Things to Read

I am at Pinewoods, is I think the way these entries start, and they are always happy entries to write.

I arrived at camp, and swung past my cabin in and amongst other tasks in order to open the windows and get it ready for me to bring all my stuff up. And upon opening the door, found the entire place covered in beautiful hanger fine art. There were probably about 50 hangers scattered across any hangerable surface, and a lovely wire sculpture dangling through the middle. My friends know me well, and I genuinely did use some of them to hang some of my clothes, so truly a win-win.

Unpacking was aided by a SamSam coming to say hello, and then off to the staff meeting, and then off to the porch. There are many people I adore here --more than I could easily spend time with all at once. That is one of the downsides of ESCape being so good and so popular. My affections have been a bit ADHD today, but I think I haven't left anyone feeling abandoned.

Dinner was delicious, dessert was vegan chocolate cake (I chose not to try and break my record from LCFD weekend, and only ate four pieces). And then there was some beautiful English dancing --I missed the first one but caught the other three, with kateface, then mom, then Robin. And then announcements. And then...

...my first night of calling, like as a serioustimes staff caller, holy shit. This is the biggest teaching assignment I've ever had, like, this could make or break my Scottish Country Dance career. (It's not gonna, there's enough other things I do that will also help, but this is a pretty serious event. It's still not the Big Goal, but it's well in the right direction).

And I nailed it. I got a _ton_ of compliments, including some from extremely well established callers themselves, and some of them with really lovely details that showed good attention and observation to what I try to do. At least one person told me I did a good job of not over-explaining, which is extremely funny to me to consider, given that I want to talk all the time endlessly about everything. But I do try and keep the dance floor flowing real fast --some of this is my training from my tutors, and some of this is my own kinesthetic learning (I want to _do_ the dance, not talk about the dance!)

I was a healthy four minutes under on my time limit, and they asked for an encore for the last one, and I said "yeah, this is a good thing to explain to the dancers anyways". I think I might've been just maybe a minute over after that, but not anything more (so I apologize if the dancers got a four minute break instead of five, or if Ben lost a minute of the contras). I will keep being hyperaware of the timing. I like trying to keep track of how long it takes to do things.

And then I was through the calling, five solid and rapidly done dances (and a very slight sense of smugness, because a week or two ago I got an email from the organizers being all "oh yeah, there are first night announcements and therefore your set needs to be a little shorter timewise than it normally would be, do you want to cut anything?" And I decided to be brave and sassy and said "you know, I _could_ cut the fourth dance if I need, but numbers two and three are 6x32 anyways, and I think I've got this. And I did!)

And the last dance I called was a bit of a stretch goal, a dance I absolutely _adore_ (Lords of the Wind), but felt like would maybe be tricky? And everyone did great! I called it well and clearly, and so the walk-through zipped along, and then we just did it and it went well and like I said, encored! I am getting more and more evidence for the fact that I can and should take the really fun slightly complex flowy dances and go ham on them, even with extremely mixed-level floors. Because I'm surprisingly good at calling them, and my confidence is carrying over so that my dancers can dance them.

(and my music was so good already, and I have three more days to listen to this! Amazing!!!)

After I finished, I got to look at a cool bug (putting a line in my bio that said "I love cool bugs show them to me" ACTUALLY WORKED!) and I chatted with mom some and I determined that I was extremely sticky and hot, despite not having dancing, so I'd better do a couple contras to really commit to being hot enough to jump in the pond after. A lovely one with Myles where we exactly crossed the floor from first to last couple, and then the last contra I danced with Mo and we did a social experiment around carcinization.

(It started as the usual kinda goofing around, with some nice gremliny deep knee squats on the petronella. I'm not sure who in the walk-through turned it into crab hands and sideways prancing around to the next place. But Mo and I committed, and did it every single time our way around, even though it was _exhausting_. It was a ton of fun, and I'd say over 75% of the neighbor couples did at least a little crabbing with us! And after, singleSam¹, who had been the couple just in front of us, complimented us on the fact that they were chased by the delighted laughter of couples becoming crabs with us for the whole dance).

Austin and I waltzed, which was lovely lovely lovely, and then I managed to squeze between Austin and Tess for the song. Into the pond go I, which was surprisingly perfect. I still didn't stay long, but I didn't jump in and start cussing (which happens a lot to me) and when I came out, I was not immediately shivering.

Party and admiring tinfoil costumes and a polycool meeting and back to my cabin relatively on time to sleep. If I hurry, I could get six hours solid before having to go to breakfast! That'd be keen. Just have to dip down to the wifi shed to upload these, and then go brush my teeth.

Happy happy happy!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: "bells Sam" is not actually a differentiator, because SamSam also does bells.

I finished all my packing for Pinewoods _surprisingly_ early --I was done a bit before 2:30pm, which was surprisingly charming. It meant that mom and Robin and I could go out to Boda Borg for the afternoon! We did a lovely four hour run, in which we got three stamps (Quiz Show: Quotes, Star Trails, and the weather one) and morally got a fourth (the last room of Area 51 is _much_ harder with three than with five, and even when we temporarily joined with another group, we still couldn't quite get it, but we know the _idea_). It was jolly!

I'm somewhat unsettled by being fully packed, and reassuring myself with the fact that I still have a bunch of MC/teacher prep work I can/should do, and a fair chunk of printing that needs to happen (after the prep work). I did find my _critically_ important Rowan¹ notebook, which has my ESCape teaching notes for every year starting when I got my full certificate in 2019. It was extremely lost, and I probably spent a total of 20-30 minutes trying to find it, sigh.

I am excited and pleased to leave for ESCape tomorrow. I'll be in the camp in the woods until the 12th or 13th of July or so, so probably not a lot of posting, and definitely continuing my horrid streak of not reading very well. I really ought to figure out a way to work reading dreamwidth into my day-to-day life at times other than part of Standard Morning Routine, because all this traveling and adventure nonsense means my standard routine hasn't been.

I've definitely mentioned somewhere here that I'm teaching at ESCape, right? I am _psyched_ for that. Really strongly looking forward to it, and kinda wicked excited that I will then be going to Scottish sessions and having very few responsibilities so I can just kinda kick back and actually relax for a tickyboo. Maybe I will even wind up working at camp a skootch, who knows!

Anyways, today has been pretty good, even if I've been Very Tired (it is possible I was up _stupid_ late last night in order to do most of my packing, but it's okay, I've had a lot of days in a row of getting eight or nine hours of sleep. I've got backup sleep! Which is very very good to go into Pinewoods with.)

I hope you are well and happy and having good adventures. I hope that we can have a better world than the one that is actually happening. I wish I had anything more useful to say than that.

~Sor

MOOP!

1: Rowan is the mascot of the RSCDS youth branch. They are a sheep and they use they pronouns and they are extremely important to me. I have cosplayed them! Carefully, since specifically they are a Scottish Blackface Sheep.

I continue to be having a LAKE VACATION and today I even went into the lake a bit!

Lake was a late-afternoon plan, and I only made it in to about the tops of my thighs, just because it was...comfortable enough outside, and also the water was quite cold. I had a nice conversation hanging with Cameron and discussing our respective indifference to swimming and other nice things. It was good to be able to cool my body by sticking my feet into the water, and I quite preferred it to being inside with the AC, which tends to be too cold for my poor lizard body.

(I am extremely cold-blooded --I get cold quite easily, and am most comfortable at an indoor temperature of probably 78ish, which no one is ever willing to set their houses at. It means this heat wave is hitting me less badly than many people, and I am very grateful for that. It also means I'm about to go put on my flannel, because bare arms are simply much too chilly for the indoors.)

Oo, or I could write my words outside! That is a good plan too!

(I got distracted having a nice chat with grandpa John, about teaching and acceleration and other things. Being pro-vocational schools! The usual. I am so proud of my school district for all the good it's doing, even though I'm exhausted by many of the things they are failing at.)

The other big thing we did today was going to the Candy Store, which was a very nice sort of adventure! We're on touristy sort of lake, so visiting some touristy sorts of shops is lovely, and gave me a chance to get my mother some vintage-style candy she would be excited about. It was also fun to spend time with just the cousins-batch! It's neat to be part of an inter-generational sort of adventure (currently Grandma Judy and Karen(Tues and Cameron's mom) are working on the crossword with other people's help, and the eight of us who are awake are curled around the table snarking each other and helping occasionally. ) but it's especially fun to just hang out with the other "kids".

It should maybe be weirder that I, at age nearly 36, am sitting so comfortably at the kids' table, but let's be real, I absolutely do not feel as though I am a Grown-Up and never have, despite the fact that I am a firm believer in Growing Up Is Good.

I don't really have much else to write about --peaceful lake vacations are good for the soul healing a bit, and curing burn-out but not exactly full of adventures. We went on a walk and saw a bat? We're going to eat strawberry shortcake? We finished a quite neat puzzle and then rearranged it and finished it again? Things are all pretty lovely.

Please stay cool, in both the "physical" and the "don't become a fascist" sorts of way.

~Sor

MOOP!

I am at Keuka!

This is one of the fingerlakes in upstate New York. Tuesday's extended family has been going out to hang out in a rental cabin on the lake for a week or two every summer for basically forever. This year I got dragged along, which is quite exciting!

We arrived yesterday after about twelve total hours of varying kinds of travel, which was...a lot. It would've been better if Tuesday and I could've managed to sit together on the trains but it turns out both the Northeast Corridor and the Vermonter are _super_ crowded always, and if you don't get on them at the terminii you're fucked. But we made it! We settled in a bit and got a brief tour and I had a very good part of my evening where I just wandered outside and lay on the dock and stared at the stars for a tick. Very very good!

Today was officially day 1/3 of my ~lake vacation~ a thing I've basically never done in my life. I have read books! (parts of three different, so yes, there will be a medialog post again soon). I have worked on a puzzle! I have mostly stayed out of the way while people made dinner! I have eaten dinner!!!

And there are two more days of this? I think I can probably manage that. Just...lots of chatting with Tuesday's family, and occasionally reading books or entertaining myself. Marvelous? There ought to be swimming at some point, but most of this afternoon was spent going to the grocery store in a very disorganized little hoard. It was jolly though, and there was a bit in the middle where I was just in a marvelous mood. Feral almost --wild creature released in the grocery store with no particular agenda (because Tuesday and I got to the grock before Karen and Cameron, due to shop shenanigans). Very nice adventure!

Other plans might include going a bit kayaking, or doing some doodling, or maybe actually working on the ESCape lessons I'm teaching in, uh, a week. On Thursday, Cameron and I are going to drive down to Bal'more, since that's where they live and where mom can easily pick me up. I'll be in Maryland for an _extremely_ blitz visit until mom and Robin and I drive back up to Boston and then to...ESCAPE! I'm excited for it!

In other particularly good news, my union ratified its contract today! YAYYY!!! Best damn district in the state woot woot!

I hope you are finding whatever it is you need this week. And not too much heat.

~Sor

MOOP!

Today was my third pride! I am realizing I never got around to posting all the bits from my second pride, last weekend, so let's do that first:

( here are the notes from Boston pride a week ago, written in a series of texts )

***

Today was Providence Pride! It was a very different experience from Boston Pride, but still really wonderful and valuable! The biggest differences were a) the weather was the _polar opposite_ and I had to worry about heatstroke instead of my fingers going numb and b) I was attending with people instead of alone.

The latter made it much less of a quasi-spiritual experience. I only cried once, and only a very little bit, not proper sobbing --it was when I found the Mama Dragons group, who had a big sign at their booth that read "Fight like a MOTHER for trans rights". They are such a good group! Fuck yeah!

I think the real thing is that when I am with other people I am a somewhat different person than when I'm alone. I'm compelled to be more stable, which is mostly a good thing, but also just...I dunno. I have to be around only people I feel very safe around in order to be my proper weirdest, or I have to be around total strangers who I will never meet again.

But the people I were with were so good! Tuesday and I went to pride together, and it was very fun to go to A Queer Event as a unit. SamSam was passing through on their own adventures, so we found them soon after we arrived and the three of us spent about fifteen minutes sitting in some cozy shade behind a bush, which was almost pleasant weather-wise. After they went off on their next bit of biking, Tuesday and I met up with a friend of kers called Chris who ke knows through Tech House and Puzzling.

Tuesday and Chris and I spent most of the afternoon together --probably from like 3 until they had to catch a train at nearly 8. We toured some booths, ate from some food trucks, sat in the shade, and toured more booths. I think by the end of it we had probably seen all the booths at the little pride fair, although it was laid out a little roundabout in a way that might've caused us to miss a few. I got some nice bits of swag, including a very explicitly queer patch from GSSNE (Girl Scouts Southeastern New England) and an even better rainbow fan than the one I got last week (this one has PoC and trans stripes, the other just has the core six).

Chris turned out to be very fun to talk to, and we definitely had a few moments of "oof, are you me?!" as we chatted about various forms of sluttery and other fun. It was also neat to get to *chinhands* as they shared various forms of college drama with Tuesday, and I could learn some secret scandals from my partner's life before me. I am a simple man with simple pleasures!

Attending the fair was lovely, but as mentioned it was _brutal_ hot and bright out. I realized eventually that part of the problem was that my Very Cute Sunglasses are just slightly off prescription-wise from my regular sunglasses --not enough to be an immediate problem, but if I am wearing them for five hours straight, it starts to make my body unhappy. I went in the mist tent for a bit to cool down, and then we sat somewhere shaded enough that I could swap out for my regular glasses and take an ibuprofen, all of which helped. On the plus side, neither Tuesday nor I appear to have any sunburn! We brought our own sunscreen, but I did heartily approve of the multiple (mostly mom-like) people at the event who had bottles of their own that they were offering to everyone.

Chris had to catch a train, so they couldn't join me and Tuesday for the parade, which happens after the fair in PVD. We missed the very beginning, but caught most of it, and did lots of cheering and whooping and the like. I had happy screams for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence again (although apparently I have a much less strong reaction to them when they are in short cute sun-dresses as opposed to their full nun robes). We ogled some pole dancers doing good work, and very much enjoyed a local horror group who were strutting around kinkily while wearing very little clothing.

I also howled real good for the puppy players, and when they stopped for a little bit just in front of us, I wound up giving one of them a bunch of scritches and making sure he'd been drinking water and telling him he was a good boy. I have known for a long time that I really enjoy interacting with pups, and I wish I had more excuses to hang with them. Maybe I should try and go back to Frolicon some year?

The city was chockablock full of hot queers, and it was delightful. That's my favourite part of any pride, just heaps of little positive interactions with My Community. Smiles and compliments and blown kisses and lusty stares and all having a very wonderful time!

Happy Pride, y'all!

~Sor

MOOP!