"the skinny" - chapter five - fuck this is tough stuff

so the next saturday I'm up again

and those crooked burnt sticks are ready for planing

"I've got a machine but it's not likely that you will

maybe you should rough by hand"

I'll try and I did

half the day later with a light head and heavy arms

I say "we'll zip the rest"

so we zip them and we're done in far less time than it took me

to do that one - in the end it was well worthwhile

mike delivers a block of instruction for setting forms

my mind is kinda swimming now

we're marking forms (every five inches if ya din't know)

marking each mark w/ a spot of tape and a number

that looks like this

0 0.70

0.081

0.094

0.115

no wonder my head spins or was it swims

I used to teach decimals to kids and told them

"don't really worry about things past the hundredths round up or down and go with it

we don't really use the deeper decimals"

and we don't or didn't we are now

having them and reading a screwy gauge and adjusting to reach the desired decimal

*I know I've got a picture of this bassackwards gauge bear w/ me*

tis second nature now but a true pain in the ass 

the first time I tried it out on my own w/out guidance

as with anything else worth doing

everything is difficult before it becomes easy

this shit was very difficult

I started planing

ohmyfuggingoldengildedass it was difficult

my scrawny arms were accustomed to swinging golf clubs

not making curls

imagine the repetitiveness and mindlessness of the nodework

add toil and measuring multiply by an exponent and yer almost there

consider the fact that the plane is bucking skipping and bouncing in my hand

mike advising me "easy easy"

my aching ass it's easy

we got it done

I was whooped and jrunk wasted really

I stayed the night to continue planing the next day

I had to get this done

I wasn't looking forward to it

as time went on - I think this was back in like 2006?  - I spent a lotta hours up there

this was a coupla months ago