Sorry, folks, for that Thursday mishap. Seems some of the campsites I stayed at had terrible, or no, internet connection. Tis’ the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose–or, you know, some other analogy…

Whatever. I’m back now, so consider that an extended leave. I had to take a break from all you weirdos with your constant liking of my posts and writing comments. I mean, who would want to read this stuff, right? Duh, no one. It’s boring; seriously, you could put on Citizen Kane and watch that twelve times, and still–

Ah, I’ll quit with the film bashing and move onto something more tasteful.

Summer vacation is at an end. Yes, and I admit I have bittersweet feelings in that regard. For one, I wish we could have relaxed a little bit more and pondered the curiosities of life under the sweltering sun of the South; however, I am also glad I am able to get back to regularly scheduled programming and go about my average life, writing and running and working and eating and sleeping–and all the other things normal human beings do.

Favorite part? Oh, now don’t force me to pick one out, please.

Alright, alright, you sure do drive a hard bargain.

Well, if I had to choose one, it’d probably have to be in Arkansas at that one lake, the name of which has slipped my oh so distracted mind. Doesn’t matter, though, who wants to know names these days; everyone knows it’s all about the descriptions, am I right, fellas?

At this Nameless Lake, my family and I went for a dive…off cliffs. What did you think we were gonna dive off? The Statue of Liberty? No, that’s in Las Vegas, not Arkansas, c’mon, read a book for once.

Let’s see, the heights did vary:

There was the eight footer.

There was the twelve footer.

There was the twenty-five footer.

And, oh, yes, that is all.

The eight footer. Meh. Sure, I was a little scared at first, but after a while, the act of jumping from the ledge becomes less and less nerve racking once you know you’re not going to get hurt. It sucked getting water up the nose and in the mouth, though. That stuff burns. Luckily, I had goggles on, so none of it stung my precious eyeballs.

The twelve footer was more stressful, only because, at first, we had no idea if there were rocks underneath us; and, if we had fallen onto those, well–to put it bluntly, I would likely be writing this post from the bed of a hospital in Arkansas. There were no rocks, if you hadn’t figured that out, but there was more water that went up the good ol’ nostrils.

Yippee.

Now, the twenty-five footer? Whoah, boy, if I could count how many minutes I had adrenaline pumping through my veins while standing at the edge of that extremely steep cliff, I would be counting a long time, like, I dunno, probly’ one hour, if I’m doing the maths right.

The picture is of this infamous cliff, on the side of which this beefed-out black man and his buddies were watching and sometimes laughing at us as we struggled to take the leap. They’re not in the picture, but I thought I’d tell you about them, cause’, you know, description.

I came to this cliff. I looked over the edge. I saw the water below–seemed like a hundred feet–and I almost pissed myself. No, sorry, I did not almost piss myself–that was an incorrect remembrance. The tingle in my trunks was nothing but an adrenaline high, I swear.

Yeah, I looked over the edge, gulped, and figured, okay, I’ll sit it out for a few minutes and come up with a game plan. It’s kind of hard to do that when your little cousin–the one who looks up to you–walks over and tells you that he will jump if you jump…and that you should jump right then.

Well, ah…shit.

I got reared up, and by then a crowd had gathered–by crowd, I mean a few members of family, and none of them were cheering, just staring, staring in silence. I threw down my goggles, since at that height, it would hurt to be wearing those when I broke water–whoah, that sounded kinda weird; I mean, hit water. Then I took a deep breath, held my nose, and I jumped.

The air rushed past my ears, so I heard every second of my descent; and just when I was thinking this fall would never end, I splashed into the lake and floundered around until I broke the surface, coughing out water and rubbing at my now burning eyes. My arms hurt a bit, only because I had held them straight out, and the nerves were shocked from such a fall; in fact, I ended up with some bruising on the inside of my forearms, which has recently disappeared.

My first words: “That wasn’t so bad.” I yelled it up to my family, and I repeated it to myself countless times as I swam toward the cliffs to climb back to the top. Fortunately, I didn’t have to practice rock climbing, as there was a conveniently placed platform system within one of the cliffs.

My cousin did jump after me, and so did the rest of my family, each of them successful, each of them jumping a second time. T’was a delightful experience.

I felt like a bad-ass for a little while, but then my dad told me he had jumped off a forty foot cliff at that lake back in his day, a jump which had become illegal before our coming to the campground.

So much for badassery.

Think daily,

A Southpaw