I Swear, There Were Boys At My Girl Scout Camp!

As we do every day, today at lunch, we set a few minutes aside for one of my many childhood stories – my coworkers do so enjoy these wild tales. Obviously you do too, you come back and check this ridiculous blog weekly based on the info the good folks at Google are providing me with…

So, today’s tale caused a bit of a stir and has left me confused, torn and downright conflicted. My mind is oozing with self-doubt and a slew of unanswered questions. I can’t help but wonder if I’ve imagined this entire situation. I need answers and I better freakin’ get some soon!

For those of you who once subscribed to my MySpace Blog, forgive me if you’re heard this before, but here’s the deal …

In the summers of 1984 and 1985, I attended Camp Blue Bay in East Hampton. This was a Girl Scout camp. I wasn’t a real Girl Scout, but that’s OK, it just meant that my folks simply had to lay out a few extra bucks to unload me for a one week interval.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Camp Blue Bay, aside from having to swim in non-pool waters and sleeping fully clothed under my ET blanket, clutching a flashlight. I was afraid of bears attacking us and the thought of running in my nightgown and bare feet through the beach woods terrified me even more. The cure for this was sleeping in my clothes with sneakers on. In retrospect that’s humorous. Imagine bears on the beach?

Reminiscing about my two fun-filled summers at Camp Blue Bay brought back memories of a young romantic interlude I encountered with a boy named Matt. Matt was from Queens and he was about a year older but looked very young. I think I found out later he had a hormone problem them kept him on the short side and very youthful looking.

My coworkers joked that he was probably like a 40-year-old Joe Peschi look-alike groundskeeper. As if I’d mistake that for a cute young boy. Whatever! They looked at me in disbelief and questioned the entire story as if I would lie about something that retarded. So here I sit in a state of confusion. It’s so unnerving wondering why this kid was at my camp. I actually emailed someone who handles email inquiries regarding Camp Blue Bay and if she doesn’t reply, I will contact them on Facebook – yes, I’m a member of their club.

So yes, why was there a boy at a camp for girls? Why? What was he doing there? Was he someone’s kid? We kissed behind a bush! Would my parents like the idea knowing that they sent their little girl to what was supposed to be a safe all-girl summer camp, only to get mixed up with some dirty boy from Queens? Hot summer lovin’ is going on miles away from my safe, uneventful Nassau County home. Here I am out in the Hamptons making out with some dude? How did this happen? Who let him in to kiss innocent 11-year-old girls?!

Apparently the program I was part of included grades 5-8. Now, honestly, if you ask me there’s a big difference between a fifth grader and an eighth grader. I mean really! Grade 8 is like junior high maturity! Those chicks didn’t care that Kirk Cameron was on the cover of Tiger Beat. They were on to the real deal. We’re talking girls in leather jackets with big hair who smoked CIGARETTES in the bathroom at school!

Which reminds me, I recall two broads lighting up a cig and breakin’ out a bottle of wine during “rest time” back behind the lean-to. Being a good Catholic school girl, I rallied my buddies and we rushed off to have a heart-to-heart with one of the CITs (that’s “Counselor in Training” for all you non-campers) and reported those dirty girls. We didn’t have to worry about them beating us up either – they were quickly whisked back to Commack or wherever they were from.

Man, camp was awesome. What a way to break up the monotony of watching reruns of The Partridge Family and riding bikes to that candy store on Meacham Avenue to play hours of Pac Man.

The Big Delete

Every day I notice my total number of friends drops a number or two. Most of them are brides I virtually befriended via a wedding website who must now realize a year after their wedding that "quality is more important than quantity" or "the wedding is over and I don't really know ya, so bye-bye."

A nun from grammar school deleted my brother and me. My brother did the unthinkable and confronted her on the big delete. Turns out she de-friended us because as a Mets fan she didn't appreciate his constant pro-Yankees status updates. I got roped in by default for being his sister. In this particular case, I'm a tad relieved because I felt weird having a nun on my page anyway. I'm not exactly religious and I'm rather irreverent at times and was hesitant in "accepting" the request to begin with.

There's a certain feeling that goes along with the big delete. You notice your total number of friends has shifted downward. You go through your 200+ friends wondering who it could be. Maybe it's days or weeks later, then BOOM it hits you like a ton of bricks that you no longer see updates from that chick from your spin class or the guy you slipped your number to in 8th grade. Maybe you're informed on the right side of your screen that everyone's commenting on a photo and suddenly you realize you can't comment. Why not? You've been deleted!

Sometimes it's someone you know personally, a coworker or a friend's sibling. It makes you wonder, "Did I do something wrong?" It's understandable of course if there's a change in the relationship dynamic or if you're no longer working together. Perhaps rumors circulated around the office that spies are reporting fake sick days where folks status updates mentioned they were at the beach. Another common reason for the big delete is the obvious break up. Either you and a friend or significant other had a fall out or your bud dumped someone then insisted you too delete their now ex.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who questions the unavoidable big delete. I can't possibly be the only person who feels a bit strange about it, can I? In fact I once received a very threatening angry email because as a joke I deleted the gf of a then friend of my husband's. She is now a good friend of mine. I deleted her honestly as a joke because she was bombarding the MySpace bulletin board with silly updates. Facebook has the "hide" feature which lets you silence those twittering-style buddies who tend to over-update without hurting their feelings.

Does anyone else out there feel a weird sense of loser-ness upon suffering the big delete? Is there something wrong with me? Just a thought.

As always, thanks for listening.

"This is our last concert, dude."

"Dude, this is most likely our last show together," confessed my BFF Tarah at the June 6th Jane's Addiction/Nine Inch Nails PNC Arts Center concert in NJ.

I met Tarah in 1991. We were students at Nassau Community College. We experienced tons of stuff together. We took Nutrition class together. We studied together. We smoked cigs together. We had sleepovers. We shared secrets. We’d sit in the Garden City coffee shop on Franklin Avenue on Thursdays and enjoy pea soup together. We had each others backs when people made fun of our off-beat fashion sense and most notably, we attended dozens of shows together throughout the '90s from Lollapaloozas to the Beastie Boys to Jones Beach shows to Beck in Virginia because I was pissed that he sold out NYC...

Growing up kinda sucks… Buying houses, having babies, I mean, I know this is the natural progression and that something must be wrong with me to not be excited about it all, but the bon voyage to youth is a bit painful. Sure there will be BBQs and I’ll attend baby’s first birthday parties and communions and graduations and all that, but it’s just, I dunno, I don’t want to grow up. Like, yeah, I’m “old” but mentally I’m not. I’ve been married less than one year. We rent an apartment. We listen to the same music we liked when we were in high school. We play video games. My husband drinks too many beers. I think not being homeowners or parents aids in extending the immaturity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally NOT complaining. It’s just that Tarah verbally pointing out the reality of her and her husband embarking on the inevitable next step in adulthood made my heart sink. They’re looking at houses and planning on having a baby soon. Once that happens, our late night phone convos will come to a halt. The IMing at work will disappear as it did with our friend Rene, whose full-time job at Travel & Leisure has since been replaced with trips to the playground, mountains of laundry, walks with the stroller and new puppy and whipping up healthy meals for her husband and their one-year-old.

I feel as if I’m stranded in Never, Never Land alone while my friends cross over to Adult World. Am I alone in this, really? Does anyone else feel this way? Is this like a late-in-life quarterlife crisis?