Reverting to Childhood

That he had to take a cold shower this morning gave me no small thrill. I've got new names for him now. Captain Killjoy and Your Highness. These are the names I say under my breath. I don't like myself, the me that I become around him. I feel so much like a child again. It brings out all the same resentment I used to have toward my father. I swear he actually said something like, "Do you understand?" after he told me that he did not want me wearing headphones during transit. I had the sound so low I could hear onions sizzling. 

The crew had to take the boom off the mainsail, 

to shorten the boat length and reduce our 

costs going down the St. Lawrence.

Although I guess we've had them set before, this 

was the first time I'd seen these special sails set. 

Called the "courses," they operate like a spinnaker. 

It frustrates me because these rules he's so hell-bent on administrating must be made for the lowest common denominator - the teenager who's listening to music in his headphones so loud that the person in the bunk beside him can't sleep. But as a responsible adult, I feel like I know better - I know how and when to bend the rules without jeopardizing my own safety or that of the crew.


But the TSA has no leeway. No imagination. 


I break rules now just to break them. The words running inside my head are a familiar retort to my father, "You think you can control me, but you can't." I lay in my bunk last night, listening to the Weepies, feeling exactly the way I did when I was a kid.  When I get up in the morning, I wear just my socks in the galley, until I actually start cooking. He just said when I was cooking, right?

I had been meaning to say something to Eve about the lack of hot water, but just hadn't thought of it at the right times. I certainly wasn't keeping us deprived of hot water on purpose. "You have to tell 
us when something is wrong," said the TSA, "Or we can't fix it." 




Everything he says seems to irritate me. I have been sick now for seven days. And that doesn't help, does it?

Hominy stew.