You know, I daydream about these "fussy" skills. My mind often wanders
to speculations of the processes - the shaped and fitted plank, the
steamed and hurriedly bent oaken rib, and perfect, waterproof seams,
all varnished reflective amber - by a brilliant and efficient
craftsman, namely me, the Master Boat-Builder. (Surely I'll need to buy
an adze and some tall boots!) But then into my dozing revery barges the
truth of my limitations, escorted by my wonderful wife who likes her
reality served cold, and her escapisms tainted with practicality,(Yes,
I probably owe her a great deal.) and an old wooden boat romancing me
from a cow pasture toward untold adventure and unprecedented self
congratulation suddenly morphs into an horrific pain-in-the-ass,
rotting eyesore embarrassment that I can't look at anymore so I avoid
the back yard and the neighbours have used as a catalist with which to
lower their opinion about my judgement and my kids are all grown and
moved away by now anyway and are waterskiing behind a nicer boat that
they like to point out has never been weed-eaten around - ever...(sigh)
....and that is my real dilemma