone's virginity. Post-Nutella it was just lounging around in a half-conscious stupor: the bed, the floor, whichever was most convenient (the floor...).
In the evening most of us met up again to see a show at New Village Arts Theatre. They were doing a preview performance of "Time Flies" by David Ives. I had no idea it was David Ives until I got there, and I just about creamed myself when I did. I love David Ives. Can I say that again? I LOVE David Ives. He writes one-acts, which are short plays, usually anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour. The anthology of one-acts in "Time Flies" were ones I'd never seen or read. I've only read "All In The Timing," which I own and worship more than the Qur'an (though since I don't worship the Qur'an, this is a decidedly ineffective analogy). There were six short plays; all were incredible.
CUE DAVID IVES SPIEL: I get David Ives. I get him. Some people don't appreciate or "get" his absurd brand of humor, but that's not IT. IT is a number of things. It's the CONCEPTS. It's the WORDPLAY. It's the UNDERLYING MESSAGE. It's the WIT. It's the EXTREMITY to which he thinks OUTSIDE THE BOX. I mean, these scenarios blow my mind! A day in the life of a May Fly? A man who loves a washing machine because it's so perfect? The perspective of lab monkeys being used to test the theory of evolution? Scenarios of how Leon Trotsky wound up dead with a mountain climber's axe smashed in his skull? Like... come ON. How can you not appreciate the way a mind like that works?! And the allusions he makes are so subtle but so perfect. During one of the plays last night two May Flies were talking about how much they hate frogs, but David Ives connected "frogs" to French people, hence little gems like:
"I like frog films and frog literature, but I just don't like frogs themselves."
"I know! They're so rude!"
It wasn't a slapstick ta-da-this-is-a-joke moment, just a subtle thing where if you didn't catch it: Okay, fine, you didn't have to, and if you did catch it: YES, this is effing hilarious. Seriously, David Ives, you rule, you are a genius, I love you. The big ol' anthology of his one-acts are in "Sure Thing," which is playing at NVA sometime in the near future. Half of them are in "All In The Timing," so I'll know some of them. Others... expose me! I want to know every piece he ever wrote.
Okay, apologies for being a pretentious lover-of-the-arts. Now back to regularly scheduled shenanigans.
After the show we ate at Senor Grubby's. I'd never eaten there but it was good eats. Massive burrito. I didn't think I could finish it until... well, until I did. It was embarrassing. Young, proper ladies don't eat whole burritos. If it's any consolation I did feel like I was going to explode moments later.
From there, I thought I was in good shape to burn the midnight oil so I went to my friend's house to watch "Bug," which was a recommended must-see. Doing good, doing good... until I made the critical mistake of putting my head on a couch pillow. From there, I was doing stupid-blink throughout the movie,
trying to keep my eyelids open. Fail. We were both inconceivably tired. Stopped the movie and went home. And then I awoke at 8:30 this morning...? What the hey? I only sleep in when I go to bed at a decent hour and not tired. What the feck, body!This morning I felt a little queasy, so I decided that today is Detox Day. It's only water and maybe an apple for me today. This is going to be incredibly difficult- it's only quarter to one and my stomach is already wringing my spinal cord- but we'll see how it goes. In all reality I'll probably cave when I go to the mall with my friend today. Too many things smell good in there. Must... not... think... about pretzels...
Haunt me no more!
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