camp edey (tw///mentions of self harm)

i called camp edey my home away from home. girl scout camp. i never did the whole cookie selling thing, just girl scout camp. the place where i spent so much of my time in the summer as a child. summer camp is a place where best friends last one week. summer camp is a series of

"what weeks will you be here for?"

"are you gonna be here next week?

"we need to hang out over the summer!"

"i'll see you next summer!"

i was best friends with a girl named melanie. she told me she has a dachshund. i have a dachshund too. melanie was really mean. a few years later, i learned that she wrote a bomb threat on a radiator in her school's bathroom and everybody had to evacuate.

i was best friends with a girl named kaylee. compulsive liar. blind in one eye (not a lie). she told me her grandma kicked her out of the car on the way home and she got chased by a man with a knife. that definitely didn't happen. we brought her on a family "vacation", more than once. when water touched her skin she would get hives. she faked asthma attacks for attention. she faked cutting herself with a spoon for attention. we were probably 12.

i was best friends with a girl named kailin. we had a pet rock together named kevin. 

i was best friends with faith. faith is older than me, cooler than me. not really that cool. but older means cooler. their friend group was called "the food group" and everybody had a food name. i am given the name chocolate chip because i am small. faith was cake. faith drew an "OC" for me. they drew OCs with powers for everybody (my power was summoning mailboxes with tentacle creatures in them). we still follow each other on instagram. cake had a habit of pulling their hair out. we listen to rhett and link songs on the bus ride to camp.

i was best friends with ethan. ethan was older than me. DEFINITELY cooler than me. ethan is tough-skinned, hot-headed. kaylee pretended to cut herself with a spoon for ethan's attention. ethan has evenly-placed white scars on his shin.

i was best friends with a girl named gianna. we talked about the sims together. she was kind.

i was best friends with a girl named rylee. one week total. rylee told me that during a sleep over with her friend last night, they cut themselves together. i bring band-aids and neosporin to camp the next day. we sit on a blanket on the sand volleyball court, where i bandage her scrapes. rylee has beautiful green eyes.

i was best friends with squirm. squirm's real name is lauren, but we call her squirm. squirm has shoulder-length knotted blond hair. we have pretend wizard fights together with sticks as wands. squirm always wears black and red plaid pajama pants. squirm is the one that tells me about melanie writing a bomb threat on the radiator at school (i was close with squirm a few years after melanie. we were at sleep away camp sharing camp stories about crazy friends. imagine my surprise when we find out we knew the same girl).

i was best friends with a girl named maggie. she got really homesick during sleep away camp. i held her as she cried in the cafeteria bathroom.

on my honor

i will try

to serve god and my country

to help people at all times

and to live by the girl scout law ("LAW!")

cold stratification

 i am thinking about how so many seeds will be effectively cold stratified this year. i am so excited. we have had enough days 32 degrees and below for the seeds of so much native flora to have been properly cold stratified. when seeds don't reach this natural dormancy in the winter months, they may germinate poorly or not at all. i think there will be even more flowers this year than last year.

"as i get older i realize more and more how much i dislike the cold, when i was a kid i used to love winter"

yeah, i'm sniffling. my skin is so dry. eyes watering. can't feel my ears. but i think there will be more flowers this year than last year. 

i wish i could go where there is an eternal spring, but i can't, and that's fine, because i think there will be more flowers this year than last year. and i'm really excited about it.

in high school i took a long island native ecology class. we cold stratified our own seeds. i picked late figwort, scrophularia marilandica, characterized by their deep red/purple cavernous flowers. i mixed the seeds in a little bag with sand and some water. it sat in the fridge for 60 days.

if long island received enough consecutive cold days, maybe i will return in the spring to see new sprouts of late figwort.

thank you for the cold and thank you for the flowers.

late figwort for reference. not my picture.

i left my laptop in kelsey's room

last night i left my laptop in kelsey's room. i would be lying if i said i wasn't high but i also just put it in the strangest place in the entire room. why did i put it on top of the fridge? 

all the way on the other side of the room, from where we were sitting. i don't really know why. but i obviously got my laptop back because i'm writing this on my laptop. this morning was a slow morning. 

i need to stop skin picking 

i need to stop skin picking 

i'm going to get some more sleep 

i'm going to stop skin picking 

i need to go to class 

it's too cold outside 

i need to stop skin picking 

i can't believe that i left my laptop in kelsey's room. i didn't even realize until i woke up the second time and checked my phone. 

i'm not gonna go outside anymore without feeling like i look put together. 

i have a crush so i can't go outside without looking put together. i feel better when i have a crush because i can't go outside without feeling like i look put together. i think that's a good thing. 

i really have to stop skin picking 

i think that i'll stop skin picking