I dreamed last night that I had built a boat.

..well, no, I dreamed last night that I had *dreamed* I built a boat. It was one of those little plywood-and-fancy-glue designs that are meant to be buildable by a beginner in one weekend, and I'd downloaded the plans and been thinking really hard about it, so when (in the dream) I woke up from the dream, I for a minute thought I'd really built it, until I realized that I couldn't've. And then I looked out the window and it was *there*, and people were congratulating me on having done such a good job for a beginner, and the pirates from Coot Club were putting together a rigging for me, and I'd *never actually built the thing*. It had somehow *appeared* just because I thought I'd built it, and I didn't even know where the heck the *plywood* had come from, much less the labor, but I didn't want to say anything because it was clearly my fault the thing was there but wasn't quite real, and I wasn't sure what would happen if it the word got around that it wasn't.

This is probably a metaphor for a lot of things in my life.

Anyway, that explains why the first thing I did after *actually* waking up was to find this page. And OMG, do you know how long I've wanted my own 12-15 ft, clinker-built, single-masted gaff-rigged keeled sailing boat? At *least* since the first time I ever read A Wizard of Earthsea. And now that I've realized that Lookfar and Swallow are essentially the same boat, I want one *even more*.

...Maybe that's all I'll put on my Christmas list this year. A 12-15' gaff-rigged clinker-built keeled sailboat and a place to learn to sail it in.