I feel like I have only a vague sense of what the phrase “the human condition” means. I tried to look it up, but started getting answers like, “The human condition is everything,” or “Yeah, what is the human condition?” or “The act of asking this question is, in itself, the human condition.” I think I was less than two links away from an existential crisis, and nobody has time for that, so I gave up.

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Every weekend has been an endless loop of “hot, humid, and probably thunderstorms” with an occasional side dish of “dense smoke from western wildfires.” We finally decided to give up on the idea of waiting until the weekend. The forecast for Friday was clear skies, 75°F, 10kts of breeze, and a weirdly comfortable dew point of 55°F. There was no way that I could work through that.

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In my last log entry from April 6, I wrote that I could potentially paint the bottom of the boat and be in the water the following week. Sure, I hedged a little regarding the tiller varnish progress, but I still put it in there, I think mostly as sort of a personal challenge. As is often the case, I then said to myself, “Do not attempt to challenge me, sir!” and vanquished that unruly optimism. It is now May.

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