My husband, Matt, entrusted me with a deeply personal secret that I am now sharing on the internet. (Never marry a writer, my little possums. That’s my best advice.) I knew that when he was a kid, maybe through high school, he fantasized about being a professional athlete. He figured out by the end of senior year (especially once his best friend started getting courted by universities for their football teams – and he was not) that wasn’t very realistic and let it go.

What I didn’t know was that he secretly dreamt of being a rock star in a band. When he went away to college, he got a guitar and tried to learn to play, picking away at the strings in his college dorm, a la Tom Morello. Only Tom Morello practiced four hours a day, which probably didn’t leave much time for classes. Matt went to all his classes. And he quickly learned that he hated playing guitar. Not just because it was hard, though that was true. He felt like the more he knew about playing guitar the less magical the music sounded, and he gave it up.

“That’s when I accepted that I was never going to be famous,” he told me in bed.

“I feel like I’m trying to accept that right now,” I said, lying on my side next to him.

We were having this conversation because Ethan, who is 11, is realizing the limits of his athleticism. Over the holidays, he discovered that his younger cousin is significantly faster than he is. He was frustrated, but mostly he was humiliated. He sobbed as he asked his dad never to tell his friends at school. His disappointment reminded me of so many similar moments of my childhood, but his tears pulverized my heart in a way I had never experienced before. It was the first time that I truly understood that the hardest part of parenting is not all of the things that you must do for your kids. It is all the things you cannot do for your kids.

As a parent, you can’t buy your kids the talents and abilities they desperately want, and there is only so much you can do to prepare them for disappointment. I don’t even know if I should try. I feel like I should encourage him to fight for his dreams, but then do I bite my tongue, only calculating the statistical chance of success in my head and not out loud? I remember telling my parents about a few ideas I had for careers only to have one or both of them tell me it was a bad idea. I told my mom I wanted to go into advertising because I was watching Who’s the Boss and I thought it was so cool that Angela, (a woman!), had a job and enough money to buy her own house. That wasn’t something I saw in my Mormon town. I’m not sure I knew what advertising executives did. “Oh, that’s really competitive,” my mom said, shaking her head. I didn’t know what that meant either, but I heard, “That’s not for you,” and I let it go. Later, I told my dad I wanted to be a veterinarian and he told me, “You wouldn’t be able to handle killing animals. Besides, you probably aren’t good enough at math for that.” Another time I said that I had figured out how to pay for college: I was going to do what my dad did and join the Navy. “NO.” They both said, in unison.

I had a poorly kept secret dream though. I’m sure they guessed, but I never told them; I was going to be a writer. I remember seeing a televised interview with Erma Bombeck, who was my favorite writer at the time. (I was a weird child.) I couldn’t believe how beautiful her house was. It was even better than Angela Bower’s. It was white with natural stone and this amazing red brick ceiling. I had always loved writing, but that sealed the deal for me. I was going to write, and I was going to make people laugh. And people would love what I wrote so much that they would throw money at me to keep my writing. I was going to be famous and well-read… and I was going to buy Erma Bombeck’s hacienda in Arizona.

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. At least I told myself that I knew that. Some part of me, however, never truly believed it would be hard for me. I had relatives on both sides of my family who were wildly accomplished and respected. I had an uncle who taught at Princeton and had published several books. My grandfather was a diplomat and lived in embassies around the world. I had another uncle who was so high in the CIA that he used to deliver security briefings to the president and once told me Henry Kissinger was an ass. (That was the implication, anyway… he was also Mormon. so he probably said, “poo head.”) I had yet another uncle who became the president of a university.

Back then I thought, “With my genes, I just need to pick my field and work hard!” Now I think, “Oh, it must have been nice to be a college-educated white man in the 50s and 60s. Most of the people in the U.S. weren’t even allowed to compete with you!” I remember hearing a story about a beef that my grandfather had with Teddy Kennedy. There was a diplomatic position that Grandpa wanted and everything was set for him to fill it. That was, until, Joe Kennedy decided that Teddy should have it and he pulled a few strings and Grandpa was reassigned. This was a world where my grandpa, a Mormon farmer from Idaho, could have any job he wanted unless one of Joe Kennedy’s kids wanted the same job.

When my grandfather was living in embassies in Africa and the Middle East in the 1960s, the world’s population was 3 billion. By the time I was a child dreamcasting my glorious adulthood in the 1980s, it was 4.5 billion. Now, as I write, we are about to hit 8 billion. I wasn’t thinking about the competition I might have to face as I lay in the grass in my backyard, dreamily rearranging furniture in Erma Bombeck’s sitting room, but I think about it a lot now. There are twice as many people on earth now than there were when I was a kid. And based on my rejection letters (which are plentiful) and the ghostly silent non-responses (which are countless) from the agents and publishers I have queried, all 4 billion of them are better writers than I am.

To be clear, fierce competition and lack of talent are not the only reasons I am not a professional writer. I have limited time to write, but I do have some time. Instead of using that time to write, however, I use that time daydreaming about what my life would look like as a successful writer. The backlash I might get from the organizations I have criticized in my well-circulated essays. Or the awards I might receive. Which theatres might want to produce my plays. If I might be allowed to record my own books, or if the publisher would insist on hiring a proper vocal talent. I also daydream about what I will write, once I am a good enough writer to write it. How to get from where I am now to “good enough” without writing instead of daydreaming about being a writer… I haven’t figured that out, yet.

A few years ago, I told a therapist about my daydreaming habit. “It doesn’t feel healthy,” I said. “Like, how am I supposed to get to a place where I like myself the way I am while constantly investing time in this imaginary avatar of who I wish I were?”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Every day, I dream about my acceptance speech that I would give at the Grammy’s. Don’t worry about it.”

I thought she was wrong, even at the time. I thought she was saying, “Don’t say this isn’t healthy, because I do it, too.” But I was seeing her primarily for alcohol abuse disorder; she was probably just saying, “THAT is not the unhealthy thing you need to stop doing, ya’ wino!” And yeah. Touché.

Sometime after that, I came across an essay by Brianna Wiest about self-care. The whole thing is amazing and I read it often; you can find it here.)

[True self-care] means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing… It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

That feels right. My dream about success is a dream about being exceptional. I want to be special and loved and remembered fondly and forever. It isn’t about simply living a good life by being authentic; it is about feeling deserving of a good life because I am exceptional. It comes from an imperfect messenger for me, because Brianna Wiest looks like a cover model for Elle and has published half a dozen best-selling books at what appears to be the age of 23. But when you are right, you’re right. I need to re-strategize. It’s past time. Torturing myself with this 30+-year-old fantasy is not self-care.

Then, last week, I watched a film on Netflix called Stutz, and I then I think I truly understood why hanging on to the daydream feels so unhealthy for me. It’s about a therapist named Phil Stutz. Stutz is interviewed by Jonah Hill, who is one of his clients. It isn’t a typical documentary, as some of it feels scripted and even cinematic. But it is clear that this man helped Hill and that he wants others to benefit from the concepts he learned in therapy.

One of the tools is called “The Perfect Snapshot,” or “The Realm of Illusion.” Here is how Stutz explains it to Hill in the film.

“It means that you are looking for a perfect experience. So, it could be the perfect wife. The perfect amount of money in the bank. The perfect movie. It doesn’t really matter, whatever it is, it doesn’t exist. It’s just an image in your own mind. Think about this: What is the nature of the snapshot? It has no movement, right? It’s still. And it has no depth. But in this case, you’ve taken this snapshot and you’ve crippled yourself with it. You fantasize. People tell themselves if they can enter that perfect world then magic will happen. But, you can’t forget there are three aspects of reality: the pain will never go away. Uncertainty will never go away. And there is no getting away from the need for constant work. Everybody has to live like that, no matter what.”

Then Hill relates that, due to hard work, privilege, and good luck, he was able to achieve his snapshot relatively early. But when it didn’t take away his painful insecurities, he settled into a deep depression. And I thought, “That’s it. That is what I’m doing to myself. That is why I have to stop.”

Clearly, I’ve been turning this over in my head for a long time. Suddenly, it feels urgent to get a handle on it. That, I know, is because of Ethan. It’s the fact that he is coming to that age where he is starting to look forward more and more and I can see those moments when he realizes that the person he wants to be might not be the person that he can be. It stings. It stings him, but it stings Matt and me as well. I want him to have realistic expectations and attainable goals. I want him to have the joy of achieving his dreams. I want to tell him, “Sweetpea, chances are that you are never going to be the best in the world at anything. But in my eyes, you are the best human that ever breathed air and all I want is for you to love yourself the way I do.”

As I meditate on that, I know I have never offered that kind of love and acceptance to myself. He doesn’t know that, I suppose. But it makes me feel like I am setting a poor example. I want to let go of the snapshot and dream attainable dreams. The problem is, I have been doing it so long that I don’t know how to stop. It seems even harder than giving up alcohol, which was fucking hard. Though, that said. I suppose I would do it the same way. Catch myself indulging in the thoughts (like cravings for wine) and do something to bring myself back to the present – be in the moment. One moment at a time. Maybe I could use that time to write blog posts. Or plays. Or I could go to the library and check out some books by Erma Bombeck; see if she is still as funny as I thought she was when I was Ethan’s age.

I was looking for some goofy socks for my nephew, who plays the trombone. I found these mislabeled ones on Amazon and had to take a screenshot to share with my sisters. I think the rest is self explanatory.

I didn’t end up buying them. Maybe I would have bought myself a pair if they had been as described. Then I saw this book, but by then it was after Christmas. Of course, it looks like one of a kind; not a “buy with one click” kind of deal. Maybe I’ll send my nephew the photo and ask him if he wants it for his birthday.

Over the weekend, I wished the bagger at our grocery store “Happy Holidays!” She responded with saccharine sweetness, “Happy Halloween!” As we pushed our laden cart away from her and toward the parking lot, I said to Matt, “I don’t understand what just happened, but I think I’m all for it.”

“I think,” he said, “she was passive/aggressively telling you to take your war on Christmas and shove it up your ass.”

“Because I said ‘Happy Holidays’?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe,” I said, secretly thinking Matt was being a paranoid liberal and a bit of a humbug. “But I’m still digging it.”

In my mind, ‘the holidays’ start with Mabon and end with Walpurgisnacht and Beltane (fall equinox through May 1st), so Halloween totally fits right in there. I have never heard anyone else make this argument, but I like to celebrate. Maybe we introverts don’t throw parties, but if a good celebration entails a book and a cup of tea, then why not include the entire couch-weather portion of the calendar in this ‘holidays’ thing? Also, I love a splash of Samhain in my Yule, as evidenced by my ‘Rudolph’ decoration.

Once we got home and were unloading our groceries, I had to admit that Matt was right. The person who crammed that produce under and around those canned goods was definitely operating from a place of malice and resentment.

You might think that harshed my holiday buzz, as if someone had drenched my glowing heart coals with icy-grey-puddle-sludge (which this person would certainly have poured into my reusable shopping bag if she’d had it handy). But no. I worked retail for a couple of years, and I experienced the lower ring of hell that is the furious week pre-Christmas shopping and the furiouser week of post-Christmas returns, and I get it.

I see you, lady! You may hate my inclusive-liberal-pagan sentiments, mirthfully throwing it in your face that you share oxygen with non-Christians, but that’s okay! We have more in common than we have in opposition, no matter how either of us feel about it.

So to that lady and to everyone else, I want to say, “Happy Solstice!” No matter your religion, in a few days, the North Pole will reach its furtherest tilt away from the sun on the Earth’s axis, and then it will begin to tilt back. The days will be longer and we will all get less grumpy (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) and that is something to celebrate. Curl up with a good book, binge some shows, or fill your home with people you love. Whatever you do, just be extra kind to the retail and shop folk. Even the grumpy resentful ones. They know not what they do.

This is, I realize, a PEAK Gen X nerd out, but… I follow Muppet History on Facebook. I just saw this post about Sweetums today. Sweetums was always one of my favorites and the reason I always preferred The Muppet Show to Sesame Street. (Sweetums but also the old guys (Statler and Waldorf), and the guy that shot fish out of cannons. And Pigs in Space. Actually nevermind, I loved all of it.)

Anyway, the post reminded me of a little vignette of a memory. The first time I saw The Muppet Movie as a child I was quite distressed when Sweetums got left behind. I was so upset about it I basically missed the rest of the movie, worrying about him. Spoiler Alert! He finally catches up at the end and it’s set up to be a funny moment because you were supposed to forget and then go, “Oh yeah, Sweetums!” But my reaction was more like, “Oh thank God! He’s okay!” I can practically see myself finally pushing back from the front inch of the couch and letting my little butt cheeks relax for the first time in 45 minutes.

In retrospect, I probably should have figured out earlier than my 30s that I have generalized anxiety disorder.

I was at an airport, and I overheard a video chat a young woman (mid- to late-twenties, I’m guessing) was having with a friend. She was loud and dramatic, which is why I heard as much of the conversation as I did. “I can’t even get into it right now. No one understands what kind of emotional pain I am in!”

There is a Tracey Ullman sketch where she is Angela Merkel and she is trying so hard not to roll her eyes that the rest of her body flips off the couch she is perched upon. I wasn’t about to flip off an airport chair, but I was in danger of giving myself an aneurysm. And that was BEFORE she said the next part.

She was lamenting the fact her father hadn’t bought her a house. Apparently, he was in the process of upgrading his own living situation by buying a new house and audaciously planned to live in it instead of giving it to her. She wasn’t just complaining, either. She was furious. She said something to the effect, “How dare he put himself before his own child! I mean, seriously?”

I was disgusted, which threw me into a panic. I am currently working on a major career shift, away from Corporate America and toward becoming a therapist. I’m nearly a year through my first year of grad school. “Now I remember that I hate people? NOW?”

I was still freaking out when I got on the plane. “Am I seriously going into debt and giving up all my free time for grad school so that I can help Twinkie-headed upper-middle-class Gen Z derps deal with the banal realities of gainful employment? For half the money that I am making today? What am I doing? Have I lost my mind?!”

I was obsessing about this – picturing myself Zooming a session from my office and being called “basic” by a nepo baby in a BTS T-shirt – and finally, after some box breathing, asked myself what I would do if she were my client. Seriously, this is a good exercise, I thought. What would I do? First, I would listen to her. Really listen, without judgment. Then, I would forget about the obnoxious details of the complaint and focus on what is at the heart of this issue for this person.

Once I posed the question, I found my answer pretty quickly. The more I explore the counseling arts and my own internal emotional landscape, the more I realize that I can usually figure out why I’m feeling what I’m feeling by applying a simple equation: find the difference between expectation and outcome, and that equals a feeling. A positive difference means a positive feeling. A negative difference results in a negative feeling.

That might seem obvious, especially in big situations. “I expected my outdoor wedding to be sunny and mild, but it rained and I fell in a mud puddle on my altar walk, and now I’m mortified and enraged and planning to sue the sky.” Or, “I was expecting a small tax refund, but I got ten large and I’m thrilled!” Sure. But it is more than that. It is everything. It’s expectations that you don’t even realize you have.

For example, I remember I was at a company party, and I told a joke that fell flat. Not only that, it offended a few people. And to compound this, people kept walking into the room and asking what we were talking about, and my coworkers made me tell the joke again, and again, until one more person walked in and I refused to repeat it and I went and hid in the bathroom. I felt embarrassed and inept and if it hadn’t been a Friday night, I probably would have called in sick the next day to avoid facing these people. Why did I feel so bad? Because I expected them to laugh, and that was not the outcome. I got something worse than laughter. I got crickets and judgment, and a self imposed “time-out” in the loo.

The young woman at the airport clearly expected more from her parents than she was getting. Her expectations didn’t seem reasonable to me as an outsider, but that isn’t the point. It would seem her parents did her a major disservice by not preparing her for adulthood if they left her with the expectation that things were always going to be easy and comfortable. Maybe they paid for everything and built the expectation that they always would. Maybe they never let her experience consequences for her choices, and she was completely unprepared to have to pay back her credit card loans and/or student loans, which got her into financial trouble. When parents don’t set realistic expectations to prepare their offspring for harsh realities, they set their kids up for pain and disappointment. I can empathize with that. What is more, I can work with that. THAT is fodder for a dozen therapy sessions.

It is possible that the best thing my parents did to prepare me for adulthood was send me out into the world with subterraneously low expectations of… well… just about everything. I knew I was on my own after 18, and I didn’t resent it. Even though I had friends whose parents paid their tuition and gave them cars and condos and an allowance through college, I wasn’t expecting help, so I wasn’t angry when I didn’t get it.

Now, I get that putting myself through college in the 90s was a much easier lift than it would be today. And I get the sense that the current social expectation is that you will help your kids with college, just as you are expected to clothe, feed, and shelter your children in their formative years, and also never send them into a coal mine to contribute to the family’s coffers. But if I were in a situation where I couldn’t help my child with tuition without endangering my retirement savings, I sure as hell would be making that clear to my kid so that they know not to rely entirely on my help. Then I would hand them a pamphlet on exciting careers in coal mining.

I do hate people. I hate the collective “people.” (In my defense, people are awful.) But I don’t hate persons. One at a time, I can always find some common ground with a person. Even with Gen Z persons.

At least, I hope so.

I’m slowly working my way through the challenges presented in the British reality TV series, “The Great Pottery Throwdown.” My friend and pottery studiomate, Stef, are calling it our Wee Pottery Throwdown.

The first challenge was five nesting bowls. That one took me several tries. I had to throw about ten bowls to get five that nested nicely.

The second challenge is a birdbath, and I had a false start with that one, also. I threw a large platter starting with five pounds of clay. I liked the shape I ended up with but I decided it wasn’t wide enough, and the sides were flatter than I intended. I was going for that classic wide bowl birdbath shape, like this one:

What I ended up with was definitely more of a plate. I decided to make a decorative wall hanging with a witchy steampunk energy.

I was really happy at how it turned out. It’s hanging on my wall now.

I have been back at the studio and I’m taking another crack (poor choice of words given the pottery context) at the birdbath challenge. I started with more clay this time, closer to ten pounds. I got the bowl shape I was aiming for!

This week I added fish for decorative effect. I’m hoping it will look nifty when it is full of water.

I used a fish mold that I found on Etsy. I think it’s supposed to be used to make resin jewelry or maybe for candy making. I got it to work with the porcelain clay, though. After some trial and error. Though, I still have some cleaning up to do before I fire.

Now I need to decide if I will throw a stand or buy a metal one and balance the bath on top. Then I’ll need to figure out how to glaze it! That’s assuming it survives the firing, of course.

Wish me luck!

I have always been introverted. In the past, I was able to build my extroverted muscles so that I could flex into that mode if it was required. After working from home for the better part of a decade compounded by the effects of a pandemic, those muscles have apparently atrophied. I took a personality test for work this week and my results showed that if I were any more introverted, I would be a mollusk.

I spent the work week at the corporate office, interacting with other humans. The point of the personality test was to give us some insights into our strengths and preferred communication styles. I’ve done this at past companies as well. It’s a thing.

I was reflecting on my score and the way I seem to have settled into my introverted tendencies over the past several years. At the same time, we were making some dinner plans. My boss’s boss made arrangements to take all of the out-of-town people to dinner two of the nights, but it seemed like everyone was begging off on the second night to do their own thing. It occurred to me that dinner might be a one-on-one meal with me and my boss’s boss and that made me uncomfortable. She’s lovely, but I can’t handle being responsible for 50% of the conversation with a person I don’t know well.

It occurred to me that this was a good thing, considering my personality test. It would be a good opportunity to rebuild some of that extroverted muscle mass. It was a rare chance to build a professional relationship with the head of the department. And aren’t I supposed to be interested in networking? I feel like the internet says I should be, even if I am not clamoring for a promotion or more responsibilities. I decided that if it ended up just being the two of us, I would go. I would be open and interested in getting to know her better. I would ask about her plans for the department and how I could play a role. I would “lean in” like it was Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 and not post-Covid’s 2023. I was going to go out and enjoy myself, even if it made me miserable.

Right about there in my thought process, my boss’s boss approached me and said, “looks like it is just you and me for dinner tonight. Should we cancel?”

“Yes,” I said reflexively without consideration, because that is what I always say if someone asks if I want to cancel.

Damn, I thought. So much for networking.

Maybe this is the real reason I don’t eat oysters. I’ve been telling myself that it’s a texture thing, but maybe I’m just too closely related to the little dudes. My introverted soul doesn’t want to consume the slimy booger fish; it just wants a shell of its own.

Matt and I went to the movies last weekend. I think that is the fourth time I have seen a movie in a theater since the beginning of the pandemic. I can’t blame Covid for that, entirely. I’ve reached that age where I can’t go that long without my bladder bursting, and I need a “pause” button so I don’t get confused. There was a time, however, when going to the movies was my favorite thing on the earth, and I got a tad nostalgic about it. I bought popcorn and a soda and I brought a blanket (because even though it is August, the frosty air conditioning makes me risk tearing nipple-sized holes in my tops) and I got comfy in my “luxury” reclining theater seat.

About an hour into the movie, a couple walked into the theater with their iPhone flashlights ripping holes in the dark. They stopped at our aisle and lit up our faces to tell us we were in their seats. We told them the movie started an hour ago and asked them to double-check the theater number for their showing. The dude seemed to take that under advisement, but the chick wasn’t having it. She told me to get out of her seat. I took the guy’s phone from him and pointed at the theater number on the electronic ticket, proving they were in the wrong theater. They left after that. The whole exchange lasted 90 seconds or so. I was annoyed but it was an honest (if dumb) mistake and I settled back in. I had just managed to reemerge myself in the story when I felt a tiny bonk on my lap. I brushed my hand over my blanket looking for what had hit me, but it was gone. A few minutes went by and then I felt another bonk. Then I knew it wasn’t a one-off; someone was throwing shit in the dark. I saw a little black dot cut across the screen and drop down in front of me hitting someone else. By the trajectory, I could tell the dick weasel who threw it was directly behind me, but there was no way to gauge what row they were in. I picked up my drink to take a sip of my soda and there was a bonk on my head. I had to fight the impulse to throw my soda up and back and just hope I hit the perpetrator, but that seemed like a long shot. I swore under my breath and Matt looked over, but I didn’t explain. The next time I was struck I considered standing up and yelling, but I didn’t want to ruin the movie for everyone. In the end, I just sat there stewing in anger and waiting for the movie to end.

Once it was over, I got up and looked around, but people were already streaming out, and again, there was simply no way to know who it was. Then I checked the floor around my seat. Gummy bears. Some asshat git-tard spent $15 to see a movie in the theater and throw gummy bears (which, if he bought them in the lobby, cost approximately $1 each) through the last twenty minutes of the show. Why? I was bewildered. It reminded me of the time I returned to my car after a bike ride in the canyons to find my tires had been slashed and my first thought was, “What is the point of that? That wouldn’t even make a satisfying ‘smash’ sound!”

We left the theater and I was so angry that when we got to the car I threw what was left of my soda as hard as I could, scattering ice in the parking lot. Matt gave me a hug which made me cry. “I spend so much time and energy trying to take up as little space as possible,” I said through my tears, as we got in the car, “because I don’t want to upset or disturb anyone, ever. And some people walk around intentionally harming people, for fun. What the actual fuck is that about?”

I’ve been trying to work on this tendency of mine and give myself permission to take up space, and it hasn’t been easy. I think that is why I liked that yoga class so much – the one I wrote about last week, with the monk who finds himself raging at the empty boat that had bumped into him on the lake – because I think I often ascribe intention where there is none. But you know what? Sometimes there is someone in the other boat. Sometimes people act with more than intention: sometimes they act with malice. There are people who would row out to the middle of a lake just to ruin a stranger’s day. Sometimes, there is a douche in that canoe.

I have calmed down now, but I’m not embarrassed that I got angry. Some human-shaped-shit-smear pelted me and the people around me (though somehow missed Matt every time) with candy for twenty minutes, using my need to preserve the fun of everyone else in the theater as leverage to keep me silent, just taking it, and they got their incomprehensible jollies off of it. Of course, I got angry!

However, I AM embarrassed about my last blog post. That is what I keep thinking about since leaving the movie. I thought I had this sweet little epiphany in the safety of a yoga studio, where everyone is on their best behavior and saying “namaste” in unison. I really want the boat to be empty; I want to live in a world where that boat is empty. But it often isn’t, and I feel like I was gaslighting myself by saying otherwise.

So, this is a follow-up to say, “Never mind.” The lesson isn’t, “Don’t get angry because no one means you any harm.” The lesson is, “Check the boat first, and if there is some fuck-wad ramming you with a smirk on their shitty face as they do it, take your oar and slap that bitch right into the lake.”

I probably shouldn’t be condoning violence, but hey. I never claimed to be a monk.