someone gets me

i generally live in a space of knowing that people just don’t get me. i’m ok with that. i mean, it is a normal state of being for me. i don’t think like other people, dare i say like normal people. i don’t act like other people do. i don’t think things that other people think. and so people just don’t get me. i wonder sometimes (ok often), when exactly was i dropped on my head to create these strange thinking patterns?

and this did become more acute when i moved to the boston area. people look at me like i have a screw loose when i say how much i enjoy winter, hate the beach (at least when the sun in shining), how i don’t eat meat, don’t like dunkin donuts, don’t like the english language, don’t like tv, am not a baseball freak, am apolitical….the list could go on and on.

but the strangest thing happened this week. my friend passed along this quote to me from her friend’s blog and when i read it, i felt like someone got me. i have no idea who this person is and really it doesn’t even matter, it was just like this overwhelming sense that someone in the universe gets me and i’m good with that. no need to know who the person is. and perhaps it is just because the topic of conversation is so close to my recent experience this summer – the dreaded camping trip. yes, you remember my anticipation, angst, anxiety and awful outcome of the camping trip. Here is what this person had to say about camping:

the reason people get jobs and clock in 250-plus days a year working is so they don’t have to live outside and scrounge for firewood. this is called “homelessness,” people, not vacationing.

when i read this i heard that orchestral “ahhhhhhhhh” indicating that things in the world finally make sense. well, at least to me. ok and really just about this one thing. but this is someone who gets me – camping is not fun, camping is not vacationing. why do people do this to themselves? are they aiming for solidarity with the homeless? with the pioneers and pilgrims? whatever it is, i have a job so that i can afford to pay for heat and a roof over my head and not to sleep in a sleeping bag. i’m all for vacation, really! but if it includes camping, once again, i would like to say thanks but no thanks.

wires crossed

some wires must be seriously crossed in my brain. that’s my only conclusion. where i grew up, for the first 18 years of my life, it almost never got over 75 degrees. and on top of that it was almost always foggy, overcast, damp and dreary every singly day of my life. that’s 6,570 days of fog, many without ever seeing the sun – probably enough to bring the average person to the brink of suicide. you know what they say about not having enough sun and all that seasonal affective disorder crap – you just need sunlight to function better.

well, i don’t actually like the sun, don’t need it, not interested in it really. somehow i managed to live through the first 18 years of my life hardly ever seeing it and that worked out just fine. i mean, except for those rare occasions when i would be away from home with family or friends and get the sunburn i thought was going to kill me with accompanying sunstroke that kept me in bed for two weeks. how can you not love the sun when that happens to you?! so i made every effort to not go places where the sun was actually shining – what exactly was the draw?

and then at 18 my family moved twenty five short miles away from where i grew up. twenty five short miles to a place where, in the summer, the temperatures reached a lovely 110 degrees on a nice day. i thought i had moved to hell – literally. people ditched work in the summer to be by the pool, spending a lazy summer day in the sun – what kind of insanity is that? it was 110 degree! the only sane place to be was where it was intensely air conditioned. (the house where i grew up didn’t even have air conditioning, there was no need because year-around the weather was so cool.) i so didn’t get it.

but then, just to show my own insanity, i moved from california to the boston area. have you been to boston in the summer? there is no humidity in california – even when it is 110 degrees. i had entered a whole new level of summer heat hell. people here actually enjoy the hot summer days and sit outside in the heat and humidity on purpose – while i’m thinking, i could go to a movie or the mall where it is air conditioned! and then, on those RARE days in the summer when it is cool, and perhaps even overcast, people here are disappointed and hate the weather. those are my favorite days! seriously, i talk to people and keep thinking, some wires must be seriously crossed in my brain because i don’t think like other people. and especially when they find out i’m from california, they assume i love the sunshine and want to go sit outside in the heat and humidity with them. uh, thanks but no thanks. please show me to the nearest air conditioned room. i’ll see you when fall arrives.

fogburn

the first day of the camping adventure could really involve nothing more than setting up the myriad of supplies that will carry us through the week. i mean, how else will we cook and clean without setting up the folding kitchen, stove, two grills, awning and various tables to hold the million other things we brought? hours of set-up for a single week of camping seemed entirely excessive, but that’s how we do it so just i shut up and didn’t ask questions.

but the second day was even better than the first. after a lovely breakfast cooked on the camp stove amid the mosquitoes and flies and dishes lovingly washed in grungy water heated over the campfire, we sat, bundled up, in the low hanging misty fog for about an hour until we decided it was too cold (and boring) to just keep sitting there. so we set out from the state park for a walk through the nearby eucalyptus grove, down the state beach and by the bird sanctuary. by the time we returned from our nice long walk i realized that i was having trouble walking. had a pulled a muscle….walking?

over the course of the day my legs started to hurt worse and turn more and more red – red as in so red they were purple-red. and by the next morning from my knees down i looked like the elephant man and i could hardly walk at all. the hospital said i had second degree burns on my legs. second degree burns? from the cooking oil that someone throw on me in my sleep….from jumping in the campfire while sleepwalking?? no, no, from sitting in the fog for about 45 minutes. that fog can be dangerous stuff you know, all white and misty as it is. second degree burns!

i tried to treat the burns with aloe but i was camping so within minutes the burns were covered with dirt – oh the joys of camping! so i spent the first several days irritating my horribly painful second degree burns by washing the dirt off many times a day so that i could reapply aloe – a completely self-defeating process. my legs kept swelling, i couldn’t eat because i was so nauseous all the time from the pain. did i mention how much fun i was having on this camping trip?

the hospital finally said i had to keep my legs elevated to get the swelling down. no walking, no standing, just elevating the legs, antibiotic ointment on the open wounds that are draining nasty stuff down my legs. how much better can it get, really?

is there a morale to this story? all i can say is fog is obviously much more dangerous than i gave it credit for before this great week of camping.