Just because it's 2am and you know I'll be in bed, thus easily findable, doesn't mean it's a good time to ask me to kill a cockroach for you.

Truth: I thought updating from New Haven would be easy, as I have one of those Totally Dynamic And Full of Stories Summer Jobs.

Truth, part the second: I was wrong. You see - my job is "RA/Instructor" at a summer camp for high schoolers, meaning I'm the RA for a living group of girls as well as instructor of two classes. This means several things which are prohibitive to blog posting. Thing number the first: I work two full-time jobs. That is exhausting. Really, really exhausting. Thing number the second: most of the things I'd want to talk about involve The Kiddies. Now, as evidenced by rarely blogging about The Kiddies this whole last year I worked with them, I don't feel super comfortable putting details of The Kiddies' lives on the interwebz. They are children, let their privacy be preserved.

Moving on.

Yesterday in Starbucks I passed a man who, were I the Short Story Writing kind, was most certainly fodder for short story writing. He was handsome, to be sure, but in this incredibly non-standard way - he was disheveled probably-a-crazy-person-or-perhaps-undiscovered-genius handsome. He was also using a brush and ink to create things that looked like cryptic punnett squares in a notebook of graph paper. Yes, Mr. Starbucks Dude, you are the stuff short stories are made of.

I often think a similar thought about my fellow camp counselors: you are the stuff short stories/movies about College Timez/ transparently autobiographical first novels to a lost love are about. The people I work with here are really kind of remarkable, it's overwhelming. I will include pictures, so you (the blogosphere) can be impressed with my skillz at having pretty friends.

Look how wholesome we are. We do things in parks! Wholesome! Parks!

It is impossible to doubt Rachel's wholesome intentions, to be sure. She's pretty unstoppably cute.

We went to see Harry Potter the first day it came out (we are too old for midnight showings, yo). I think this picture does a pretty good job of outlining our group dynamics.

Sam is skeptical! This is normal for Sam! Unfortunately, he left us after first session to go to training for his Fulbright. Like that's more important than MAKING FRIENDS AND KEEPING ME HAPPY!? Pssshhhht.

It is ACTUALLY impossible to take a bad picture of Patrick. Feel free to try. You won't succeed. Also - this may or may not be the night we drank the bar holding trivia night out of $2PBR.

These people are in charge of me. And always playing guitars. I think that's probably all you need to know in order to form an accurate picture of what my work life is like.

Once, on our day off, we went to the beach. Poetic. Poetic and full of beach napping.

We also do things like chaperoning children on trips. Trips to places like NYC. Then Chris comes down from the Norwood office and tells us we're going to do a photoshoot in Times Square. With 75 kids. And four chaperons. Woo and hoo.

Dancing in the dining hall to get pumped for 80s night. Also because, really, when SHOULDN'T we be dancing in the dining hall?

Some people took edible architecture really seriously. Those people are far more awesome at edible architecture-ing than I.

Tamar looks almost as silly in my Huge Zebra sunglasses as I do.

This makes our job look far more relaxing than it actually is. I'm okay with that.

A cautionary tale of the most serious nature!

On Going Dancing In Your Home Town: A Cautionary Tale: 

Ladies, should you find yourself Out On The Town in the same small southern city in which you were raised be aware - danger lurks! Yes, Dear Ladies - danger lurks, danger of a most nefarious sort!  Keep vigilant, ladies, lest you find yourself and your Leggy Blond friend ground allupons (grinded allupons?) by one of your former local news anchors.  Be wary ladies.  So wary.

So, so wary.  

That's it. I'm shopping for a place in Brooklyn.

I kid you not, moments after I'd posted the wolf t-shirt blog entry my hipster friend Hunter, who's subbing in this high school today, came down to show me the shirt he's just gotten for himself:



Oh...oh hell.

You know what? Hunter is 100% right when he says I only hate because I'm jealous. I hate out of PURE jealousy in fact. He's right. That shit is majestic. It is startling beauty deserving of both my respect and my adoration. I'm just pissed because I can't wear it.

I want unicorn t-shirts.

And my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper With Matching Pencil Pouch.

And a felt poster.

Hipster culture - why must you adopt and flaunt in front of me everything I ever loved.

Never fear: neither jorts nor a braided belt were involved.

One of the most hipster kids in the more hipster of the two high-schools in which I work was wearing almost exactly this t-shirt today, except the background was a shade of mauve-meets-lavender.

I say only this: wolf t-shirts? Oh hipster culture. How you've failed me!

This is why they shouldn't give us responsiblity

Mary, on her most recent interaction with the captain of our football AND basketball teams: "I may or may not have said to Darren Thomas, 'strip baby, strip' because he was taking off his shirt anyway...because he wanted to show me tattoos...and I was THINKING IT, and then I realized, 'OH GOD! I SAID THAT OUT LOUD.'"

Also, we once took a lot of pictures of my feet with her cell phone to compaire them to photos online to determine whether or not I have cankles.

It's really, really, really, really time for summer break.

TOTALLY CANDID, GUYS!

As is often the case in these blog-posts, let me begin with a List Of Truths About Meg:


1. I have a new camera, for the first time since, I think, 10th grade.
2. It is the Best Camera Anyone's Ever Owned, EVER. It's freeze-proof, shock-proof to 6.6 feet, and water-proof to 33ft. All of these things, while you might dub them "bells and whistles" are, in truth, MADE FOR ME. The creators of BlueBabe believe that I'm taking her camping, kayaking, spelunking, and into other TOTALLY X-TREME conditions. I am, in fact, taking her...to my life. Shock-proof and water-proof it is. She is also blue, hence I've named her BlueBabe, much like Babe the Blue Ox (Paul Bunyan's constant companion).
3. I am not a good photographer.
4. No. Really. You don't even know, dudes, you don't even know.
5. I can't really use most of the bells-and-whistles on my camera (the real ones, the ones that are for Makin' Pictures Pretty, as opposed to Makin' The Camera Not Dead).


My lack of photographic skillzzz, combined with my urge to Live Life Unmediated, and a signifcant dash of "forgetting I have a camera" means that I'm not usually The Photographer. When I remember, however, that photograph taking is something of which I am capable, and something which I wish I did more of, I often feel the pressure to Document Everything. (This is what I mean when I say being the photographer gets in the way of Living an Unmediated Life. The pressure of needing to see everything as a Photo Moment is high! It means you're living to look back on the memories later, not to make the memories now! PRESSURE!)


My favorite mode of picture taking, thus, is what I've deemed TOTALLY CANDID. This means I take lots of unflattering pictures of people, often while shouting, "TOTALLY CANDID." Soemtimes, I make you STOP smiling and looking cute, to mimic the "candid" nature of my favorite photographing style. Guess what? This is usually a dumb strategy. Most of my pictures are dumb. Yet, since either evolution or divine intelligence has seen fit to give me at least the semblance of free will, I also have the free will to refuse to learn from my mistakes. TOTALLY CANDID it is.


I am going to include some examples of my TOTAL CANDIDNESS so you can see - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...and very occasionally, it's glorious.

I actually consider this something of a triumph of the "totally candid" school of picture taking. It's a photograph of my mother and aunt when we traveled down to Austin together for my Cousin's wedding. Is it a flattering picture? No (a common fault of TOTALLY CANDID). Is it interestingly composed? I would say yes. I like it. My mother does not. Tough cookies.


This picture? Kind of a failure as it's (1)really blurry (2)impossible to tell what's going on (3)kind of just of Caron's boobs. I will, however, swear up and down in similar pictures that they're great because they feature the energy of the setting. For instance, I really like this picture, blurriness aside:

ENERGY, GUYS, ENERGY.

Totally. Candid. Energy. C'mon. CCCCMMMOOOOON - isn't everyone willing to browse through grainy, poorly composed photographs in search of ENERGY? No? Well lame. (I'm also pretty darn anti-flash. I think it makes everyone look ugly. As a result, all of my pictures are fuzzy. All of them.)

Once in a while, though, Totally Candid pays off - you either get a really cute candid shot of someone you love (exhibit A) or a REALLY HILARIOUS shot of someone you love who will not de-tag because he is a good sport (exhibit B).


(exhibit A)



(exhibit B)



TOTALLY CANDID.


And, as is the recent blog theme: I love my life.

(It was an image search, by the way.)

So, I think I need to get better at clearing out my most recent search from that little google-search-bar at the top of my work computer. Obviously personal searches, at the end of the day, probably undermine my apperance of professionalsim

Sometimes I glance up there and see words like, "how do you become a physical therapist?" or "best pre-law programs in Virginia" or "african-american female buisness women scholarships." These searches, I feel, are fine.

Other times the searches are things like "fake boobs are better than rubber chickens."

...perhaps less fine.