But first, old business:
Someone named Matt at Redsparks.com emailed me with a BOMB ASS design for my back, so he got to pick one prize and he went with the necklace, for his wife, because he’s awesome like that, and do you want to see what he came up with? Too bad. Sneak peeks are all you get today.

And then I spent more time on Randomizer tonight than Janis Joplin spent on heroin, and I came up with two lists…one for jewelry entries and one for tattoo gift certificate entires. I deleted all the multiple entries, because tsk tsk, and in the end it spit these names back at me, which you can click to make bigger if you must.

And then I did it again, because someone was winning a $50 gc to Tattoo Factory, and this is what it gave me.

So, Janet, Matt and Island Mummy, email Lu at Below 14th and let her know what you’d like and Schmutzie, you’ve got $50 to play with at Tattoo Factory, and Lu and Amy from My Ladybug Picnic, you each have $25 to blow. Email Paul at Tattoo Factory to set up your appointments; he’ll be expecting you. For everyone else, we all still get 20% off tattoos and piercings, and a shitload of other fun stuff. I’ll be there for what looks like, um, forever, so I’ll probably see you. And I may need vicodin. Also, my mommy.

And now, new business:

I really like to fish, and I always have. There’s something about the mixture of me, sunshine, a fine line, total silence and all the time in the world that makes me truly, perfectly happy. I could do nothing but fish all day long, and I could catch absolutely nothing, and I’d live happily ever after. I don’t need the best equipment, or the biggest boat, I just need a stick and some string and a little jar of powerbait and I’m good to go. Because nothing works better than powerbait, nothing.

I’ve always wanted to try fly fishing, but there’s something about it that strikes me as overly-romantic, and though I’ve had one solid offer in my life to go learn how to do it with someone, that someone failed in every way to come through on that offer and I really don’t want to do it myself, so I’ve given up on that idea. I’ve also wanted to try ice-fishing, maybe just once, but good lord it’s so complicated and time-consuming and, well, cold. I hate being left out in the cold, especially by my own doing. So I don’t.

I did, once, wander out onto a frozen lake with an auger in my hand just to see what a little tap on the ice would do. I knelt on a sheet of ice that I wasn’t entirely sure would hold my own weight and I looked down through the ice to the waters below. I kept seeing this fish darting past me, under and back around and under again, almost like it was daring me to catch it. I watched that fish for a long time before I realized I was just in way over my head and that I needed some help if I was going to do it right.

And on my way home, someone stopped and offered to help me. Without me asking or anything, just like it was fate that we met. And I haven’t taken that person up on the offer just yet, but I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.

The longer I wait, the more clearly I can see exactly how I’m going to crack that ice open and get my rod in there and catch that son-of-a-bitch. I think I know how to catch him, I just need to try. I want to try. I’m ready to try. And so, I’m going to try. 

It’s something new, something out of the comfort zone I’ve created for myself with my little hobby I’ve developed over the entire course of my life. The way I like to fish, it’s easy. It’s brainless. It’s as comforting as my evening tea and as safe as my favorite blanket, the one my grandmother left to me when she died, the one that I can hide away from the world in when I have to. I’ve come to rely on my trips to the lake, all by myself, away from the things of man, and I’m starting to let the ease of what I know I can do so effortlessly rob me of the chance to do something a little bigger, a little harder and a little more satisfying in the end. And it’s not like I’m getting any younger or anything. My knees don’t bend like they used to and my fingers get all stiff in the cold and if I don’t do this now, I don’t know if I ever will.

And so, I’m going to do it now. I’m going to run away for the month of July, because really…if I’m going to hack away at a bunch of old, frozen water, July sounds like the most agreeable time to attempt it. I’m going to run away and I’m going to take a whack at that ice. I’m not taking my eye off that fucking fish under that sheet of ice for an entire month, and with a little help and a lot of encouragement, I’m either going to come back with dinner or frostbite.

But at least I’ll know. At least I will have tried.

Until August, my friends; until August.