: And then there are the social, er...antisocial ramifications he
: will have to cope with. Consider what happened to me last night:
: Linda takes Friday off and let's me know a day ahead that she is
: doing that. She knows I am free during the day until 2 PM when I
: report to work. I kindly informed her during the PREVIOUS week
: that we (Keith and I) were getting down to the crunch for the
: two builds and I would be spending the last two weeks of June at
: mom's trying to get her kayak done. We want to launch the kayak
: on July 01, we are both tired of building and want to be
: paddling. The fact that she still hadn't burned the deck only
: made me more anxious. Well, when I told her that I planned to
: meet Keith early Friday morning (8 am) to work on the kayaks,
: she got fairly mad at me and claimed that (quote), "All I
: think about is kayaking and kayak building. What about
: MEEEEEEEEE? When do I get your emotional time? Now we are
: talking ONLY one half a day here....I spent all winter taking
: weekends off to be with her and suddenly the kayak doesn't
: matter any more. Well, that really got under my skin...no
: one...NO ONE implies the kayak doesn't matter to me. She nagged
: me, I nagged her back...she nagged me more, I insinuated that
: perhaps she just didn't care about the kayak. She suggested
: quite blatantly that she wished I didn't buy it for her. I took
: that real personal and suggested that I could paint over the
: wood burning work and call it my own. She claimed that I never
: do the things she wants me to do, that I put everything off
: until she finally hires someone to do the work. She also said I
: plan ALL of our holidays around kayaking, never take her into
: consideration at all ever. I was still sputtering under my
: breath about the "didn't buy it for her" comment and
: then she makes it seem as though I am a selfish n'ere do well
: when it comes to other work. This went on for an hour before I
: rolled over and went to sleep while she stomped off to sleep in
: the spare room. It continued during the morning for some time
: before we went into the garage to smoke. She started looking at
: her wonderful work and started talking to me about what next to
: burn into the wood. We picked out two more patterns which she
: should have burned into the wood by the time I get home tonight.
: She was smiling while considering her work.

: You see what is going on here, Malcolm...she doesn't completely
: understand the magic of building, the feeling one can get when
: one sees his/her work amount to something beautiful. Personal
: time? Pah! She has the bug for wood burning as much as I do for
: building as long as she actually sits down and does it. Her work
: is beautiful. She wants emotional time with me: let us split a
: Guinness, stand arm in arm at the lake and stare at the finished
: kayak and its deck art and get all emotional about that. The
: social ramifications of an addict can be tough, but if you can
: get your significant other addicted as well, then there's no
: problem...no begging for emotional time because we can both be
: emotionally attached to the work and forget the rest. She wants
: some other kind of emotional time...she should go watch Young
: and the Restless.

: I think Keith is in trouble. I am glad to be there to support him
: as he is sent off to the dog house by his wife and instead
: phones me to meet him at mom's

: Robert N(eeds no help) Prude

Might want to make sure there is an "N" at the end of your name .

Bill H.