Someone I know is going camping with her kids, and though they will be in separate tents because the kids are big and there are enough of them to warrant that, she is worried about sex in a tent being less subtle than sex in more constructed, building-type venues. Legitimate concern, if you ask me. I can see where maybe the mood could be lessened by the thought of teens mere feet away, separated only by tent fabric. I also think the mood could be lessened by mosquitoes biting your cooch but there might be sprays for that.
I felt like, since I was just camping, though in one tent and with no concerns about such matters, I could think of some possible solutions to the problem. An important part of the issue is that she very firmly wants to have the sex (heh). That is not optional, it would appear. And I support that! Sex is much better for the world than financial doldrums and Sarah Palin. So I thought long and hard (heh) and here is what I came up with:
1) Leave out food, very obvious, bear friendly food like jugs of KoolAid and large spawning salmon. The bears will forage around and camouflage adult noises, and also the kids will be frozen in terror and concentrating on the last moments of their lives. They will not hear a thing.
10) In order to disguise silhouettes formed by acts of passion, turn off all lights in the Tent of Ill Repute. It is not wise to have tangled bodies thrown into relief by the Coleman lantern.
11) Warn teens ahead of time. Tell them that, because Mommy and Daddy love each other so much, they are going to have a special hug in their tent at night. They will be in the ER instead of in the nearby tents, getting rehydrated via IV fluids from puking violently.
100) Climb up in the trees, and enjoy some wilderness love in Nature's Penthouse. The branches could be scratchy in a good way, and also possibly serve as handholds for greater creativity. Variety is the spice of life! And nobody really looks up to find the source of weird animal sounds in the treetops.
101) Skinny dip and do it in the water. There is no need to be concerned about snapping turtles and muskies! They are just myths and have no interest in clamping down with their strong jaws and sharp teeth on dangling body parts.
Anyway, I thought since I was being so helpful to my friend I'd share my advice with other people, too, because what is good advice if it never reaches the right ears? So now we can all camp with total confidence that our teens will not be a drag when we want to randy up the campsite a little! Total win for everyone.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Politics, Baby
I'm on a road trip and I have a lot to say about it but not right now. At this moment I'm thinking about facebook and how it makes me privy to information about people that I might not know otherwise. In some cases I discover that I have more in common with someone than I ever thought, or that someone who seems kind of a non-entity in my mind has a rich inner life that is much more compelling that what one gets to know on the surface. In other cases I kind of end up a little sad because people express things that I can never un-know about them, and some of these things highlight aspects of their personality that I don't feel so great about. I have had many years of practice with that, growing up in a small midwestern town as the Unitarian but actually really atheist family among devout Lutherans and Catholics, most of whom were fairly unexposed to much diversity aside from the Methodists. Sometimes you had to ignore the crazy bigoted shit that was said on occasion unless you wanted no options at all socially. I did have a limit to my overlookiness, though, which got me into heated debates more regularly than was ideal.
On facebook, people seem to want other people to know who they are and what they stand for. Like with bumper stickers. By listing alliances and cutting and pasting epidemic statuses one constructs a persona. And I have found that vastly interesting for the most part. But every now and then I find it upsetting because someone posts something that categorizes them for me in a way that's hard for me to overlook. I'm sure we all have our WTFs?, and one for me was a status that went around for a while, and is probably now an "I like this so I am affiliated with it" thing; it was something about my favorite actor was so and so, and he died this year, my favorite singer was....and he died this year, et cetera, and finished with ...and my favorite president is Barack Obama." It was a prayer, maybe? Anyway the meaning was for God, since he is on a roll with causing the demise of the facebook-ee's favorite public figures, to just go ahead and include the president in that too since they've trickily designated him a favorite, ha ha.
I realize that this was probably hysterically funny to a whole bunch of people, in the same way that Ann Coulter is hysterically funny. But it was hard for me to get past the fact that some people I know and care about were wishing someone dead. I can totally get on board with not liking the president. That was Minnesota reserve, by the way. I spent eight years not liking the president. That was also Minnesota reserve. But wishing someone dead is icky to me. And it made me a little sad to see people that I know kind of gleefully jumping on that, because that kind of stuff divides people, in my mind, into categories that I don't love to have. I'm all for diversity of political thought, whether or not I understand how one arrives at one's position. And I like having the conversations that help me see other sides of issues I care about. But I sometimes regret knowing things about people that I wouldn't know if it weren't for facebook.
On facebook, people seem to want other people to know who they are and what they stand for. Like with bumper stickers. By listing alliances and cutting and pasting epidemic statuses one constructs a persona. And I have found that vastly interesting for the most part. But every now and then I find it upsetting because someone posts something that categorizes them for me in a way that's hard for me to overlook. I'm sure we all have our WTFs?, and one for me was a status that went around for a while, and is probably now an "I like this so I am affiliated with it" thing; it was something about my favorite actor was so and so, and he died this year, my favorite singer was....and he died this year, et cetera, and finished with ...and my favorite president is Barack Obama." It was a prayer, maybe? Anyway the meaning was for God, since he is on a roll with causing the demise of the facebook-ee's favorite public figures, to just go ahead and include the president in that too since they've trickily designated him a favorite, ha ha.
I realize that this was probably hysterically funny to a whole bunch of people, in the same way that Ann Coulter is hysterically funny. But it was hard for me to get past the fact that some people I know and care about were wishing someone dead. I can totally get on board with not liking the president. That was Minnesota reserve, by the way. I spent eight years not liking the president. That was also Minnesota reserve. But wishing someone dead is icky to me. And it made me a little sad to see people that I know kind of gleefully jumping on that, because that kind of stuff divides people, in my mind, into categories that I don't love to have. I'm all for diversity of political thought, whether or not I understand how one arrives at one's position. And I like having the conversations that help me see other sides of issues I care about. But I sometimes regret knowing things about people that I wouldn't know if it weren't for facebook.
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