50-week town run

[dragonlady7]

We struck camp yesterday-- as it turns out, all day-- and Z and I finally bailed, abandoning everyone else to do the last of the work (for which I am sorry, but there were many hands and not enough space). We were both exhausted, and traded driving duties twice. I wound up doing the last 75 miles, at times biting my hand hard enough that the pain would keep me awake, and once lost enough consciousness that I changed lanes unintentionally. Z was worse-off, and there was nowhere to stop, so after that adrenaline kept me going, though my eyes kept crossing.
So we're home. We dragged ourselves into the house and collapsed immediately into bed-- I'm glad I didn't get around to changing the sheets before we left, because we were both filthy even by War standards.
I couldn't sleep much past 7, as has been my problem lately-- all through War I couldn't sleep later than 8 at the latest no matter what time I'd gone to bed.
I've gotten all the photos off my big digital SLR, but I don't have a card reader or cable that will fit the little Olympus Tough 6000. There are more photos on that one. I'm disappointed with myself for only taking around 200 photos on the Canon. I'm yet more disappointed, looking at them, that I seem to have gotten my P mode stuck with a really high ISO, meaning that all of the photos have a lot of graininess in them. There's a lovely series of Nez getting an impromptu shower from the leaks in the tarp, and the autofocus seems to have picked the forest behind her as being the intended subject, despite her being mostly centered in the frame. So i've got to get that sorted out. It seems a lot of my photos are going to wind up converted to black and white, where the graininess doesn't look as awful. I did get some really awesome shots of a firedancer, and some interesting tripod night shots of some drumming around the fire and the camp at night.
But I want to see what's on the Olympus.
I have a lot of ideas for next year. I'm going to try to be better at writing them down than I was before. I'm going to try to grab a notebook and keep a little inventory as I unload the car, noting all the stuff I did not use, so that I can pack lighter next year and still not leave behind anything I really did need. I had to cram that subcompact full with Tetris-like skills, but I actually think I did pretty well-- I didn't bring much extra, and I had most everything I wished I had with me. I just need to keep working on an organizational system-- drawers do work much better than bins, but the bed was barely adequate as is. So I gotta give that more thought.

I shouldn't be exhausted-- I got a great night's sleep, despite the utter lack of drumming to lull me-- but I can't focus or collect myself at all. So I may need to take a nap. I ran the whole two weeks on between three and six hours of sleep a night-- mostly in the four range-- so I'm on a pretty significant deficit and I'm thinking I gotta spend the next little while really focusing on getting at least a solid 8 a night. I have been getting dumber and dumber lately and I really think sleep is key.

I don't have it in me to explain any of what I did or saw. Nor do I have it in me to attempt to catch up on what y'all have done this past week. So I apologize. If it was important, please do let me know. Though I know such pleas are often futile, as it's presumptuous (in my case at least) to assume that every reader is going to know what I would consider important and also be completely aware of the time frame of my absence, and take the time to personally update me on it, but if you did anything interesting this week I'd love to hear about it.

Meanwhile I need to lie down, and then I should probably find my phone and find out what happened to my sister and whether I've got to be at work, mm, tomorrow?

Comments

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Sorry we missed you! Henry and I showed up at the tail end of the Battle of the Thirty, but I didn't spy anybody who looked like you.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Aw. I was off at the far end taking pictures because at the near end, there was a collection of lummoxes who seemed to revel in standing in front of persons shorter than themselves, with an apparent bonus if said shorter person was armed with a large camera and actually attempting to use it on the actual subject matter.
At the far end, at least, when someone did this I was able to be heard when I pointed out that this was rude. It did kind of become a running theme of my attempts to watch battles, though. Note for next year: bring a stepladder or a Lummox-Poking Implement of some kind.
I did get some decent photos, though. The photos of the Thirty are going up as we speak on Flickr, but my Field Battle photos were taken on film using a cheap used film telephoto lens with which I was able to poke lummoxes, so I don't know how they came out but at least there was no one standing in front of me. :)

[that-redhead.livejournal.com]

If you haven't heard yet: Dawn-O-Mite broke her leg at Travel Team practice on Monday and had surgery on Wednesday. Looks like she's out for the season, and probably permanently.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Boo! I did see a couple of emails on it and boo. I was astonished to discover she was on the travel team, though. Interesting! Poor thing, I don't blame her if she never gets on rollerskates again.
I'm so zoned out currently that I just cannot figure out why the word rollerskates is red-underlined like it's spelled wrong. ?? Did I forget a letter? Twice?

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I remember the last time I went to Pennsic. It's about a day's very hard drive from where I live, and what with one thing and another, I didn't get much sleep at the War. Since I was the only person who could drive, by the time we got back into Iowa I was all but hallucinating...we got to my friend's house, and I promptly collapsed onto a futon mattress he spread out for me. He'd been really worried about my driving from about mid-Illinois.

After a few hours' sleep, I was good-to-go for the last hour's worth between me and home.