I would love to blame stress for my latest episodes of embarrassingly stupid mistakes, and for a more than usual number of meltdowns and indefensible asshole-ness.

So, of course, I want to write about all of this. But first, Fat Boy kneeboard update: It was watching some YouTube videos of kneeboarders ripping on boards longer than the average from, you know, the past. Not re-explaining my board choice here, but I must mention that I would like to not have to wear swim fins. Anyway, these rippers are on, like, six foot instead of four-and-a-half foot boards. I want to rip. I want to turn off the top, do an actual cutback at, like, speed. Tough to do, though I try, on a big ass board. But, on an eight-ten fish… yeah! Or, yeah, hopefully.

Believing I have the knowledge if not the expertise, this based on having shaped and painted and glassed five or six boards back in the late 1960s, of having painted a blank someone else shaped and then glassed in the 70s, and doing one side of a board, like, ten years ago or so (before giving up, stacking it in the garage), of having watched at least five videos on glassing, I felt… I’ll be honest, worried sick about what would happen once I started pouring resin on my hand-shaped board.

I went to Admiral Ship Supply in Port Townsend and bought some (I would say invested in some if I were only a bit more confident of the results) supplies to complete the glassing portion of the project. Yes, I do realize I am a total kook every time I go into the place that caters to the alternate universe of the boatyard. Boat-yarders. Real boat-yarders. Yes, I did actually work on submarines and aircraft carriers, but this, this is different.

The knowledgeable staff at Admiral were helpful in my constant awareness that I was out of my depth. Kook. Ask a couple of stupid questions, and… “Um, uh, do you think epoxy resin will melt the paint?” “Definitely maybe. Did you do a test sample?” “Huh?”

Buoyed by another YouTube video in which an artist pours epoxy resin on acrylic paintings, I made the investment. Yes, investment, because rough or perfect (no way on that), I do plan on riding this board, Plan to ride, dream about ripping.

OKAY, so stress. Virginia Mason Medical Center’s computers were hacked early last week. Maybe you heard about it on the Seattle news. If so, you know as much as our daughter Dru knows, and she was supposed to start radiation this week. So, no. So, Dru is in the dark, depressed, ready to get beyond the treatment. Dru’s surgeon compared the radiation treatment to vacuuming up the little remnants of the cancer (and, as always, fuck a bunch of cancer). Meanwhile, Trish is hanging out at our daughter’s house, I go over once a week (even though it continues to be rare and unseasonal painting weather), and… did I mention stress?

It has not escaped my attention that I go on a bit. It isn’t as if I don’t have what YouTubers call ‘content.’ Plenty. SO, I won’t talk about how my super secret stealth cell phone device suddenly stopped working while I was talking and shopping at Costco last, or how frustrated I was to call the folks (no actual folks, many prompts), repeatedly, trying to figure out why in hell it wasn’t working when the money comes out automatically, AND, then I spent a couple of hours on the phone this morning before I gave up. From frustrated to surly. “Could you repeat that?” “No, I don’t know how to do a text without hanging up.” “Sim card?” Eventually, either they hung up on me or I pressed 6 instead of 7.

MEANWHILE, Trish bought one of those kind of phones old people are supposed to have. Big numbers. One button to push when you can’t get up. “Just like the one George has,” she said, “should be there (note ‘there’ rather than ‘here’) Tuesday. Okay?” OKAY, so I called to cancel the super secret stealth phone, ONLY TO DISCOVER… I don’t have unlimited minutes.

I have one thousand, and SOMEHOW, three days short of the refill date, I used them up.

FUTURE CONTENT will include updates on Stephen R. Davis’s battle with cancer (fuck cancer), the latest and quite-likely last piece I wrote for the Quilcene Community Center newsletter (I’m not quitting, the director is), some outtakes from “Swamis,” some reports on local spots not being blown up by me, and the very real possibility that rather than having something like an artistic temperament, or even behaving in what could be called a mercurial manner (doesn’t sound too horrible), Trish says, with evidence to back it up, I might be… it’ll wait, but I would like to say eccentric and gifted is one thing, being rude and not too bright is another.

I am trying to quit writing, but I was suddenly amused in thinking it is a political season; rude and not too bright doesn’t mean unelectable.