Monday, March 1, 2010

2/28/2010

Long day today. We finally got the cover off, and she's starting to look like a boat again. Spent a lot of time on the paint float, got more harbor water on me than I like; c'est la vie. Twisted my ankle some, but tape and Ibuprofen should keep that under control. I'm sore and tired, and still absolutely thrilled.

I was pulling splinters out of my hands, and I got to thinking, this job is kind of like a splinter. You get it in and it digs deep. It pushes under your skin.

Sitting around the table, we talk about the long hours, the lack of time off, the low pay. We talk about how much we love it. People talk about going and getting other jobs, mostly on boats still. Tugboats are a popular choice, research vessels, fishery observers and other such things. They talk about going to do that to make money so they can afford to sail more.

You get this splinter under your skin and it doesn't let go. It absorbs into you; it becomes a part of you. I try to remember when I loved waiting tables, and I just can't. I can't remember wanting to be anywhere else.

So I pick the splinters out. I'm counting each one of them as a lesson learned. Perhaps I'm romanticizing again, and I'm certainly being pointlessly philosophical, but it just stuck in my head.

It was either this or the rant about the warning label on my shampoo... this seemed way more relevant.

1 comment:

  1. classic brendan right here, waxing poetic about splinters ;o)

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