A poem by Drew Stephens:

Stuff is blooming.
It is spring.

I can't even remember the last time it rained. I really crave a good rainy day. In other news, (insert blatent obvious lie here)

The world really needs a few more awards shows. I think we should even have an award show for award shows.

I have a headache this big.

And it's a long way to Richmond,
rolling north on 95,
With a redhead riding shotgun,
and a pistol by my side.
Tearing down that highway,
like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde.
Well we pulled up to a motel,
in the middle of the night.
We were counting all the money,
smoking stolen Marlboro Lights.
Lord we never saw 'em coming,
till they read us both our rights.

Two hunting dogs have been hanging around for the past week. Cats love dogs. Dogs love cats. This morning I heard alot of banging and howling coming from the deck. I looked outside to observe one of the dogs with a catfeeder stuck on it's head - one of those plastic catfeeders. I guess he was trying to stick his head down the top opening and thus was snared, by the very food he so desired. Dogs are stupid. Most pets are stupid. People are generally slightly less stupid than pets. I have a fever. I havn't had a fever in at least 2 years. Fevers make you stupid. Through a fever I laughed and watched the dog run in a zig zag pattern around the yard, ..through bushes, into trees, on a sunny morning. Then he ran off in the woods. My fifteen minute search and rescue operation subsequently failed. So tonight there is a dog running around in the woods with a catfeeder stuck on it's head. I should care more but I have a fever. Dizzy and hot. Hot and dizzy.

I had spaghetti for supper.
I believe that am allergic to a girl.
That is all.
As you were.

I finally got the urge to jot it down. Yes I did.
For Pete's sake, A Little History. Who is Pete? ..nevermind.

Drew went through a month or so whereby he didn't post many things here. Truthfully I just wasn't feeling very well. I'd never felt that way before - constantly anxious, nervous, tweaked out - scarily for no fathomable reason.

So we did some reading -

And I decided to halt caffeine consumption.
Torturous "caffeine halt" continued for three or four days - felt a little semi-better.
Days pass. Weeks pass. No chocolate. No coke. No cappucino. What to drink with fast food? ..Obey your thirst. That and water. Lots of water. Water instead of Mountain Dew. The old drew might has well've been taking showers in the dew. But for now we have parted ways, the dew and I.

So I haven't had any caffeine.
For three weeks now.
I can't remember the last time I felt this good.

Apparently, from what I've read, ..some people have done the dew for years, and have no problem with caffeine until suddenly it starts to have adverse effects - similar to a person suddenly becoming allergic to a particular item that previously didn't bother them.

Well heck. Previously, it previously didn't bother me at all. Ain't that some shimp.

Why oh why, can't we have signs like this? Or maybe it's just me. Or maybe not.

The rest of my "guy going over waterfall on kayak" photos:

One and Two and Three and Four.

More props to the man who prefers go under the alias: Jungleboater

A nice explanation. I like it.

Bobby stares into the abyss. As the doc said to Homer - "It appears you have consumed the venom of the blowfish."

Challenge:
Consume a 12 ounce jar of traditional Tabasco brand hot sauce within 20 minutes. Puking only acceptable 30 minutes after last drop is consumed.

She had proposed a work of nonfiction to the class - dealing with her spontanious solo-vacation of last year, through Europe. The opening line goes something like: "So, are you gonna make a go at the Opium?" ..which was said by a man who came and sat beside her on the bus as they neered Amsterdam, where such things are completely legal.

Sure, her story sounded interesting.

Only today, when discussing how to enhance literary irony through buildup of character status, ..we find that her old boyfriend from littletown, Texas told her months before, that making such a European trip was stupid. And that on this day in particular, on that bus, when those opening words were uttered, she was engaged to have been married to that Texas guy - but instead she was on a bus on that day - somewhere between London and Amsterdam.

Why is it that when people tell thier own story, they skirt around that which, would early on make it so much more appealing? Maybe because the appealing stuff is always the dirt.

Now you're interested in the story. Now it's got pull.

I'm sitting the library. This afternoon some sort of military history event has been going on, here amidst the books and magazines and unappreciated reference librarians. I walked in and immediatley was drawn to a WW2 motorcycle, (just like the one that you picture Indie and his dad riding in, when they escaped from the Nazi's on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) propped up near the Encyclopedia racks. I am told there is reception food in the back. Twenty feet away from this motorcycle, sit four old military men. One is Navy. One is a Marine. The others i didn't notice - all sitting around talking of wars that we here about in history lectures and see in black and white on the history channel.

I think about how interesting this is and how pathetic my school's public relations system is - as nobody ever attends such events, or even has knowledge of them until they are read about some weeks later in the campus newspaper. I walk off and sit down at a computer to check my email, as this is the only thing that people use computers for in public libraries, and can still hear the conversation coming from the old military men beyond two racks of periodicals. The old marine greets a newcomer who has just entered the library, and upon exchanges of descriptions of thier militray career, finds that this newcomer flew a particular type of plane (B-something) which saved his life while he was in Guam - that this particular type of airplane laid seige to a particular group of Japaneese regiment transport ships before the ships could make it to land - and that if those transports had made it to the beach, his troup would have been outnumbered and defeated.

"You flew those?"
"Yep, sure did. Not on that day. But I flew'em"
"How bout that. I've always wanted to meet one of those pilots and shake his hand, because that airplane saved me and my buddies from the Japs. ..There. Now I have."

The Asian student sitting at the computer beside me, kind've stops what he's doing and stares at the floor.