Nineteen.

If being 18 was the best year of my life, I would not be suprised. I would be sad though, because that would mean that this summer would not be all that great, and right now it is looking to be TOTALLY RAD. The bunk list is completed and I have an amalgam of awesome campers in my bunk, and the staff this year are going to redefine the terms "camp spirit", "awesome" and "fun" and any crazy combinations of those terms. In fact, it seems that so much stuff is going to be happening each and every day, night off and day off that I want to record it all. Had I the technology, it would not be unlikely for me to update this every day, with complete detailed recollections on just one day and the adventures, hilarity and Travocity encapsulated within.
Oh, wait...

I do have the technology. There's a staff computer! It's always hogged by the Russian kitchen staff and not very fast, but it's still there and my dream of a Summer Camp Blog could make the hefty leap from my imagination to reality!
But it's not entirely a good idea. It would mean taking time out of every day to update, when I should be doing either:

A) counselor duties,
B) adventures
or C) WEIGHTLIFTING!

Okay, that right there was just a flat-out lie. I never weightlift. I'm the skinniest goddamn man on the planet. If I were to shave my head and get a major tan, you'd confuse me for a starving Somalian child...but then I could get money from charity's and free food and stuff...and just right there I thought up the absolute worst scam idea ever...Moving on, it would also be bad if I wrote about something really terrible that happened at Camp and people read about it on this and there would be SCANDAL, TREACHERY, LAWSUITS and just miserable BADNESS. Ah, wait. Only about three people read this. I'm safe...for now.
I'll just never mention the name of the camp. Plan.

I have a couple of goals for this summer, and they're serious goals, not just an excuse to make another bulleted list. But I made a bulleted list. I can't lie, I like'em. But seriously, these are serious goals:

GOALS

• Become "fairly" competent at playing the ukelele.
• Learn and utilize as much British slang as possible. (Accent optional).
• Overcome my phobia-esque fear of deep water and squishy lake bottoms.
• Never drink any liquid with an alcoholic proof of three digits ever again. [ATTENTION WORLD: Alcohol is bad for you.]
• Learn how to fight with a spear and/or buy a knife.

I'd be a happy man if just one was achieved. I have a ridiculous sunburn right now. I tried putting lotion on my back but naturally I couldn't cover my whole back so everything except this small area that was the only place I could reach is burned. I never get sunburned, but now I am, and this sucks. Must be karma. My spirit's former life before mine must've been a real dick or something, or as the English would call he/she/it/her, a real "wanker", or "tosser", or "bloody git."

See, already on my way with Goal Number Two. The counselors from the UK are helping me out. I'm also learning random words in Russian, such as how to say "yes", "leeches," "anchor" and "i love you."

Anyways, I'll write again soon. Promise.
Hugs and Kisses,
Travis H. Curran.

Why aren't you people watching this?

Like you have anything better to do with yourself at 12:30 a.m. (or "Midnight Thirty" for our Maine readers). Next time you've got an insomniatic fit but the thought of watching late-night TV that isn't Adult Swim makes you cry in despair, try tuning into the The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS every weeknight 12:35AM ET/PT.

Why? Because it's fucking hilarious, that's why. Craig Ferguson played Mr. Wick on the Drew Carey Show back in the day, and he's not really English or stupid. He's actually Scottish and really really funny. And stupid. But stupid in a really really funny way. So check him out, because this dude is a funny man, and you ALL want to be entertained at 12:35 a.m.

Reflections on Being 18.

Since today is my last day, and I seem to really enjoy making bulleted lists, here is this, in no sense of order whatsoever:


Things I Did:

• Graduated high school.
• Attending my first year of college.
• Got my license.
• Broke up with my girlfriend of 10 months.
• Learned how to drink responsibly.
• Lost my virginity.
• Asked a girl for her number (the first time ever).
• Broke the law a bunch of times.
• Kissed a man onstage.
• Bought a ukelele.
• Got mononucleosis.
• Discovered Achewood.
• Adventured a lot.
• Saw Apollo Sunshine in concert many times.
• Saw Against Me! with Murder By Death in concert.
• Stole bowling shoes.
• Learned how to manage my finances some.
• Read lots of good books.
• Saw lots of good movies.
• Learned a lot about other people.
• Learned a lot about my Self.

Things I Didn't Do:

• Vote in the election (I had mono and it didn't matter).
  
• Reach Nirvana.
• Get better at guitar.
• Watch much TV.
• Backflips, of any kind.
• Impress women.
• Taxes.

Stuff That Happened:

• I rolled my stepfather's truck over the same day he married my mother, two hours after they left for their honeymoon. The truck was absolutely totalled, I was physically fine. Mentally, it took me a while to recover.
• I had an epiphany of sorts sitting in a mobile home in a trailer park in the middle of the night, the only one left awake after a party, and I was drinking rum & coke but not drunk.
• Had another moment: standing barefoot on top of a roof of my friend Ian's apartment building staring out into the foggy Portland lights and it was raining and I was drinking some and talking with people I respected about everything and nothing.
• Was in the play Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, as the Male Slave, got to wear a phallus and imply that I was having sex with the Female Slave backstage. Was later in a 10-minute play How Not to Tell Your Best Friend You Slept With His Wife, by Jake Christie, as the man telling his best friend he slept with his wife in all the wrong ways, as in, really vulgar straightforward hilarious ways.
• Made some really great friends in the Theater Department and some even better ones just in my building. Expanded my social horizons. Liked my roomates my first semester, didn't my second. Grew even closer to my friends from high school. Met a whole range of people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures and learned some things about diversity, individuality and human beings in general. Became less socially introverted and felt more comfortable meeting new people.
  
• I started writing again and becoming less self-concious about it.
• I started thinking about life differently. Accepting others for who they were. I got a lot less judgemental. I saw my life for how it is, but didn't transcend it and reach some sort of higher state of being or anything, just sort of accepted it. Nothing has really changed about me, but I'm definitely a different person than I was the year before this. And, hopefully, I'll be a different person next year.

Ultimately, I:

• Grew up.

Summer.

Nothing interesting going on to write about? Nay! My recent lack of posting is primarily due to an ABUNDANCE of interesting things going on. I've started working @ my summer job, but only part-time for the time being. I'll move in soon though. I'm getting good pay for basic maintenance work with fun and hilarious company. But tonight, I have no plans and no car. So I'm slowing down a bit from my roller-coaster-ride lifestyle to check my email, read some webcomics and update my blog. Being a geek is the life, man.

In speaking of Geekdom, I'm sorting of having some kind of relapse to it. I used to be as nerdy as they came, back in my day. The Days of Elementary/Middle/most-of-High School(s). I sort of phased out of it when I became more of a hippie-hipster theater major at college. I still did some geeky things, but it wasn't like "Hey, I'm not popular at all because of these loser-like habits." Now, I'm not talking down about losers. I've been one, for a long long time, and part of me still is one. I've never been very popular and I do things the popular kids think is geeky. Besides getting picked on, harassed, and never having female attention, I thought being a "loser" was a pretty rad thing. In fact, my transition wasn't too radical, the hipster-theater-guy genre of personality being in the same spectrum as the geek-nerd-dork-loser. More chicks though, definitely more chicks.

Anyways, the point I'm getting at is I've noticed some cycling back to the nerd and out of the hipster. I found myself reading comic books for at least an hour yesterday. I had some hard-core video-gameage with my brother a couple nights ago too. I even picked up and read an obscure novel set in the Star Wars universe before I went to sleep this past week. These are just the physical symptoms, while mentally I've been sensing a weakness in my self-esteem, -confidence, -image, and other self- stuff too...like feeling self-conscious even. I even got a bit angsty when thinking about how I can't figure out women. That's not entirely true though, I pretty much have both women and men figured out, but that's a rant for another day. I was just feeling a bit sour and depressed about the results. It was brief. I did not cry.

This isn't a bad thing. My Inner Geek reawakening. It's good, a flux in my personality. Perhaps it's like the recipe of character traits that composes me are being altered, mixing and mashing and possibly, by the end of the summer, I might have grown some. As a person.

By the way, it is absolutely so beautiful out right now it BLOWS MY MIND,
so stop sitting at your computer reading this right now, get the hell outside, and breath for a while. It's quite... ... it's not quite anything... It is just Quite.

That is all,
Sincerely,
Travis H. Curran. Supreme Chancellor of Rad. HCF4L.


(P.S. I will do my best to update more before vanishing from the face of the Earth for nine weeks. This happens to me every summer, and it is kinda sad, but it is definitely worth it to me and is a very important part of my life. Thanks for understanding.)