Dallas!

The community of old Baptists hath taken a bite of my sleeping habits, chewed it up, and subjected it to an acidic sermon and wedding anniversary reception. I'm pretty fucking tired. Larkin and I got back just yesterday at midnight or so (we had to drive at night so I wouldn't miss the region workshop today). So, here's what happened.

Friday morning, I woke up too early for the first time, threw some shit into my spiffy messenger bag, waited for mom to correspond with several family members, and picked up Larkin. We were off like a herd of constipated turtles. That truck is as old as me, and pulled a big brown trailer full of watermelons and a barbecue grill. Despite a nasty infection which troubled Larkin on the way excrutiatingly, she clenched her jaw, determined not to drag us down, and rode the entire way with my parents and I to DeSoto, Texas, the town in which my grandparents' tiny, one-story house exists. Tough chick, she is, waiting for her medication to kick in during a five-hour drive. Ah, it wasn't too bad. Some LETRES and origami lessons on the way distracted her from the pain and me from my worrying. All is well now, of course.

During the remainder of Friday, and Saturday, we entertained ourselves mostly by sketching strange landscapes (BANANA KING OVERTHROWN!), reading, or hiking around the newly-developed suburbia in the area. That was a hell of a lot of fun. We stepped around waste from construction, picking up pieces of slate and limestone to examine color and composition, and saw some neat scenery that would've made some kickass artsy photography, had we our cameras with us. About five hours of walking around, total, on Saturday. Joining us after our water break was Josh, a distant cousin of mine. Despite his general lack of, well, intelligence (and good jokes), he served as nice quiet company for the both of us during our expedition. We all found some ducklings and tossed bread at them. A Muscovy chomped my finger. Quack.

Arg. Sunday morning brought the church service. Most of you realize I'm not one for church services. Of any kind. At all. FUCK JESUS. But anyhow, it at least served as a nice reinforcement to all my philosophies and systems of, well, nonbelief. I didn't really grasp a single thing out of it. Granted, the pastor was a great orator, but preaching is like the special olympics- even if your the best at it, you're still retarded. "David fell to his knees and prayed, 'O God, teach me to take this thorn out of my flesh!'" Mother fucking reliance on divine authority. Take the thorn out of your own fucking foot, Sherlock. If you have a crisis, you can get a lot more done by, well, fucking DOING SOMETHING than dropping to your knees, lazily asking your divine daddy. Ah well. If I talked about all the concepts discussed in that sermon here, I'd get one of those big post errors. The point is, I hate ridiculous, strife-causing doctrines that make you feel guilty for having fun, and I hate hymns sung off an overhead. Heh. DivorceCare, Thursday night! Martial arts classes, Friday night!

It was an allright trip. Larkin's presence made the entire thing so much more than tolerable. I thank her endlessly for joining me. My grandparents were really stressed out from all the relatives bugging them. At least they got some attention at their reception. What a mess.

Ah, scratch that shit. It was a great trip. Anything I do with Larkin is really nice. I wasn't away for her for more than half an hour for three days. My parents even put us in the same hotel room! Thank Jesus H. Monkeymeat! Not only is she a very good roommate, but my parents snore like lawnmowers, and we had the dog with us, so he probably would've thrown up on my bedsheets.