Love + Sex

I like getting dirty

No not THAT way (or at least not in this entry!) One of the reasons I love volunteering at camp is it gives me one week of same jeans wearing, oversize t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up sporting, no makeup maintenance routine. I'm very outdoorsy, living in Manhattan, and unless I get out of the city when the warm weather comes, I feel stifled. I love being outside as much as possible, and it's funny because I really haven't met as many guys who share my Get Outside mentality as I'd like.

Anyway, I was thinking all these things, sort of composing this blog entry in my head, as I was running around the Central Park Reservoir last night. (Seriously, all my best blog ideas come about half a mile in, and somehow, they're always so much more eloquent in my head on the trail than sitting at the desk . . . maybe next time I'll take a tape recorder). I was thinking about how I like camping, and dirty jeans, and not worrying about looking a certain way, and how I really wish I went hiking more, and about this hippie guy from Minnesota who I absolutely fell in love with the summer when I was 19 and he and I were both working at a summer camp in Washington where we'd sleep on the beach every night . . . and suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder. It's a nondescript guy, about my height.

"Do you remember me?" He asks, grinning this 'I know you' grin, like he has this secret.

"No." I'm impatient, sweaty, and want to get back to running, and am suddenly all too aware that you can hear the music (which just so happens to be that great late-90's hit The Thong Song) leaking out of my headphones.

"It's Evan! From the pool?" He smirks.

Oh my goodness. Evan made my life a living heck the summer I was 15 and a lifeguard at the local community pool in my hometown. He was the gate guard, along with another kid, and they used to make fun of the way I talked, the books I read, pretty much everything. And, it was sort of teasing in that guy-girl way, but occasionally, and because I'm sensitive, it sometimes way crossed the line. Anyway, I have no idea how he remembered me, because this was more than 10 years ago, and I think I look way different than I did in high school. But in that moment, all I could do was smile tightly and proceed to have an awkward discussion about what's happened in our lives in the past decade or so.

How does this relate to the beginning of the entry? Because in that moment, I wished more than anything I had my four-inch heels, eyeliner, cute dress, and my hair was straightened. So, I guess the point is, I just felt that was the Universe's way of reminding me to be careful what to wish for . . . and not to make romantic, sweeping generalizations that won't hold up in real life.