"Well, I'm back."

For those interested in how Odyssey really works, juliettecrane posted a nice summation of logistics.

But, of course, "friendship hates math, and so the sum of experience between ... people is not a sum,"* it's debating moral issues late at night, learning the things that aren't taught in class even at Odyssey, living and laughing and working with the same seventeen people for six weeks. It's inside jokes and other inside jokes and a whole set of references--to stories we wrote, to stories we read, to people and places and things.

It quickly becomes the new normal, because you can't imagine anything else.

This is why, on the trip back, I kept seeing things and thinking, "oh, she would love this" or "he would think this is hilarious" and then remember that I was in a car with my mother, driving over a thousand miles to get home.

The trip back was an epic all of its own. Details from that part of my summer are easier to give, because I don't have to wonder if this person or that would mind if I told this anecdote, this funny thing.

I went straight from Odyssey to Readercon, and had a lot of fun despite running on three hours of sleep. I look forward to going back sometime when I'm not exhausted and can come for all four days--a bunch of panels I wanted to see were on Friday, and I didn't get to the con until Saturday afternoon. I got to see old friends (hey, three months is a long time!) and meet new ones, including the many Odyssey alums who came up to me in the halls.

Then came a week of visiting colleges, and a week of driving back. . . looking at more colleges. I am all colleged out right now.

During the week of driving back, I managed to forget my purse at a rest area on the Ohio turnpike. Thankfully, someone found it and gave it to a state trooper, and they'll be sending it back to me.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of our many Adventures on the way back, but will do for now--others include the Cleveland hostel, which is in the middle of a state park, and my mother's navigational technique (driving down random streets in what she thinks is the correct direction, until I figure out where we are on the road atlas and tell her that what she thought was west really is south).

I arrived home on Friday night at about eleven-thirty. It's nice to know that my Waking Up Early skills still apply, but really, I didn't need to wake up at six-thirty the next morning. (I did crash for about an hour and a half in the afternoon yesterday, to my great surprise. Naps are for Other People, or occasionally me when I'm running a fever.)

Now I have to figure out how to put my life back together from what it was before, and what it was during Odyssey, and, incidentally, do all the work I'm supposed to have done before school starts.

No rest for the wicked.


*Beau Sia, "Howl"