Summer Camp Showoff

Date Dreamed: 2014-01-27

Dream

I’m at summer camp and some friends and I are messing around on the docks of the idyllic canoe lake. I have my eight foot pole, and am trying to balance on top of it. I stand it up straight on the dock, shimmy to the top, and then try to poise on the end. I keep losing my balance once I get to the top, and fall into the lake. We all think this is hilarious, even after I’ve done it two or three times in a row. Somebody thinks this is worthy of some unscripted humorous amateur film program that is transmitted via radio waves to visual and audio entertainment equipment in citizens homes. I’m annoyed by this suggestion.

Context Explanations

I have an eight foot pole that is technically a wooden closet rod (a 1.5” dowel in other words). It was originally supposed to be six feet long and I was going to use it as my bo staff. The hardware store only had eight foot dowels, and didn’t have any use for the two foot trimmings so they just gave me the full eight feet. I never got around to cutting it down to size (I kind of want to turn it into a big spear, as one of my hobbies is making medieval weapons out of wood). I’ve never shimmied up it, but I did use it as a pole vault once and took all the skin off the front of my big toe. I don’t use it as a pole vault anymore. Also, I’ve never been to summer camp. Sometime I feel guilty because the dreams are short, so I fluff up my posts with a lot of boring personal details.

Plot Holes

If I know anything about summer camps, they are all about being terrorized by murdering psychopaths, learning lessons about self-esteem, or having sexual misadventures. They are not about circus antics. Plus, I’m assuming the setting was in a time period before YouTube.

Erection?

Acrobatically Yes

Analysis

I’m just going to skip the obvious phallic imagery, because this is a classy blog. What I want to talk about is the fact that I was willing to degrade myself to entertain people (I gathered the impression that falling into the water was the whole point, as standing on top of an eight foot pole wouldn’t be all that entertaining after the novelty wore off but someone falling into a lake is always funny), but was put off by the suggestion that it should be filmed. To use this as an excuse to self-analyze (and to use my self-analysis as an excuse to be self-derogatory), this speaks of my dislike of cameras and camcorders. If something is fun, I prefer to just let it happen and cherish the memory that I store in my head. Trying to capture it on film just seems to spoil the moment, and adds a layer of artificiality as everyone assumes a persona and their actions become a performance. I also find still images of myself to be uncanny.

Auguries

I’ve got the number eight, a lake, and the season of summer. Eight happens to be the limit for walleye in my area. Next summer, I will go spearfishing in the lake and take my limit. It is foretold!