::sniffle:: You're all gonna stop loving me because I never update anymore. All my fans gone! The validation meter will never peak again! ::sniffle::

You still love me, don't you?

At least let me explain myself, okay? I've been working on that website I'm getting paid to do so much that I can't stand the sight of my computer after I'm done for the day. I've been retreating to Dan's almost every night because I'm getting sloshy-brained from too much computing.

Well, there are other reasons, but you knew that already.

There's been a lot for me to tell you about lately...and not a lot of time to tell you about it in. Isn't it scary how that works? As soon as my life gets cool enough to bother discussing I don't have the time to discuss it anyway. To busy living my life to write about it.

Last weekend Dan invited me to go rafting with him and the guys. We left Saturday morning really early...so I had NO sleep. The ride up was cool, a little under three hours I think...I was amazed that I didn't fall asleep at all. There was lots of pretty nothing to look at. There's a whole lot of nothing out there...

Not that nothing is a bad thing...it's just unusual for me to see so much space between anything. I've lived on Long Island for most of my life. There's not all that much nothing out here...certainly not without streetlights!

There was one part of the road where there was a sheer rock cliff on one side, and a small rock wall on the other...which dropped off into the Delaware river, and the road looked like a snake. Straight out of a car commercial! The speed limit was 45, recommended 25, Dan went 70. I was nervous...not too nervous because he's been driving on that road forever, but nervous anyway because it was a scary road.

We got to his house without unfortunate early deaths, then we went back out to try again. He was going to take me "the easy way" up to his favorite waterfall. I put on long pants and kept my shorts on underneath in case we went swimming afterwards.

The easy way involved crawling up the side of a mountain. A little mountain, he assured me, but I would still call it a mountain. I'm not the biggest fan of nature, I hate bugs, and I'd rather wander the city than the forest...most muggers won't eat you. There I was, crawling up the side of a mountain, pulling myself up by trees, rocks, and large spiders the whole way.

You're starting to understand how much I like Dan at this point, that I would willingly subject myself to nature with him.

So there I was, a little way up this huge thing we were climbing when I froze. Dan said "grab that rock" and I responded with "what rock?". Then I looked down. Then I started crying. He asked me if I was okay, and I continued crying. He said "You're not okay", braced himself against a tree and let me panic for about ten minutes while he was the equivalent of my seatbelt on the mountain.

Pardon the pun, but it was all downhill from there. I wasn't about to go any further UP the mountain, we couldn't stay where we were, and downhill wasn't looking all that much fun. On the way down he said I could hit him when we got down if it would make me feel better. I didn't feel like hitting him, I was feeling like a total pussy for panicing. Not that I was going to try again...I'm not stupid. But I wanted to see the waterfall, and I wished for stairs or even a ladder, but this crawling up the mountain thing just wasn't going to work for me.

Kathy doesn't like climbing. All you faithful readers should keep this in mind.

The rest of day was fun, and there was only a short walk down to the water where we sat on a big rock with our feet in the water and splashed each other a lot. It was a beautiful day, and we just leaned on each other and watched people floating down the river in rafts. I didn't feel like getting soaked to my panties right then so I didn't swim, but I washed off most of the dirt from the mountain and sat around in the sun.

Kathy does like water and sitting peacefully in the sun so that part of the day effectively erased the frazzled nerves the climbing created.

We took a nap, had dinner with Dan's parents, then went to a bar to meet up with the other guys (you remember them, the other guys from next door, right?) and a few of Dan's pals. We were both exhausted from lack of sleep and running around most of the day, so we left early and went to sleep.

The actual rafting was the next morning. There were only six of us going: Dan, Charlie (one of the guys from next door), Charlie's friend whose name I can't recall, Dan's friends Marty and Heidi, and little ol' me....

I was who's yo daddy'ed into not drinking on the raft...which wasn't really necessary since I hadn't really planned on drinking anyway, but I got to make 'who's you daddy' into a verb so it was worthwhile. And speaking of drinking....DAMN! They made this stuff they called "Juice" which was, suprisingly enough, fruit juice soda and a great deal of alcohol. I think there was three gallons of that. They also had some strawberry margarita mix, which was about as thick as maple syrup and twice as sweet.

I was tasting, not drinking. That was okay. ;)

There was about a gallon of that stuff...but it was concentrated. The bottle read "Makes five pitchers" and "Made with real Tequila". They drank it almost straight. Ouch. There was other margarita mix that was less potent and mixed with some fruit juice, and there were three gallons of water.

For SIX people. One of whom was who's yo daddy'ed into not drinking.

Damn....

The actual rafting was fun, except that the strawberry margarita mix ended up spilling out in the bottom of the raft, and my feet were marinating most of the ride in tequila. My sandals STILL smell. There was one scary part where Marty and Heidi fell out of the raft in the rapids. They got back in the boat pretty fast, but Marty got a little scratched up.

I had fun, but at the end of the ride I was tired of being in the raft, that's for sure. You can only be wet for so long before it's bothersome. Dan and I got dinner with Marty and Heidi then went straight home.

If you asked me in one word to describe the entire weekend, I'd first look at you funny because that's such a dumb question, then I'd say "Damp".

Then I'd launch into a ten minute rant which started on the topic of how stupid that question was, briefly touched on how much better my description of the trip would have been given more than one word to work with, focused on how I really did enjoy the trip a great deal, and ended with something completely unrelated to the original rant.

At least I'm honest here, right?

But for the extremely abridged entry: Damp.