Vacation Fun Times

When Mother Nature delivers your firewood...

Hello, Thrillerati! I took your advice and got out of dodge. I went up to the Adirondacks to my parents' cabin (which is called a "camp" in that area). I brought all kinds of art supplies and a positive, can-do attitude, and really enjoyed myself. I have dragged my feet about going there because I felt like everything they have in Old Forge they have in Rednecktopia-trees, lake, deer, hills, trucks-all the same. When I got there, I realized it is NOT the same for two reasons...

1.SO MUCH SNOW...two or three feet of snow. When I arrived, it snowed for three days straight. This amount of snow makes the world dangerous and magic, which I love. It is like a real fairytale, not diluted by Disney. There is a sound, when the temperature is around zero, that the snow makes. Not a smush...like a squeak. When the sun comes out, the sky is ten times bluer than at home, and the light is so bright you need sunglasses to see anything at all.

2. THE PEOPLE ARE THE BEST PEOPLE EVER...I was there for five days and I could bore you with stories of the people going out of their way to be super nice for no reason. I don't realize how douchie people in Rednecktopia are until I leave. Sorry Rednecktopia, I have lived all over the country, and you guys are the worst...humorless, guarded, and rigid.

I landed my car in a snowbank, almost died, sudden whiteout, what can you do...and within LESS THAN A MINUTE a man arrived, pulled my car out with a chain, checked to see if I was okay, got a rope and tied my broken bumper back in place, and sent me on my merry way. It was like, nothing to him.

I couldn't park my car in front of the house because with so much snow, there was no room for the plow to pass. A neighbor, whom I had never met before, let me park in her driveway for the whole week!

At the store, the teenager behind the counter asked me about the gift I was buying, and we started chatting, and I am sure she is the cutest thing ever and we will be best friends for life now.

EVERYONE there is like that...like, NOT hating life, can you imagine? I want to move, but the cost of living is very expensive there. Maybe I'll move anyway,

Being at the camp alone in the winter is rather dangerous. There is no running water or heat, and there are people around, but if I fell, or something, it might be a while until anyone would look for me. I left the cabin twice during my stay, while the sun was shining and the birds singing, and two times encountered blinding snow out of nowhere,,.one of those times I mildly crashed the car. I also got sick...like bad case of the flu sick, unable to move sick, and I still needed to go under the house and haul wood up the steps in the snow if I didn't want to freeze to death. That doesn't sound like VACATION FUN TIMES, but for some reason, I felt like it was all great. I felt like Julie Of The Wolves. Only, with pizza.

snowmobile tracks on the frozen lake

I cooked my food over the woodstove. If you are a Facebook friend, you saw how I washed my hair in melted snow. I walked on the frozen lake, I thought about life, and I tried to create art. Even though I flew my car into a snowbank, even though there was a tree on the house when I arrived (my brother called from Florida and tried to talk me into cutting it myself, and I flatly refused...sorry. As I said, if I got hurt, no one would find me), even though I got really sick, what sucks the most is that I came home empty handed. No art. I don't even know if I'm an artist right now. I am so, so, so terrible. It is like I never knew how to draw or paint. I couldn't make a stick figure. I almost threw my canvas in the fire. I tried to get to an art store for supplies because my paint froze and became a weird consistency, and that's when I crashed. So fuck it, you win, Mother Nature. Fuck it. FUCK! IT! I AM A LOSER!

I did start to read The Artist's Way. It recommends that you write 3 pages, every morning, completely unedited and uninhibited. Very much like blogging. I was so frustrated that I am not an artist right now, that I didn't get too far in the book either. Because it is for artists. And I'm not one.



So much weirdness going on in my life right now. So many endings. Bob and I ended up having a three hour talk about our relationship while I was there. He is so sweet, and such a dreamer. Nothing with any practical application will hold his interest for one second. This is a problem, because it makes me the task master all the time, the critic, the nag...but he loves, and he says nice things, and he thinks the best of everyone all the time, he cooks and cleans, he doesn't ever criticize..only further setting me up as the driven mega-bitch, making ALL the plans, doing ALL the organizing, making ALL the decisions, finding ALL the solutions. This causes us to fight, fight, fight, fight... he wants me just to relax, and I want him to make a plan and follow through. He also is very independent,he and Sequoia are alike in that way. They are happy without talking to anyone, but I need attention. I am needy. I know it. It is true...neeeeeeeeddddddyyyy with eighty thousand emotions and I want to dissect them allllll, don't you? What could be more fascinating than every single thought I ever have???

Sequoia hung up on me when I called from the woods. Sequoia does not do emotional. There is no emotion that she can't hold in like a stoic 1940s man. She DESPISES feelings, but today she surprised me with a vegan coconut hot chocolate, so who knows. My mom is the same way.

And that other daughter, let's pretend that she is on safari in Africa right now, incommunicado. I got a good report card for her from the school, though. (((Don't take it personally, don't take it personally, don't take it personally.)))

This is long.
Every thought I have is fascinating.

love and light,
your friend,
Hil