I rode a CAMEL.

I did. It's true.

I rode a camel. A CAMEL. At the Renaissance Festival today.

This is one of those things that it turns out I feel very, very strongly about, without ever knowing that I did until I was right there in the moment. Like the other day I was doing the thing I do to find new books to read, which is (don't read this if you have any respect for me) to go onto universities' websites and find their English department and look at all the syllabuses for their courses, which yields a very, very, very long list of books I want to read. Anyway, I was doing that the other day and I came upon a course about turbulent literary marriages: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, T.S. Eliot and his wife, and Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. And it referred to them as the Fitzgeralds, the Eliots, and the Hugheses. Which apparently I feel really strongly about, and I became extremely furious, because shut up, English Department at UChicago or somewhere, she was her own damn person with her own last name! Who knew that I cared so much?

Well, similarly, as soon as I saw the sign for camel rides, it became clear to me that I am an ardent fan of camels and riding upon them, and I hardly swerved to look at all the cool things we walked past in the fair, like the writing supplies and the cool leather things and the hats and the food, and I made for the camels like a, like a, like a one-track-minded-camel-seeker, because CAMEL CAMEL CAMEL CAMEL CAMEL CAMEL.

And you know, camels are wicked cool once you see them, and it is so much fun to ride upon them. Though obviously it would be better if I were the master of my own camel and could control where it went to on my own, but still, wow, how much did I enjoy riding that camel? So much. I wish that camels could be my primary mode of transportation. I have actually indulged in a lengthy fantasy about this on the ride home from the RenFest, having my very own camel and I would sing it pleasant songs and build a little stable for it, and I would ride my camel all around campus and tie it up to the bike rack during my classes, and I'd be, like, the camel chick.

I miss the camels.

In other aspects, the festival was very cool too. We saw a nice puppet show (not Punch and Judy, to our extreme chagrin) and we went on a whirly ride and I RODE A CAMEL and Anna slew a dragon and we looked at all the little shops and Anna got a new cudgel, God help us, and contemplated buying a very cool thing for her hair, and I got a Christmas present for Bonnie but I'm not telling what it is, and Anna got a present for Grace but I'm not telling what that is either, and a good time was had by all. I'm totally in love with Renaissance festivals now. There was a camel. I'm not even kidding. I rode on a camel.