Benjamin Clark

I'm in Venice for my brother's high school graduation. Weird to see the kid all grown up, or at least some close approximation. I still remember when he was a goofy elementary school kid with too-big ears and a shy demeanor. He eventually grew out of both, and it's cool to see him at seventeen and doing quite well. Nevertheless, it's more than a little disconcerting that this much time has passed.

I went sea kayaking today at Turtle Beach, which is the south end of the otherwise very-prestigious Siesta Key in Sarasota. My friend Nick, who happens to be in between his second and third years at Georgetown Law, came down for a quick visit that fortunately overlapped with my brother's graduation.

Let me just say that I have a newfound love for kayaking. I want to do it all the time now. It might be the endorphins talking, but all that exercise was quite nice, and fresh sea air combined with the friendly rays of the sun really set the mood. I had a chance to clear my head of all the Indiana-related stress that was starting to overtake me, and I came away very refreshed, recharged . . .

. . . and sunburnt to hell. My legs in particular are burning with the heat of a thousand suns. It feels as thought I spent a few hours kneeling inside a fireplace. Fortunately, my mom has this spray that seems to ease the pain for a little while. I don't have a desk-like surface in my brother's bedroom, so my PowerBook is on my lap, and of course it's rather warm itself, and so it's kind of uncomfortable to be sitting here typing out a long overdue journal entry. But I'm a trooper and I've been playing through the pain.