Ah. Here it is. I am posting from my phone while lying in my bed, exhausted after a successful christmas day. I shall intend to do this more often, and also probably start posting from my computers since i have internet at home now.

Oh, bother. I forgot to get and upload my christmas cards this year. Ah, well, epiphany is yet to come. Brace yourself for more holiday well-wishes.

Well, day one of re-connected-ness. It’s a little easier than Xanga, since I can update twitter from my phone, and I don’t have to find a place to get on the internet and do some sit-down writing. Downside is that it’s limited to only a few words. But maybe it will be used to remind me of important topics to blog about later.

But now it’s quite late (for the hour that I’ve got to be up) and I’m tired. Good night, my dears.

Ugh. I just finished a six-hour nap, I think, and I’m about to go to bed for the night. In the meantime, however, I got myself on Facebook and Twitter. Great.

Real odd, I don’t know if I really care about either one—I’ve always used whatever blog site out there isn’t happening, I guess, ever since I made a HyperCard stack that would create code for me, and then manually uploaded it whenever I could get to the library (That was way back when Geocities actually was usable. I guess they’re doing away with it entirely now?!)

Anyway, I can be found twittering (Ugh. Jargon) at twitter.com/nathanaelps and on Facebook somewhere. I don’t knwo where. Don’t look for any of my usual names… they’re all taken. Somebody already took my “nsmith” at both… Probably Nancy or Neanderthal… Or N….N…Nobody… or … Yeah.

p.s. I find it ironic in a painful sort of way: Facebook is not allowing me to do anything.

Okay, I finally got through. Through the back door, hope that never has to happen again. And I discovered that the username “nathanaelps” was taken by a black guy emerging from a pool. Awkward.

I’m going to bed now. Bye.

Ugh. It’s hot and muggy these days. No me gusta. I can’t do nearly as much work as I’d like to, since it is pouring down sunshine as heartily as it does, especially since I’m living in the middle of a dampish space… It’s always humid, and very humid.

I went in to town today, and actually enjoyed the heat on the parking lots. It was so hot that it ceased to be humid, I think. It burned my feet after a little bit, but besides that it was nice and hot.

In fact, it’s so hot that I can’t (in good conscience) ask the kids who have been helping me to come out and work. Which is a bit of a letdown, since we’re making such good progress and now we won’t be able to do anything until Thursday. Meh.

Nothing really going on, I guess. Stay cool and drink plenty of fluids.

Dear Miss Anonymous

Why do you wear those shorts? Remember all those cold winter months that left you wearing jeans and a jacket? We still thought you were really pretty cool. We always invited you to hang out with us, and tried to let you know how meaningful you were to us. And the heat hasn’t changed that—you’re still meaningful, we still appreciate you, and we still value you. Why do you wear those shorts?

Do you know what those shorts look like to me? To us, I should say, the XY chromosomes out here. I ask half because I don’t know what they look like to me. Some bit of my brain short-circuits every time I see a pair of good looking legs sticking out of shorts like that. Every time I see you, you’re stealing just enough of my mind that I become just a little bit irrational.

To be completely fair, it is a pleasant irrationality. But it doesn’t mean that I like you stealing my brain any more for it. I admire you just as much—no, I admire you more when I can admire you intelligently. You don’t have to make me an idiot before I think you’re an awesome person. You’re awesome anyway. And wearing those shorts detracts from how well I’m able to appreciate you.

So, why do you wear those shorts?

-signed,
A friend.

Woah. I’m exhausted. I just finished watching all of JabbaWokkeeZ on YouTube.

Also because I worked today and helped with the youth group. But I think JabbaWokkeeZ was the clincher. Saint Jeffery’s tails, those guys can DANCE!

I’m actually just posting to put a number of comments out there, tell you what’s happening in my life.

I busted my head open pretty well, had blood all over the place, ended up self-patching with superglue (I didn’t actually do the application, as it’s on top of my head and I was having enough trouble just stopping the bleeding, much less applying my own chemical stitches!)

One of the kids who works with me (Stevie) busted her knee yesterday, too. It was a harsh day for bodies. She couldn’t really walk the rest of the day, and I’m assuming she can’t walk today, either.

Also I think my thumbs may be giving out. Perhaps a light case of tendonitis? I should probably cut back on my manual labor for a little while.

My brother had a kid, Gwendolyn… Louise? I think. She weighed seven pounds, and was twenty and one half inches long. He tells me I’m an aunt now. It’s a good thing. He’s got pics posted over at his Xanga site.

There were more interesting things that I wanted to tell all of you, but I’m really quite tired and desperately need to brush my teeth. Have a good night, all you dahlings out there…

MMm.. I wrote this last night as I was falling asleep, corrected the spelling this morning. Apologies for the ever-more-inane rambling that this becomes…

It’s the fourth day of VBS, and counting.

I guess I really can’t complain about it—it’s been an amazing week (less one day), but it has definitely let me realize just how drained I can be. I guess I’m somewhere between relieved and grateful that it’s only one more day, though with a certain sadness rolled into it. I’m gonna miss all of the little squirts.

I don’t remember what I’ve told you about my experience, so I’ll tell it all again.

The children’s pastor and his wife are the people primarily responsible for the VBS any given year. Well, I suppose that Stephanie, the wife of the two, is the real queen of the show, her busband just can’t keep out of trouble so she sets him on many of the things… Though with her Mommy reflexes she’s much better suited here…

Anyway, I was taling about myself before reality interrupted. I’m a character called “Boomerang Jack,” a bit of a seriously overplayed Aussie wandering about the outback. (Oh yeah, it’s an Austrailian-themed VBS.) Anyway, I get up on stage twice a day, once to tell the kids what they will learn, and once to tell them what they have learned. I don’t know if they’ve understood more than a single word I’ve said, since I’m talking with my best attempt at a consistent “Aussie” accent: Captain Jack Sparrow. I tell ya, it’s hard not to ask little kids where the rum is when I’ve got an accent like that.

So I get onstage with purple pants, an outrgeous hat, and a boomerang stuck in my back pocket, announce who I am to the tune of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” and introduce a bible lesson. That’s pretty much it.

Tonight, as I made my way home from an evening full of church activities, I passed by my mama cat (Tortice) stalking . As I continued down the road, I passed what it was that she was stalking: a skunk. I wonder if evry one of those times lately that my yard has a vaguely skunky smell if it’s because a skunk’s been by, or if it’s because one of the cats has been feasting on te revolting flesh of some beastie like this one… Also, I wonder if the skunk I found under the feed bunk yesterday was really a wild skunk or if maybe Tortice has taken up farming them, and I let her fatted skunk go loose… Sorry, Tortice! I’ll be more careful next time!

In other news, stage fright today was severely reduced. Praise God for that. I also got to use props! Yay! Goodnight.

Ever had a day that was gloriously horrible? Welcome to June whatever-th. I mean today, of course.

It started this morning, I guess. I’ve been trying to go to a men’s bible study early Tuesday mornings, and finally managed to remember it today. They/we are going through a book which is essentially encouraging “God strikes straight with crooked sticks,” or something like that. Or “Iron sharpens iron,” you get the picture.

It’s week five of the study, so we looked through chapter five of the book, which could be titled, “Anger. Not your best look,” or something like that. We discovered again that when we get angry, it is because we have expectations which are not being met, and perhaps it would be better if we changed our expectations rather than thinking that getting angry ever really helped a situation. Which is often truer than I remember.

Anyway, you know how God is. He teaches you something, then expects you to actually USE it in your LIFE.

I went from there to the First Baptist Vacation Bible School for the kiddies, in which my function is to be “Boomerang Jack,” a character who wears purple (ahem, Becca would adjure me to call them “plum”) pants and talks like Jack Sparrow because I just can’t remember my Aussie accent. I’m probably as close to a mascot as VBS gets, something about me being good on stage. Which I’m not. I get butterflies the size of Mothra in my chest and usually have to run off stage when the time comes so I don’t pass out. Meh.

That went well, I guess, but it left me completely exhausted like only a bunch of kids can. Whew.

From there we went out to the farm to work, me and four of my trusty ranch-hands, or local kids, whatever. And that’s when the real fun began.

To begin everything, the truck wouldn’t start. Oh, begin with a big one, would you? When we’d finally replaced the battery, we got out to the fence that we’re repairing, and ran out of barbed wire within about ten minutes. So I ran back to the house to find more. Since a roll of barbed wire weighs about a ton, or at least eighty pounds and is covered with sharp pointy things, I had to find a better way to move it—not a problem, I’ll use the wheelbarrow. Oh, wait, the wheelbarrow has a flat tire. Ah, fate, why not just use a baseball bat upside my head? It would feel just as good and would save some time.

And of course the whole time I’ve got the Bible study going through my head, remembering that getting angry won’t help the situation, and getting angry that I don’t even have an excuse to get angry, really.

In the end, we did get the fence finished (praise God) but the truck wouldn’t start again. We walked back to the house, stopping by the feedlot to feed the cows, and a skunk is sitting under one of the feed bunks. It didn’t bother us. Hopefully it won’t bother the cows.

Then… Hm… then I guess the next big adventure of the day was when I let Tortuga (one of my cats) in to the feed area to catch mice. She caught two at once—it was amusing, a mouse out each side of her mouth. Then she swallowed them whole, as she is wont. Impressive.

P.S., Please pray for VBS, especially since I get stage fright something fierce.

I had a weird dream last night. I lived in a house almost like the one I’m in now, only livable, and a whole bunch of people started arriving for some function (which I was only incidently involved with). I started walking down the road, which turned into a stone corridor with gorse bushes, and ended up at a friend’s room. It was twenty foot tall, and had an entire wall of books, and an entire wall of windows. Quite beautiful. Ended up meandering down another corridor, through which a murderer was running. I ended up saving a friend by wrestling the gun out of the murderer’s hand, then turning it on him. I woke up as the shot was fired.

It’s been chewing on my heart for awhile, the dream has, I mean. And I’m not entirely sure why. I mean, I know why it eats at me, but I don’t know why I can’t shake it.