.juxtaposed.

Wow. This is going to be a very interesting post.

For starters, I'm on my roof.

Let that sink in for a minute. It's 12:00 AM. I live in an extremely small house with an extremely restrictive mother (sorry Mom, it's true sometimes) who happens to have freakishly good hearing. "How," you ask, "did you manage to get your self and your laptop up on the ROOF?", you might ask. Actually, "Why are you on the roof in the first place?!" is almost as valid a question. Both will be answered and more in the following paragraphs.

Really, my escape routine was simple. The hardest part - figuring out how to get out of the window in my room - is over. (The next-hardest part, figuring out how to get back in through said window, is coming up shortly, and I do hope that I'll be able to do it without much trouble; otherwise, I'll be in much trouble, and that is never good.)

My window is strange. Wait. No. My whole house is strange. It seems to have been constructed on a shoestring budget - almost literally. Seriously, it's made of some pretty non-standard components. My window is one such example. Instead of sliding up or down or across to open, it swings outward. It's got a little collapsible metal rod that you extend and push to swing the window away from the building and therefore open. My window is above my bed and about 4 1/2 - 5 feet from the ground.

I opened the window, removed the screen, and set it aside. Then, I lowered my backpack (which contained my laptop) to the ground below. After that, the next several minutes were spent with my 6'2" frame doing its best impression of a contortionist as I tried to find a way out the window that would neither hurt me nor make a slightly-above-soft noise and wake my mother. Eventually, it turned out that standing on my bed and from there, maneuvering into a sitting position with my legs dangling out the window was the best way to start things out. From there, I carefully turned myself around so that I would be hanging across the windowpane, with my head in my room and my feet near the ground. I slowly let myself down, ducked from under the open window, grabbed my backpack, and ascended the ladder that's up against my house for reasons such as this. :D

Now, why am I up here? That's a good question, and it's got a good answer.

There are several reasons as to my unusual location. I felt that a change of pace would be a good idea - I usually write from my desk, in my room. While that's an optimal spot for doing Many Things (up to and including blogging), well... it's just that being on your own roof at midnight whilst on your laptop is just so much cooler. Plus, the stars are out in full force right now, and that's always a cool view.

Also, I'm trying something. I'm doing a personal experiment. I won't mention a lot of the details here (and no asking me, 'cos I won't tell you), but I'm doing something along the lines of unplugging myself from my normal routine. If I feel the need to elaborate more on this plan later on, I will, but for the time being, I'll just leave it at that - I'm on a quest, as my friend David R. would say (and said many times, and refused to give me details about the nature of the quest just as many times).

Another very valid reason is that, in a fashion somewhat related to the aforementioned quest, I am experimenting with juxtaposing nature against technology (hence this post's title). Case in point - I'm sitting atop my roof admiring the stars while typing up a blog post on my laptop, which is connected to the internet. Let the irony sink in for a few minutes, if you please.

Oh... and there's always the reason of the fact that sneaking out of your house after dark to do anything is a rush. In fact, I've never done it before... and what better way to spend your first instance of sneaking out than doing something that you love to do (and that probably won't get you drunk / high / pregnant)?

Wow. This is turning out to be a lot more awesome than I had imagined it to be. So far, the only caveat is that my feet are growing cold. (I'm out here in jeans, a hoody, and bare feet, to make entering my room without getting dirt all over my bed that much easier.)

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In other news, today was just plain filled with epic win on most other fronts.

We stopped by Goodwill, and for $5 I got a sweet-action Haro BMX bike from the 80s with mostly original parts! The only thing that seems to be wrong with it is the fact that the handlebars are a bit stripped out. I'm going to try to fix it, but if I can't, I'll just pick up a replacement part. I might post a picture of it if I pretty it up a bit - it's a little beat up and has a very small amount of rust on it right now.

Also, I got The Gospel According To Larry by Janet Tashijan and The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I haven't really started on The House of Leaves yet, but I more or less read The Gospel According To Larry in one sitting, and I highly recommend it. Seriously - go get a copy and read it, NOW. I'd write more about it, but it'd ruin the story. Really though, it's an amazing piece of literature.

Well, my feet are about frozen off by now, so I'm going to end this and get some sleep (maybe). May the Force be with you all!

-K