Sovereign Nations

It’s less than 3 weeks until I go under the clippers!

I’m excited, not nervous at all.  That shows my privilege, of course.  I’m not losing my hair to cancer treatments.  I don’t have to deal with the sense of powerlessness along with the feeling of air on my scalp.  And of course, it’ll grow back.

I’m getting a lot of kick-back on this…it’s amazing to me how much.  I interviewed for a job and was told that it was terribly unprofessional to shave my head bald.  The owner of the sailing club I was (yes, was) working for said, “Parents won’t trust their children to the club,” and “You’ll have to wear hats at work.”  I’m more determined than ever to go through with this.

The other not-so-great area is in the fundraising.  I’ve gotten some very surprising donations and I’m excited about every bit of it.  But I’m way behind my goal and would need some hefty figures to reach it.  Or a lot of little ones.  Hey - you know the math - every little bit helps if everyone gives a little.  A little or a lot - either way I’ll be thrilled.

For a lot of people, times are hard and charity is last in line for financial priorities.  Most of my friends, however, have been struggling most of their lives.  It always seems like $20 is a significant amount of money.  It is, and yet I’m still asking for it.

If you’re not comfortable giving the organization your personal information, I get that.  I don’t like being on mailing lists either.  There’s an alternative - send me the money on paypal and I’ll pass it along.  I can use your name or I can put it in as anonymous, whichever you prefer.  If that sounds good, send it to me under the email address dena@svsapien.net.

I’ve never done anything like this before, and I won’t be doing anything like this again.  Asking for money isn’t a comfortable thing for me.  So if you have any thought like “I’ll contribute next time”…please do it now.

https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/participantid/364043

I know, it doesn’t sound much like what the newspapers are saying, but I’ve always enjoyed bucking a trend.

We keep going through these cycles of stagnation and action, over and over again.  We race through the cycle compared to most people, because stagnation isn’t really an option for us.  There is a point in the cycle, however, that is stressful and exciting and irritating and labor-intensive, all at the same time.

We’re there.  Right now.  Or maybe one small step past that point.

I’m talking about the point where we’re resolved to settle some short-term questions and knuckle down for a while.  Where we’re open to opportunity and keeping our options open, but seeking the best path forward with an eye to following it.

Moving to Baltimore was a direct result of tearing ourselves out of a stagnant period - back from India and depressed about it, back on a boat and happy about it, working for West Marine and depressed about it.  The bottom line was unhappiness with Norfolk/Hampton, with the driving, with the bosses, with the expenses.  When the census applications showed signs of fruit, we did what it took to make it happen.

Now here we are.  My job pays pretty well.  We more-or-less like our new neighborhood, though the ubiquitous dog shit is a real irritant.

We moved onto the dock for Getaway Sailing and immediately got wrapped up in figuring out whether or not we’d be able to adopt the company and make ourselves happy there.  That answer was not slow in coming.  For financial reasons, for business-style reasons, the answer was no.  However…

Getaway was for sale and a new owner with an influx of energy and money would change everything.

Meanwhile back at the ranch…

Carefree, the boat club James had been dockmaster for in Hampton, has locations up here.  As a franchise, the various locations have individual owners and James had conversations coming from all directions.  He started juggling opportunities.  One owner dabbled in the idea of buying Getaway and having James run it.  Another took James on a tour of his locations and introduced him around the organization.  Wined and dined (or beered and dined, I guess), James kept an eye on the possibilities and the complicated geometry of which had the best combined experience of boss, boats, job, environment, etc, etc, etc…

And I was working on the books for Getaway.  And talking to parties interested in buying.  I imagined an Office Manager/Bookkeeper position that also did business development.  James imagined a Dockmaster position that ran the fleet and facilities with a good dose of storytelling and community-building.  But it wasn’t moving fast enough and the pressures to decide were getting stronger.

So James accepted a job in Edgewater, MD.  This job lacks opportunities for me and means an hour-long commute to the census building.  It’s well-supported with a great mechanic staff, plenty of dockhands, a dynamic boss…sounding good.  I could look for work in Annapolis and reduce my commute to a biking distance…maybe.  It’s a short-term irritant with some long-term potential.  However - it’s motor city…not a single sailboat in the club location.

This decision didn’t do it.  It didn’t settle in and become our new direction.  It felt temporary, conditional.  We discussed, again and again, what we would want, how we could be convinced to stay with Getaway.  We wondered, again and again, what kind of person the new owner would be, whether or not the interested party was going to move forward and buy.
To confound the issue just a bit more, I got “shortlisted” for Quality Inspector at the census job.  Suddenly, I’m looking at a couple dollars an hour more, plus the benefits that I’m not getting as a team lead.
Will Getaway sell?  Will we dedicate ourselves to resurrecting and succeeding with Getaway under its new owner?  Will I get the QI job?  Will James work for Carefree again?  Why do we feel in flux if we’re on a path to Edgewater?
So.  Last night, James and I were fifteen hours away from sailing.  We were going to move south, a six-hour adventure with a new set of photos to be taken, a new set of restaurants and grocery stores to explore, new people and work.  The taste of adventure was on my tongue.  On the other hand, once we arrived, we would be hours from good sailing - too far up the South River to reach the Bay on a casual evening sail.  Another summer of rarely sailing doesn’t sound so good.  We looked at one another and said it again - we were off for a new adventure.
Or were we?  Just before this moment, we had finally discussed possible employment with the very serious prospective buyer of the Getaway Sailing club.  He offered us both jobs but not at the pay we wanted.  We had to think.

A good-money job on a government contract.  A promotion and raise on that same contract.  A waterfront office job and inundation in the Baltimore boating community.

A dockmaster here, a dockmaster there.  A powerboat fleet, a sailboat fleet.  A rural or city environment.

If you’re reading this because you know me or because you know James, I’d like to know what you think we did.  Did we go with the sure-thing jobs?  Dive into the most accessible adventure and sail to Edgewater, dedicating ourselves to that version of the next year or so?

Well?

Here’s what we did.  We wrote a letter.  A pretty damn good one, if I do say so myself.  In no uncertain terms, we told the prospective buyer of Getaway Sailing what we were worth and what we wanted to do.  We told this poor man that we had to know before 9am this morning, Sunday morning, whether or not he was going to employ James.  He gets a little leeway on negotiating with me because I can give notice anytime.  But if he didn’t say what we wanted to hear, right now, we would sail off into the sunrise.  So call as soon as you get this.

When I called him to ask him to check his email, I went straight to voicemail.  When I looked at James after leaving the message, we shared a wide-eyed moment of floating hopes and expectations.  Would he get the email?  Would he agree to our terms?  What if he backs out of buying the business?  Can we put off a sure thing for a more exciting maybe?

Would we sail away or would we stay?

He called at 8:49pm.

We’re still in Canton.

I forgot to do a “we are here” post when we arrived in Baltimore, but here it is:

We are at the end of the small dock that has no boats shown.  The image was taken in 2007, and there are boats on the whole dock now.  I like it on this dock, though the red coloring on the floats gets on the boat…

One of the things I like about me (yes, it is going to be that kind of post) is that I get to stick to my principles and be pretty damn comfortable at the same time.

Because my first principle is flexibility.

I believe quite strongly that adapting to my situation is not just smart - it’s a necessity for happiness, safety, and, yes, comfort.

I bought an electric blanket.

Now, this might not seem to you a large thing, but I believe quite strongly that it is possible for me to live within my ability to create electricity. My boat has a wind generator (howling in these 45 knot gusts), two solar panels that are hooked up, and one that is not. Once I get the mount built for the third solar panel, I will be able to function in anything short of still gloom.

Or so I thought. Now I realize that there’s a new need in my life, and that need is for an electric blanket. It’s my own fault - I moved north in December, entered the Baltimore life in the middle of snow, and thought that we’d be able to stay warm by cuddling.

This morning, I woke up, sated with sleep, stretching my comfortable limbs and marveling at the fact that my hips didn’t ache. It was the electric blanket, for sure, because there was no portlight on my boat that wasn’t, literally, covered in a sheet of ice - on the inside. The sides of the trunkhouse were icy (and are still wet).

Last year, James and I returned from India on February 4th. We moved aboard our new boat a week later, and only a week after that, a cold snap hit. One night, we tried to go to bed and our sheets were frozen to the hull. That is not acceptable.

So, my belief in avoiding non-renewable energy whenever possible has bowed to my belief that pragmatic flexibility is first. Take care of now; plan for later.

Before another winter, I will have more natural sources of power available (at least that last solar panel). I will also have a method for distributing the heat created by my wonderful propane heater and a system for keeping spare tanks of propane full and at the ready.

I will adapt and always, always, I will head to a way, a place in my life, a road I can follow that will bring me into line with as many of my principles as possible.

The good life is self-respect, and I’ll have to strive to meet my own goals in order to respect myself. But in the meantime…

I love my electric blanket.

I have three full days of work under my belt, 4pm to 12:30am. I’m working for the Census – well, I’m working for the Bureau of the Census’ contractor (Lockheed Martin), or for their sub-contractor (CSC – Computer Sciences Corporation). Something like that. So, I’m a government contractor working at the Baltimore Data Capture Center.

As such, three days of work means no work at all. I have been in training, and my training is yet to be completed. The training before I get trained on the work itself, I mean.

We spent 4 hours the first day in Orientation. I found out about the origins of IBM in a contest for census employees and how many people don’t know that the census is constitutionally mandated in order to determine representation in the House.

Then it was 2 hours of Diversity (yes, with a capital D) and 2 hours on ADA. By the end of the first day, I knew the names of many of my co-team leads (that’s my job title) and I knew that the training sub-sub-contractor has some pretty good materials and trainers. I didn’t learn much about diversity or working with differently-abled people and people with disabilities.

Oh, wait. That’s not true. I learned about the diversity among my peers on subjects like cross-dressing and gayness. Many (happily, or I would have had a much harder evening) are live-and-let-live types. But there is the moment when the pins-and-needles of preparing to defend myself and others turns to the sinking quagmire of the “too much” argument.

The dress policy calls for casual clothing with no logos, symbols, words, or pictures that can offend. Easy enough, and the exercises exploring this all referenced overtly Christian symbols. But one exercise had a person coming to you because he didn’t want to work with a coworker who is lesbian and wears a locket with a photo of her partner. A locket. The group agreed that he was in the wrong, but it’s always in the chatter that things get sticky. “It’s not like it was a photo everyone could see.” “As long as she isn’t always talking about her partner.”

Okay, people. You’re not being on my side, and you think you are. Diversity training is good, but people often think of themselves as open even in the same moment that they’re trying to push someone in a closet.

Wonderfully for me, the trainer picked up the argument on the side of removing double standards. Anything it would be okay for a straight person to say about their loved one is okay for a queer person to say. And contrarily, anything not okay to say, dot dot dot.

The hardest thing in these conversations is avoiding the golden rule. It’s so natural to appeal to someone’s sense of fair play by asking “Wouldn’t you be insulted if you tried to talk about a dinner party you threw and someone told you it was inappropriate to go into personal detail?” But so often you get a response that sounds something like this: “I wouldn’t, I’m a very private person.” Well, whether that’s a mistaken self-perception or not, the rule cannot be made to conform to any individual person’s comfort levels.

I feel completely comfortable talking about sex. I did it for years in the sex toy business and I feel strongly that a person’s sex life should fulfill their needs, however hungry or austere those may be, and that I might be able to help people by talking to them about those needs, their attitudes, their partners, their techniques. I really wish that I could go with the golden rule on that stuff, but I can’t.

Similarly, I wish I could ban all conversation about children. It bores me at best and, at worst, I feel put in a tough spot of being perceived as abnormal, unnatural, unwomanly, or incomprehensible.

Through my own experience, I’ve come to see the wisdom of a professional demeanor and the slight distance it gives you from other workers. If I don’t like you enough to want you as a friend, why would I need to disclose things that you don’t need to know?

There will be some people who will hear when I get a kitten. Others will not. If James and I have a fight before I go to work, it is incredibly unlikely that anyone will know. I do not share some things and I do share others.

And it’s not a matter of being in the closet or out of the closet. It’s topicality. And the requirements of the moment. And…

Okay – that was a long side road. Back on topic.

What was the topic? Oh, yeah, my first three days of work.

Day 2 was devoted to Getting the Best from Employees, where we found out our personality types and learned to stereotype others (diversity training?), and another one…wait…nope, can’t remember what it was. And this was the day I enjoyed best so far.

Day 3 was violence and difficult situations. Although I controlled myself well and didn’t actually engage in either myself. Neither presenter knew their material, giving utterly inept and/or incorrect readings of charts, failing to mention or emphasize main points in some sections, etc, etc.

In learning about violence in the workplace, we were told that women shouldn’t engage and that large men should. Thereby shaming them into making bad decisions? I hope not. Also, this guy is telling a story to illustrate the difference between being argumentative as a personality trait and the sort of argumentative that is a warning sign of possible violent situation escalation. He explains that his friend is a Moroccan Jew – as though that explains why she is argumentative! Stereotyping, anyone? (Though I didn’t even know about that one…) Also, he had a terrible way of disagreeing with people. I think someone, some time, told him that he came across too aggressively in correcting people. His answer is to try and sound like he’s joking, but wow – that make it sound like he’s mocking people for misunderstanding. It’s especially off-putting when he is the one who misunderstood, as happened several times.

Ugh. I seem to be in rant mode right now. Let me refocus again.

I’m getting along with the other team leads pretty well. I didn’t expect to find a new best friend, and I think I’m right in that, but I like and enjoy many of them. I keep hearing about how much fun we’ll be having and I’m starting to get an idea of what that means.

My assumptions involved unrelenting repetitive work, but it seems that many departments stop their workers and have them stand and shake it out periodically. There’s a camaraderie being expressed that I hadn’t expected, and a respect for and trust in the Functional Managers (who directly supervise Team Leaders like us) that gives me strong hope for the operations.

There’s also a person in charge of morale. She arranges parties, provides rewards, and gets people riled up for incentives. There’s a ton of work to do, but they talk about pizza parties and cake breaks and potlucks as though they are regular parts of the job.

It’ll be a while before I’ve experienced enough of this to report back. I’m really looking forward to the operational training – learning to do the jobs I’ll supervise, finding and demonstrating my areas of excellence. There’s a particular job that pays more than the rest, and I can’t help but hope that I am great at that one, but I respect the job assignment process.

We will learn every single task and figure out what we’re good at and enjoy. We’ll also figure out which Functional Managers have the most comfortable ways about them. The assignments will be a combination of Functional Managers requesting us and us requesting them (with them as decisionmakers of course, but what process is perfect?), and the hope is that the assessment of strengths will match.

I’ll put my first guesses here and compare later:

I think I’ll like Sorter and Edits. I think I’ll be good at Check-in, Sorter, Imaging, Key from Image, and Edits. I think I’ll do worst at Transcription (I cramp up with large amounts of hand-writing) and Document Prep. Okay, maybe I won’t do poorly at Doc Prep, but it’s the one area that sounds like a drag to me.

Any bets?

We beat the bad weather into Baltimore!  My last post was titled Bad Weather Fore and Aft because we’re supposed to be getting ice pellets and rain for the next two days.  We pushed ourselves to do slightly longer days (though we ended up kicking ass and arriving in good time) in order to be tucked into our new slip before the second round boxed our ears.

So…the last I wrote was that we’d left Reedville and arrived in Solomons.  And the showers really were nice.  The rest of the visit was, well, expensive.

The first thing I did was pay for fuel and moorage.  We put 14 gallons in the tank, which means that our Yanmar 3GM runs quite, quite economically.  And in the office, the woman working the desk, Sam, asked the manager what to charge us.  They gave us a two-night special rate - the super-off-season-snow-on-the-dock-almost-xmas-rate - and still our bill came to $140.  Gulp.  We’d planned to anchor out more than tie up, but with the cold, it’s really nice to have the electric heater in addition to the propane one.  Plus, we needed showers!

The second thing I did was call my new employers.  It worked out better to do my paperwork Tuesday - after Solomons, we wouldn’t have access to a rental car company - and they accommodated the scheduling change.  Thanks!

Third, arranging the rental car.  Enterprise would pick us up at 0900 and everything would work out fine.

Except that the Enterprise guy called at 0830 because the reservation was incomplete.  And we found the sticking point - they won’t allow rentals to be held by debit cards.  Grrrrrr.  All the plans fell through, and I had to be in Baltimore at 1300.

I rushed to the marina office and tried to bribe Sam into loaning me her car for the trip.  No go - she had an eye appointment (or said she did so I wouldn’t push the issue).  The only other person working had driven to work, yes, but there was no way I’d be taking his ride.  It was a Kawasaki dirt bike and - uh - no.

She did offer me the phone book, which I accepted with as much grace as possible.  To make a frustrating story short, Hertz agreed to rent to me based on a debit card, but they didn’t do pickup.  Sam offered to take us over there, which was really nice of her - thanks, Sam!  It was especially nice since, on the other side of the rental, we had to get a cab and the cost was $25.  Whew.

With a rental car under my ass and the borrowed Garmin 478 (combo marine/automotive GPS) on the dash, I sped up hill, over dale, to Baltimore, where I spent 32 minutes taking care of business.  That was a very expensive half hour - the total price of car, fuel, cab, extra day’s moorage…about $200.  That’s the worst negative income I’ve ever had for attending a required work function, and it doesn’t even include the 5 hours I spent on the project.

Sigh.  But the figures will be positive starting on Monday.  Or more precisely, on the 8th, when I get my first paycheck.

James had spent the day working on photos, doing internet stuff, and downloading movies.  I was impressed, as always with his shots…

We filled the propane tank and bought a bottle of Myers rum.  The lady gave us a couple travel bottles - tequila and whisky - how sweet!

The next morning, we were off the dock by 0715.  We’d improved our time by 45 minutes since the beginning of the trip, since we’d gotten used to the morning routine.  And oh, the sunrise pictures!

From Solomons, we pushed it hard to reach Galesville and succeeded handily.  The entrance was longer than I’d expected and I brought the main down earlier than needs be.  Oh, well - it was another smooth day, really.  I left a message for the owner of the fuel dock we tied up at, but we didn’t hear anything from them.  Score!  A shot of rum each to toast our innards and we went out for dinner to celebrate.  We made an early night of it.

The next morning was cold as usual, but beautifully clear.  Oops, clear and still.  We were off the dock at 0700 that time into a glass river snaking from Galesville into the bay.  Excitement bubbled in us and I made James laugh out loud with my keep-warm-and-celebrate dance in the cockpit.

We knew we’d be in Baltimore at the end of the day and I enjoyed the trip quite to the limit.  Every landmark and watermark was a new thrill.  We passed the Thomas Point Light…

…a strange facility not on any charts we had…

…a lighthouse…

…a couple of bridges…

…and a cement factory that meant we were almost there…

And then we were here.  We tied up on the fuel dock long enough to not-reach Dick Mead, the owner of Getaway Sailing, before we moved the boat to our new slip.  I’m quite, quite happy with it, and amused by the Safeway just behind us.  There’s a West Marine that’s as close as the bathrooms on the dock in Blaine, WA.  And we have free memberships to the great gym up at the main building.

Sigh.

It’s an adventure over, and another begun.  We manage to make crazy shit happen, so though this leg is complete, stay tuned…

When last we wrote, the snow was beginning to fall across our lovely floating home.  Since then, we’ve had drifts and ice-pack, washed her down in saltwater to break up the chunks, and failed, yes failed, to shower.

Reedville was somewhat inviting.  The first walk we made was for dinner - the broken propane fitting pushed us off the semi-cozy boat and into a much cozier fireplace-front seat at the restaurant.  Well-prepared food and a very nice staff, the place is called Tommy’s and yes it’s the only restaurant in town.  I recommend it if your purse-strings are loose - we swallowed hard and realized that we were in trouble but in the end, a meal well worth it .

See, we were at the only food-serving establishment within walking distance.  We could do sandwiches, sure, but we hadn’t stocked enough bread for days on end of that.

And the other piece of bad news - the marina’s showers are in the marina’s bathrooms.  Now, I am very thankful that the water was not turned off in those bathrooms, because I don’t like using the boat head for solid waste (like the euphemism?).  However, these bathrooms are unheated.  With concrete floors.  There was nothing - not an itch nor an odor - that could induce me to step out of my clothing, put bare feet on sub-freezing concrete, and take a lukewarm shower.

It was all about the whore-bath.

Anyway, we spend our first night at Reedville Marina with our brows raised - the wind made us keep our eyes on our electrical multimeter.  The wind generator kept the battery just…barely…under the danger high voltage range.  The propane cabin heater (Sig Marine Cozy Cabin, in case you’re interested) did a fabulous job of pumping heat into our environment.  The propane heater really piles the warmth up at the top of the cabin, and it spreads downward from there, so it takes a little while for the cabin to really feel warm to someone sitting on the berth.

Next day we made coffee (I’m so glad we had electricity, or we would have been completely out of luck for that!) and decided that we would go on a photo expedition just as the sun was coming up over the rolling hills of snow.  We had six inches of snow on the boat and thanked each other for deciding to put the sailcover on.

Reedville is beautiful in white, with some of the houses looking like they were meant to be under snow and others looking forlornly toward summer breezes from their buried rocking chairs.

We got some nice shots (check out the slideshow), especially at the Reedville Fisherman’s Museum.  We didn’t go in - they weren’t open so early - but the outdoor exhibits include a hand-build John Smith adventure boat, old-fashioned fishing boats, the skipjack Claud W. Somers, and random nautical debris, including a charming pile of oyster shells.

We also discovered that - lo and behold - the people at Tommy’s weren’t lying.  There was no other option for food.

Another thing we saw as we strolled and slid along the middle of the road (the sidewalks being narrowly and spottily snowshoveled and the cruising guide having said that cruisers were known by that tendency) was a Festival Hall.  The board out front advertised the following:

“The Reedville Festival Chorale presents 2009 Christmas Concert”

The date?  Same day!  Yowza - it’s been years since I’ve gone to anything of the sort…I’m snowed and blown in…let’s go!

We got back to the boat and did the aforementioned salt-watering of the decks.  James kept going after I was done in, and he cleared the decks of snow completely!

And what’s really great?  Only an hour or so later, we got a visit from a salty guy named Walt.  He had stopped by and talked with James - gotten a little of our story and why we were there at such an ill-chosen time, being the middle of the first solid freeze of the year.  On this visit, he invited us to attend the concert and then to go with him and his wife to his house…for a hot meal.

Yes!

I mean, yes, please and thank you.

The Chorale was everything I’d hoped for.  It was people in the community singing together.  I even had a terrible moment of sympathy.  The pianist was wonderful - she obviously plays a lot, has a good relationship with the keyboard.  And I’m not going to put her name in here, in case she googles herself some day.  I don’t want this to hurt her feelings, but I have to put it in here anyway…because I felt her pain! I wasn’t watching in the moment, but here’s what I think happened.  I think she turned two pages at once.  What I know is that the soloist was soloing in French, quite the achievement of the event, when suddenly the only accompaniment - the piano - was not playing the song she was singing.  And of course, it was a christmas song and everyone knows how those go.  There was no pretending it was a “modern” interpretation or something.

A cold wave of heavy fog flowed across my forehead and into my neck and down from my shoulders to my hands and my breath caught in my throat.  Can you imagine?  I had such a visceral experience of that simple mistake that my fingers clenched.  The pianist did a far better job than I did - with one hand, she kept playing what she could and the other hand found the right page.  I can’t say her hands were steady, they shook for certain, but she picked up the song and played!  She played the rest of that song and the rest of the evening with energy and surety.  Bravo!
Mary and Walt didn’t rush us out afterward - we were able to mingle a bit, get some punch, talk a little.  The marina’s owner was there.  He was sitting next to me during the singing.  After a little time, we rounded ourselves up and Walt brought the car around.

At their house, we had a lovely conversation about sailing, organs and player pianos, sailing, the finite number of unique plots, sailing, celestial navigation, sailing, sailing.  They have a Westsail 32 and have traveled south in her - ah, to be going south!  We spoke of the cold and drank rum in front of the warm raging fireplace.

The other guests were a couple, also sailors.  The man had captained the skipjack at the museum for a decade - he told stories about races on the John Smith adventure boat, too.  The big score of the night (besides the great company, hot fire, good food, and sipping rum) was due to their friendship with yet another person - the owner of the marina on the Little Wicomico (weh-calm-ick-o).  He had our propane part!  And they drove us out to another warm living room with more wonderful people.

By the time they dropped us off at the marina we were buzzing on a few different levels and as we settled in on our Sovereign Nation we both came to the conclusion that what we had just experienced was nothing less than a beautifully perfect definition of the word “civilization”…

Ah.

And then the next morning, we made an early start.  It was forecasted to be 26 degrees at the time we left, and I’m certain it wasn’t more than that.  We motored out of the channel, slowing for a couple great shots (again, see slideshow), and then raised sail and started north again.  It was a long, plain day of cold, cold sailing.  Yep.

On arrival at Spring Cove Marina, we got the best welcome - a bundled dock guy wide-eyed and willing to let us stay anywhere we liked.  We just kept her there on the fuel dock, since it was the only part of the pier cleared of snow, and settled in…

Oh, and the showers.  Oh yeah.  Hot, hot showers for hours.

We thought we’d be gone today, but a couple of not-quite-cleaned-up projects and some small-craft-advisory weather brought us to the decision that we would leave tomorrow.  There’s a weather system taking over the bay - it’s moving in today at the tune of 25 knot winds with gusts to 30, but it’ll hang out for a week with 10-15 knot winds.  And that’s what I like, for sure.

Of course, the real problem isn’t 25-30 knot winds - it’s that those winds are coming from our destination and so we have to beat into them in order to get where we want to go.  We wouldn’t make good progress today in the head wind and the chop, so there it is…we wait.

Tomorrow, we’ll have the same wind but less of it and very little chop.  I’m hoping that our lovely sailboat will slip right on through the water and bring us to a safe harbor on the Eastern Shore (as far north on that shore as possible…) for the night.  At which point…

We will be able to warm ourselves with our Cozy Cabin propane heater!  I’m so excited about this - it’s real independence in an area where sleeping would be difficult due to cold.  Makes me hurt for homeless people, it does.

Hopefully James will be able to upload some photos of our improved main cabin with its beautiful new appliance.

So wish us a good time.  Fair winds and following seas is the usual wish, but we’ve already put that wish away…

We’re moving to Baltimore (which I persist in mistyping as Balitmore), and I started looking for moorage today.  I found a neat-o place that could be perfect for us.  This is the letter I sent the owner and president, Dick Mead.  Would you hire us?

Hello Mr. Mead,

My name is Dena Hankins and my husband is James Lane.  I left a phone message for you moments ago, but went to your website right afterward. I think we could be a great addition both to your marina and your staff.

Let me introduce us a bit.  James and I bought and moved aboard our first boat in 1999, in Seattle, WA.  She was a 50′ Seawolf ketch, a William Garden design, done in mahogany on oak.  We tore the deck off and replaced it right away, then brought the rest of it into condition to sail up through the San Juan Islands, into southern B.C., and then slowly down the West Coast.  Once we reached the San Francisco Bay, we sold her and bought a Gulf 32, a pilothouse sloop that was also designed by Garden, but done in fiberglass.  That sturdy, comfortable boat took us up the Sacramento River Delta, down to Monterrey, CA, and, in 2006, all the way to Hawaii.  Great boat!

We sold that boat in Hawaii and moved to India for a while.  Boating wouldn’t let go of us, though, and we moved back to the US and bought our current boat, a Phillip Rhodes designed 32′ Chesapeake sloop, also fiberglass.  We’ve redone the electrical system, the plumbing, the propane system, and redesigned the interior.  We’re skilled and confident sailboat mechanics for all systems, and not only because of the work we’ve done on our own boats.

James has been the woodworker for a high-end resort in Birch Bay, WA, and a fleet mechanic for a sailboat club in Oakland, CA.  He is currently the dockmaster for the Salt Ponds, Hampton location of the Carefree Boat Club.  I am the assistant dockmaster.  There are seven vessels in our fleet ranging from a Formula 37 to a Catalina 25.  We have done preventative maintenance, improved systems, fixed items broken by members, and kept all of the boats looking great for the members and for prospective members.  We also perform all of the check-out and check-in customer service and make sure that the members have an easy and enjoyable experience every time.  James is the club’s sail trainer, and both of us are perfectly able to handle sailboats up to 50′ in length.

Now, I have been hired on a temporary basis to process Census forms and will be working second shift, which starts at 4pm.  This job is bringing us up to Baltimore, and when I called, it was to inquire about slip rental.  Now that I’ve seen your club’s website, though, I believe that we could have a much better relationship than simply renting a slip.

Once we arrive in Baltimore, on or around December 23rd, James will be available for full time work as the Getaway Sailing Sailboat Mechanic.  I will be available for part time work at the same time, and then for more work once the census job ends (somewhere between April and July). If we live on the dock and work for Getaway Sailing, we could work out a compensation package that eases the tax burden on both of us while giving you the workers you need and giving us moorage.

Please let me know how this sounds to you.  If you are not hiring for sailboat mechanics until later in the spring, I would like to talk about moorage regardless and we can discuss the job when you are ready.  However, if you want reliable, expert help in making sure that all of the sailboats are in safe, working, and good-looking shape before the beginning of the boating season, we can help sooner.

Thank you for your time and attention.  I hope to hear from you by phone or email.  My phone number is blahblah, James’ phone number is blahblah.  James’ email address is youknow and mine is yepyep.

Sincerely,
Dena Hankins
And this is their online job listing:
SAILBOAT MECHANIC: This position reports to the Director of the Fleet
and is responsible, along with other mechanics, for maintaining
Getaway Sailing’s fleet of approximately 20 sailboats. Preventative
maintenance includes painting, varnishing, and engine fluid and filter
changes. Corrective maintenance includes repairs to sails, fiberglass
and gelcoat, deck hardware, plumbing and electrical systems, and all
other boat systems. Priority is keeping all boats in safe, usable
conditions.

Required skills and abilities:

* Boat handling skills for sailboats up to forty feet in length
* Maintenance and repair skills for all aspects of sailboats
* Supply your own basic tools
* Five years experience with boat maintenance
* Pleasant demeanor and ability to communicate positively and
effectively with customers and other employees

Hours and working conditions:

* Full time or part time
* Five days per week, including at least one weekend day
* Flexibility for time off
* Work outdoors most of the time
* Occasional interaction with customers

Gypsy Jill has died. I’m sad, so sad, but it’s my birthday. I only celebrate three occasions: my birthday, James’ birthday, and our anniversary. I’m celebrating with a special meditative consideration of age and death.

I’m not a person who meditates on death on her birthday; it seems so melodramatic and morbid. I have tremendous amounts of fun. I pack in moments of joy, looking for every reason to be joyous (and many can be found when walking around the birthday-enhanced world).

Except that I sit, still and solemn, sipping a mocha and typing these words that negate themselves.

Also, I got a job I applied for. I’ll be working for the Baltimore Data Capture Center, processing forms for the 2010 census. I even got a team lead position, so I’ll be making decent money. I have a move to plan and execute, and it will take several days by sail, even if things go well. There’s nothing I like quite so much as pulling up stakes and embarking on a journey. The destination doesn’t matter as much as the fact and moment of motion, but Baltimore has the possibility of being a better place for me. Another reason to rejoice.

And I do. I do. And I’m sad.

I loved Jill from the first five minutes of our acquaintance. She helped me, with a dozen words, two or three sentences, feel hopeful that I’d be able to cover up a terrible tattoo, a blemish on my left hip, of which I was inordinately self-conscious. It reflected badly on me that my judgment had been so bad. I wanted tattoo work, but I had the idea that it ought not to be a crapshoot. That I ought to have been able to better judge the artist and the situation. That I had every right to love my tattoos, every one of them.  She vindicated me in those ideas, and empowered me further.

In the process of getting the coverup (a pomegranate, a symbol of fertility for a belly that would never grow a baby, to remind me that I could be fertile in many meaningful and long-lasting ways), I loved her deeper and deeper. We discussed a body plan; I had three tattoos and needed to decide whether I was going to get a collage of unrelated pieces or tie the rest of my tattoo work into a united theme. Jill didn’t seem to be judging either possibility, but she did think that not considering those questions was ill advised.

I learned a lot of my attitudes toward tattooing from Jill. She shaped my understanding of my body as a canvas and shape and color as elements that would flatter and lend meaning to the planes and curves and texture of my skin. I conceived of the idea that I could take my home with me, wherever I traveled, and she designed my backpiece from a tree-branch (which she still had at the time of her death), photos of my favorite Madrona tree, and a small bronze statuette by Chiparus, the model for which was a gypsy woman and the name of which is Shiva.

That backpiece took three years to finish. I moved several times in the meantime, and I enjoyed my visits so much. Though Jill and I spent a great deal of time together in the first year, strongest in my memory are the years after that, which encompassed the completion of my backpiece and that of my cornucopia. The cornucopia is on my ribs and, descending from it, an apple and an avocado begin the tumble across my belly. The apple represents Seattle, Washington, and the avocado represents the Bay Area of San Francisco. My plans are to add a fruit, vegetable, or spice from each place I visit, so that by the end of my life, these bits and pieces of places will wrap around my hips.

Because of Jill, I created a body language that expresses me well. Behind me are lessons of the past and what sense I have of rootedness and home. They contain some lessons I’ve learned and are retrospective. Before me and eventually encircling me is travel, moving and learning and growing, and then also remembering and storytelling.

I’ve had a hard time getting tattoo work from anyone else. I have been completely unable to choose an artist who could continue my work – the cornucopia lacks the coffee cherries from Kona, the chai spices from India, and the corn from Virginia. I’m about to move again and I’ve fallen so behind already, but I am used to falling in love with my artist and it’s too much to expect that I will be able to walk into a tattoo shop and in will whirl a tornado of energy, style, and talent. Is it too much to expect?

Jill told me that I had to fall in love. That I had to find a woman who will have the energy, style, and talent to demand my love, of her work, if of nothing else. And that she exists, that I just need to do it. Because the women who work as tattoo artists need the love, they need the canvas and the thoughtfulness and the passion that I bring to my conception and realization of tattooing. And she’s right.

I am focusing on Jill as the tattoo goddess, and it’s true that she had other interests and strengths as well. But it is her tattoos that I live with, that James cuddles into at night, and that help me be more expressive of myself than I could have been without her.

So many of my best stories come from Jill’s deep well of experience. In Phoenix, where there’s a large population of neo-Nazis, Jill had a standing offer - she would cover up any tattoos of Nazi imagery for free, after hours. She became so skilled at coverups that she won tons of awards (including one for my Rocky Horrible Tattoo). In another story, a tattoo helped a woman reclaim ownership of her body after rape and attempted murder, enabling a new, much changed but powerful, life.

And it goes on from there. I couldn’t possibly tell you all about this woman. Jill lived such a huge life and it was a life of uncompromising authenticity. She refused to pretend, knew there was no reason to be anyone but herself. She went to amazing lengths to explore exactly what that meant. She tried all kinds of things, looking for a spirituality that expressed her experience of the universe, looking for a style of loving that fit the heart that overflowed her body.

I believe that our lives are like books. Once the last page is read, the story is over. Jill has a story that will be told again and again, and that is the only immortality I believe in. I will love her even though that’s all I have left of her. But I will miss her.