Fly-Fishing Pshaw

Every once in awhile I delude myself into thinking I am an interesting person who does intriguing things. For example, yesterday I went fly-fishing. I had a private lesson with my friend, who've I called Leah before, so Leah she'll still be. We both adored it and we're on board for another lesson, this time a full day on the Huron River. This could rapidly develop into a full-fledged hobby for me. Especially after I perused the Orvis catalogue in great detail for about an hour. The accoutrements of fly-fishing and wing shooting are some of the best out there. There's silver flasks and quilted vests and comfortable chairs one can set up on the bank of a river. Leather carrying cases. Nets with which to scoop the fish up are not cheapola aluminum, but instead a warm wood tone. In one catalogue I spotted a picture of a couple in their waders, lounging on portable chairs with a portable table between them. What's so amazing about this? They were in the river! Only in an inch or so. And the table between them sported a tablecloth, a nice block of stinky looking cheese, and a bottle of red wine, and they both appeared to be sipping out of wine glasses. With sporty hats on and pocketed travel vests. It was twilight. In my imagination, the campfire was up behind them, and some trout, just caught, were gently being pan-fried.

How could one not want to do this sport after such a picture?

Our guide said he got into fly-fishing because of his brother. Once, he told us, he was driving with his brother out east. His brother happens to be a banker and at the time was dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit when the urge to fish in one of the great rivers they kept passing overcame him. He pulled the car over, put on his waders and proceeded to fish the river in his three piece suit. This image so impressed our guide, he felt he had to learn.

In college I found a picture of the Queen Mum in waders, complete with pearls. It impressed me, and I think I heard she was fly-fisher.

And then of course, I have read and loved A River Runs Through It. Again, as an undergraduate I went to the movies three nights in a row to watch the movie over and over. (I was far more attracted to Craig Sheffer than Brad Pitt,[still true; Brad Pitt seems vapid to me] and even then it wasn't Sheffer who I was attracted to, but Norman MacLean who I was really in love with. And further truth here: Tom Skerritt held a certain appeal for me in that movie too. He seemed so gentle.)

All of this was a lot of build-up for quite a few years, so I was prepared that fly-fishing might let me down. But it didn't. And I cannot wait to go again.

This adventure yesterday had me feeling fairly plucky.

Until I got an email from a friend who's just gone to Africa to work for a year or so. In her email she mentions, almost as an aside, that an iguana, "who was sitting up in the corner of her mosquito net" just crapped on her. There's mention of EU human rights and machetes and old drums. A watchman at her house. A very very funny list of rules for driving in her particular African country.

I am going to the grocery store now. To buy chicken. For a bbq with friends on our back porch that looks out over simple green grass that only last night I was delighting in. Now it's awful: not a rain forest, and there are no iguanas. And I will follow all the rules while navigating my car over the well-paved roads. How pedestrian. I should just stop writing this blog right now.

I am so fucking boring.

Fly-fishing pshaw.