ARGH! Well, with every mistake I make using windows, I learn something,
right? I gotta start thinking of it that way. What doesn’t kill you can
only make you stronger–Nietzsche. When discussing the hundred or so ways he
tried to design a light bulb that didn’t work, Thomas Edison said that those
weren’t a hundred failures but rather a hundred ways he’d now learned
wouldn’t work. He also said that invention was 1% inspiration and 99%
persperation. So I guess that makes inventors geniuses with a strong work
ethic. Or stubborn, one.

In any case, I copied all my new mail to a Compose Mail window, read it
offline, figured how to make the thing print properly (it was set to
“envelope.” DUH!), printed out something from Eric the Awful, and then tried
to get out of that window only to loose everything by exiting AOL! Okay,
okay. Learn. You learned, something, Jonah. Get a grip.

Anyway, I’ve got to get back on now and check to see what Geof has to say
about my webpage. I told Max I’ve got one. He seemed pretty impressed.
Max’s hero is the unabomber. He dislikes all technology, especially
complicated computer stuff, although he can maneuver around the web
successfully. He called last night from the academy while we were watching
Clueless to ask me what the name of it was. I told him but then said that it
wasn’t listed under anything, I didn’t think. I can’t remeber the address.
Geof put it up under the permanent place, and I forgot what it is. I wrote
Ben, but he hasn’t responded. Course, all i said was, “I think it’s written
on a scrap of paper somewhere around the computer.”

My life is written on scraps of paper. I have this habit of scrawling down
phone numbers on little slips and then coming back weeks later to find them
and wonder who the heck they belong to. When I was cleaning up my room
before leaving for here, I put all the scraps in a neat envelope sized box
that Melissa gave me a gift certificate to Books-a-Million in for my
birthday. Otherwise, I just stuff them into one of the top drawers of my
desk so I can shuffle through them in a panic when I need someone’s number
and didn’t write it on my handy dandy note card I keep folded in my wallet.

Everything comes to an end. Paths separate. Friendships fade. Closeness
ends with distance as people grow further apart by miles and interests.

My face is sunburned. That’s because I wasn’t restless today. We built a
fence. Jef, Nathan, Steph, and I started working on it this morning by
digging holes for fence posts, planting them, and drilling screws into two by
sixes to go along the top. When I talked to Dad tonight, he said, “I hear
y’all had an argument.” I answered, “_I_ didn’t argue. I was just
expressing my opinions which didn’t happen to correspond to other people’s.”
Nathan insisted we do it one way, while Steph was strongly suggesting we do
it another. I added my two bits’ worth, which resulted in Nathan driving his
car off in a huff. That left the three of us girls to operate an electric
screwdriver. Chalk that up as another bundle of learning experiences I had
today. The fence actually looks like crap, but I think it’s sturdy enough.
Michele came out to offer her suggestions–“No, that’s not level.” Then
Nathan finally reappeared much later with a slightly improved attitude. As
Steph said to him, “You need practice with this.” Personally, I think he
should never work in an environment that includes women.

We eventually got it all done, stringing hog wire along the posts and lacing
some to the gate. All this was in preparation for Basket Case, who is
preparing to foal any minute now. Michele insisted on near perfection,
saying, “A foal’s only successful skill is self destruction.” Basket is in
the small riding ring now with a pile of hay and wood shavings in one corner.

Nathan and Eli went to see Black Sheep at the dollar theater as per my
suggestion tonight. They invited me to go, and I do want to see that movie
(it’s got David Spade in it, my hero and the most sarcastic man alive), but
Jef and I had already rented Life Boat at Safeway. I enjoyed it. It’s a
Hitchcock version of a John Steinbeck novel.