The Girl has just returned from an interesting trip. Sean and Luke invited her and The Boy to go boating. It was wonderful and terrible and The Girl loved it.

When Sean suggested they go boating, The Girl felt honored. Because She tries to never take anyone or anything as a given, She is always surprised and happy when the people She loves love her back. Every time. She never assumes that She lives in someone’s head or that they think about her when She isn’t standing in front of them. How many of life’s sorrows have been created by people who believe that love is automatically a two way street? “If I love you then it must follow that you love me,” is a folly. Fortunately, She loves Sean and he loves her back.

The Girl checked the weather forecast everyday right up until the morning of the trip. All the weathermen predicted blue skies. Screw the weathermen. It was cloudy all the way to Lake Pedro. The foursome tried to convince themselves that it would blow over. On the two hour drive they chatted and laughed. They listened to some CDs Luke had just purchased. The Girl listened to the music and the chatter and stared out the window. Perhaps she is prejudiced, but Florida truly is sublime. The live oaks, draped in Spanish moss, formed a canopy over the road. Every thing was so green She could smell it. The ride there was great.

Once they launched the boat, it wouldn’t go into gear. Luke was jostling the gear shift. Luke was cursing the gear shift. Sean was standing on the dock waving good-bye as the boat drifted into the tall weeds. Luke jostled and cursed. Sean waved. The boat drifted. Then, right at the very last moment, the transmission fell into gear. They scooped Sean off the dock and ZOOOOOM out of the channel into the lake.

Lake Pedro is huge. It covers over 46,000 acres. However, it is shallow. The combination of huge and shallow (besides being terrible qualities in a man) make Lake Pedro very rough. If the slightest wind blows, the waves become white-caps. The wind was blowing that day, but it wasn’t slight. Therefore Lake Pedro was churning and choppy. It was trying to chew them up. And it began to rain.

Luke and The Boy put the top on and snapped the cover on the bow. They wrapped themselves in towels and zoomed across the lake toward their first destination, The Back-on Inn. The Back-on Inn is a little dive accessible by both land and water. It sits in the mouth of one of Lake Pedro’s many tributaries. From the upstairs porch, where they ate, one has a great view of the river and another place across the way. She enjoyed watching the boats come and go.

Lunch was yummy. She and Sean ordered grouper fingers (fancy fish sticks). Luke and The Boy had grouper sandwiches. The boys ordered beers, many beers to wash the fish down. They also shared catfish bites and fried mushrooms. The grouper fingers were good. Not too much breading and cooked just enough. Many places drown their fried food in breading to hide the taste of an inferior product. Then they over cook it to hide the taste of too much breading. The Back-on Inn did it just right. She felt like the third bear. They mushrooms were also wonderful. Prepared on site, they were crispy on the outside, juicy within.

While they ate and waited for the rain to subside, they talked some more. Luke is perhaps one of the funniest people alive. But it isn’t a loud, in-your-face, funny. He is droll and very, very intelligent. Sean is also funny. His humor, however, is more accessible. He could be a stand-up comedian. They were telling stories. The Boy was laughing so hard he was wheezing. The Girl loves this about The Boy. Her heart is too heavy to laugh out loud, even when things are laugh out loud funny. The Boy has a light heart. His heart acts as her buoy.

By the time the rain was light enough to be traveled through, they were all done eating and the boys were lightly toasted. They loaded up and headed back out on the lake. Luke was driving. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to get the boat on a plain, where it would ride on top of the waves and be smoother. It wasn’t happening. They would ride up on a wave and, BASH! down on the other side. Up, BASH! Up, BASH! Up, BASH!

(The Girl is [secretly] very bright. Nothing has ever been explained to her that she didn’t understand. She is sure that there are things She doesn’t know. However, with enough time and a willing teacher, She suspects there is nothing She couldn’t know. However, She is also [secretly] crazy and a little uncertain about the steadiness of the ground beneath her. As a result, She wastes all of her intelligence keeping her insanity at bay. Where would She be if She weren’t crazy? Where would She be if She weren’t smart?)

That said:

The second law of thermodynamics states “That the entropy of the universe increases during any spontaneous process;” or “Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered;” or “qrev/T.” The chaos theory states that most systems in nature are aperiodic, meaning that no variable describing the state of the system undergoes a regular repetition of values.

WHICH MEANS: Shit falls apart and we have no way of predicting when or how it will choose to do so.

The boat, subject to the laws of the universe, fell apart. A little compartment, meant to act as an ice chest, but being used to store things no one wanted to get wet, fell apart. Everything got wet. The front windshield, meant to keep the falling rain from stabbing them like a million tiny daggers, fell apart. They got stabbed. It was crazy, but thrilling. (And a little reassuring, science being reliable and all.)

The boys stopped to fix the boat. The waves were rolling in, white edged and very high. The Girl lay on the stern. The sky was grey. The water was grey. Sometimes it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. As She rocked, The Girl remembered an art project from the third grade . The teacher asked them to create colleges. Mrs. Rooks gave them scraps of wrapping paper, newspaper, tissue paper, construction paper, magazines, scissors and glue. Every other kid was making happy pictures of sunny skies or kitties. The girl took a grey piece of construction paper and glued blue, black, purple, and white strips of tissue paper to it. She cut out the black outline of a boat and glued it to the middle of the page. It was beautiful. She remembers the teacher’s face when She turned it in, “This kid is smart, but crazy.” The Girl remembers looking into the teacher’s dull, serene face. It is her earliest memory of being special. Now She was on that boat under the tissue paper sky in the middle of the tissue paper sea. The Girl was happy.


The boys repaired the boat and they headed in. Sean apologized profusely, but they reassured him they had enjoyed the trip. The Girl really did. It was an adventure. The food was good, the company was better. Sunny days get all the glory. But sunny days are all the same. Rainy days are beautiful and unique.

On the ride home they listened to a comedian. They chatted and laughed. The Girl watched the landscape approach and disappear. The Girl was happy.

The Girl went back to work today. She cannot make herself care. She hates the way most people define themselves through their jobs. It is just a job. People confuse having a job with having work. Work is important. Work matters. A job matters in so much as the rent must be paid and it is necessary to eat. Some people, although She don't know any, manage to find meaningful work and get paid for doing it. But most people go to their jobs every day and think, "They are paying me for this, so it must be meaningful." And the more they are paid, the more special they feel. The Girl? She cannot make herself care.

She once thought of her job as meaningful. But She has come to see it as a job. Others there try to make Her feel guilty for not caring. For not giving up her life in exchange for her job. "This," She wants to shout," is not my life! It is merely paying for my life!" But that would require that She care.

That isn't to say She doesn't do a good job. But She remembers...This is a job.

More meaningful was her recent trip down the Coochalowithee. The Coochalowithee is a small spring fed river near her home. In the early part of the century, the river was used and abused by phosphate miners. The University of State (US) purchased it and cleaned it up in the 70s.

To help pay for the river's up keep, US charges $5 to rent a floatie and another $5 to ride the floatie down the river. The water is a constant 73 degrees, which is very cold when the ambient air is 90. As clear and smooth as glass, the little river winds through cypress knees and under oak trees, past sand hills and lime rock caves. The Girl, the Boy, and Sang Su recently made the 3 1/2 hour trek. They were joined by turtles, fish, and a single snake. Comerants, hawks, and cranes flew overhead. Little ducks splashed in the tall grass. Somewhere nearby a woodpecker hammered at a hollow tree. The Girl enjoyed being rocked and swirled by the river. She enjoyed talking to Sang or the Boy as the water brought them together. She enjoyed the silence when they drifted apart. The canopy of the trees was replaced by the glare of the sun as the river pushed them forward. The water was deep and then shallow and then deep again. The cold ofthe water and the warmth of the sun penetrated her body. Rocked in the cold, sunny womb of her floatie. Utter peace. What could mean more than this?