Yesterday evening, my mom and I went camping with my brothers, my dad, and 150-odd boy scouts in the FREEZING cold.
30 degree weather, and get this: no campfires. None. Not allowed. Please just shoot me.
Camporees are always, always, ALWAYS orginazational disasters, but this--Please, people. NO CAMPFIRES?? GOD.

I was in shock all day.

Campfires are social experiences. You have not camped until you have sung American Pie around a campfire with fifty or so boys and their dads.

A campfire is where you go in the morning. You get nice and warm after being cold all night long. You toast some bread on a stick, and by the time you get back to your tent, the Alpha adult has made hot cocoa and eggs and you're all set.

A campfire is where you go for lunch. All the pyromaniacs gather around the smouldering remains of the breakfst fire and try to rekindle it during their free time, with moderate success: they use more than three matches, but it's big enough to satisfy their heat lust. Note: These guys mean well, but they like to kid around and insult you. They like to practice knot-tying in your hair. They like to set fire to your knitting. DO NOT TOUCH THEIR FIRES, OR EVEN LOOK AT THEM FUNNY. You will be immediately escorted from the premises, which is probably a good thing.

A campfire is where you go at the end of the day. You start to gather around during dinner, scrounging Hotdogs off your favorite families. You're there while everyone gets into their Class A's for flag lowering, and you get the best spot right before they all come flooding back for S'mores and singing. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Down By the Bay, Sweet Home Alabama, There Is a Bad Moon on the Rise, Help, Margarita Ville, all these have an equal place around a campfire. All you need is a guitar and someone who can play, and you're in business.

But take away the campfire and DISASTER.

We were sitting around a turkey roaster at 40 degrees, in our tents at 38, and in each other's tents at 32.
Reduced to a turkey roaster.
Unbeleiveable.

And you know that the only reason I even go camping is because I love my guys. I do. I love them. Really. That is why I sat shivering in my jeans, jacket, and sleeping bag trying to sleep last night on the rocky ground.

And when I got up, it was still freezing.

I went from Pack 500's campsite to Troop 5's (or, from my little-little brother's to my big-little brother's) to congratulate my absolute favorite Boyscout on getting tapped out for the Order of the Arrow, and to possibly find some deserving boys to keep me warm (wishful thinking--there are none, at least, that's what dad thinks.)
Someone needs to cut that grass; I walked across the field and soaked my shoes, socks, and jeans (only nine inches or so, so that's okay).

No campfires. GOD.

The organizers are obviously either really, really dumb, or cruel, sadistic fiends who are trying to kill me.

This article sums up all the weather we have had lately in my part of the world:

And the Forecast is...
By Michael Rubiner
New York Times, August 5, 2003

Wednesday: Rain. Heavy at times. Folowed by periods of percipitation.

Thursday: Lingering showers throught the day. Chance of rain 800%.

Friday: Moist. Damp. Sodden.

Saturday: Rainish. Shower. Precipitacious.

Sunday: Light rain followed by heavy rain followed by pouring.

Monday: Unseasonably rainy in the afternoon. Uncharitably rainy in the Afternoon. Unconsiably rainy in the evening.

Tuesday: Endless showers broken by occasional flooding.

Wednesday: Remember "Water World"? Like that, only with more rain.

Tuesday: Not sunny. The opposite of sunny. Just forget about sunny, okay??

Friday: Clearing just long enough for you to make weekend plans. Followed by obscene amounts of rain.

Saturday: Take a wild guess.

Sunday: Incessent, spirit-crushing rain. The kind of rain that makes it futile to get out of bed in the morning. The kind of rain that seems as though it will never end. And guess what? It never will. Ever. Do you understand?

Monday: Please go away.

Tuesday: Ample, brilliant sunshine throught the day--Wait, did i say sunshine? I meant rain. Really hard rain.

I feel like I live in flipping Seattle!

...AND I SHALL POST!

Wow, nothing has been hapening. Seriously. Unless you count five Oliver rehearsals a week. This play is taking over my life. I am going to be burried under a pile of choreographers and costumes and scripts and scores and pianists and directors and generally everything that happens to fall on me.
Oh, and I just found out that one of my friends is moving to WISCONSIN.
Why?
His dad got a job there. God. What's so great about Wisconsin, anyway? I mean, no offense to all the Wisconsiners out there, but I prefer here, right? I'm sure you guys say the same kinds of things about North Carolinians. But really, all that's in Wisconsin is cheese and some seriously frigid weather. Why would they leave me to go to Wisconsin? His mom hates being cold!

But anyway, that's pretty much what's new with me.
Yeah.
Life is good, except for a few little twists that aren't really supposed to be there.

What is it with people an giving out free candy?? You would think we got enough of it at Hallowe'en, but no. Parents who spend their spare time complaining about how obese society is getting fill their kid's baskets once again to mark the rising of Jesus. Can't we find a better way to do that than hunting for plastic eggs filled with enough sugar, hydroginated oils, preservatives, dyes and artificial flavorings to kill off our entire nation? But no.
The definition of tradition: It was like that last year. Complete with clogged arteries.

For mainstream America, Easter is like a christian Hallowe'en, complete with dressing up and baskets of candy. The only real difference is, Easter is pastel, and christians don't beleive that you go to hell for celebrating it. Depressing.
Candy is candy is candy, right? It doesn't matter if it's sold in orange and black and purple, or if it's sold with little pink bunnies all over it. IT'S STILL SUGAR, PEOPLE!! Guess what? It doesn't matter! Easter candy kills you as fast as Hallowe'en candy. Really. Pastel bunnies not withstanding.

Happy Easter, by the way!
(Had to end on a cheery note)

Why is it never easy to get to a foriegn country? Could someone please explain that to me? And why do all of those trip-counselor ladies sound so premenstural when they tell you something's wrong? Do they get paid to be nasty? No (well, maybe). Do they get paid to help us? No. Do they get paid to help the airline fill seats? Bingo.
Bunch of jerks.
I mean, God forbid that it should be easy for me to get to Austria with my choir, mother, grandmother and brother, and then go back with just my mother, grandmother and brother. Ohh, no. Easy is not allowed. That model is SO outdated. No.
Expensive is allowed.
Difficult is allowed.
Complicated? We got that one covered.

Yeah.

Okay, done venting. Have a nice day, please come next time!

Well, let's just say that the first Oliver music rehearsal was...It made me apreciate my director and my accompanist. Choir is so much easier when you have a director who knows what they're doing, and an accompanist who can PLAY THE FLIPPING PIANO.
DP and Ferny, if you ever read this...I love you guys. You are awesome. And why? BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!
Now, our music director, let's call him Joey, is great. He has a marvelous tennor voice. He is very patient and understanding. He also has whopping zero experience with directing, and totally can not control a crowd. He also has some continuity issues. For instance, he sings a note, and then has us come up three steps above. Why not just give us the stupid note?!!? PLEASE. I BEG you. We need someone who can play at least chords. Just chords. We can get by from there.

Well, I finally got my bio up on the Road Less Traveled web site (www.roadlesstraveledtheatre.com).
For those of you who have not kept up with my exploits into the world of theatre, the Road Less Traveled is a theatre company that is setting up a branch where I live. And we are very excited. Verrrrrrrrrry excited. Oh, yes, we are.
Oliver is going brilliantly, by the way. No body is completely off-book yet, but dad and my brother are the closest.
I don't know why, but I am very happy today. Maybe because it's Saurday.
Happy Saturday, people!

Life+Mine+Now(2)=BORING. And I think I speak for all who have something to look forward to, but also have a great big patch of NOTHING on their social callendar between imminent Joy and/or intrigue, and now.
One of my friends is turning Sixteen. SIX. TEEN. Only two more years till college SIXTEEN. Driving after 9:00 legally SIXTEEN. Becoming even more adolecent than she already is SIXTEEN.
And I only have untill Sunday to get used to it.
Why do people insist upon growing up?? It's outrageous. Really. They should have been brought up beter or something.
Have the common courtesy to let us get used to it at least, for Petes sake!

Well, Oliver is shaping up to be the most disturbingly incestual production out of West Virginia. Seriously:
I am Charlotte. Noah, the guy I am supposed to be flirting outrageously with, is played by my brother.
Bill Sykes and Nancy are siblings offset.
In the Oom-pah-pah bar scene, my dad is squashed between me and a sixteen-year-old Bet, who is flirting up storm (WITH MY DAD), my mom is right in front of us being Old Sally, and I can't remember the lyrics to the song but I can remember how to spell incest. Insest. Inceste. Whatever.
I can also spell disturbing...
But no! I am an actress! I am lots of different people! I will rise above it!

Unfortunately, the newlyweds have split. We are all heartbroken, but so glad to have our respective Cult Followings back!
It would never have worked out, anyway. We're all much happier now. Really. I prefer Mugglenet.com and Mugglecom.net to any Leakymug.
We're still just as delusional as before!

I must congratulate Mr. Emerson Spartz-Anelli (formerly Mr. Emerson Spartz of Mugglenet.com) and Mrs. Melissa Anelli-Spartz (formerly Melissa Anelli of Leakynews.com) on their marrige and the union of their Harry Potter websites. Together, they are a perfect couple, and their new super-site, www.leakymug.com, is a fabulous contribution to the world of Harry Potter.
Congratulations, Memerson! The shippers are happy at last, and I know you will be, too.

Five gallons of Coconut Oil. Five GALLONS of VIRGIN COCONUT OIL. FIVE GALLONS. Virgin. Coconut. Oil. Oganic. Coconut. Oil.
I am in shock, but I shouldn't be. I mean, after the cheese, I should be prepared for anything, right? Five gallons of Organic virgin Coconut oil can't compare to ten pounds of organic unpasturized cheese from grass-fed cows, right?
But I am amazed. We use a lot of coconut oil, but we've never had FIVE GALLONS AT ONE TIME. We usually just buy it in smaller plastic jars, even though plastic is evil and we're trying not to use it.
Five gallons. I've finally seen it all.

My brothers and my mom and I all went out to work on a farm today. It was actually sort of fun. First we weeded the Lettuces and Cabbages and Broccolis, then we cleand and sorted enough eggs to feed the American army for several years, and then we planted some mixed greens and Onions, and would you beleive it, that took all day. Apart from sorting eggs until I swore that I would never eat another (but of course, I'll break my life long vow tomorrow) and getting a little bit of a sun burn (I NEED MORE COCONUT OIL!!), it was really nice.
It was so nice and warm outside, and sunny, and there was a nice breeze... But enough about the quintisential Spring/Summer day. I'm sure we will have many, many more perfect days, and I hope that they are all on Wednesdays because that's when we'll be working.
Oh, Lady Spring, thou temptress, bestow upon us poor mortals many, many perfect Wednesdays!

Well, this is just my luck. I don't know if I was born under a nasty little star, or if I am just careless.
I have choir on Monday night. Every Monday night. From 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening. I am VERY commited to this choir.
I love scouts. Scouts rock. Both of my little brothers are in scouts, their friends are like second cousins to me, and the fathers and leaders are like the uncles that I never get to see.
Even if this weren't the case, I would love BSA, because it's not girl scouts (I had a bad experince, okay? Leave me in peace.).
The Venture Crew that I just joined meets (and here's where it gets good) on MONDAY NIGHTS. See? Every other Monday night. From 7:00 to 8:00. On the other side of town.
Incidentally, THE SAME NIGHT I HAVE CHOIR.

I have been looking forward to tonight for weeks. It's maybe the only night that I have off from choir, so I will finally be going to a meeting, right?
WRONG!! Evil stars and their alignments! It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
Venture Crew is every other night. Get it? Tonight wasn't an every night or an other night.
Tonight is Black Monday. Tonight, the fates have it in for me. That is why tonight, I am going with my dad to my little little brother's Cub Scout meeting, and not to my nonexistant Venture Crew meeting.
I love my little little brother's pack. They are adorable, noisy, funny, cute, eager to please, and completely loony.
But they aren't my guys. I've never been as close to them as my little brother's friends. They're just not the same.

I got on and realized that mom had just popped a Nora Jones CD into the computer, so I can't blow my eardrums listening to heavy metal (forget for a second that I swore off it the first time I was in a car with a newly licenced teenager, darn it!! But that's another looooong story...) but instead maybe do some actual WRITING because Fresno and Green Day and all the rest are more condusive to head-banging and wrist-slitting (not that I do that, mind you, my wrists are perfectly lotus-blossom white and unblemished, thankyouverymuch) than to any creative writing. It's kind of ironic, for some reason...

Boredome today reached an all-time high. Seriously, I think I might have broken my previous record for boredome. You can tell that you're really, really bored when you start misspelling words just so you can hear the little ding! of the spell-checker. Yeah. That is hardcore boredome at it's best. That and randomly flipping through the pages of novels you haven't read in FOREVER and peicing together your own frankinstein-esque tale by melding different lines from different books...
But on the up side, I get to have a six-hour rehearsal for Oliver tomorow. From noon to...Well, six. PM. I can totally do that. I've done that kind of all-day-er in choir bunches of times. There's a rehearsal coming up that is from ten to nine (AM to PM). I am showing up for that one in my PJ's, just you see if I don't.
But yeah. Boredome...

Okay, Oliver is back on! Finally. We had a little meeting last night at a coffee shop, and we were to ld by the director that 1) We have lost Fagin, 2) We have lost a bunch of our orphans and some of Fagin's gang, 3) we are gonna kick this bad boy by rehearsing in an 18,000 sq. ft. warehouse three or four times a week.
Oh yeah! We rock! Sorta...
The really bad thing is that the performances are the first two weekends in May, so crunch time is now upon us, more's the pity.
I can hardly wait! I get to bat my eyelashes and sigh, "Oh, Noah," a lot, and then suffer from a servere split-personality disorder (I go from, "You little wretch, work'us!" to "Noah, come sit by me," in less than a minute. If that's not clinically insane, I don't know what is).
But YAY! It's my first-ever production, so I might be just a tad overexcited...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?????
I swear, I never hear from my friends anymore! Are you ill? Are you on vacation? Are you DEAD??? Have you been captured by anti-American terrorists?
That last one really wasn't likely, as most of my friends are either Democrat or very mild-mannered, but hey. I just thought I'd covor all the bases.
Where, oh where has ev'ry one gone?
Where oh where can they be?
I have searched high and low,
But where can they go?
Oh, where, oh where can they be?

St. Patricks Day, the day that all men are Irish and all beer is served warm, is now officially over. Unless you happen to be a barhopper, in which case it is still going strong, with kegs tapped and glasses in hand.
I don't even get this full on Thanksgiving day, but here it is St. Patricks day and I am stuffed to my nonexsistant gills. This is my favorite meal of the year. I look forward to this all year long, waiting to behold rye bread and Corned Beef. Yum.
But I have to get off the computor now, because tomorow happens to be the day of the Pinewood Derby for a certian Pack 500, and my dad is officiating. GO TEAM or whoever you root for in one of these things, Lord knows I've only seen four or five, I don't know what goes on...

I just finished re-Hennaing my hair. Again. It's still wetwetwet, but it's going to be redredred when it dries! It's in honor of St. Patrick's Day (at least, that's my current excuse!), so while I'm on, Happy St. Patricks Day! My mom is throwing a shindig tomorrow night, so I will probably not be able not get on the lovely beige box that I like to call a computor, but instead spend the day cleaning the house with her and setting out decorations and cleaning my room because it is a Mess with a capital 'M'.