Inside the Mind of a Nathan

'Tis relatively late, and I have had a relatively unproductive day—and it was so worth it. I even took a brief nap, and it wasn't one of those naps where you wake up in a different time-zone feeling like everything went wrong. Rather, it felt like a brief but much-needed rest. Boom.

I slept extra poorly and had a late, grimy start. I am thankful for God's nature though. We have a side porch that is covered and looks out into a small grove of trees. It has rained most of today, so it's clean and cool outside. Birds are tweeting, and raindrops are pattering; it's the best kind of quiet. Thankfully, the neighbors are not blasting their misplaced music across the neighborhood, so I have a cocoon of nature and focus.

Google Drive, kids: it's not that hard. I can understand the computer illiterate disliking switching from a normal PC to Google stuff, but I'm talking about full-grown, under-40 adults struggling with Google Drive. There is no excuse.

I don't feel like writing again. Well, I do, but I don't feel like making sense. In other words, I want to write for Michael the Traveler, but I got him stuck on an island, and the plot seems too sticky. I don't know why I keep trying to turn him into something sensible. Nobody needs that kind of shenanigan. I like that he has a sensible core, an approachable theme, but I never wanted him to abide by the laws of physics or logic or any such gobbledegook.

Smoothies are amazing. I don't feel like writing. Have you ever had the experience where someone's job is a certain skill, but you always see that someone doing almost the exact opposite of that skill, and it's really an easy skill that does indeed require energy but not a whole lot of expertise? What do you do with such individuals?

Oh, snap. Well, I went hiking. It murdered my little, baby calves, but the friends with whom I got to share the adventure are the best friends a man could hope to have. They were definitely very gracious to me since I was the weakest link in the chain. I learned too many lessons—or at least observed learnable lessons. (I'm not the best learner sometimes.)

Hullabaloo, I tell you. Hullabaloo. I haven't written in like forever. I haven't blogged anyway. I write a lot, and it almost counts, but it's never enough. It was strange. I recently realized most of my creative writing exercises are about being trapped:

Holy moly cajoley! Last week was pretty busy. I had two of my paintings in an art show! I felt super cool with my paintings in frames on a wall at a show where serious people looked at serious paintings. I felt like a proper artist or something, and people keep saying they like my paintings, so I'm starting to like my own paintings, and it's quite an experience.