29 Things We No Longer Understand In A Post-Camp World

  1. How to make my own food
  2. How to not open a beer at 4pm
  3. How to check my mail
  4. That the scissors are in the same room as me
  5. Get into or out of a bed that isn’t a top bunk
  6. How to use the desktop version of my own email, Facebook, etc.
  7. How many times i am able to wear the same articles of clothing without judgement
  8. Why drinking outdoors is not legal
  9. How to spend most of the day inside
  10. How to make real coffee
  11. How to function without being surrounded by tons of awesome people
  12. Why we can’t just take a break and collage and/or drink tea all the time
  13. Why it’s unacceptable to ask my co-workers if they need to process their feelings or if they’d rather just get drunk in deer lodge
  14. That sometimes the cute lesbian who looks like a 12 year old boy is, in fact, a 12 year old boy
  15. That you aren’t supposed to show up to your job with a purple bandana wrapped around your bicep
  16. Not everyone in real life went to the sex panel
  17. It means something different when someone says a bear has been spotted in the vicinity
  18. How to exist in a world where no one asks my preferred gender pronoun
  19. That I can no longer tell strangers that their clit deserves it
  20. That the hopper isn’t coming to clean up my dishes
  21. What my day’s going to be like without Marni and Robin telling me my schedule
  22. How to deal with having unlimited time in the bathroom
  23. The notion that some meals might not actually be that great with Cholula
  24. What it’s like to go to sleep before 3 am
  25. That that couple holding hands — that femme-y girl and that adorable boi — is actually a straight couple
  26. That towels can actually be beautiful absorbent things and not $3 pieces of “fleece” from the grocery store
  27. Digesting food
  28. How to handle EST
  29. What to do with all these leftover bandanas.

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133 Comments

  1. I just went grocery shopping and kept thinking I saw MoC queer ladies out of the corner of my eye… then I would look and they were actually just dudes. A-Camp goggles are a thing, you guys.

  3. Real talk: it’s my second day away from camp and I’m wearing my blue bandana on my head and You Do You shirt to school/in public.

    The only reason I wasn’t wearing it yesterday was because I had to many feelings and was home from work all day.

    Also also, every single girl/boi/person I see is queer. Right?!

  4. 30. That when you do something awesome or encourage your friends it will not be accompanied or the hunger games sign.

    YOU FEEL ME ON THIS, RUNAWAYS?

      • I love how easy it is to pick the Runagays out.

        I also love that your handle is straight up “Wildman.” Double. Like.

    • Oh i definitely hunger saluted a car that let me cross. I was wearing my bandana around my wrist and my camp t-shirt because that kind of feels like armour now. Also, I kind of wanted to snap in class when someone made a smart comment….
      *hunger salute*

      • merbear i love you they probs def thought you were a neo-nazi

        and yes! you can’t just snap when someone speaks your truth. also less people speaking your truth.

        • ahhh yes, that would be why they looked at me like that…. oh dear.

          less people speaking my truth, but now i’m speaking it louder so there’s that!

          i love you t-pain and miss your face lots and lots. please come here to visit now <3

  5. To be clear, I was not at A Camp and #14 JUST HAPPENED TO ME IN STARBUCKS. I really thought she was cute. Then she was a scruffy kid.

  9. Everyone in real life should go to the sex panel.
    Also, I was waiting for the bell to ring so I could eat dinner last night. It never happened. Luckily my roomie came home and made me dinner eventually.

    • I brought a roll of masking tape to label things. It was gone within an hour, never to reappear. From then on I kept my sharpie on my person until the end of camp.

  11. 19. That I can no longer tell strangers that their clit deserves it

    I’m already dead. This is fucking great.

  12. 30. Why I can’t just use the men’s room.

    Apparently, there are way more men in the outside world. Who knew.

    I was washing my hands next to Sexual Croce and chatting about how weird it would be to go back to the real world, have to use the women’s room, and deal with straight people. Esp straight girls. NOT ALL THE GIRLS ARE QUEER HERE.

    • girl, i want to dress dapper everyday AND get taken out on a fancy date with a dapper queer. is that too much to ask?

  15. This list! And the comments! I didn’t think I could miss Camp more, but now I do. It was a moment today at work when I responded to a co-worker about a movie she saw this weekend with ‘Oh yeah, Rachel Weisz is SO HOT.” and instead of a rousing chorus of agreement or other hot girls names shouted out…crickets and looks of discomfort. Damn, I miss Camp.

    • Wait. You mean Rachel Weisz’s extreme hotness is not enough to inspire a rousing chorus of agreement *anywhere*?

      That is sad.

  17. 30. Showing people the videos of Alex dancing and of Marni singing and no one understanding the amazingness in those videos :(

  21. Speaking of…two weeks ago I got mistaken for a 12 year old boy. Not sure if that’s better or worse than the time the lady at the bowling alley thought I was the 14 year old son of my friend’s wife.

  23. Didn’t go to Camp unfortunately (millions and millions of sad faces, perhaps next year?) BUT numbers 14 and 18 have totally happened to me in the past. Felt so weird after #14, haha.

  25. Not two days after leaving A-Camp, I came out to my dad. Though he’s took is badly, you beautiful ladies gave me the courage.
    A-Camp changes lives.

  28. The patriarchy is no longer a reasonable explanation to why you haven’t done homework, washed dishes, or changed your clothes.

  29. I want nothing more than I want to go to A-Camp.
    Sidenote, most of this list applies to me with the title “29 Things I No Longer Understand in a Post-Smith College World.”

    • A Camp is like Smith College’s J term without the snow. All play and no homework.

      AKA the best thing to happen to me outside of going to Smith.

    • for the record, this will be true for you Smithies for a long time. going back to your reunion will only increase the withdrawal / difficulty of dealing with the real world. (reunion, though, will be totally worth it while you are re-living the overwhelmingly queer debauchery of your smith years. i imagine there are a lot of similarities to a-camp.)

    • COSIGNED. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve accidentally checked out an adolescent boy because I just left Noho, I could buy myself a drink at Tunnel Bar.

  30. Oh my god, #14. I haven’t been to A-Camp, sadly, but I trip up on that one all the time. It’s even worse when she turns out to be an unusually tall prepubescent girl instead of an androgynous lady my age. It makes me feel like one of those predatory older lesbians from the pulp novels.

      • The fucking cashier saw my nails and he still called me ‘sir’ after the transaction. And there were too many bro-ish male folk around, I got a few looks. I couldn’t even finish my animal-style fries, I wanted to get the hell outta there.

        Before we left, I closed my eyes and pretended I was still strutting around the campground with no fucks to give about my polish. And I cried so hard after that.

        You guys I really did miss A-Camp. This was a massive shock for me.

  36. Reading this, dealing with feelings of the WOC panel where I’m at. I’m just, “I get it, seriously!!”

    How does one function after something so amazing? I’m really serious.

    How? No, hoooooow?

  37. I’m having feelings about 13 right now and I’m really sad that I just can’t go get drunk in deer lodge.

  38. Can I just say how much I’ve been talking non-stop about Acamp and no one understands me. Also how much I’ve been thinking everyone is queer. I miss everyone so much!

  39. I had my first class of LGBT Studies today, and the teacher tried to explain pansexual as being attracted to everything equally. Nope, nope, nope. I do not understand.

  40. A Camp… jealous like you wouldn’t believe. But as ever, I am sadly lacking in time off work, money to fly to the other side of the world and in fact nerve to go meet all you amazing ladies in person. So I’m just enjoying Camp vicariously through your blog/news posts while sipping tea and vaguely wishing I lived on the other side of the Atlantic.

  41. telling other people “did you know there are SO MANY MEN in the world” seems to be confusing for them…

  43. really, I would be just fine in a society modeled after A-Camp and I don’t know why this isn’t a life option.

    #somanyFEELINGSyall

      • Never been. Would like to (even though I’m prob too old and also have too many responsibilities right now).

        But! You know what would be great? A permanent A-Camp site/campus/intentional community. Where people could live. And other people could visit to recharge/recover.

        This is precisely why I quite fancied being a nun for a while when I was a kid – till I remembered the whole religion thing…

    • *snaps* Exactly. Why do we have to go up a mountain to find a safe space for all of us instead of just being safe everywhere?

  45. omg, I didn’t even go to A Camp and the other night I totally hit on this boi who turned out to be a boy. :( He would have been such a cute lesbian.

  46. Why signing my name on a young woman’s left breast is only acceptable at an elevation of 7400 ft in the middle of the San Bernadino Forrest surrounded by roughly 300 queers

    • I am just so astounded at the word “trundlelingus”. Hope that one shows up on the next faggity feud survey!

  49. I’ve never been to A-Camp before but now I really really really want to go. A lot. Because it sounds like a place where there might be s’mores and the group happiness that s’mores lead to.

  50. i want to go where the homos are
    i wanna see, wanna see the sex panel
    talkin about those- what do you call em,
    oh- clits!

    out where they are, having queer fun
    out where they stay all day in the sun
    wandering free
    wish i could be
    in a-camp’s worlddddd

  51. #19 had me laughing so hard because it’s so true.

    Also, I’ve started snapping in meetings and classes when I solemnly agree with someone’s opinion, and I get weird looks. I’M JUST SHOWING SOLIDARITY WITH YOU, GAWD!

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