I woke up that Saturday at some obscene hour, the sort of sacrilege that can only be erased by a good nap. After that I just got up at a minorly sinful time. As I read through Neuromancer, the clock skipped like coccaine-heroin kisses, nibbling up until 12:30 with a sound bite down. It was around then that I knocked at Tiff's door to start the day--and while she'd asked me to wake her up as soon as I awoke, I thought I'd spare her the obscene sacrilege or minorly sinful hours.

The better part of the afternoon was hot obscurity. Tiff partly vegged and talked in about equal proportions, trying (semi-successfully) at one point to get her daughter E.J. up. Lance spent most of the afternoon getting me to read his old Omni magazines from back in the 80's and early 90's. I read this one issue focussing on sci-fi involving dogs, which had enough bad stories to make me feel good about mine, and just enough good ones to make me think/pass the time.

Conversation was happening during this whole time, but my attention was scattered like the Jews of Egypt. I think most of it was the slightly snarky or snippy kind, involving food clean-up, the sink in the kitchen that didn't work (and thus couldn't be used to clean plates), and other stuff. Oh, and I had a extended conversation with them about their massive spider infestation problem, where I got to mention my Brown Recluse story; I got disbelief and sympathy in equal doses.

Now it was about 4-4:30pm when we decided to do the whole food thing. Lance wanted Cuban food (being Cuban-American himself); Tiff and I wanted the closer and cheaper Taco Bell. We won out, schlepped over to the not at all air-conditioned eatery, and ate quickly while sweat beaded and happily poured down my forehead. Felt like I was getting sauna treatment, y'know?

The whole day was leading up to our going camping with a bunch of other people from Tiff's weekly drum circle. Thing was that we had to wait for some of Lance's friends to come by, so we could lead them to Cheetoh's house (whom I'd met that past night). We'd loaded the truck, then waited a long time, waited longer, longer still, given up, and finally moved back into the house--when not even 10 minutes later, we saw the long expected truck pull up.

And out stepped Mr. Boombastic. Yes, he deserves his own paragraph. To my eye, he seemed to think he was the pimp shit--the zeitgeist of beefcakes, if you will--ripped enough to equal Brad Pitt, and letting everyone know by sporting no shirt and shorts pulled down enough to see 3 inches of his boxers. The surfer blonde hair and that California easy-going smile cranked up the pimp shitness scale, and the dude just knew it--and didn't give a shit. My first impression was he was full of himself, but the guy also just seemed cool. Oh, and he was bringing along his girlfriend Quiet Orgasm Girl (Qoggie) in tow (which I'll explain later).

The major problem with any kind of event like camping is getting supplies and being out at the site before nightfall. Seeing as how Mr. Boombastic had come at 5:30, we were pretty much skirting that hope. First off, we stopped at Cheetoh's house to drop off my car, unload crap, and meet everyone who was coming with.

Goddamn but there were alot of 'coming with' people. It was that whole awkward "being the new guy" thing all over again, just like the night before. Right around that time I was getting slightly less tense about everything, though, so I think I came off as normal. In addition to some of the people I mentioned in PART 2, there was: Big Amusing Irish Dude, Qoggie, and Cheetoh, who seemed to have some odd big brother thing going on with Tiff's daughter E.J. (who'd also come with).

So there we were: the sun setting and our monkey asses without any supplies. We headed over to Generic Supermarket, where I warred with myself over getting coffee, buckled, sucked down a grande chai in 10 seconds, and sortof aimlessly followed this person or that until we all converged at the checkout.

15 minutes later, I could see the lovely coincidence that made leaving late so cool. We were cruising down a desert road, the last of the sun below the horizon, casting a band of dull orange all across it--making the desert floor and the mountains to either side just barely visible. It was like travelling into a dream.

Night fell quickly thereafter, with the lot of us getting into a discussion about horror movies. Lance'd said something that made me laugh, and funny enough I think that was the first time I hadn't been 100% on-guard. Lance and E.J. considered it an accomplishment. To me, I'd met everyone--including Tiff--just yesterday and I was still getting comfortable. Also, I felt apprehensive about being too touchy (i.e. myself-ish) around my old friend Tiff, since she'd mentioned that Lance tends to get jealous easily. It didn't help that I'd (mistakenly) thought she wasn't seeing anyone, so I'd had to shift my whole mindset.

Fast-forward to the rows of campsites up along this hill in the wilds of Las Vegas, with the lot of us backing three trucks into a space that could barely fit two. Lance's car was a few inches from rolling down the little hill trail that lead to the site. We unloaded the equipment and began to make camp. Just as we'd almost set-up, though, the camp matron came by in her truck. She was not happy. She accused us of 'hornswaggling' or doing some other mid-western verb thing when it came to the reserved spot we'd suddenly taken up. Now, bear in mind it was around 9-10pm at night..and you had to leave by 2pm the next day. Was it likely the reservists would show up? Hell no. Did the matron still expect us to leave pronto? Yes, yes indeed--and all of us bitched up a storm about it. Mr. Boombastic had nearly torn her head off but kept it under wraps, better deciding to spew off about 'that fucking bitch' after she'd driven off.

That bit of restraint paid off 15 minutes later, funny enough. We'd just broken down camp when the camp matron came by again. Apparently, we actually could stay at the spot. And all of us good-naturedly bitched up a storm about it.

The rest of the night passed by like a swift-moving river, with gurgles of sometimes loud, sometimes obnoxious, but always entertaining chatter spindling along the wind. I almost felt like I was a part of the communal atmosphere, talking with this person or that, indulging in bad jokes, doing photography, that sorta thing. I also helped Tiff out of a moderately bad bout of hypoglycemia by getting her some snacky food.

Just for a visual, you can see the main campsite here, along with the silhouette of my friend Tiff:

I'd gotten the bright idea (forgive the pun) to hang the lantern where you see it, since I figured having it on the ground or perched on something wouldn't offer good lighting and might kinda sorta start a forest fire.

Now wouldn't you know it, but while we'd brought along charcoal to cook these pork steaks we had, we forgot firewood. Most of the guys in the camp, then, decided to go off into the wilderness with the lantern to hunt for wood. Camp was pretty quiet with Mr. Boombastic gone, since he was the joker of the group. After awhile I went out to see where they might be and guide them back to camp if necessary. It was easy for me to find them and navigate back in the dark: I have an eye abnormality where my retina processes twice as much purple in the visual spectrum as normal; that's the same reason why I need UV eye protection during the day.

Anyway, with the firewood in tow, we had just enough to start the campfire, cook the seasoned steaks, and have the best camp food I've ever tasted. Really: it was unbelievably fantastic. Later on that night, Mr. Boombastic wanted to cook up some hot dogs for people. Since the fire was pretty much down to embers, though, someone had to go out. I'd been wanting to take a walk for awhile, so I volunteered to do it. Tiff wanted to come with me to help, but then she headed back about 3 minutes later. Thinking back on it, I'm certain Lance would have gotten hellishly pissed off if she'd gone through with it.

So there I was, crab-walking and skulking in the semi-dark, with giant moths and tiny counterparts silently dancing across the lantern face. It was slow going, but the deeper I went into the woods, the more sticks and branches I found at the foots of trees. While out there I could swear I sensed something familiar, like I was being called out to. I ignored that the first time around, but pretty quickly we needed more wood so I went back out. The feeling was stronger that time, and I followed it while I picked up wood. It wasn't like the Fenris Wolf-like creature that The Captain and I had stumbled across years ago, but more like a mild to moderately tangible forest entity. I decided to turn off the lantern, then, and walk a 1/4 mile further, stopping to concentrate on whatever it was. The delusion/entity seemed put off at first that I was there, but after some meditative thinking on my part it seemed to calm down. We exchanged whatever we exchanged and I travelled back to camp with the firewood. Funny enough, it was as if noone had noticed my going or coming back--which was a little strange considering I had the lantern and all. Ah well.

The late morning began to wind down with Mr. Boombastic giving his (at the time) magnum opus, alternating between acting like a 5 year old and cracking some gut-bustingly horrible, evil jokes. Big Irish Dude threw in his chips as well; bastard nearly made me cry. After that, though, without much of a transition, Mr. Boombastic asked me why I'd been mostly quiet and picked my brain on this or that topic. I hadn't thought I'd been especially quiet--same as the other times people'd asked me in the past--but no problem. Lance also wondered if I'd tell the group a story before we sacked down for the night. He'd wondered about this before and I hadn't expected him to bring it up again. I smiled and said I was too tired. I was lying my ass off: I just didn't want to be on the spot and perform like that, not with people I barely knew..and while I knew Tiff pretty well, for whatever reason she seemed very distant and more inclined for me to become part of the group, so I was left to my own devices.

After some more parting silly shit from Mr. Boombastic, then, Lance decided that sleeping would be a good thing. We all agreed, went to our tents, and bunked down to rest.

At least, I thought I was going to rest... To Be Concluded

Small sidenote:

I don't know why, but Ma has been a snarky bitch all day. Just bitch bitch that and bitch bitch this and general bat attitude crap almost everywhere, except where she was dog-ass tired and wanted me to drive us down to get some coffee. I can appreciate that trying to find a trailer or a roof-rack for my car is a pain (since I'm busying packing my own shit), but fuck, woman: you don't need to get negative about it. I can control my being annoyed, surely you can too. Feh.

Also, on a random note, I saw T in d-land chat yesterday. It was only for 3 minutes, but she's moving back to her home state and she's not in the best of spirits. She said she'd be back that night, but I haven't seen her since. I'm not surprised, but it'd gotten my hopes up.

I'm hoping that her moving back will make communication more consistent, so I can ask her some overdue questions.

But that's all in the future, along with the conclusion of my mega update!

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