Roughin' it with a partially flat air-mattress and no lap on which to place my laptop.

I'm sitting in a tent in my backyard with my son. We're listening to Death Cab For Cutie and fireworks are going off in the distance. The night is cool, but very muggy. Macy was out here with us until a few minutes ago. She was just a little too restless. She kept getting up and climbing over Jack and throwing her stuffed monkey into the far corners of the tent and then making an elaborate show of searching for him. What did I expect? A few hours ago we were stuffing peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, Jiffy-Pop popcorn, and s'mores down their throats. So much sugar and sodium is bound to wreak havoc on a small child's internal ecosystem. Macy, being a girl, tries to sort each molecule into its proper place. Jack's Y-chromosome allows him to sit back and let the inevitable war rage throughout his body while he sleeps comfortably on a lumpy ground. He'll wake in the morning slightly fatter and one step closer to heart disease.

The thing I like most about camping is the fire. The...

Uh-oh. Either someone has a very expensive, very irritating stereo, or there's a storm coming. I'd better go.

Thank you,
Matt Beers