Celestial Vengeance

As I've been queried incessantly by many of y'all as to my whereabouts and activities (well, just once, by my mom... in passing) here goes:

Having wrecked my car in January, I returned to South Carolina only to find that I'd arrived in time for my ninety-six year old grandmother's funeral. Then I found out that the car was totalled so I downgraded somewhat, going from an Audi A4 to a used Mercury Sable. I've been pleasantly surprised that my sex appeal is not diminished in the least by the change in automobiles, but I have been unpleasantly horrified to discover that instead of attracting nubile, vacuous twenty-somethings, I'm now knee-deep in grandmothers ogling me as I cruise by.

In February, the old man and I went on a short hike (a few days) to test out his two new hips. I'd be more embarrassed about the fact that he easily outwalked me if I didn't readily admit that I'm still physically intimidated by the sixty-six year old former ranger and green beret. After that, I went into a bit of depressive funk and stopped adventuring, instead choosing to spend my time trying to find a house to buy when I move up to Columbia (SC, of course) to attend law school in the fall. The house that I put a contract on ended up being so infested with termites that it'll probably have to be torn down.

Cousin Elizabeth, whose couch I've been sleeping on for the past few months, grew utterly furious with me for attempting to extricate her sons' heads from their patootsies and threatened to press charges against me for kidnapping the younger knucklehead last summer and taking him across international borders (when I took him up to Montreal). In order to stave off certain imprisonment (as I'd documented the crime in email), I acquiesed as cousin Elizabeth sent me off to her family home in Hertford, NC, to serve as menial labor to her mother, not-cousin Annie Mac, and to paint the 230 year old, three story house. My days are filled in terror as I cling to the top of the rickety, thirty foot ladder while the wind howls, passing pedestrians mock me, and passing cars honk their horns in an effort to see me topple headlong into the spiky azalea bushes far beneath.

I don't know what I've done to deserve such terrible Divine retribution, but so far, 2006 is shaping up to be a hell of a lot worse than 2004.