Backpacking and the large-sized Canadian national park

I haven't the slightest idea why its taken me so long to get back to the business of blogging. Probably because I've been posting so sporadically in recent months that each time I do attempt to pen my latest missive, I feel like it needs to be worthy of the lengthy break I've taken since my last entry. Unfortunately, since my already-debatable creative writing skills seem to have deteriorated in the months that my blog has been essentially dormant, I can't make any promises that the following will be even remotely amusing or insightful.*

It seems fitting, nevertheless, that after a long absence, I've returned to my online diary on this, the seven month anniversary of the chilly January afternoon on which M3 and I met in person for the very first time...twenty-some-odd minutes into the rendezvous being informed that he had a girlfriend...and another five-odd hours later, finding ourselves in a fleeting, regretfully platonic embrace that lingered just long enough to leave little doubt as to what we both wished we were doing in that frigid and dark parking lot, both of us entirely incapable of conceiving what might happen in the coming weeks or months...if anything at all. To think M3'd still be a topic on my blog this many moons later is truly mind-boggling. Truly.

Quite possibly the only thing more flabbergasting than the aforementioned is that my adoration of and affection for said blog topic is so significant that I willingly spent eight dirt-caked days and seven Deet-infused nights backpacking with him throughout a very large national park in the Canadian province of Alberta (you know, the kind with really big mountains and lakes and wild animals and stuff).

We slumbered in a tent, on the ground.
It was hot. And it was cold.
I broke every nail on my right hand.
And procured 11 mosquito bites on my face alone.
We saw an eagle. And bear tracks. And four marmots.
And there were cocktails.
And fires every night.
And lots and lots of bugs.
We laughed. Tons.
And walked 60 miles in seven days.
And looked at stars.
And clouds.
And wildflowers.

And I didn't crap for four days in a row.

It was fucking awesome.

Since our backpacking foursome -- consisting of M3, his sister (A), his friend (D) and I -- begrudgingly returned to civilization a few weeks back, I've made probably half a dozen attempts to recap my trip. But how do I convey the myriad levels of profound magnitude of my adventure? In a self-effacing and entertaining fashion, could I possibly articulate the significance of the experience not only as it pertains to my relationship with M3, but to the relationship I have with myself and the world around me?

Its not possible, I concede, at least not without making all three of my remaining readers sick to your respective stomachs while you concurrently pray to god that M3 shoves his head up his ass again like he did in the spring and suggests we take a break again or something so I'm left with no material and, thus, cease blogging altogether. Therefore, with your interests at heart -- rather than waxing philosophical about the importance of this trip -- I'm defaulting to sharing a collection of assorted and sundry and altogether lame-ass anecdotes conveying inane shit like how an innocent glance last week at the titanium spork now resting without purpose on the floor of my second bedroom caused me to well up with tears.

Or, how at the most unexpected times, due to a surprise Canadian breeze for example, I took immense amounts of joy in actually being able to smell myself.

Or, how I secretly liked consuming both solids and liquids at just about every meal that began in either powdered and/or freeze-dried form. Especially the taste bud delight that is washing down a cardboard pouch of vegetarian chili mac with a filthy Nalgene full of Countrytime Lemonade. Or better yet, Tang.

Or, how positively tickled I was to discover that M3 -- in addition to being a grown man who functions more than adequately in the real world -- also happens to be a full-size Boy Scout (okay, at 5'8" maybe he's more like medium sized...) who knows how to make a fire that burns for hours, catch and clean fish, and adeptly cross raging rapids carrying not one but two backpacks on behalf of his weak-ass girlfriend and considerably-more-hardcore-but-definitely-opportunistic-in-this-particular-scenario sister.

Or how, in being relegated to employing the cleansing properties of countless cucumber wipes that M3 would have kicked my ass for bringing had he known just how much they weighed, I somehow managed to believe that I'd attained a (false) state of freshness throughout the trip when, in fact, I was positively rank.

Or, how I got mosquito bites on my ass. (Like I said, I was only constipated *half* of the time.)

Or, how giddy I felt when M3 wrapped his arms around me (thus enveloping me in his mounting odiferous stank) and said I was "doing such a good job." And he meant it. Because I was.

Or, how I only cried once per day for the first three days after our tents and sleeping bags and Ziplocs full of Gatorade and powdered milk and dirty toilet paper had long since been shoved into the bowels of M3's vehicle because my 16 days in a row with him would soon be coming to an end and after over two glorious weeks of unbroken togetherness, I'd very soon be reminded yet again what it feels like to have an acute awareness of just what day it is...just what time it is...and exactly how it feels to miss him.

Yeah...so...you know what?

I've had a change of heart.

Camping fucking sucks.


*If you desire a chuckle and, as predicted, I end up proving myself unable to deliver, I suggest that you kindly refer to the recently-posted comment by "Anonymous" that's attached to my December 3 entry titled "No Flow". Totally awesome.