God, I’m fucking exhausted. The day was a mix of nervousness. Partly shy, partly anxious, partly caffeinated. People testing me, people appreciating me, people who call me brother.

As much as I’ve grown, as far as I’ve come, there are still things that are difficult to do.

All I want to do now is write, but I’m too tired. Life is moving at a quickened pace. I came here to vent, but all I’ve done is barely scratch the surface. Oddly enough, I still feel better. I think of calling John, but I hear him explaining my thoughts to me, in my head, and suddenly, everything makes sense.

It’s like Louise and cuts. When getting a cut, her first instinct is that it hurts, but when she realizes that they’re supposed to hurt (what I see as the nature of perfection), they cease to hurt.

The long weekend was just plain relaxing. It’s good to get out every once in a while, although once a year is enough for me to appreciate my clean room, my comfortable bed, and the company of my kitty cat. Getting to know Chris, Aaron’s brother, was a treat.

It drizzled for most of the weekend, but it wasn’t enough to stop us from playing poker in our tents or under the tarp. As can be seen in the last photo, on the last day, the leaves were completely dry under our tents (left side of the picture) while leaves on the ground were soaked through (right side).

Even camping food is easy. Meals cooked over the fire are plate and utensil-free. Cake is eaten with hands, and one feels no more guilty in the company of others than gorging alone.

I managed to get some great shots at night. I still wonder how I’d do with a nice digital SLR though. The one in the bottom right corner came out especially well: the circular lens patterns of my Maglite can be made out in the leaves.

One of the best parts of camping is passing through all the little towns along the way. It always reminds me of the drive up to John’s cottage. The buildings are homely and unique, with so much personality. We passed by an old, working drive-through in the middle of nowhere, and I had to get a picture of the weathered sign. There also happened to be a tiny, pastel-coloured bowling alley, and we decided to play a few games. Funny how the one time we end up going bowling is the time that Trolley couldn’t go with us (he’s never been bowling, and we keep telling each other that we have to go with him sometime).

A growth, a flower, and a lizard. I have no idea what is growing on the log, but I do know that the flower is a trillium, which is the provincial flower of Ontario. It’s also protected, which means that one can get fined for picking it (Any person who contravenes the act is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $50,000, or to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years, or to both). The lizard is a salamander, and there were a few crawling around in the leaves.

How do I explain how good it feels to be ironing my clothes on Friday night?

An old nursery rhyme proposed that life is but a dream. If Dr. Leary were alive today, he would add, most likely in an LSD induced state, that we’re just an imagination of ourselves. I have a hard time agreeing with either aphorism, but even if they were true, it wouldn’t matter.

A certain gluttonous cat once mused, exactly 19 years ago today, that life can be compared to something found on the dinner table. Perhaps the most famous comparison, however, was by a technically borderline deficient person who said that life is like a box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. As things go on, one realizes that there isn’t one comparison that’s more valid than another.

Even an outspoken Queensbridge rapper has flowed, “You a killer or a hustler, dealer or customer / Gangsta or buster, youngster or old nigga / A weed head, a coke sniffer / You rich or a broke nigga / Know you all relate to this shit that I wrote niggas / Life is what you make it nigga”, and I tend not to disagree.

For me, it now seems like life is simply a test.

More importantly, however, from here until the end, no matter what, life is gravy.

Went camping over the long weekend. Pictures/video to come soon/eventually.