So, instead, I’m just going to update everyone on what I’ve been up to while I’ve been away.

For a while I was hung up on finals, working early in the mornings, going to night school, and in between trying to keep up sanity by taking a nap, hanging out with a friend, or avoiding writing by telling myself that I’m just taking a break (I’ve been having some bad writer’s block…). Oh yeah, and kinda studying too.

The weather for my commencement ceremony was gorgeous, everything went very well, and was very short, thankfully, so you won’t find complaints here.

As a graduation present, someone (who knows me very well!) bought me a Theremin. So I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. too. It’s spazz-out awesome.

Hey JP, what does a Theremin sound like?

(Randy George is an AWESOME Thereminist, I must say.)

It was a hard winter for my houseplants. Unfortunately, neither Sophie nor Gloriette made it through the dark months. But, the rest of us are pretty healthy and happy, looking forward to a wonderful summer.

Despite what the Dr. told me about how I should wear shoes, I’m still barefooting. So far, no more accidents. But no promises.

Sorry for being so aloof the past month. Cheers to all!

-JP

First, the sunglasses.

Okay, okay, okay, so I found this really cool pair of sunglasses just off the trail that I found when I stepped outta the hot sun to—

(Together!) SLOW DOWN, JP!!!

Sheesh, y’all can’t untwist my run-on sentence? Well were you expecting, what do you think I am, a writer?

Okay. So, it was like the hottest day of the week, and I stepped off the trail to find some shade. Looking down, I saw among the short, withering vegetation, a pair of totally 90′s wraparound sunglasses hiding in the grass. Normally, I’m not even a sunglasses person, for design and functional reasons.

Fooey on that.

These glasses were EXTRA special! So, I sacked my regular glasses, just for the sheer pleasure of looking like one of the cool kids from Wishbone.

Ok, so now the shades story is out of the way…

Sigh. Truth be told, my bad bare feet weren’t that “bad,” and…Okay, I stepped on a rusty nail and spent the night in the ER getting a tetanus shot.

That’s the short story.

The long story is, while waiting æons for the doctor to show up and bawl me out about walking barefoot, (I tried to avoid it, I tried to explain that there’s a barefoot movement…Yes, I was on a mountain without shoes…No, you’re right, I’m not a Native American, sir…yes, those other scars are from running through thorns last Saturday…) I utilized the ample time that they gave me (and a nice pen) to daydream…all over that paper that they put on the ER bed.

Rusty nail: 1. Cabit: 1. Hospital boredom: 0.

Let me just say: Hiking. Is. Awesome.

Even awesomer when you do it barefoot!

I climbed an entire mountain yesterday without my shoes. It was rough. It hurt. But only a little bit. For the most part, it was very natural, very pleasant, and my feet are still happy.

Hey, the trees up here are barefoot too!

Did you know there’s a whole entire barefoot movement? Yes, these are people who do pretty much everything barefoot.

This summer, I made a sort of pledge to myself (half-pledge really…which I guess isn’t a pledge. Maybe more of a resolution. Well, a good intention at the least.) to go barefoot as much as possible. Everywhere. One place I sort of refuse to go barefoot so far is cities, where broken glass and other human-made hazards are prevalent.

We were born without shoes. So I figure, we must not need them!

Ever thought about living barefoot? Or does society hold you down?

To which someone standing nearby said, “Yeah, because you’ve been busy spending time with all your real friends!”

And it’s true…This isolated writer’s life got real social all of a sudden this year.

Writing is important. But Living is more important than blogging about pirates and how much I hate the English language.

So, sorry for my absence…speaking of which…

The plants & I have finally escaped our bunker. (I REALLY suggest you follow that link if you want to have any idea what’s going on here!) We made the descent down the mountain (you’d be surprised by how fast plants can run!) quickly, amidst bright-yellow tranquilizer darts and feathered arrows, and when we got to the bottom, we found our escape jeep waiting for us. Phew! The radio message got through to the Riley Squad! So excited. We hopped in the jeep, and sped off down the dirt road.

We drove for a good hour over potholes and ruts, while I was trying to identify the trees and terrain for some bearing on what country we were in. Couldn’t get a reading…some of the trees I’d never seen before. They were twisted, greenish and hearty, and had huge, fuzzy, bright pink pods hanging off of them, and sometimes the pods would explode. Our jeep got a little singed (we ran over a couple).

Gershwin, our resident linguist, tried a few languages with them, but even he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

With Gloriette and Ophelia manning the machine guns out the back of the car and fending off the Blue Foots, we played through the obstacle-course of land-mines that the Space-Cowboys and Pirates had left for us. They must have known we were coming this way…

Finally, we reached it. The Riley Squad’s headquarters: low, cement barracks surmounted by a single watchtower with a crown of cannons. We were welcomed by Captain Gmnchisu Åårdesçk’kaadisidy, who told us the country name and what languages they spoke. After staying with them a while helping strategize against the enemy, they escorted us out of the country, on our word that we wouldn’t tell anyone the name of the country.

So, that’s the end of my epic excuse…my plants and I are back home and safe, enjoying some sunlight, and coming up with our next dog-ate-my-homework alibi.

Tally-Ho!

I could tell you all the boring things that have been happening that keep me away from my blog. But as the name implies, not only would it be rather plain, it would also be a pretty lame attempt at trying to make you understand what’s been happening in order to smooth things over for not having written anything, but not sure that there’s any smoothing over to be done. I know you all have lives too.

See, even my writing is shabby when I just go with a dumpy first draft.

So, I’ve decided to make up an excuse about why I haven’t been blogging.

Well, you see, my plants and I are writing from a bunker at the top of a mountain. It’s an old abandoned cement thing left over from one of those wars. Anyway, the reason we’re here is because we got chased out of my place by pirates who crash-landed on their way to 2145 A.D., and needed—

Aah! I’m running out of battery! My plants are sending a message through the network of trees down the mountain, and I’m hoping that help will come soon.

My battery is almost gone. I have one last message for my Dear Readers, and that is—

Wait—

They’re coming! Arun, man the cannon! Planty—here’s a rifle! Ophelia and Gloriette, go bar the doors! Gershwin, batton down the hatches!

[J.P. Leans out the window with a rifle, before typing one last message on the computer and slamming it shut one last time]

KEEP WRITING