The idealized perceptions of myself that used to float around in my head were cute; until I started finding myself in situations where I volunteered to cook or babysit some horrific child. When you're known for trying to cook pasta without water and being able to hardly tolerate anyone under the age of 15, lessons are learned fairly quickly.
So how, two weekends ago, I found myself lugging a cooler and 50 pounds of camping gear 1.5 miles from the car to a campsite happened, was clearly the outcome of a complete mental lapse. During my post-Vegas delirium in April, I purchased an "all access camping pass" to an EDM festival called Tomorrowworld in Atlanta, Georgia.
Before the reality of the c-word (camping) hit me, Tomorrowworld was like a sequel to Ultra in my head. Crop tops, straightened hair, crazy makeup, and all of the EDM I could ever hope for were in my future. My fabulous self in my fabulous outfits would float between stages, raving my life away, posing for my next profile pic.
Actual Life: Sweat had unstraightened my hair, stained my dress, and melted my makeup off. I was letting out small sobs disguised as tired gasps lugging my camping gear from the car to the campsite. The hair straighteners, bottles of beauty products, and plethora of shoe options were life's little joke on me as I stared at porter potties and a shed with a few shower spouts. Alex was treking next to me, and staying true to our dynamic, she used her air intake to breath while I used mine to complain.
I managed to pull it together and put on a happy face for Friday night's shows despite the trauma I had gone through earlier in the day. The tents surrounding us were full of bearded men holding totem poles with penises at the top and others who looked as if showering was a once a month occurrence anyways. Everywhere you turned there were boobs, questionable tattoos, and more boobs. Totally my kind of people.
The commentary Alex and I received throughout the weekend was enough to deserve its own blog post, so I will go ahead and summarize. Men calling us "babies" tends to be a theme wherever we go, and Tomorrowworld was no exception. This would be humorous if it were said in a protective brotherly context, but its usually used in a pedophilic sort of way, so that's always good.
It would be natural for you to assume that I am about to embark upon another paragraph of men complimenting us. However, the comment that was directed towards us the most was "smile, are you even having any fun?!"said by some drug addled twitching 30 year old.
The woes of resting bitch face syndrome.
I have battled this disease for many years now, and I think Alex can say the same. A cashier adding a "cheer up, it can't be that bad," as they hand me my receipt is far from abnormal. A typical occurrence when I make a new friend is them telling me they were under the impression that I severely disliked them before our friendship blossomed. I told my soccer coach in high school that if the team was unhappy about how he was running practice, they would come and talk to me about it. He snorted and assured me that the other girls would "shit themselves before trying to talk to you, you look so mean." This being said, genetics have dealt me a difficult hand when it comes to expressing any form of happiness.
By day three of a music festival you are exhausted, your entire body hurts, and pain is permeating your being just as much as the pleasure of being there is. It's like a bear's body in the last month of hibernation- energy is being pooled from whatever internal reserve is left because the normal sources are completely dried out.
We found that it was sometimes easiest to just stand and stare at the light show to give our knees even a five minute break from the bouncing. And you know us, we were wearing combat boots and converses because cute overtakes comfort. I don't think Orthopedic shoes could have saved our joints that weekend.
The encounters would typically start during a calm part of a song when the crowd would take full advantage of a break from the dancing. Some weirdo would still be convulsing and jumping ten times faster than the beat, and we would idly stare because hey, its kind of funny.
Example:
When the confrontation comes, you realize that your lack of enthusiasm is an actual offense to said person who is confronting you.
"We are all in this together, mann. Relax, feel the music, BE the music. You look like you hate your lifeeeee."
They start gyrating awkwardly while still staring at you, waiting for a response.
"What do you mean, we are happy?" Put smile onto face and force your limbs to move with the beat.
The person starts dancing around you, waiting for you to join into the fun with them. You do so for thirty seconds while expending further energy trying to keep a smile on your face.
After going through this process, your scowl actually ends up ten times worse than it started because you have even less energy that you did when you were standing there contently staring five minutes before. And the process repeats itself with a new over-enthusiastic druggy.
Story of our weekends.
Tomorrowworld ended up being a learning experience on many accounts. I will never step foot into a tent again, but I want it to be known that I am going to declare myself an avid crusader of the hotel industry as opposed to admitting that I am not cut out for the outdoors.
At moments, I considered asking for some of whatever the weirdos were on, for the sake of being left alone. I then thought better of it after realizing that simple addition is a struggle with my current number of brain cells, so who knows how I would function with even fewer.
Next weekend I am returning to NYC because apparently the smell of garbage permeating the air and homeless people on every street corner is an aura I have become addicted to.
So until next time.
-F
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