Thoughts while Painting

In the camp newsletter, the director has a column (for lack of a better word) entitled "Thoughts while riding" that the things (usually camp-related) that go through his head while riding his bike, training for the Pan-Mass Challenge.

I, right now, am in Chicago, paining my sister's apartment...

So, I now give you:
Thoughts while painting (aside from "This is hard" and "why did I volunteer for this?")

-I like Chicago, but I miss New York. There's a magic about New York that has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with energy. It's like New York City is a fantastically beautiful glass and New Yorkers are the Cran-Grape filling it. It isn't for everyone, but man do I love it. (As I take a sip from the glass sitting next to me...)

-I'm both excited and scared of where I'll be exactly 12 months from now. Hopefully, I'll be packing up my apartment in New York, not to come home, but to move into a new New York apartment of my own in whose rent is low enough that I can foresee being there long term.

-Season 3 of "The Muppet Show" came out on DVD two weeks ago. I'm beyond psyched to buy it.

-If I find a girl as excited about "The Muppet Show" as I am (and she isn't psychotic), I need to hold on to her.

-I hope that when I buy a place of my own, I can either afford to hire a painter or I marry a girl with a brother willing to paint for/with me. (My brother certainly wouldn't, and my brother-in-law...well...I don't think he's the handiwork type...)

-Speaking of weddings: I made a pledge as I was getting over the last stages of my depression in December that I wanted almost everything from my pre-college life to be erased and forgotten. I was in a bad place and I'm not sure how fully I meant it, but I seem to have since subconsciously selected what I want to keep and kept it, and everything else seems to be fading fast, and I seem to care little to hold on.

-The computer I'm using right now does not have spellcheck on its web browser. Mine does, and I worry right now that I'm making mistakes up the wazoo.

-I'm about 3 weeks away from the start of my 17th summer at camp. It still amazes me that when I started, I was a 6-year-old in velcro sneakers and bar-mitzvah sunglasses who could barely do anything successfully, and now I'm a 22-year-old entering my 4th year in charge of archery HELPING those little 6-year-olds make memories of hitting the target their first time. (I remember my first time! I don't remember the counselor who helped me, but that's not important to me.)

-More than that, I love helping the 13-17 year-olds (males, mostly), a group that is typically hard to get through to, help the 6-year-olds, because even more exciting to me than the joy of the first target hit is the joy of the jaded adolescent male in the success of his protege, the 6-year-old.

-I have no problems with time-zones, but I keep forgetting that I'm not in my normal one...it's strange.

-On that note, I'm going to try to go to sleep soon.