The Bright Side

I've noticed that people tend to consider it strong when a person doesn't cry in bad circumstances, like when a loved one dies or whatever.  Well I think that's stupid.  People who have some wierd inability to truly grieve have a PROBLEM.  When someone wins the lottery, they jump up and down and scream and laugh and smile hysterically but no one considers that a problem.  However, when someone reacts to a bad situation with tears it means they are immature or too emotional.  Also in bad situations people yelling and getting angry isn't a big deal but once again if somone cries then there is something wrong with them.  Since when is yelling and freaking out verbally better than crying.  I think it's worse.  It demonstrates so much less control than if someone simply cried over a bad situation. 

The reason I am saying this is because yesterday when Sam and I talked to our boss, the first thing she did was start freaking out at us.  Yelling and cursing.  After a few minutes of that I had a moment where I lost some control and argued back at her, maybe for a like..30 seconds.  This isn't even counting when we called the cafe from the train station and she immediately bitched us out the same way over the phone while I listened without arguing back and only attempting to calm her down.  Sam then took the phone and angrily argued back at her demonstrating less control than me. 

Anyway, back here in the office, after she bitched at us and left to get Andy and came back and bitched some more, I cried.  I didn't yell, I didn't fight, I teared up and tried to talk it out calmly.  Then she went on to say she couldn't deal with me getting emotional (are you fucking kidding me?!?!) and that I needed to grow up (by the way she punched a woman in the face a couple weeks ago at the cafe).  She never talked to Sam about him lashing out even though he did so more than i did, way more. 

wtf.

Sam and I finally arrived at Riversport for the summer after like 5 weeks of laziness in either Southern Maryland or Pittsburgh.  We arrived in early to mid June.

A week after we arrived we went with Sam's family to the beach though.  Emerald Isle, NC.  The beach was fun.  I hadn't been in so long.  We took my surf board and tried to surf.  Turns out I can surf better than Sam which is cool considering he's always showing everybody up with his kayaking.  We did a lot of rather beachy things.  Go Karts, surfing, swimming, waterslides, mini golf...that kind of thing.  Sam bought me some mushroom earings :)

We got back just in time for the first kids camp and for me to work with boy scouts.  I worked with Jeremy Reed (Meatball) and he showed me the ropes on teaching the whitewater merit badge.  Too bad Meatball is a pompous ass hole.  Once he found out I was a vegetarian he wouldn't stop harassing me about it and began questioning me about my other political/moral views.  I don't care if people want to talk to me about my opinions but during a whitewater lesson isn't exactly the best time.  Afterwards we got a call from Heritage, the camp that the boy scouts come from.  Apparenly the boys said that there had been more flirting done than instructing.  That's total bull shit.  Meatball is gross.  He's fat, ignorant, and a jerk.  The next time i worked with him was with the camp called Hazen and he was ragging on one of their instructors for planning to join the Peace Corps.  I don't necessarily agree with the Peace Corps but you don't argue with customers about it.  Andy and Erica (my bosses) said they've talked to him about acting like that, especially towards customers, but I guess it is just the way he is and he sucks.  I'll be doing the boy scouts's whitewater merit badge by myself next week.  That should be better.

After all that went down Sam and I were about to head to the Rothbury Music Festival on the weekend of July 4.  We prepared hardcore for it.  We cleaned out the car, bought food, we even made sure when we left Pittsburgh to bring the 5 person tent.   All of this preparation pretty much went to shit when Sam's car ran out of oil and the engine died in Toledo, Ohio.  We missed the first night of the festival, when Lotus and the Disco Biscuits were playing (two of out favorite bands). We stayed in the Hotel Lorraine that night (a shit hole of a hotel) and got drunk. We ended up taking a GreyHound bus to Grand Rapids, MI and a shuttle from their to the festival.  The festival itself was amazing.  SOOOOO many cool things.  There were so many bands and a lot of really cool art pieces.  There was this sweet forest full of crazy colorful lights, bubble machines, tent-like domes to chill in.  I'd like to go next year without having all of the car troubles.  We ended up having to bring only essentials which included luna stix, a squirt gun, juggling balls, a pipe and lighter, a hacky sack, clothes, food, and two 30 packs of PBR.  We had to get back to the car on the way home to get the rest of our stuff.  We took the shuttle back to the Gray Hound station and then took the Grey Hound to Toledo.  We used cam straps to strap all of our shit together and somehow managed it all.  We stayed in a hotel in Toledo again (a nicer one) and caught an Amtrak at midnight the next night to Connelsville where Hope, a coworker at the cafe, picked us up and brought us back to Riversport.  Erica was pissed at us and I almost got fired.  For some reason everything was mostly my fault.  But I am beginning to accept that that is the way it is.  I am always the scapegoat.  In reality anytime shit goes down, I am never the initial cause.  I can name a number of examples.  Once when I was like 12 years old I was with my friend and we saw this girl that we didn't really like (her name was Erica actually).  My friend, Kelley, said, "Dare me to go call her a bitch?"  And I was like "yeah!"  Because, frankly, this chick Erica was a bitch.  So Kelley did and Erica's mom happened to hear her and then she told Kelley's mom.  They when Kelley's mom talked to us, Kelley told her mom that I dared her to do it and her mom talked to me like I was some sort of bad influence. 

Do you see what I mean?

And shit like that happens a lot to me and all I really do it try to stay out of the way.  I do my job, I get my shit done, I'm responsible for myself so I'd really just prefer if people left me alone unless they were willing to do their job, get their shit done, and also be responsible for themselves.  Does that make sense?

Now I'm not saying that I was right to agree with Kelley when she said "Dare me to call her a bitch?"  That was wrong, but I was certainly not the root of all evil.

But yeah, it's the same with Rothbury and the All Good festival.  These are festivals that Sam brought to my attention and he wanted me to go.  And it was his car that broke down because the oil ran out.  And it was him that told our bosses that they are irresponsible (which I agreed with at least at the time but I didn't say it! I did say they are unorganized though...but that's just a simple fact of Riversport, I guess it doesn't matter as long as things work out for the customer...it is at the expense of the employee though.)  Still, Erica targeted me as the one to blame.  Why?  Because that is my place in life.   I'm that type of person, people look at me and see someone they can take their anger out on.  That's how my dad was toward me and my mom.  Even my brothers used to get pissed at me when they'd lose a video game.  They'd say it was my fault, that I was bugging them when all I was doing was watching.

All I can say, is when you get angry toward someone, really think about what you are actually angry about because it'd possible that person has virtually nothing to do with it.

Okay, all that ranting is done.  I'd like to post some pictures from the rothbury website.  I'll try and do that sometime in the relatively near future.  I'm heading to the All Good festival hopefully tonight though so it'll be after that.  I'll try and get some good pictures of my own from All Good.

Sorry it took so long.  But here are some pictures from hiking with sam two weekends ago.
That's me in this crevice between a jumble of boulders.


That's me and Sam :)

Here's Sam climbing up between some big rocks.

Sam under some rocks.

Me on top of some big rocks.

My love and I again

The river...Glade Creek I believe..

Me on a cool bridge.

Sam and I next to the "Trail Not Maintained" sign (it definitely was NOT maintained...)

The water mill.

 A cave in the rocks that led to an opening which happened to be a cliff.

We had a really fun time here.  I miss him so much.

Right now I am inspried by marijuana and stoked about Rothbury. 

And horrified by "Jesus Camp"

Mollie sent me a card that has marijuana plants on the front of it.  The inside says something along the lines of 'Remember the new food guidelines say you should have 6 servings of leafy greens a day!'  She drew a bunch of inside jokes and pictures in the card too.  :)

Maybe tomorrow I will take a picture of the card and upload it..I'm too stoned and lazy right now.


Rothbury is a music festival in Michigan in July.  It costs a ton of money so Sam and I are scheming to figure out how to get there.  But we will definitely be there.  We are determined.  A bunch of his friends are going and a bunch of mine are too.  So many good bands are playings: Lotus, the Disco Biscuits, Michael Franti, STS9, Yonder Mountain String Band...and a ton more.  I'm so excited.

I can't find a logo for Rothbury so here is one for All Good, a festival Sam and I will also be going to.  It will also be amazing.