Aaron M. Fortkamp

I caught one. I caught a fish. I caught the only one yesterday, matter of fact, but I also caught one today and it was bigger, it was a bass, not one with the cutesy baby-fish-type names I usually catch, like bluegill or sunfish which my dad always called punkinseed, oh look you caught a lil punkinseed, well not today pops I caught a BASS. 

I am also dehydrated because we drank a bunch last night and we tried to continue drinking today which was at best a mild success, but for whatever reason Matt has taken to Budweiser and I just can’t stand the stuff. Also we’re all of us 35 now and I can hear someone snoring from out in the living room and trying to party all weekend just isn’t in the cards anymore.  

Now I am here writing because I’m on vacation and I enjoy writing so writing is what I’m doing on vacation. I can’t say I’m especially comfortable given that I wanted a little privacy so I came into the spare room where I slept last night on an air mattress and though it’s fine for sleeping it doesn’t do much for those trying to sit up straight, and my back is up against a wall as best it can be but any chiropractor walking into the room right now would smack me in the face for what I’m doing to myself. 

So this may not be a long entry. But the entries I’ve been working on lately have not been posted because they require more thought and are often political. I’m still learning some things about how to exist in this post-fact era and collecting data points regarding the same, and eventually I’ll post something on that front. But for now, I’m on vacation. My feet are still wearing two pairs of socks, one of them wool, and I can’t wait to take them off but the smell I fear will knock me over. Usually after a day of fishing with Matt we eat fish, but this was not that day. He did catch a 25″ pike but to keep them they have to be 26″ which seemed so arbitrary that it felt like destiny, or design, so it didn’t occur to me suggest keeping it anyway because the fish had swallowed the hook and was bleeding fiercely out and more importantly we’re fishing a private lake which means not only do I not need a license to fish it as I verified yesterday via the internet but also (I learned in the same google) you can keep what you catch regardless of size regulations that dictate fishing on public property.  

This is all neither here nor there. I am really just trying to write until I am ready for sleep, and I can feel it coming down the pike now, sure to catch up with me soon. I’m not sure if we’re staying another night yet, but I’m not sure how much more fishing I have in me, and how much more drinking I have in me, and truth be told I’m not sure I want to find out. There’s a limit I’m sure to what the body can take, and I continue to be surprised I haven’t found it yet. It is the absolute laziest of extreme sports, is drinking. I often wish I had gotten into another one instead. If you climb mountains to test your limits, and then you climb the highest mountain, well then you know you’re done. That would be nice. To know when I’m done. I’ve thought I was several times before. And then next thing I know I find myself back up on another mountain. The terrain is familiar, comforting even, but a large part of me regrets not possessing the strength of character to have just stayed on the couch at home, for once. Maybe watch some television.