6.30 in the Annex. 8:38.

If you just google 'countdown 10 minutes', then Google will pull up a 10 minute countdown for you right on the search page. I didn't realize this until a few days ago. I wish Google would have had this when I was student teaching way back in 2015. Ah, how times have changed. I'm sitting in the staff Annex right now at camp. It's empty because everyone is down in the dining hall watching Moana but I've already seen that twice now at my other job and they aren't paying me here so, there you go. I'm seated the same way I was in the last post. On my back with my head at one end of a couch and my feet up on the back of the couch with my ankles crossed. I guess I always cross my ankles when I write which is something I didn't know about myself until I started doing this. The staff Annex smells faintly of leftovers and there's a humming coming from the flat screen TV in the corner. It's messy in here. On the couch are some pillows and a backpack and an unpacked dufflebag. The floor is covered in wrappers and lids and wires and cables and chargers. The walls are adorned with christmas lights and paper plates that bare the name of all the counselors working at camp this summer. I made the drawings on some of those paper plates. On the counter across the room from me is unwashed mugs and glasses and pitchers and plates. A clock is ticking. I placed an old coffee can on the edge of one of the other couches that says 'The What Hurts Can' where people can write down what is hurting on them at the moment and place it in the jar. There's strands of old duct tape hanging in the corner like cobwebs. Like the cabin I live in, the western wall of the staff annex is a full window. The ceiling then slopes up so that the eastern wall/ ceiling area is much higher than the western side. There are also windows way up at the top of the eastern wall. I'd like to live in a house like this. There's a lamp on the floor, like a paper lamp, like a coiling wire about 3 feet high wrapped in a loose translucent material forming a tube and you turn it on by tapping a button with your foot that lies on the floor next to the lamp. I remember this lamp because last year it was the lamp in the basement where I would meet up with Greta. I always thought it was really cool that you turned it off and on with your foot. I also remember when Crab explained to me junior year that you should flush a toilet with your foot. He didn't really purposefully explain it to me but he was frustrated that people weren't flushing and then explaining how simple it is to complete the steps required to flush a toilet and he mentioned that you need only kick the handle. I remember thinking that was really cool and proceeded to kick toilet handles after that. When appropriate. There's an old broom handle leaning up against the edge of the sliding door.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYRDgd3Tb44

#2 for 10

Ten more minutes of writing stuff down. I was planning on going to bed earlier but now I'm awake and I'm lying on the couch that Otis, my roommate's dog was lying on yesterday. Otis is actually lying here next to me looking pretty beat. My feet are up and crossed at the ankles on the back of the couch and my head is propped up on a pillow at the end of the couch closest to the wall of window. The computer is on my stomach region and shakes a bit when I breathe and type. One light is on in the tiny hall by the front door so it's mostly dark in here. My bedroom light is on as well and I can see into my room a bit. On the coffee table beside the couch is my roommate's computer and a mug and some papers related to camp I believe. My cold feels like it's subsiding and earlier I had what I felt like was a breath in that was completely free and normal and not sick-hindered. Today was a good day but I feel like I did have some points where I was lower energy. I'm thinking about how I have a really good relationship with a few kids and maybe I take those for granted and it feels kind of like cheating to just hang out with them instead of trying to engage all the campers. But fun is fun and fun is good. I'm wearing a hair-tie on my wrist that I found at the pool a few hours ago. I picked it up because earlier I was trying to put my hair up after performing as GreenMan in the camp talent show. In GreenMan's act he comes out with a mop and bucket, a plastic pitcher of water, and 7 plastic cups. The song All Star by Smash Mouth is playing but it's a modified version where only the first two lines of the song repeat but have been pitch corrected to fit the remainder of the song. Green Man comes to the front of the stage and tries to assemble the cups into a pyramid. He fails to separate the last two cups and the pyramid begins to collapse. He takes the pitcher of water and pours it into one of the cups before pouring the water directly on to the floor. He removes a Wet Floor sign from the bucket and begins to attempt to mop up the mess he has created. It does not go well. He brings the mop up onto the table and sends all the cups, pitcher and water crashing to the ground. The rest of the song is spent trying to mop up all the water unsuccessfully. Oh yeah, I should explain that GreenMan is covered in a bright green full-body morph suit. Afterwards I took the mask off and went to put my hair up and my hair tie broke so I when I found one at the pool I took it and that's why it's on my wrist now.

A Little 10 Minute Exercise

To write down everything that is happening in this immediate moment of right now-ness. I'm sitting in the cabin and my butt feels like it's pressing really hard into this folding chair. My feet are up and crossed at the ankles in a more comfortable chair. Otis the Dog is resting on the couch in front of me and looking up at me as if to ask why I'm looking at him while knowing full well that I have no way of explaining that to him. The large window that makes up the back wall of the cabin is full of green just outside of the porch that I rarely go out to because, I just coughed twice, because I saw a lot of wasps and hornets making nests in the flimsy ragged lawn furniture. My hands are a little cold and I have an empty mug next to me. I'm looking at a drawing of a horse with a large arm protruding from its forehead. It's legs are long and bent at odd wiggly angles. In the corner of the paper are the words, "HOW DO I GO? HOW??" The horse is smiling and appears to be in some kind of improbable motion. There's an aloe plant that I rescued from my old house that had been living high up on a dark shelf because my roommate was worried about her cats eating it because its poison to them. It now sits on a glass table. The table is a disc of glass supported by what I've been told is drift wood. I'm looking around the room for more things to look at and comment upon. I have old nail polish stuck in the bottoms of my nails that I had painted last week but had to hastily remove to go into work this weekend. I coughed again. I had a mild cold over the weekend while I was at work and it is on its way out now. Above the wall of glass are 16 old vinyl album covers arranged in two straight rows. Right now Polka Favorites is askew as one of the pieces of tape used to affix it to the old, scarred, well-worn wall has lost its resolved. Outside I hear campers, probably swinging on the tire swing. I checked the google page that I had open as a countdown timer. I have three minutes left. My butt still feels really flat and like its starting to fall asleep. I got my hair cut yesterday by my roommate and I'm much happier with it now. I was considering buzzing it all off because that seemed like an easier solution to the problem of having too much hair but I'm glad I went with the slightly more complicated option of trimming it. There's a life lesson in there I think. The life lesson is that no matter what you do you'll probably still sit around and be like what if everything is different than it was. Maddie just walked in told me about her plans in a sing-song way because I think she's tired and pushing through her tiredness. End of time!

Summer's Here

Expect the same hiatus as last year.

But I'm actually doing really well right now. Camp is as awesome as last year if not even more fun. Actual work is good too.

My plantar fasciitis is going away and I was able to run every day this week and with less and less pain.

I want to be more open and concrete with my thinking because this guy I work with named Kevin is awesome and is really into meditation and yoga and I like how at peace he seems with his own thoughts.

I met someone at camp who I really like a lot and that is exciting and a bit scary/disconcerting at the same time. If I was a counselor to myself at the school I work at I would remind myself that I have tools and skills and a wealth of accumulated mistakes to draw upon and repeat or try new things and make new mistakes. But most importantly -> Communication = good.

Anyway,  as best I can tell,  we're all a pulsing bloosh of brains and gut bacteria.

An Appreciation

From about 3:30 on a Saturday:

It's about 3:30 PM on a Saturday. I drank 8 cups of coffee on a bowl of oatmeal. I covered the driver's side of my roommate's Prius in rocks all painted with a neutral expression. I thank the sun and the sky. I live at a summer camp. I am happy. I thank the woods and mountains. I thank the people here. All of this is possible because people. I have more to create and that is good. I sit and I breathe and think about times I have thought a lot about the sun before. I grasp this moment in these words. Anxieties and nagging moods give way to a complete feeling of present presence and I know that.

Are You Too Nice?

Use this potato or 'PotaNo' to firmly and respectively say no to people.

Doods.

I Thought of a Video Game

Millions of your dollars please

The Doc

The joke is that Dr. Metaloscopy is comprised entirely of a giant human hand.

Some SummerTime

Words not Blurds

Working at a therapeutic school and with kids has reframed how I view interactions. A lot of it is about making obvious what is in the background and goes uncommented on. I think it's really helpful. It's taught me how to act around people in a more positive way, I think.  

FAVORITE EXPRESSION