throbs of joy is spreading also over me

I don't know about where you are, but it's a little bit warm in Iowa today. Chafingly so. Oh, yeah, I said it. Chafingly. Tonight would be a great night for naked swimming, though! My friends and I used to always go out to Woodpecker Trail on Lake MacBride and swim naked, it feels amazing right there too because the water is really warm there for some reason. Not too warm, but just not that spring-fed lake cold that can be uncomfortable. The only thing is that I don't feel totally comfortable swimming there, just kind of dogpaddling around in this one section. It just doesn't feel totally safe to me, for some reason... I felt great in Elkhart Lake, though, just swimming like hell all over the lake, and it was great to get way out into the middle and float with my ears under the water and look up at the stars. Though I carried with me a vague fear that a northern pike or a muskie was going to drag me under to my death. I've only heard tell of these animals, but I've heard such stories about them that I imagine they have lion heads on fish bodies. The firmament was so beautiful, though, that a watery death would have been worth it.

I can't believe I'm not working right now, at the ripe age of 30, I am not working in the summer. To be honest, for the first few days I was really at a loss for what to do, but I've started writing again and I LOVE it. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have just done my graduate work in history. I could have been a history teacher, I would have liked that I think. Though I am really horribly bad at disciplining people. I was really bad at it with my nephews, they walked all over me, man. I would need a teacher's assistant to play bad cop.

O.K., it's hundreds of degrees in front of this computer, so I think I will sign off now.