institutionalized:

i realize i have been somewhat lax at keeping the dream alive with frequent updates.  mostly due to lack of interesting subject matter paired with some laziness.  there are many layers of change that happen when someone like myself finds themselves settling down, and it isn't as simple as i'd like to think.

for one, the more time goes by, and the more bits i chisel off my thickened exterior, the more issues i find that i hadn't known were there, and need dealing with.  and frankly its a new surprise every day, and sometimes caught off guard.  it's the little things- every single thing and the way i go about it that has been shaped by absolute necessity to a life offshore.  and it all is brought to my attention.

for one, i don't know how house plumbing works.  i have no idea.  there is no water pressure pump, there is no grey water tank.  there are no valves and no hoses that need frequent servicing.  you can't just lift up hatches in your bathroom or living room floor and have access to all that you need.  I can take a shower without running the sump.   I can take a shower without shammying the whole bathroom down afterwards.  I can take a shower with hot water.  I can take a shower while RUNNING water.  the whole TIME. 

apparently when you use the sink, it does something to the temperature of the shower water.  this notion is completely foreign to me, nor is it a part of my built in common sense.

i also lean against kitchen counters and especially the stove  there's usually three points of my person in contact with something solid if i can help it.  especially around knives, fire, and electric utensils.    marine ovens and ranges do not simply turn on with a push of a button.  first you flick the solenoid on the panel.  then you open the gas.  then you turn the knob on the range.  then you flick the lighter.  it's never an accident.  i've never accidentally turned the oven on.  half the time i can't get it lit on purpose.  and then there's the leaning.  and it doesn't just apply to the galley.  if i can wedge myself into a secure space just about anywhere i will.  and these fancy new house stoves have the ability to spontaneously ignite just by having someone lean against the knob directly on the front of the oven...  i need to look into setting a child safety lock for myself.

flushing toilets is another matter.  i will avoid going to the bathroom almost to the point of an emergency solely on account of not wanting to operate the skipper II head.  that thing is a total upper body workout no matter how you look at it.  i've been on land for two years now.  my brain still has a tiny celebration every time i just push a button and the toilet flushes automatically. 

what else?  oh.  sleep.  you know those nights when the wind is crapping out, you're downwind and there's a gigantic beam sea?  the starfish plus the one bent leg is in full effect, and you're mentally channeling your own center of gravity to your toes and fingertips so that you don't roll off the damn bed.  sure you've rigged the lee cloth but honestly- has anyone ever slept soundly against one of those?  nothing makes you feel more like a refugee than a lee cloth. 

and then it rains.  nobody ever sleeps when it's raining out.  is there a hatch left open?  i think i hear a drip.  where is it dripping from?  the mast boot seal is bad again, i bet.  curses.  nightmares of rotten deck wood and rotten mast partners and rotten covering board joints flood your mind with worry and all hope for a restful "cozy" night in is lost. 

but houses don't have lee cloths.  houses don't need lee cloths.  and houses don't have teak decks or hatches or ports or deck prisms or mast boots or any of these things.  but it's not your first instinct, and it isn't an instinct that others readily understand, or comprehend the place in your brain where its coming from.  except for those of us who are there now.  or once were. 

until you sit straight up at night in bed because you think you just heard the anchor dragging or think you've just smelt propane or heard a flare being fired, or the sickening sound of something very large, very strong exploding under heavy load- or the bilge alarm go off- or hell... just about any alarm- there's just no way to describe the tacit irregularities that cannot translate between the practicality offshore and the luxury of terra firma.  

hello, goodbye, and everything in between

  i've been sitting on some feelings and haven't really done anything about them for a long while.

broad street came and went, and although it was not a banner year, essentially, I ran an 87 minute ten mile race for something i did not train for.  and i wasn't even sore afterward.   and yes, i'm an asshole for this.  sorry. 

  i don't recommend this method, but i told myself at the start of the race that i had already done 16.2 miles, and i needed these next ten to just get me through to the finish.   there was discussion on the ride up among the usual suspects that none of us had decided to bust out a PR this year and that was that.  we had already given up.  i sortied to the start fashionably late for my impressively early gate assignment ... (which i had earned fair and square the previous year, mind you) and sloshed through the raining course, grabbed my metal and silently went with my buddies to the car to go home- all vowing to return the following year with a game plan and proper prior planning.

  it wasn't a bad winter.  in typical fashion, decided to winter at my usual haunt in Antigua with indeterminate plans to take up residence in Palma so Owen could be with his father on Lionheart- as Ayds and I were getting on unusually well, short lived as it was...  but as it was, the northeast United States was having a banner winter, so I decided to see where things lead on a different front, and enliven my weeks with someone unapologetically not a mariner and therefore a breath of fresh air to a drowning person.   I was surprised that it made even the least bit of sense honestly.  It wasn't my original designs, or even an idea i entertained in the back of my mind, but life often leads us to all the best places completely by chance... i've learned this enough to not ignore what will most potentially be an incredible thing.