nature

the canoe trip was a success. as if there was any doubt. if i'm telling the truth, there were some instances when it could have been better, but overall i'd give it a solid A.

there's something about being on the river that's so peaceful and relaxing. if only there were automatic pilots in the boat so i could lie there all day and take in the sights and sounds. oh wait, i did have an automatic pilot in my boat, and his name was brad! ha. seriously though, it was absolutely picturesque out there. if i could build a house on the river and experience that every day, i think i would.

oddly enough, most people wouldn't peg me for the outdoorsy type of guy. in their defense, there are a lot of things about being outside that i don't enjoy...

1) large bugs (mainly arachnids)

2) humidity

3) unintentionally sweating

4) unintentionally getting dirty

but for the most part, i love the outdoors. i love nature. i love nature being outdoors.

perhaps it's my love for all things 'survivor' that has heightened my admiration for camping and exploring and adventure. that does make sense, does it not? there is this part of me that is head over heels for that stuff. if i find a little trail hidden in the woods, i want to be a nature detective and see where it leads. i have that kind of mindset. but i'm admittedly not the stereotypical mountain man. i don't have enough beard, for one thing, and i'm not using leaves as toilet paper anytime soon.

deliverance

canoe trip! no banjos, please.

agatha

i don't read a lot of books. let me just get that out of the way. i understand that reading is fundamental and all that jazz, but it's not really my schtick. don't get me wrong, i appreciate a good book when i come across one, but on the whole, i'd much rather wait for the movie.

it's just that you have to invest a lot when it comes to reading. you have to take the time to find a book worth reading, then you have to actually read it, and lord knows how long that could take. i've never been one of those people who can sit and read for hours upon hours and finish a book in a day. that's just not me. i'm not patient enough for that. hell, i fell asleep the other night after reading two chapters. and it's not that i wasn't interested in the subject matter, but it's just that staring at little black words on off-white pages does not thrill me. it's boring, no matter what the book is about.

having said that, i am very much wanting to get another book. because believe it or not, i have finished four books in the past month. now, there are definitely some asterisks that go along with that.

the first book i finished was started a few months back, so i literally finished it in the last month... technically doesn't count.

the next one i started a long time ago and apparently got bored with it or something and never finished. a co-worker started reading it and that must have prompted me to pick it back up. being that i had read half of it before, and re-read it again, i would say that one technically doesn't count either.

so we're down to two. two books that i have read from beginning to end in the last two weeks(ish). that makes me happy. and makes me feel productive and smarter, for some reason. not saying that people who read are generally smarter than those who don't, but i would say that's a fair generalization. and i am happy to now fit that generalization, to some extent.

it really is a good feeling though when i finish a book. i feel accomplished. like "hey world. i took the time to read all 347 pages of this novel and i feel good about it. no, i do not feel as if i wasted my time, and yes i would enjoy another. thank you."

so that is now my dilemma. i must venture out into the world of literature and find a new piece for me to tackle. i've grown quite fond of agatha christie. i do love a great mystery and a clever twist never hurt either. she may be my lady of the summer. any other recommendations? and if you say 'twilight', i will have to harm you.

observation

i don't know of many places to go here in lawrence that are good for tanning. i'm not far from the lake, but as for finding a good secluded place that i can sprawl out for hours in little to nothing, i've yet to be successful. i lived in manhattan long enough to discover the perfect spot at tuttle to lay out all day in my underwear and not have to worry about getting arrested for indecent exposure (can you get arrested for that if you're still in your underwear?). which brings me to the field.

there's a "field" of sorts by the overlook at the lake. it's a field in the sense that there is a lot of grass and not much else, but in reality, it's just a baron strip of land next to an outhouse and some state buildings. very picturesque, as you can tell. not secluded enough to warrant skivvy-wearing, but it does the job.

but it's fun being out in the middle of nature and listening to the sounds of the birds and the wind (or lack of. damn it was hot today!) and the bugs.

by the way, having a bee do one of those kamikaze fly-bys is not pleasant. it almost always makes you crap your pants.

being someone who's not the biggest fan of the insect world, i'm very surprised that i would allow myself the chance of even coming in contact with anything living in the grass. i often get the sensation that something is crawling on my leg or tickling my toes, and to an onlooker, it probably looks like i'm having a seizure by the vast amount of flailing and lurching i do to rid my body of the pest.

i only have two main objections to tanning in the field:

1) spiders live in the grass. my towel is on the grass. i am on the towel. put the pieces together.

2) there are so many bees! seriously. there are lots of bees. i know if i don't disturb them, they won't bother me, but there's always that little part in the back of my mind that thinks a swarm of them will overtake me and turn me into a giant puffy mass. ew.

despite my bug-phobia though, i found it rather fascinating to delve into their world and do nothing more than watch. just lay there... and watch. it's oddly voyeuristic in a way. i don't get off watching bugs or anything, but the sheer fact that i can entrench myself into this world we see every day but think nothing of, and observe the day-to-day life is very cool. it would not be cool if someone was watching us like that, because that would be scary, but essentially it's the same concept. like a miniature safari, but without the man-eating creatures and the cool jeep.

i believe i observed six different spiders during my 120 minutes of sun bathing, and not once did i completely freak out. why is that? perhaps it's because i was invading their environment and not the other way around. i knew that i would eventually leave them there, so they pose no threat to me once i stop watching them. or perhaps it's because i knew they weren't deadly! not once did i see any brown recluses scampering about in the wilderness. they're the snobs of the spider world. they have to have better accommodations than their spider friends, so they crash in the nearest apartment building they can find.

regardless, i believe the next time i venture out into the field, i will do a little more watching, because it really is amazing the things you see out there when you really pay attention. a camera might come in handy too. hmm...

june?

so much for having an active blog. shoot, i went an entire month without a single bit of anything. not saying that nothing blog-worthy happened in my life. i was just a) too lazy, b) forgetful, or c) a scary combination of the two. either way, i'm hoping to be more active from now on. but come time for that big hollywood scout to search the blogosphere for the "next big thing", i highly doubt my june-less online journal will stand out. damn.

bistro

sunday mornings in manhattan are the best part of my whole weekend. no offense to anyone and anything i saw and did, but those few hours before i head back to lawrence are amazing. now, i'm sure you're asking yourself, "why would anyone consider a few hours on a sunday, the last day of the weekend, the best part of their whole weekend?" it's pretty simple, if you think about it.

bluestem! duh. it's the one part of the weekend that's completely chill. no crazy situations. no potential for drama. no drunken fools bumping into you. it's the perfect time to sit, drink coffee with good friends, and reflect on the weekend's activities. granted, the discussions wouldn't be as great if there weren't good times to be had the previous days/nights. but there's a difference between doing something fun, and sharing that experience with other people. especially people who know you very well.

there's nothing better than recounting the night before for someone who wasn't there. you get to paint them this vivid picture of what went down, in the best way you can. there may be a few embellishments here and there for dramatic effect, but for the most part, it's a legit rundown of events totally worth mentioning (within reason, that is).

craig and nikki are my coffee buddies. it's become tradition at this point to meet up at bluestem sunday morning. no matter where we end up at the end of saturday night, we always make sure to meet at the bistro the next morning to compare notes and catch each other up on what's going on. by this point, it's typically craig and i making fun of each other while nikki sits back and watches. it's fun banter we have, craig and i, which does nothing to harm our friendship in the slightest, because we know we're completely kidding (for the most part, anyway). nikki loves it because we spend so much time jabbing each other, she remains completely unscathed. though she does get hers every now and then. that's fun.

another great part about the bistro that carries over from our own rapport with one another is the judgement. yes, we judge. we're not monsters. everyone does it. calm down. don't get me wrong. we don't just sit around and hunt for innocent victims to ridicule. though there are the occasional few people who venture in who are just asking for it. you know the type. for the most part though, we poke fun at each other as opposed to random strangers. that would be a little too mean. even for us. it's all in good fun though and helps maintain a level of sanity. for me, at least.

unfortunately, she's moving in a few weeks, so unless we both happen to come back to manhattan the same weekend, our sunday coffee dates will be no more. that will suck, for sure. though i'm positive we'll manage to make it work somehow. i'm in lawrence, and she's in kansas city, so that will be easy enough for us to meet up. the only hard part will be getting craig to drag himself up to see us. ugh!

atmosphere, food, and judgement aside, i just really enjoy getting together with these two and talking. i don't think that i have enough people in my life that i do that with, or that i can do that with. there are those friends who i talk to daily, so they don't count, because we already communicate well. then there are those who i talk to every so often, have intimate conversations, but don't really amount to much. craig and nikki though, are two of the few friends i have that really get me, and can talk about anything. i don't have to be afraid of saying something stupid in front of them, because they'll just laugh at me and move on. they'll probably bring it up later at some point, but it's all good because that's how we are. i honestly can't recall how this little trio came about, but that was definitely a good day when it did.

grammar

we're all adults now, right? that's something we can all agree on. we may not all feel grown up, but in all actuality, we are grown-ass people. most of whom have gone to school and/or earned at least one degree (so far). congratulations.

how is it then, that so many of us (and by "us", i mean "you") still have such difficulty spelling the simplest of words? it's baffling! i just cannot comprehend it. not one little bit. maybe because i am a journalism major (ok, public relations, but it's in the same school) that i find this phenomenon so hard to believe. or maybe it's because i never really had that much trouble learning how to spell common words. either way, i constantly find myself wanting to run out to barnes and noble or borders or whatever bookstore you frequent, purchase the largest dictionary i can find, and then throw it at those people, forcefully. i don't even want to yell something witty like "learn something," or "what you're feeling right now is pain. p-a-i-n." i just want to hurt them for being so lazy, and not learning the correct spelling of "lightning". (seriously! lightning accompanies a thunderstorm. lightening is to make or become lighter. one is a noun, the other, a verb. learn something!)

the irony here is that during my rant about proper spelling, i will have somehow overlooked a very simple word and thus, be hoisted by my own petard. that would suck. fortunately, i have a handy little spell-checker, so if i was in fact to spell something incorrectly, a red, dashed line would appear beneath it, warning me of my error.

but honestly, how hard is it to educate yourself? it's embarrassing that college graduates still can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're". "their", "there", and "they're" is a completely different story, so please don't get me started. i hate to repeat myself, but i honestly cannot fathom how people get these words confused. yes, they sound alike, and even look alike, but i don't know. maybe i'm just so well-versed in grammar that i can't even imagine for a second being the type of person who writes "their going to meet us at the park." no, no, no! it hurt my brain just typing that. i do not understand.

and i try, i really do, not to correct the misspellings of those around me. it pains me not to comment on someone's facebook status for all to see that they spelled "a lot", "alot". in my effort to teach them a little something, it would come across as more along the lines of "damn, how stupid are you that you don't know that "a lot" is two words?" and that's not fully my intention. it's merely a way to get them to realize their fault, and to hopefully humiliate them just enough that next time, they will double-check themselves before hitting "share" and receiving the same consequence again. man, being a word nazi is fun!