After three or four false starts, I finally finished college with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, which meant that I left school with a very general understanding of marine biology, $20,000 in debt, and no practical skill. I was determined I wouldn’t repeat this mistake with my master’s degree, and so I’m not sure how to explain to you why I have a degree in cognition and brain development from a now-defunct sub-sub-program in the College of Education. I walked away from this experience with an additional $50,000 in school debt and STILL NO MARKETABLE SKILL. I did learn, however, that our brains are not fully developed until age 25, a factoid that 1. helps me understand and want to defend my young (future) co-worker who slept with her client (an inmate of a federal penitentiary); and 2. is something I could have learned from reading O magazine.
At age 18, our prefrontal cortex (important for decision-making, reasoning, inhibitory control and personality) is not done cooking. Still, we send 18 year olds out into the world and ask them to make decisions that are seemingly innocuous, but actually carry quite a price tag, both literally (see: my student debt) and figuratively (see: my useless degrees). It certainly contributes to much of what’s wrong in the world, like strippers, drug addiction, and psychology degrees. It also helps explain my brief flirtation with a handful of activities which I am going to cluster under the general heading of camping (I realized while writing this that I am unable to differentiate between sports and camping–other than that one allows for outdoor urination). But more so than that, it helps explain the dirty, dirty lies I told about my enjoyment of camping. Because in my stupid, underdeveloped brain, it seemed like fact that if I wanted a boyfriend, I would have to like camping or at least pretend to like camping (I specifically wanted one of those cute boyfriends, the kind that TYPICALLY LIKES CAMPING. I had no problem nailing down the heroin junkie who dealt weed. We had a lot in common. We both like staying indoors). This was Seattle, for god’s sake; the camping theory just made sense.
Unlike every other person raised in Seattle, I don’t come from a camping family, or a sports-watching family, or sports-doing family (I totally get that the two aren’t necessarily related in the minds of most people, but seriously, both roads lead to me sweating). I mean, I know that my mom and dad have camp-camped. It was their honeymoon, but they were poor and it was 1965 so that doesn’t count. It wasn’t until I moved out of the house that my dad started to explore footwear beyond his Brooks Brother penny loafers for beach combing. Given that they married in 1965 and were still under the impression that the husband is the decision-maker, it made sense that my mom, lover of the outdoors (and currently a frequent camper), deferred to my father’s approach to family vacations (hotels, or just buying vacation homes) and so as far as I knew, my mom’s only outdoor interests were silent, solitary activities like gardening or chopping wood. I’m not sure if that was to get away from the kids or just quiet time to reflect on her German stoicism.
Not that my mom didn’t try to change this for us kids; she was relentless in her efforts to prepare me and my sister Hattie for the life of a socialite circa 1968 (and/or get us off the recliners in the basement) even though it was the 1980s, so she was quick to enroll us in swim-camping, and tennis-camping, and ski-camping, and whatever other hellish camping-type activities she could find. I mean, I get that my mom was just doing her best, following the advice of the so-called experts, but personally, I just don’t agree with these “scientific studies” about kids and sports. They all say bullshit things like, kids who play sports are more likely to go to college, but I’m telling you, they are all getting degrees in marine biology (like I wanted to), thinking that they will swim with dolphins at SeaWorld and make-out with their coworkers in some shitty San Diego low-rent apartment that’s infested with prostitution and meth (again, living my dream).
Or this is a stupid one: “participation in childhood sports is a significant predictor of young adults’ participation in sports and physical fitness activities.” So fucking what? So you predicted that a kid who plays sports will turn out to be a teen who plays sports? Good use of research dollars. Or that kids who play sports do better working on teams. You know what? Working on a team is overrated; try teaching your kid to reach a little higher, like middle-management. Show them how to divvy up work in an semi-equitable manner that doesn’t piss everyone off. But really? I don’t think there’s any sport that could have been foisted on me that would have changed who I am, or made me like sporting. I am not a sporting breed, and no matter how hard you may try, a pug will never, ever be a successful (or happy) racing dog. Leave that to the greyhounds.
But, there I was, a pug with a tennis racket (tip for instructors: loosen up on the inappropriate language-thing: nothing wrong with your young wards exclaiming “fuck!” while playing round robin–at least they’re playing the fucking game, right?) (oh, second tip, just for those male tennis instructors out there: wear a cup, moron. Hattie walloped 2 (TWO) different instructors right in the fruit basket. Great aim, Hattie! And actually now that I’m thinking about it, they probably weren’t wearing a cup because they were pedophiles who wanted us to SEE their junk; there really is no other plausible reason). Pugs don’t play tennis. Well, actually, a pug might want to chase a ball for a bit, but once done, they would be DONE. Or, dear lord, tether those pathetic pug paws to giant, unwieldy, waxed-up foot-sticks (with bonus hand-sticks for flailing and eye-gouging), and then send that sweet pug careening down a snowy hill, instilling a PTSD-kind of fear in those below, who can see the destroyed lives of those above who got in the way, knowing they are next and there’s nothing they can do. Because that’s basically what ski-camping felt like to me. It was horrible. I hated getting on and off the chairlift, I hated our douche bag instructor who talked about women with PMS (classic douche bag humor), and I hated all that fucking snow. It’s cold and wet. I liked the lodge, though, and after faking my weekly injury, I excused myself from the slopes to sit there, eat curly fries, and write poetry about shame and sadness.
The only good thing to come from skiing was when Hattie had her crappy rental boots on the wrong feet and couldn’t figure out why she kept popping out of her bindings. I mean, the boots were really crappy, and I was also hard pressed to see a difference between the right and left. But the stoners in the ski shop could tell the difference. Their sage advice has stayed with me: “Dude, left testicle/right testicle.”
And this is where the lying began. Because, skiing wasn’t something that everyone at my school did, like swimming (which I actually enjoyed! And still enjoy, although I enjoy it with the knowledge that a dip in a public pool may result in strep throat). I mean, no one at school was impressed by swimming because the whole district was required to demonstrate that they could swim—it was like a law, no doubt enacted because of the deep pockets of chlorine companies and swimming lobbyists that lived in my hometown. But! Having lift tags hang off my jacket? That seemed like a sure-fire way to catch the eye of an unsuspecting and painfully shy boy (he had to be shy) who no doubt snowboarded (see how perfect we would be together?). So I, a liar-liar-pants-on-fire type of person, walked around school with lift-tags on my coat, attempting to advertise my awesome outdoor athleticism, and enjoyment of said athleticism.
For those of you who would like to diagram the blog thus far, I’ll get you started:
Academia
- Debt; and
- No marketable skills.
O Magazine
- Same education as university; but additionally
- Includes financial tips from Suze Ormas
Camping
- Synonymous with all sports.
- Tennis-Camping
- Specialized hand stick;
- Misappropriated dog toys;
- Optional Happy Days/ChaChi-Style sweat bands; and
- Fun until it isn’t.
- Swim-Camping
- At risk for MRSA; but
- Pleasantly solitary with ample time to reflect on German stoicism.
- Snow-Camping
- Specialized shoes/foot sticks;
- Specialized clothing; and
- Infested with douchbagism.
My first camp-camping experience didn’t occur until I was about 20. I joined a few girlfriends for a weekend trip to Cement, Washington. I don’t remember much, other than my obsessive requests for everyone to touch my six-pack, which I earned the hard way (compulsive running, sit ups, and starvation, which might be why I don’t remember much else; I was probably hungry. Also, “crazy-exercising” belongs in an altogether different category from camping, so don’t get too worked up that I don’t acknowledge my proclivity for running in this diatribe). I do vividly recall not being able to sleep because there are no fucking locks on tents, not that they would do much because you could easily rip through that nylon body-bag-for-four with a sharp fingernail. Naturally, I wasn’t worried about bears or cougars; it was the more obvious threat of hillbilly rapists that freaked me out.
But, other than that, I guess it went fine, because my very next camping trip was insanely ambitious: a poorly planned, cross-country, Graceland-bound road trip.
Check out the second installment: The Reluctant Camper, Part II: Tooling Around the Pacific Northwest