Year in Review

From this to that and everything in between, it has been a good year. My butterfly time is still stuck, but that's nothing new. Everything has started moving. I don't necessarily know what I mean by that, but it seems to fit the jumble of description that is scrambling around in my head. I'm doing a poor job of describing it otherwise. Moving seems to suit the year. And I finished the Eternal Chapter in The Telethren. Pretty sweet.

Moving. Doesn't that look cool? The italics make it look like its definition. Okay, bed time. Breaking a carbanation abstinence with Martinelli's does weird things to you. I should have toasted with some red cream soda. *drooling* Mmmm, the stashed red cream soda...

Collage

In a fit of morbid cynisism, I have clipped lines from songs and a few narratives and arranged them into...something. I figure, if you can clip pictures from magazines and call it your own, I can clip words from other stuff and call this my own. Joy.

[Insert Title]

Running with the shadows of the night
This is war
A lost soul out of place
And I slowly go insane
Puts my back up against the wall
Homeless sleeping on a cold, dark street

Fought a losing war on a foreign shore
A lifetime of dreams can’t be wrong
Crashed and burned, I know I never learned
Life isn’t tame
On a barbed wire fence
I taste the tears

Streak of madness lies inside of me
There’s just an empty space
When hope dies
Lost the fire I built my dream on
Nothing left here to remind me
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Like bodies in an open grave

Dreams

The ocelot paced along the branch of her tree, gazing up at the moon. Her imagination was pulling at her again, dragging her into the glory of the sky. The starlight wrapped around her, cradling her fragile dreams. The moonlight bathed her mind with a vague reality, though it made no attempt to penetrate the conjured castle of her dreams. Possibilities wafted through the halls of her fantasy, blown by the soft wind of her thoughts. She was a wolf, racing along the paths of the night forest. She was a raven, gliding high with sad tidings in tow. She was a hawk, sharply watching life below. A doe, wandering without a care. A coyote, alive in pranking, her eyes searching for an outlet for her cleverness. An otter, slipping through the waters as though one with them. She was the river, alive only in the giving of life to others. The sky, bearing the sights, sounds, smells of life through the world.

Abruptly, she returned to herself, an ocelot wound in a web of duty. Duty in which she both reveled and despaired. Duty, the foundation of her life; learning, the climbing walls; her dreams, the glittering turrets topped with brilliant banners.

Wow. That was kind of weird. I don't know where it came from.

Realizing the Misery

I apologize in advance to those who are uninformed on matters of Son of Sferesh, but as the story has been on my mind lately (I want to finish another chapter before break ends), I have been discovering intriguing things, and they're all I have to talk about right now. I would suggest ignoring this post if you do not know anything about Son of Sferesh.

I have been pondering at great length how Maric will fit in with matters in the Royal Court of Kumei (besides ticking off Elyste, of course; I know that's going to happen and certain people *ahem* are antsy for it). I have inserted a few other people to the mix. Zefran Bantare, Prince of Varesi, is now a good friend of Kalen Hentra, Prince of Kumei. Kalen now has two children by the time Maric meets up with him, both boys, instead of being newly wed. Endrea will, in the course of the narrative, be betrothed to Zefran (Zefran is the fifth son of his family, in case you're curious).

I have just realized how all these additions will impact Maric. Zefran is a curious fellow, and plagues Maric with goodnatured, yet unwelcome questions. Maric will find out about the proposed betrothal during the Harvest Festivities, around the same time that he gets chased out of Kumei for the third--count 'em, three--time. That will be disheartening enough, but he gets over Endrea in a month or so anyway, so that's all right. However, Kalen's wife is going to affect him keenly.

Maric has lost a great deal by way of capacity for human interaction. Kalen's wife, Fara, is rather attached to her husband (the arranged marriage didn't end as badly for them as it did for Cedric [who actually does have a child, now]). When Maric first heals Kalen, this is an issue, but only in the sense that he needs her to go away in order to heal Kalen properly. Later, though, the love between Kalen and Fara is going to be one of the driving forces behind Maric's misery.

When they all go off to war (there's always a war in fantasy, so don't look surprised), Fara will, of course, be seeing her husband off and wondering if it is that last time she will ever see him. By this time, Maric is no longer masquarading as a fully human person, and is watching from a decent ways away with his wings and claws and scales in full view. He can't hear anything they say, but the expressions and the motions are enough to almost make him cry. In that moment, he recognizes how much he lost in his moment of ignorance. I didn't realize how bad I had hurt him with something that happened in chapter four. He may be the same person, but he had no chance for a decent life anyway. I think I do him a favor my killing everybody off. Letting Anloi go would have been worse than having her stolen.

I feel really bad for mutating Maric now. I didn't mind so much, before.

In other news, I find basing physical descriptions of characters on real people very entertaining. Swim team members are being inserted into the plot everywhere. Though, the chlorine discoloration on their hair makes that part a little difficult. Kalen is a swimmer, as is Zefran, and Aldrus of Ungaran, and Akeran, Kalen's right hand man. I think that at least one more will fenagle himself a spot in the storyline; I feel that I have to complete the circle.

Sorry for the unintelligible post, but I had to put the thoughts somewhere, and here seemed as good as anywhere else.

12 Days of Swimming

Written and choreographed by Danny M.
Performed and sung by the OTAC Senior Swim Choir

On the first day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
A 1x200 free

On the second day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the third day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the fourth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the fifth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the sixth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
6x50 free, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the seventh day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the eighth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
8x25 sprint, 7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the ninth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
9x50 kick, 8x25 sprint, 7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the tenth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
10x25 sprint, 9x50 kick, 8x25 sprint, 7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the eleventh day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
11x50 IM, 10x25 sprint, 9x50 kick, 8x25 sprint, 7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free

On the twelveth day of practice my swim coach gave to me:
12x25 EZ, 11x50 IM, 10x25 sprint, 9x50 kick, 8x25 sprint, 7x100 sprint, 5x100 IM, 4x25 sprint, 3x75, 2x50 drill, and a 1x200 free!

Review: The echoing on the pool deck added to the resonating and stirring effect of sick swimmers' voices. The technique of the swimming was elegant, if not synchronized (though one hears that OTAC has synchronized productions as well). This once-a-year experience is a glorious addition to any Christmas tradition.

Familia

My family is so random. I try and I try not to inherit the odd things that my mom and dad do, but there's no escaping it! I've already started to say that being "so prophetic" is a curse, really. Ickle brudder numero uno, at home, behaves like he is heaven's gift to women (he doesn't act like that in public, so no worries. It's really funny when you know he's not serious). Just tonight he said, "I attract them from all ages. What can I say? When you've got it, you've got it!" And my dad was backing him up with, "When you're hot, you're hot. You can't help it, I can't help it, we've all just got to make due with our curses. I have to keep the chicks of with a stick."

Meet Review 9

Today was wacky. I'm going through separation anxiety with my events. I swam the 200 medley relay, 200 freestyle, 100 back, and 400 free relay. The first wasn't bad, though I didn't do incredibly well. The second, I haven't swam since my freshman year and I can't remember how to pace it. So, I go to the all-knowing Toddles for instruction. "Stay with the pack for the first 50, then go 80-90% for the next two, then go all out comin' home." Sound advice, if everyone wasn't in events they didn't swim. Staying with the pack didn't make sense, because "the pack" was slower than I was (I wasn't seeded with a time because I haven't swam it in so long). So I had to try to guess at my pace, then I hit the beginning of the second 50 and the coaches were gesturing wildly from the deck. This puzzled me; everyone was a bodylength or more behind me. I sped up on the third fifty, and still they were frantic, almost like it was a close race. I sped up a little more, just to please them. The last 50 was, of course, an all-out sprint. Coming into the wall, I see that I took second place by a tenth of a second. I shoot my glance down to lane five, and much to my surprise, I see another girl, the flamingo, also very out of place. Apparently she noticed me when she came off the last wall and sped up.

I cannot remember the last time I swam the 100 backstroke. I think I was 12 or something, 'cause it was a long time ago. I hate the backstroke. I can't breathe when I swim backstroke. I asked Coach why he had to pick the backstroke and his only answer was that I hadn't swam it yet. I did fairly well for my circumstances, and when I got out he laughed at me and said, "You let them win one; that was nice of you." [The team we swam against was really bad, just so you know.]

The 400 free relay was supposedly even (i.e. he put the speed on the team evenly across the three teams). I disagree, but it still gave me motivation to go fast. I went the time that I haven't touched since the Blue & Gold. Good stuff.

200 medly relay (fly) - 34
200 freestyle - 2:20.44
100 backstroke - 1:17.86
400 free relay - 1:04.64

Meet Review 8

It's a little late (clever, clever rhymage). The meet against TvHS was...interesting. Their girls are the top in state at the moment, but they don't even have enough guys team members to fill up the relay spots (meaning they have five). Also, this meet has been dubbed the Meet of the Neverending Nosebleed. During the winter my nose gets really dry, and random nosebleeds occur all too frequently for my taste. This meet was actually the first one I've had in the water, which is lucky.

A 400 into warm-up (i.e. not very long into it) my nose started bleeding horrendously. I had to stop and make it look like my nose wasn't bleeding, 'cause even though there is plenty of chlorine to kill anything that's in my blood, you're still not supposed to be in the water while bleeding (understandable). So I stood at the wall, sniffling and hyperventilating to try to keep the blood inside of me. Generally these liquid-induced nosebleeds go away in 5-10 minutes, give or take. But I didn't get to warm up any more during the half-hour interval! Luckily, I wasn't swimming the first relay, so I had that time to get blood clots going and warm up. But my nose had other ideas.

IT KEPT BLEEDING UNTIL HALFWAY THROUGH THE MEET! That means that I didn't warm up before the IM. That also means that I was bleeding during the IM, but the officials didn't stop me because if they would have stopped me, the would have had to stop everybody else as well. I added six second.

Then my nose stopped its rampage during the ten-minute break between the 50 free and the 100 fly (I didn't swim the fly in this meet; that is the first time in high school swimming that has happened). Coming up on the 500 freestyle, I was warmed up and ready. I didn't drop any time, but I matched the one I posted last Thursday. But the team feels like crap; I beat our fastest 500 freestyler by eight seconds. That wasn't supposed to happen, obviously.

The relays were dumb. I had been randomly losing circulation to my hands all meet, and right before the relays it came to a head and I couldn't really control my hands any more. It was stupid. On the 400 free relay, my legs went numb too, so I think I looked like I was flopping around rather than swimming. I didn't do so hot in either race.

200 IM - 2:39
500 free - 6:18.97
Relays - don't ask

Meet Review 7

Today we swam against MHS and some podunk school that isn't worth mentioning, as they had little influence on the outcome of the meet. MHS is the school standing between our guys' team and a state title. However, I think that our guys have forgotten that it takes effort to win things. It was only the third event and Coach was ticked at the guys. The girls were another matter. We scared the other team, which is good considering they were hoping to cream us. But there are a few little anecdotes that I should share.

MHS does not have a warm up/cool down area. This is like sentencing a swimmer to torture when they have events that are close to each other. Take the 200 IM and the 100 fly, for example. I'm not the only one that has to do that; the serval does too, now. We managed to get the places that we were supposed to in the IM, even though we both added time (we're dead, give us a break). Nevertheless, the fly came all too soon. After the IM, neither of us could actually stand up until the next race was partially over. Come the butterfly, we were so dead that we planned how to not do great in the fly. The serval was more worn out than I was, so what I said was this. "You just stay ahead of me. I'll watch the girls behind us. They are supposed to be four to five seconds behind me, so you stay ahead of me and we'll be good." All went according to plan. She added four seconds and I added two, but we got second and third like we needed to. We only have so much to give. Though, both of us had to check the opponents' positions off of every turn.

The girls had a relay DQ'd. Not happy. We could have been within, like, ten instead of within twenty.

Sadness

I got locked out of the pool today. In my swim suit, soaking wet.

It was like this, see. I had to throw up. Don't worry, I'm not sick or anything, I had just eaten a little too close to a tough workout. It happens to other folks all the time. It's the first time I've had to worry about it though. Anyway, there is this door by the lap lanes that leads to a patio sort of thing outside, right? Well, during the winter it is kind of given that you go there to spill your guts or get fresh air or whatever. So there I went (I actually managed not to throw up). However, being the inexperienced individual that I am, I forgot that I needed to keep the door open. So I was locked out of the pool. The next time that people were supposed to stop at that side of the pool was quite a ways off, but I pounded on the glass door when people came up for air. I got one kid to perk his head up and look around, but he didn't see me. I didn't really feel the cold, but my feet were turning purple. Finally one guy that was sitting out of the pool saw me bang on the door and told MV's coach that I had locked myself out. She came and saved me, much to my shame. When I tried to swim again, I discovered that all my limbs were numb. It was kind of funny, actually.

Meet Review 5 & 6 - The Trip

Down in the land of the Redmen, the pool is so chlorinated, it tastes like salt water. The fluid bites at your skin and gnaws at every bit of flesh on your body. Painful, disgusting, and a very bad thing to add to the already detestable conditions. The pool area reminds one of a run-down garage and one tends to feel rather like a sewer rat while pacing the locker rooms. Ceiling tiles somehow ended up adorning the walls and none of them are as straight as it appears they were meant to be. There is a very flawed and annoying painting on the wall. The pool is in meters, meaning it is longer than my usual distances, which are in yards. But enough about the pool, on to the racing. Again, I was thrown off.

-200 medley relay - meh, I could tell that it was longer than it was supposed to be.
-100 fly - 1:24, but it was in meters
-100 breaststroke - 1:35, which converts to a 1:28 in yards. None too shabby, considering I hate it.
-400 free relay - everything was still numb from the breast, so I don't think I did well.

That night, at the hotel in St. George, I had to listen to so much girl gossip that I thought I'd puke. And I kicked trash at Phase 10, even though I've never played before. Wahoo.

The next day, we proceeded to the other pool. Oh my, it is gorgeous. Especially when in comparison to the other one. The water is crystal clear, it doesn't burn, it is the perfect temperature for racing. It is at lower altitude. It is in a bubble, but it is a bubble far superior to those 'round here. It has eight lanes. There is a ledge a little less than five feet below the surface, allowing one to rest while in the deep end. I can't tell you how much I love this pool. Nevertheless, it was my third meet in a row. Thus, I was very, very tired. And worn to the bone.

-200 medley relay - I don't know.
-200 IM - 2:38; yikes
-100 fly - 1:19; ouch
-400 free relay - 1:10 split; can I hide my face in shame?

On the bus ride home, the leopard seal sat behind me, and he had forgotten to take his pill that morning. I have discovered that I twitch badly when I try to fall asleep in an upright position; I have bruises on my shins where I kicked the seat, and my friend thought there was something wrong with me. Then she stuch a fruit snack by my nose and I thought it was the leopard seal with the wood duck's drumsticks. It was an interesting ride home. I'm tired and I miss my mom, but I won't see her again until Friday.

Meet Report 4 -- Topsy Turvy

For the record, I have swam the 200 IM and the 100 fly in every high school meet since my freshman year (I swam three or four at the beginning of that year where Coach played with it). I have never, on a consistent basis, swam the two freestyle relays at the end. Today I swam all of my events in the second half of the meet. Wow.

-100 fly - at least something was the same. I went a 1:15; none too shabby when one is ill.
-500 free - yikes. That's a long ways when one is no longer used to pacing oneself. I'm in a sprint kind of mindframe; you don't sprint the 500. I dropped about a minute, but I haven't swam it in a very long time either. 6:18.
-200 free relay - story time! This event comes right after the 500, right? Well, me, being unused to this sort of thing, forgot that, as well as forgeting that I was in this relay at all. Eventually I had my teamates yelling at me across the pool to hurry, that the race was almost starting. I was sprinting across the deck, tugging the straps of my racing suit into place and pulling my goggles on. I was expecting them to start without me, as I didn't think that I was first. But then, I hadn't remembered that I was swimming either. Under the direction of my fellow swimmers, I jumped on the blocks and swam my guts out, barely keeping us from getting DQ'ed for delaying the meet. Afterwards, I discovered that I wasn't supposed to be first. Yeah, that was happy. :31.41
-400 free relay - I did better in this event than I have since the Blue and Gold meet. 1:05

More meet updates will quickly follow; we have one tomorrow, one Saturday, and one sometime soon next week.

25,000

It feels so good. I can't imagine how wonderful I would feel if I had gone the entire way. I'm so very pleased. And I have so much more to say about Maric and Sinx and Anloi and Heth and Cedric...I could go on forever. But hitting the half-NaNo mark makes me very happy.

Rollercoaster

Maric needs to get out of the village. He does the same darn thing every other day. Hence, he can only be so exciting while sticking to his routine. Every few sentences I get bored with him again. ACK! He needs a life. Hey, at least a chatter-prone raven has found her way to his shoulder. She can liven things up randomly. I think she is a very young raven. Yes, she must be. She's somewhat dense.

I think that I am going to trip in the final steps of the NaNo race. Why am I here? I need to go write!

Meet Review 3 (and other tidbits)

I dropped two seconds on my 200 IM, got closer to my fastest time in the 100 fly, and did hideously in the relays. We won't talk about those. The girls' team won, for the first time this season. Yay!

Now, what do you get when you mix six loaves of bread, nine(ish?) dozen eggs, two gallons of milk, four pounds of bacon, one Cosco box of hash browns, five big orange juice cans, and my wonderful mommy? The swim team pre-Thanksgiving breakfast! Ta-da!

By the way, I hate people right now. I spent way too much time with way to many people. My crowd tolerance is at zero. And Thanksgiving is tomorrow. My family is going to think that I've gone into a state of depression; I'm normally very good about associating with them. I do not think that I will plan a get-together for my birthday; I'd end up hating everybody, unless I only invited around three people, but then I would fear that I would offend. Therefore, birthday plans are probably going to be carried out with my family. Yay!

Meet Review 2

The county invitational occured today, and I didn't do as well as I am capable of doing. Oh well.

I lost my voice...cheering for the Knights. Oh, I gave it quite a strain cheering for the Tigers too, but it was cheering for the Knights that killed me. You want to know why I was cheering for a rival team? All right, I can handle that. It was like this, see.

The Tigers' boys and the Devils' boys were competing the entire meet for first place. By the time we got to the last relay, if the Tigers won and the Devils took second, there would be a tie for first. Once the Tigers' relay was substantially ahead, I turned to the third-seeded team and yelled my head off at them. So did the rest of the Tigers. Between the Tigers and the Knights, you think they could have found enough motivation to beat the Devils (I'm kidding, don't think I was expecting noise to make them move faster). They only got outouched by a bit. As it was, there was a tie for first. How unfulfilling is that?

The girls took sixth. Now if we take into account that [I think] all of the teams that beat us save one are in 5A, we did okay.

Control Freak

I think that I have realized why I love writing so much. Even though my characters sometimes do things I don't plan on (like falling over unexpected limbs), even when they develop personality quirks I didn't have in mind (Nargani has selective ignorance), I still am in nearly complete control of their lives. I can make them hysterical (like I just did), I can make them confused (like I just did), I can make them rather indifferent (Sinx is a horse, what does he care that Maric is deformed?), or I can make them an irrational player of the blame game (*coughCiriacough*). It gives me such glee; I am reminded that I am somewhat of a control freak. Now Son of Sferesh can truly begin. Maric has come into his heritage by a detrimental path, and Cedric now begins to cultivate his fiendish plans in Siltek. Mwahahahahaha. Bwaha. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Eight-mile Day

Cold around me, hot within
And we have yet to begin
Limbs feel like they're falling off
Trying to inhale, instead I cough
Pushing and fighting to stay ahead
Stuggling for life, though mostly dead
If only it didn't have to be this way
Looks like we're in for another eight-mile day

FYI, eight miles is a long way to swim in one day. Think about it. Do cross country runners run that far in a day? Amicus, can you answer that for me?

Lyrics

There are entirely too many depressing and bittersweet lyrics floating around here. So here is a song that makes me laugh.

You May Be Right
-Billy Joel

Friday night I crashed your party
Saturday I said I'm sorry
Sunday came and trashed me out again
I was only having fun
Wasn't hurting anyone
A nd we all enjoyed the weekend for a change
I've been stranded in the combat zone
I walked through Bedford Stuy alone
Even rode my motorcycle in the rain
And you told me not to drive
But I made it home alive
So you said that only proves that I'm insane

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
Turn out the light
Don't try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right

Remember how I found you you there
Alone in your electric chair
I told you dirty jokes until you smiled
You were lonely for a man
I said take me as I am
'Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while
Now think of all the years you tried to
Find someone to satisfy you
I might be as crazy as you say
If I'm crazy then it's true
That it's all because of you
And you wouldn't want me any other way

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
It's too late to fight
It's too late to change me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right
You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
Turn out the light
Don't try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right
You may be wrong but you may be right
You may be wrong but you may be right

Meet Review 1

At risk of falling further behind in NaNo, here's the results of today's meet:

- I dropped three seconds in the 200 IM
- I added a second in the 100 fly, but I still beat any time I had before this year
- I swam on the B relay for the 200 free relay and I didn't do so well
- I swam on the A relay for the 400 free relay and didn't do as well as I am capable of doing.

The end.

Highlights

Today in a nutshell:

This morning my mom started calling me Suzetti Spaghetti. That was odd. In retaliation I sang Puff the Magic Dragon and got it stuck in her head. I am so evil.

Blue Thunder no longer thunders. He didn't pass inspection, so we had to give him a muffler that works. Now he is Stealth Blue Thunder.

I swam a total of eight miles today. Count them: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and yes, eight miles. And I benched a lot. And tomorrow I have a swim meet. I am so intelligent.

So, with intelligent evilness, I plow through NaNoWriMo. Progress is at approximately half speed. Sad.

Turn That Camera Around!

So, the swim practice today was, at times, awkward. I won't go into detail as to why, because even the reactions of swimmers to this situation are grimaces, but at least they are understanding grimaces. All I will say is that board shorts, nylons, and a Tyr suit make for an interesting work out (P.S. Don't buy Tyr suits). And video cameras should not be allowed at the Halloween practice except under specified conditions, agreed upon by the swimmers.

However, today's practice was fun. And I beat a bunch of people! But that's 'cause I dressed smart, not entertaining. That's okay; the Halloween practice is either a science or it's an art. I choose the former.

Rut's End

Okay, so the writer's rut has probably not ended, but for The Telethren and for Son of Sferesh it has. Inspiration - or is it determination? - has struck me right between the eyeballs and I have once again picked up the tatters of failing stories. I'm not much of a seamstress, but I'm doing what I can. I worry that Blanchette is reaching the point where it will start to tear, though. Can't let that happen. I think that I shall launch a preemptive strike on that problem first thing tomorrow morning. And maybe I'll try to delve into Matters of Life and Death, but I think that one is semi-doomed. Of course, I never thought I'd finish that devil of a chapter in The Telethren either, so I guess there's hope.

Sorry if that didn't make any sense, I'm just letting my thoughts drip out of my ear and onto the keyboard, just to give you some juicy new candy.

Blue & Gold

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy! Today was the squad Blue and Gold meet and I am ecstatic. My team, Gold, lost, but I'll get over it. But who cares about the team, let's move on to me, 'cause I'm awesome. Today in the 200 yard IM (a 50 of each stroke) I tied the time I got last year at the state meet...at the end of taper (taper = rest). Then came the butterfly. I wasn't expecting to do too well, because as I was warming up, my arms still felt like lead because of the IM. But I killed myself on it and I got a 1:13.03. Guess what that means. That means I shattered (okay, I only beat it by 1 sec) the time that I got in January of 2004 and haven't touched since. I spent all last year trying to beat that time, and now I've finally done it! In the 200 free relay, I didn't do so well, so we'll skip that part. In the 400 free relay, however, I exceeded anyone's expectations. I was the anchor because the captain who signed the relay up forgot to change the order. So here I am, standing on the block, watching the lead the first two swimmers got going down the drain. But look, the third swimmer has held on to at least four seconds of the lead! Everyone is yelling advice at me, so I ignore it all and instead see a bunch of frantic motions and hear a steady roar of encouragement that only made me feel worse. The anchor on the other team was the greyhound, and let me tell you, I was seeded with a 1:07.41 and she has a 1:01. I jumped in and left everything I had in the pool, fully expecting my efforts to be futile. But much to my surprise, my relay still won, and I got a 1:04! Yipeee! I am so pleased with today, even though I felt like I was missing half of my all lunch period long.

Breaking Point

MY FAVORITE CAP DIED TODAY!

Anyway, recently I have learned a lot about coping. Three AP classes, one honors, two concurrent enrollment, and swim practices on top of that creates a lot of stress. Add in attempts to not only get by, but excel in all of the above things is pretty heinous. But recently I've decided that I'm okay.

Reports and pressure to get teamates to practice have been piling on top of each other for quite some time. Recently we switched from basic practices to stroke lanes -- a method I have never experienced. In afternoon practice, we now do the workout with the stroke we specialize in. Today I maxed out on the bench. Today, in a nutshell was one big metaphor.

105 pounds is my limit. 110 pounds is five pounds too many. It is a small difference, but it is enough. I am not at my emotional maximum; I guess I'm doin' all right.

Today at practice was an extreme cycle set. We do sets of sprints at our limit times and repeat the set of sprints several times. I swim the butterfly, the most demanding on upper-body strength of the strokes (normally I don't admit it, but I want to set the mood). We had to go through the set six times and my muscles were screaming by the end. Some people at practice tend to stop when they're tired. That's their decision, none of my business. But I've made the promise to myself not to stop unless I have to (i.e. charlie horse, goggles break, etc.). I managed to get through five of them, though I was rather short on oxygen. While adjusting my cap before the last cycle, it snapped. Perfect excuse to skip the last part. But I decided not to. Caps are silly things anyway, right? Well, not so right, but that's okay. On the last set, I pushed it harder than I had before, even with the added five pounds of wet hair trailing behind me. But the set that had looked to horrible going into it didn't break me. I made it through with flying colors.

This may not seem like a big deal to those of you that don't swim, but it is to me. And there, at the moment I hit the final wall, I knew that I was going to be okay. I'm under my maximum by quite a ways yet, and I am still unbroken.

And it's a great day to be alive. I see the sun's still shinin' when I close my eyes. I've had some hard times in the neighborhood but why can't every day be just this good? ... I guess I'm doing all right.

Swim Gear 101

A swim suit's a swim suit, right? Wrong. And though I am an undergraduate in matters of swimming gear, I will give you a few tips.

-Do not buy a Lycra or nylon suit if you want it to last AT ALL. It feels nice, yes, but it lasts for precious little usage. For example, I began wearing a nice black nylon suit on...Tuesday of last week. Well, let's just say that it is a good thing that I wear three suits, because come Wednesday this week, it was transparent in some very embarassing places. Now, nylon has it's advantages, as does its cousin Lycra. But these are only when you are racing; they create less drag. However, it does not belong in practice or in general use.

-Always get polyester suits for durability (i.e. practice and general use). They last much longer. In fact, they outlast their seams! Example: my recently retired suit that I got last year, around this time. Wonderful polyester-ness. Ahhhh. It only started to have issues two weeks ago, when the thread holding it together started to die. If only I were a seamstress, perhaps I could have saved it. Alas, I cannot. But it did its best. It fell in service (again, rest assured that I am wearing multiple suits, otherwise this sounds horrid).

On the matter of goggles I will give you no advice except this: do not begin with Swedish goggles. They hurt. Work up to them slowly.

And now my attention span has expired, so I will not present discourses on caps, fins, and paddles, let alone pull-buoys (this is where Amaya sighs gratefully).

Yeesh.

Why must people be touchy-feely? Why can't I just have my space? Holy cow! If you want to give me a heart attack, come at me from behind with a hug. If you want to kill me, pay a guy on the swim team to come at me from the side and hug me right after I swim the 100 yard butterfly. I nearly drowned. 2 -- I think that's the number I gave him -- is one of those people who thinks hugs are cool. That's fine, just don't share your coolness with me without ample warning. With ample warning, I can handle it. But he didn't give me any! Just because he had been finished with his 100 for twenty seconds before I got to the final wall doesn't mean he has a right to creep me out like that. Yikes. If there hadn't been a very large lane line between us, there would have been pain.

Aside from that, the annual swimming training trip was much fun. The Animal Set was very hard, as usual, but I did quite well. For those of you who don't know (i.e. all of you), the Animal Set is basically a team-wide competition. We swim four one-hundreds on a fairly easy time, then after those far we lower the time by five seconds. We follow this pattern until we can't make the time. Then we drop out of the competition. Last man standing wins. My cold didn't exactly help any, nor did the added altitude, but it was okay.

Literary Genius?

Apparently I have some literary genius...somewhere. Here's a portion of the prologue for my latest writing endeavor: Blanchette. Please forgive any mangling of the French language. I blame Babel Fish.
_____________________

Oh, how I wish my mother could have held her tongue! Now look at me! All because I refused to marry that dreadful little man that calls himself King of the Dwarves. But now I've ceased to make sense.

I suppose I am meant to be comforted by the presence of so many others in states similar to mine, but it only makes me more frustrated and depressed. What malicious being fairies are!

I sit back on my haunches and lick a paw, trying to calm myself. In some ways, it does, but in others it disgusts me and lowers my mood even farther. I pause, hearing someone coming across the grass of the castle's courtyard.
A tall, lanky tabby cat catches sight of me, almost as though he is looking for me, and approaches, bowing low. "Supper is prepared, lady." A pleasant grin adorns his feline features.

I wonder at his ability to be glad in his current predicament. Perhaps the enchantment has made him forget what has happened. Regardless, the condition was brought upon by my stubbornness. It almost makes me cry. I draw my breath deep and take his proffered paw; I know he means me no harm, even if I have not met him before this moment. He leads me into the castle and to an elegant dining room decorated with tapestries depicting all manner of cat heroes. Featured prominently is the crafty fellow Puss in Boots, but quite frankly his profile makes me want to vomit.

The long table is set for one with the most exquisite dishes I've ever seen, but I hardly notice them. The plate is empty as the tabby pulls back the cushioned chair for me. Not wanting to appear ungrateful to him, I sit. The chair is not uncomfortable, but I want to find something wrong with it.

A black cat with a bloated belly and a milky patch over one eye struts into the room carrying a gleaming silver dish. He places it before me and, with a flourish, removes the lid. The scent of the course tickles my whiskers and my stomach growls. I haven't eaten in at least twelve hours. I nod dolefully to the chef and pick up a spoon. The utensil is awkward in my paw, but I try to use it anyway.

"Vous appréciez, madam," the chef cat says before bowing away.
The dish before me smells delicious and the tabby hovers over my shoulder, so I eat. Though I think that the meal must be superb, I fail to taste it. I swallow without chewing much and I try to eat quickly. The tabby's presence makes me nervous. He doesn't move and he doesn't turn his head. I don't think he even blinks while watching me. I think he must have been a military man before...before...
_____________________________

And cut!

Family

The swim team is my family away from family. We discussed this today in the sauna (sauna talk will, by far, be the most random things I come up with; most of it won't make it to my blog for shame at the randomity). We see each other at our worst; we get annoyed out of our minds with each other; we see each other all the time; and we forgive each other in a maximum of about three days for any annoyances or frustrations. We discussed how certain people tick us off frequently, yet somehow we still hold them in the highest regard. We span a plethora of interests and abilities, most of us are entwined in different social circles (no matter how many dimensions we're talking, bluebird) yet we still are bound together, somehow. I don't think I'll ever actually be able to hate someone on the swim team. You may hear me badmouthing them all the time, but I still don't think I'm capable of hating them. Even the toad. I still have a special place somewhere (it may not be my heart) for that idiot. I tolerate him quite well, considering the amount of time I spend in his presence.

So there's my profound swimming thought for the day. Three in a row...eesh you folks are getting bombarded!

Dynamics

Watching the swim team dynamics make me laugh. A lot.

Not only are we an oddball group of people who somehow find pain a good thing and take great pride in watching the blue line at the bottom of the pool, but we are a mini-community all in one. It's the community part that I will focus on today.

So, three new guy swimmers moved in, all decently to very fast. One from another in-valley city, one from Washington, and one from Texas. None have animals, so I can't speak of them that way, so I will refer to them as 1, 2, and 3, respectively. No one pays 1 too much attention, though we all think he's awesome; he's melded into the system quite well. 2 has everyone saying, "Woah, a :54.00 fly as a sophomore!?" No one takes into account that in other states, one has to have a :58 100 freestyle to be in any way decent. Regardless, on to 3. He has over half the girls melting with pitiful "Ahhhhhhh"s on their lips. Quite amusing, in my opinion.

However, 2 has just asked the serval to Homecoming. She hasn't been reduced to a pile of whimpering mush over 3, and rather enjoys 2's company. Sadly, the bobcat has decided that even though she was dripping with flirtatiousness around 3 at the beginning of the season/week, she cannot follow the crowd and decided she had a crush on 2. The bobcat is silly that way.

Anyway, I was just observing all of this today and found it increasingly hilarious. Maybe you folks will too. Even if you don't, that's all I really have to report.

SWIMMING!

I once again smell like chlorine; all is well in the world (and no one is allowed to sabotage it until my muscle pain really kicks in!).

Today began the grueling swim season. This morning's practice was much more difficult than it should have been. We were doing these sprints (4x50 on 1:00, in case anyone understands that) and I was working them hard; I felt like I was going to throw up. Yet I had this haphazardly placed grin stretched across my face. What is wrong with me? I feel so giddy. I was so gleeful all during school that my chemistry class now knows me to be insane and Zach called me a maniac because I was the only one answering his questions and I wasn't coherent. After school I indulged in another practice, this one more difficult than the first. The set of death was certainly deserving of the name, especially considering we just started the season (16x100 IM on a fasterish time). However, coach somehow got a decent answer out of us when he ended practice and shouted, "Is everybody happy?!" He normally doesn't get more than a sarcastic response, but today nearly every one of us answered with a resounding yes. I was surprised myself.

All in all, it was a 9,000 yard season opener. Tomorrow I will surely be able to lift no more than a finger and I will moan as I try to eradicate myself from my bed. But as for today, I am content with my lick 'n' sniff.

Lifeguard Insanity X

As a head lifeguard, I often feel like I'm babysitting. And I'm not just talking about the patrons.

The leopard seal. What more can I say? Well, to Amaya I could explain who the leopard seal is, but that would take effort. Mix the leopard seal with a fellow that I believe I gave the pseudonym Mike and you get a heinous mixture.

The first signs were at the first closing of the day. Mike sprayed the seal with a hose, the seal retaliated by splashing him with semi-squeegeed water and stealing the hose. What followed after was a ten-minute water fight that I had to try to contain before we could finish cleaning. Ridiculous. Because of their horsing around, we only had two squeegees. Therefore, their punishment was that they had to get all the water in the girls' locker room down the drains. Alone.

The goings-on during the party were, I'll admit, entertaining. Also, I must accept some responsibility because, in a lapse of thought, I put them next to each other in the rotation. However, we were guarding handicapped people that tended to need more watching than other people. So, while I found their tube-fighting humorous, I also had to attempt to keep them contained, even if there were only three people in their combined areas. Then, they began to get me involved in the actual fighting. Mike insisted on making sure I saw every time that the seal hit him and he plead with me to do something about it. Then, after a while, the seal tried to talk to me but I couldn't hear him over the roar of the water. I cupped my ear; he called again. I still couldn't hear so I cupped my ear again. It reminded me of a dog, so I started "scratching" my ear like a dog. The seal mimicked me and Mike immediately started shouting, "That's cheating; you can't flirt! Flirting is cheating." I think the seal tried to protest, because Mike was soon responding, "I don't know about you, but I saw flirting."

Hilarious.

They then, somehow, started a contest on who could make me laugh first in between the times when they were whacking each other. Mike failed, because he tried to make me laugh by using his whistle in a way that tends to make me angry. The seal, on the other hand, waited until we were close enough in the rotation to talk and then we discussed this and that and he got me to laugh. All the while Mike was using his whistle infuriatingly. I didn't know about the contest until afterwards. Those two are odd ducks. Or whatever.

Things I learned today:
-The seal is supposedly not afraid of anything and he would very much like to be a canine officer. If he were to stop aging, he would like to stop aging at 18.
-I have a coworker that is deathly afraid of dogs. She would like to stop aging at 22.
-I have a coworker that is deathly afraid of spiders. Aging stop at 21.
-Never, EVER let the seal and Mike be next to each other in the rotation again.

Unseen

More flawed poetry.

Unseen

Futile efforts to contain
Emotions flying free
Cannot hold in the effects
So instead I hide myself
Never to be seen
Broken and bare
Of this iron skin that keeps
Secrets hidden deep
But it also keeps out darts
Of more painful knowledge
Denial can be so sweet
Refusing to see the truth,
The way things are now
Ignoring the awakenings
So numerous, yet few
Turning away from the words
Adorning the gray stone wall
What I don't see I don't touch
Leave my bruised and tender heart
Locked within its metal casing
Untouched, unbroken, unknown.

Lifeguarding, Scene 1

Allow me to introduce you to a humorous dialogue from work. Nothing else happened today...

Scene I
[Scene: SCERA pool, Ocelot pacing the edge, looking intently at the five people populating the water.]

[Enter Mark the Supervisor]

Mark [approaching Ocelot]: I am strongly under the suspicion that the party isn't going to show tonight.

Ocelot [not turning from the water]: Uh-huh.

Mark: I mean, I don't have a deposit, paperwork, why do I feel so tall?

Ocelot [caught off guard]: Uh, 'cause I'm short?

Mark: I'm dwarfing you!

Ocelot: Yup.

Mark [seeming to remember himself]: But not 'cause you're short, or anything... Anyway, close as if there was no party coming, all right?

Ocelot: 'Kay. [Exunt Mark, stage left] I still think it's 'cause I'm short.
[shrugs. Exunt, stage right]

Vents

This will be short, hopefully, but it is the largest occurence of my yesterday.

In English we were asked to write a story that was a page and a half, yes? Yes. So both my mother and I interpret that as meaning the story itself can only be up to two pages (I understand that if teachers are going to read all of them, they must be short enough to make this feasible). However, what kind of story can you fit in two pages? Hardly any at all! Without paying attention, I typed a 4-page rough draft. What followed after is horrible to speak of. I spent the next two hours clipping away at my glorious creation. I have sliced and slashed and incinerated half the story! Well, true, I also changed the character spacing just a wee bit and the margins are all bigger too, but that's not the point! Nearly all my buildup is gone. Oh, the misery. Oh, the agony of mine soul! That such a flower of perfection, the expressions of mine desires, should be cut down to a mere shadow of what it was. Woe is me!

Raquetball Reformation

I can never look at a raquetball court the same way again. Or a wallyball court either. I just spent 3 1/2 hours scrubbing the walls of said places. In that time we cleaned one of each. We were the fast group. In the process, we had chemical irriation, blisters, and general frustration. You know those marks that raquetball balls make on the wall? Yeah? THEY DON'T COME OFF. Unless you scrub the same two square feet for fifteen minutes. Multiply that my how many sets of two-foot squares we could reach with our monstrous extendable poles and you have our time frame. Plus we had to scrape/scrub the windows with a separate solution, so as not to ruin the windows.

The wallyball court was easier, but even so it was horrid. By then most of our hands had been rubbed raw.

As if that were not enough, we then had to scrub the cement walls outside of the Rec. Center courts. Not that we accomplished anything. It would be a great cruel and unusual punishment. Sentenced to clean a wall that doesn't come clean, no matter your efforts. The court doors weren't much better, but there were some spots we could scrape off with gum scrapers.

But beyond the physical and mental toture they put us through, the music that was playing was BEYOND BEARABLE. They don't pay me enough to listen to that music period, let alone while I'm sacrificing life and limb for the sake of the raquetball courts. Not only that, but just down the hall from the hideous music, there was mildly tolerable music playing. That would have been fine, HAD I NOT BEEN SCRUBBING A DOOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THEM! So I had to endure two horrendous styles of music coming at me from both directions and mingling in a dischordant symphony in my mind.

The only up side was being able to see the pool when it was nearly drained. There's still water in the deep end, but other than that it's empty.

Seething

The ocelot bristled from her perch in the oak tree. Her claws flicked in and out of functional positions and her tail twitched back and forth. Her eyes were golden flames of rage. Had she been capable of growling, she would have. As it was, periodically she would emit a low, ominous hiss. Her thoughts swelled within her mind, rising and receding in her anger. It rose to a pinnacle and with a ear-splitting cry she slashed at the trunk of her tree. The area she struck was stripped of much of its bark; it was not the first time she had such an outburst. An insect with white wings flapped past and she snapped at it, barely missing the wing. She only wished that the insect had been the tomcat.

She was not about to ask the tomcat to undo what he had done, for in so doing she would do a discourtesy greater than the disservice he had placed at her feet. She hunched her shoulders and bared her fangs. Just thinking about it made her want to strangle something. Admittedly, some of her frustration arose from the strenuous patrolling of the night, but the majority had directly arisen from the tomcat's thoughlessness. She gnashed her teeth and slowly stripped her tree's limb of its bark. With every inward breath she contemplated revenge, with every outward one she tried to ponder forgiveness.

Then her eyes caught sight of the newly arrived moon-glow. It created a breathtaking halo around the distant mountain range. Awestuck, she gazed at the nearly-full moon as it rose. Her golden eyes reflected the huge silver orb and the irrational anger slowly drained from them. Her mind worked over the day's events and she realized that, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was nothing worth getting this worked up about and it certainly wasn't worth slaughtering one of her best friends. She even abandoned her idea of the perfect revenge. Feeling her tense muscles loosen as her rage leaked out of them, she sighed. She could only hope that it wouldn't happen again. She padded to where her limb met the trunk and curled into a small ball. Taking one last breath of the forest air, she fell promptly to sleep.

Tomcat, if you happen to read this (which it doesn't look like you will if the last post of mine you read was Lifeguard Apathy 1.5), know that I'm really not mad at you anymore. However, had you not been approximately two miles away when I found out what you did, we probably both would have gone through a repeat of the fourth grade, if you catch my meaning. But, as I said, I have realized that it isn't a huge problem and I won't be ready to slice off your head the next time I see you. But I would advise that in the future, preferably the near future, you acquire some common courtesy.

Disturbances in the Force

So I realized just tonight that wookies can't pronounce their names. How is that supposed to work?

Han Solo: Hi, what's your name?
Chewbacca: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHRRRRR!
Han Solo: Oh, Chewbacca, eh? That's a nice name.

My frustration of the night. There was another about Obi-Wan calling Palpatine the Emperor before he could have known that the guy had made the Republic an Empire, but my biggest issue was definitely the wookie one.

Awkward...

is a weird word to spell. And it is what all these "is he your boyfriend" type questions are like. If I wasn't the kind of person who bursted out laughing at such things, I would have issues. Today it was more in the form of "how long have you been dating?" but it was still really weird. The very thought made me simultaneously chuckle and cringe. Pwetty weiwd. Considering that the last such question was only eight days ago makes it even more awkward (that word is utterly absurd, once again). And there we go; that was more or less my day. The rest of it was lifeguard boredom, as per usual. And lifeguard insanity, but not too much...

Well, not more than you would expect when you set all the lifeguards loose with only three rules keeping them in check. Tube rafts down the twisty slide! Triple chicken wars! Dive boarding to the max! *runs away and goes to bed*

River Folk Competition

Well, here's a hopefully better-composed creative entry. Today I went to an August swim practice. August swim practices are a joke. We have no coach and basically the only reason they exist is because none of us have lives. For the last half hour of practice we combine with the little kids and play games. Today we played steal the flag. Because I have nothing to compete in during the summer, even these petty games are a huge deal to me. So this post is pretty long.

The ocelot tossed a small fish between her paws on the bank of the river, impatiently waiting for the others. Every so often she would nibble at the fish, and by the time the fox appeared from the underbrush, all that was left was some neatly picked bones and the fins. The fins had no flavor worthy of consumption.

The fox and the ocelot skidded down the bank together and began their pre-plunge rituals. The greyhound casually trotted up to them and began dousing her paws and muzzle. Then the chipmunk scampered out on a flimsy limb above them. The limb didn’t hold and the small rodent tumbled into the water with a splash. Then, to the surprise of all present, the flamingo joined them. Most had not seen the flamingo since the farewell to a few friends and all were shocked to find her there again. Others of the river folk slowly trickled into the water and soon all were swimming playfully. Younger river folk worked seriously a little ways upstream, but the older folk swam at their leisure.

After quite some time of such matters—the sun had come out from behind the tree it had hidden behind—the younger folk joined the older and began a game. The game was certainly an interesting one. The females guarded one bank of the river and the males the other. The ocelot plucked the fins of her fish off the bones and one was placed on each bank. The females’ goal was to keep the males from getting their own and to capture the males’. Upon hearing the proposition the ocelot grinned happily; this was the competition she had been missing all summer.

The first round began and the ocelot paced the imaginary border along the river. It wasn’t so much pacing and treading back and forth, for the water was too deep for her to touch bottom. She tried to plot how to best reach the males’ fin, but then spotted the greedy eyes of the emu, the gecko, and the heron. She paddled back from the border and into a position to defend her fin.

The emu and the gecko she knew she could handle. At least, she knew she could handle them with the help of the younger animal that was also guarding the fin. So long as she had someone to delay one of the opposing animals, she could manage both. But with the heron, she wasn’t so sure. If they all came at once she didn’t think she could take them. She was right. All three came at the same time, each from a different direction. She caught two, but as she turned to grasp at the heron, he cockily stroked back to his side of the river. He strutted along his bank waving the fin and the ocelot seethed. Her competitive self had been awakened.

The second round went much better for the females. The greyhound coordinated a plan and swam swiftly for the fin. She grasped it but, knowing that she would be overcome, passed it to the chipmunk. The chipmunk carried it a small way before being set upon. She passed it to a younger creature, but the ocelot could see that the creature would not make it. She would come close, but close doesn’t count. The ocelot reached her paws across the border and snatched the fin from the assaulted youngling. She raised it in the air to show victory, then praised the greyhound for her cleverness.

The third round was hotly competitive. Several attempts on both sides were made to retrieve the fins, but all failed. The ocelot had nearly strangled the emu in trying to haul him to the surface and almost felt sorry, but then the emu blatantly flouted the rules so her pity was gone. The gecko attempted to distract her with a wave of younglings before coming in himself, but the ocelot and her companion held them back well enough to throw him back as well. Then the ocelot caught sight of the heron looking back and forth, trying to spot anyone watching him. The cat submerged; not only was she unseen when the heron dove down to make his attack, but she was well placed when he started for the fin. The gecko, seeing his friend moving in, also ventured across the border. The ocelot knew her companion could do little against either of the assailants and fretted. She’d go for the biggest threat first. Rising to the surface for a quick breath of air, she dove towards the heron.

The bird’s feathers were slick in the water and he kept wiggling when the ocelot would grasp him. As tempted as she was to use her claws, she refrained. Much to her dismay, he grabbed the fin. The ocelot saw a flicker of movement that was her companion attempting to thwart the gecko. Paddling furiously, the ocelot pursued the heron. He couldn’t have much air left in his lungs; he would have to come up soon. But not soon enough. The ocelot, in one desperate attempt, threw her paws around the heron, pinning his wings to his body and crushing the air from his chest. Frantically the heron rose to the surface. He tried to pass the fin to the gecko, but the ocelot’s companion had done well. The gecko was shorter on air than the heron was and soon had to rise. As soon as they were both above the water, the ocelot snatched the fin back. And in that moment the fox reappeared on the females’ side bearing the males’ fin. Victory.

Oh, and in case you're curious, the heron is quite a cocky fellow, so I was quite happy to have beaten him at something. He's one of the fastest guys on the team too. But in capture the flag, it's all in the strategy, so I stand a small chance.

Lifeguard Insanity IX

Yes, that's a nine.

Today it was cloudy, in case y'all didn't know, so there were precious few people at the pool. To fill our lack of patrons to watch, the lifeguards all went cwazy. I started by trying to see how many polyatomic ions I could remember. I got stuck on thiocyanate (which I now know to be SCN-) and was still trying to remember it while Danny, the lifeguard rotating behind me, had me switch positions. He asked me what I was muttering about and to make a long story short, we started quizzing each other on random chemistry facts. This comes back later.

So then me and this girl Kelly ended up next to each other (still on separate pools, but there was no one to watch) so we talked. We started with how the shift coordinator has it in for us and this other girl because we three are the closing head guards nearly this entire week. We somehow moved on to random games played with friends and I got some fun ideas. We also saw lightning, but it was too far away for it to affect us.

An hour after Kelly and I had spotted the lightning and had been keeping close tabs on it, Danny noticed it. By this point we had run out of chemistry trivia and had moved on to history. But that's not relevant yet. The point is that every time he would see lightning, he'd do this annoying chirp through his whistle that drove me and Kelly insane. I hit him with my tube (rather harder than I ever have, I must admit) and told him to stop it. I had asked nicely before, but I only have so much patience. He then asked me a string of founding father questions that I couldn't hope to answer. When he told me he only got up to about the Civil War in his history class, I started asking CW questions as well as WWI and WWII questions. Etc.

So in the after hours party, it was so empty that Danny and I stopped waiting till rotating time to quiz each other. We just started yelling across the pool. We got a lot done too. But in the time that we weren't shouting questions or mocking each other for answering incorrectly, he was still chirping! After a half hour of this and several times of whacking him with my shoe, I decided to stop flipping out and start plotting revenge.

After the party we spot-cleaned the locker rooms. This means that we didn't get the hose out and we didn't mop them again. We just got a bucket of water to splosh the dirt and then squeegeed (sp?) it all down the drains. I placed myself in charge of the bucket; I'm a head guard, I can do that sort of thing. Once we were finished and we had exitted the locker room, Danny turned his back and I dumped 2/3 of a bucket of icy water on his head. He was upset, but it was payback and I had Kelly behind me on the fact that he deserved it.

And that was my day. Actually, I went biking earlier in the day and that was great fun. I made it up the Hogi Yogi hill without passing out or walking my bike! Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea; joy to you and me!

Lifeguard Insanity VIII

Some of you may remember the Roasted Toad post. Some of you may not. Either way I just realized that it doesn't matter.

Anyway, today at work the toad was on my pool. He was in one of his tolerable moods, so I was able to torment him for a while to entertain myself. However, later on in the night, his mere presence aroused such humor that I could barely contain my amusement. Come to think of it, I didn't.

So, it was the last fifteen minutes of general public hours and both of us were roving around the current channel in the slide pool. He had been in the water and the wind was blowing so he had one of our lifeguard jackets on. I was too wimpy to get in the water, but I'm a head guard so I can erase the necessity to get in the water. Back on track, several young (when I say young, I mean young) girls were going around the channel and called the toad a sissy. I had to agree. So did he. So the little girls teasing him on that account only lasted a short while. They sure were loud about it though. Ah well, on with the tale. Shortly thereafter, they went on a crusade to discover his name. Both of us being greatly entertained, we told them things like Scott, Matt, and (shamefully) Fredrika. The last one gave away the fact that we weren't telling the truth. After they were told that it started with a J we fed them names like Jeremiah, Jared, Jason, and Jack. The girls were muy confused and so proceeded to ranting about us being liars. "You LIED to us! I can't believe it! You LIARS!" It was quite entertaining. Then they asked if he was my boyfriend. I had to get him to watch my water because I was laughing so hard. I couldn't stand for my laughter. Then I told him what I was laughing about and I had to watch his water so he could laugh it off as well.

After we closed and the gals on my pool were in the locker rooms trying to scare all the ladies out, we overheard the girls dicussing that they thought the toad was very cute. You must realize that some of these girls were like eight. Once we shooed them out of the facility, we guarded a party. Nothing cool happened in that party. Then we guarded another one. Here's where it gets funnier (okay, so maybe this isn't all that entertaining to you folks, but to bored lifeguards, this is what we die for!).

Near the end no one was in our pool except for the folks going down the slides. Then two girls decided to go around the channel after riding. Me and another of the gal guards overheard them talking. The toad had been at the top of the slide. I now quote their words:

"Did you hear how he told me to go? He used a sexy voice!"
"He's so hot!"
Insert fits of girly giggles.

Now, these girls couldn't have been older than nine, if that. Like, I think that's stretching it. It's a good thing I was already sitting down, because otherwise I probably would have split my head open during my full-body laughter.

When we were once again cleaning the locker rooms, we told the toad of the latest infatuation he had caused and awarded him the "Most Attractive to Females Under the Age of Nine" award. And that was probably the highlight of my week, right there. Hilarious I tell you!

Biking Hapiness!

The wood duck just saved me having to get a new bike, yet I didn't have to pay for labor fixing it either. Admittedly, it's not perfect, but considering its condition prior to his playing with it, it's in pretty good shape. Now I can go biking up the canyon! Wahoo! I am muy gleeful.

In other news, I love having the power to make characters whatever I want them to be. Bwaha.

Save the Commas!

I think that it was in eighth grade that we, as an English class, were given the assignment of following the outline of a certain poem but changing the meaning. I can't remember what it was called, but it started out (or had this in it) like so: "My pwoblems, who knows, maybe evewybody's pwoblems, is due to da fact, to da aweful twoof, dat I am Spidoman." Or something like that. All I remember was that it was written with this weird childish slur to it. It was a pretty cool poem. Anyway, we had to change it from Spiderman to something else. I changed it to being a writer. Or a wannabe writer, whatever. Sometimes it's really frusterating to have all these ideas in my head. I have so many separate plot lines that I'm going insane. Even when I like all the plot lines and I enjoy writing them, it's hard to keep the character personalities defined and keeping the rules of different fantasy places where they belong gets tedious. But that's not even the worst of it. I didn't become the extreme grammar/punctuation freak that I am until after I started editing other people's writing. They all assumed I could edit them because I wrote my own stuff. And now I can't even read published books without reaching for my red pen! My most recent issues have been these: In one book I was reading they used "our" where I'm sure they meant "out" and in Harry Potter 5 I keep finding dialogue where Rowling abuses commas heinously. It detracts from the story, it does. I wish I could find an example so I could stop all you from shaking your heads and saying, "She can't be right about the commas thing." It's really and honestly true. Next time I find one I'll post it. But she has these incredible run-on sentences. I could cry. You'd think that by the fifth book she could have found somebody that would catch them all. I mean, once or twice is one thing, but it's a repeating mistake! She needs to read Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Apparently it was a bestseller over in Britain; she should have seen it by now. And it's not a boring punctuation book! It's fun. Anyway, you're probably all bored with my grammar rant, but that's what was on my mind right now...

In other news, I just wrote the longest two-person conversation that I have ever had in my stories! Or maybe not, but it was very close and I had no idea where it was going when I started it. Dialogue is not my forte, but I think I'm getting better. Maybe.

Aftermath of Visitations

So this is pretty much about my day at work, but today didn't qualify as a Lifeguard Insanity day.

The ocelot raced to the crest of the final hill before she reached the river. After she had topped it and had begun her descent, she overreached her stride and fell in a tumbled heap the rest of the way. Finally gripping the ground as it leveled out, she skidded to a halt at the feet of the head patroller. Grinning sheepishly, she rushed out to her post.

She had almost been late. Not quite, but almost. Even coming close to doing such a thing had given the cat's heart quite a stir. [yes, pathetic, but true; I have yet to be late to work, and being late it a huge deal down at the pool] Normally she was at the river quite in advance, but today had been a bit different.

Earlier, she had gone to visit the malamute with the bluebird. The dog was in a grove where injured animals went to recooperate. He had hurt his head horrendously [do you see that unintentional alliteration? Bow before the Alliteration Queen!] when he had fallen from a boulder and slid down a rocky landscape [yeah, so that's nowhere close; I'm trying to hury through this!]. He was doing quite well, considering the injuries he had sustained. However, the ocelot had lost track of time during the visit and had soon gotten quite behind her schedule. Now, disheveled and somewhat out of breath, she parked herself and the top of the bank where many animals enjoyed sliding down into the water.

After having wandered along the bank for some time watching the visitors at the river, a small gnat darted into the ocelot's eye. She continued moving in a hop-along fashion while using one paw to extricate the irritating insect. Just as the remains of the bug were removed, the ocelot was suddenly no longer on solid ground. Her paws grasped at empty air for the barest of moments before she was slipping in the mud of the bank and crashing into the shallows. A nearby patroller nearly burst with laughter and, after assessing the absurdity of her situation, the ocelot joined her. She rolled playfully once in the shallows before resuming her position sopping wet.

The sun set without anything eventful occuring beyond the usual idiot visitors that tried to get themselves killed. The ocelot was in a rather pleasant mood, actually. Nothing had gone terribly wrong and the weather was kind. But while all the patrollers were taking a short break from their labors, the ocelot felt something pounce on her back. Hissing and yowling, the ocelot spun around, fruitlessly attempting to erradicate her attacker.

The mole had leapt on her from behind. He tumbled away chuckling to himself. The ocelot rather wanted to show him her claws' sense of humor, but she thought better of it. Outwardly shrugging off her indignation, she tried to regain her former giddy mood.

Okay, so that was NOT the best example of my writing skills, but that's all right, right? If it isn't, it doesn't quite matter to me anyway. But today was pretty amusing. I fell in, much to the amusement of my co-workers, and I am obviously not sick because when the mole tried to pick me up from behind I flipped out and greatly desired to cause him physical injury.

Faith Walk

As some of you may have known, I was at girls' camp last week. If you didn't know before, now you do. While the experience was wonderful, I have a few major things to share. But first, the minor things. My "nationality" changed many, many times a day. I started as an Irish máthair, then became a Scottish drunk for a skit, then I put on a lei/skirt and did the hula, I got called German for my outfit, my pajama pants tucked into my socks looked rather Arabian, and I was spurting random Spanish words and shouting "Arrrrrrrriba!" all the time. I got to the the Fire Patrol and light/supervise the lighting of all the fires (why they let me do that I'll never know). I danced in the thunder, lightning, and rain for an hour or more on Friday. The full moon was breathtaking up there. Now that I've got through all that stuff, here's one of the big things I learned up there. Well, I suppose I've always known it, but it was more illustrated by a change in perpective.

Friday morning we went into one of the many bunches of aspens at Shalom and set up a Faith Walk. We twisted a rope in and out and around lots of trees through many natural obstacles. The YCLs (youth camp leader, which I was) were then assigned to be a good voice or a bad voice. Two of the seven were good, the rest were bad. I was a bad voice. The other girls were then blindfolded, set on the rope, and told to follow it and not take off their blindfolds until they got to the end. I was positioned rather closer to the end, though I wasn't the last voice, and I was right next to a tricky clump of aspens (well, probably one aspen, but you can't quite tell when you're above ground, can you?). When the girls would come to me, I'd tell them that the trees were coming and if they grabbed my hand I would help them through it. Most times they wouldn't trust me and they would hit their heads on the trees. Then, shortly after the trees, I had tied a black ribbon onto the rope. When they approached it, I told them that the path took a sharp turn to the right and they needed to follow it. Most of them trusted me after hitting their heads on the trees, so they grabbed the ribbon. At that point nearly everyone remarked on the difference in texture. I--being a pretend minion of the father of all lies--told them that we had run out of real rope and we had to make due with ribbon. At that point, the majority would reach back to the real rope and discover my deceitful ways. However, a good number would trust me and continue. I then got 'twixt them and the rope and nudged them away. None could really find their way back without help at that point. Now, some few would listen to me when I told them to grab my hand before the aspens. Then I'd tell them that if they let go of the rope they could quickly skip the trees and I'd get them right back to the rope. Only one fell for that, but it was pretty sad when she did.

Most of you who regularly read this will now discern that the rope held the same meaning as the iron rod in Lehi's dream ("Hold to the rod, the iron rod. 'Tis strong and bright and true," I love hymns). Anyway, after seeing what small success the other "demons" had, I discovered that my sickening success had been due, mainly, to the clump of trees (representing trials and tribulations, in case you needed a little help jumping to that conclusion). The one girl who grabbed my hand and let go of the rope did so to avoid the trees, but she ended up in more trouble than if she had just ran into the trees (she tripped a couple times before I led her back to the rope feeling quite guilty). The one's who followed the false rope did so because they had just gone through the clump of trees and didn't like what they had just experienced. They followed the ribbon to avoid further complications of that kind.

Now let me speak plainly, shoving the real lesson I learned right in your face. Satan will try to tempt us strongest at the most inopportune times in our lives. If we're already having a hard time, that's when he's going to try his hardest to get us to turn away from God, because that is when he has the best chance. It is when we are feeblest, as we have just, or will soon, or are (etc.) having a difficult time and are already grasping for things to keep us afloat. But it is at these times that we need to be most aware, the strongest, and the most prepared.

On a lighter note, my paper plate award (due to the above incident) was "The Deciver [sic]: 'Take my hand.'"

Lifeguard Apathy 1.5

Work is horrid. Full stop (to be British about it).

Lifeguard Apathy 1.0

So, today I feel extremely bleh and bleher. It is way too hot and it has been since 8:30. I don't really care about all that much right now. To illustrate the extent of my weariness, I will share a happening at work today. As head guard, I have the responsiblity to assign guards where to go when they first come on the shift. As I was doing this, my tone was flat, I was slouching worse than usual, and I had a general tired look on my face. One of the guards was feeling a bit more perky and sympathetic. So, he slung my arm over his shoulders, scooped me up, and walked around to the concessions area. Upon reaching the horizontal freezer, he asked if anyone would open it, but no one would, so he just dropped me on top of it. All this he did without a word from my lips, without a twitch from my muscles. And after he had put me down I sat there for a couple of minutes until I decided it was time to rotate again. Now all of you that know me well think I'm deathly ill, but I promise I'm not. There's just a severe lack of enthusiasm and dislike for the sun/heat. I should go vampire and hide away in my basement. If only I didn't work outside. And guess what. I have to go back to work in approximately two hours. Oh goody.

Lifeguard Insanity VII

Just when you thought you were safe from these kinds of posts...

Due to extreme boredom at work, I have again resorted to writing love songs. How I manage this I have no idea. This one was written for the combined efforts of a guy and a gal, but I feel like I'm missing some lines. I also wrote the girl's part too high for me to sing and the boy's part too low. How I could do that while I was singing this whole thing to myself I'll never know. Anywhere I type -------, that is a place where I think I need more lines, but I currently do not have them.
_________________________

There Isn't a Doubt

Gal: ---------------
---------------------
But now I'mwith you
And there isn't a doubt in my mind
That any place better than the here and now
Would be impossible to find

Guy: --------------
---------------------
And now I'm with you
And there isn't a doubt in my heart
That I would never survive
If we were ever to part

Gal: And there isn't a doubt in my soul
Guy:....................................................doubt in my soul

Gal: That this is where we should go

Guy: There has never been a path more clear
Than the one I see right now,
Right here

Both: Together forever with you
No matter what we must go through

Gal: We have a bond; no one can break it

Guy: Nothing can make us deny it

Gal: I know that we can make it

Guy: If there's an obstacle, we'll defy it

Both: There isn't a doubt about it
There isn't a doubt anywhere
----------------------------
-----------------------------
-------(repeat lots)-------
Together forever with you...
_____________________________

I really need to find out where these things are coming from. I never would have thought I had it in me if not for lifeguarding.

Light after Dark

Just to lighten the mood that I kind of set with my last post, here's a little something about what happened tonight (maybe last night, by the time I finish this). I'm so glad I have friends.

The ocelot kept her eyes on the dark waters with a small grin on her lips. Her day had been utterly horrid. Late for teaching younglings how to swim, nine hours patrolling, patrollers failing to come to the river to fulfill their duties, disgusting messes made by the visitors at the river, all had plagued her hours of daylight. But after the sun had set, things started to look up.

By some stroke of luck, several wonderful friends came to the river. The leopard seal had helped clean up the disarray left by the less considerate of the visitors and then had made the ocelot laugh as she settled in for her longest stint of patrolling yet.

Then the kangaroo had appeared. A beaming smile had broken out on the ocelot's face as she chatted with the bubbling visitor.

The next friend to register on the ocelot's radar had been the malamute. After berating him for not responding to repeated messages sent to him, the cat was more than happy to trade several jests with the dog. She also tried to teach him the correct way to slip down the river bank, but he failed miserably.

As the ocelot continued her pacing along the bank, a familiar voice reached her ears. "Blind! Blind!" it shouted. The ocelot turned her head to see the tomcat wading in the shallows. She hadn't seen the other cat for an entire cycle of the moon, so it was quite a pleasant surprise.

The night's patrolling passed much more pleasurably with the frequent sightings of her friends. In a combined effort, they even got her singing happy songs that actually existed, as opposed to her usual inventing of tunes. Before she knew it, the night was drawing to a close.

The dark waters were clearing of visitors and the ocelot idly twitched her tail as she watched the patterns of the liquid. Her eyes were growing wide as though entranced by the dancing reflections of light. Then her mind quickly revived her, reminding her that she had duties to attend to.

She looked back from the bank, trying to find the patroller that she was supposed to be exchanging reports with. But instead of finding her fellow, she saw a black shadow stalking towards her with glowing, malicious eyes. The ocelot hissed in fright and bared her teeth and claws. The shadow stepped into a path of moonlight and the cat's muscles relaxed as she sighed. The malamute looked rather dejected that she had discovered his attempt to chuck her in the water. Chasing him off quickly, she got back to watching the empty water.

I don't feel like writing a satisfying end to this. Anyway, this was actually last week. Now the food (brownies, pretzels, cookies and the like) that the leopard seal's mom left us is gone, so are the many cans of soda, and the water bottles. She is now one of my favorite parental figures outside of my own.

I Was Wrong

These are two separate ideas, the first rather short. Both are untitled, as I just wrote them. However, I'm betting most of you can guess who it's about. If you can't, you can find his relation to me in the second thing.
----------------------------
I thought things were turing around
But I was wrong
I thought that you were starting to see
But I was wrong
I thought that all this time was teaching you the truth
But the path you're on seems to appeal to you
----------------------------
Why do you think that nothing is wrong?
What's in your mind; is everything gone?
What happened to your common sense,
The care you used to have?
I never thought you could fall this far
But I guess you can.

You've hit the bottom and looked for deeper realms
You've made "friends" that only care about themselves
I can't think of where you're trying to go
You don't have any direction
You've gone down a crooked path
Without any kind of correction.

Brother, look at me, can't you see the pain in my eyes?
But my pain is nothing next to the tears our mother cries
Every time you come around this place
You tear at her heart a little more
Can't you turn and see your way back
The open, beckoning door?
----------------------------

Again, they are rough. I'm not good at getting current feelings out. They just all sort of gnaw at me at the same time, so they never come out smoothly.

Lifeguard Insanity VI

Mornings at the Rec Center are amusing, to say the least. While I do have to endure piercing glares from my swim coaches because I'm not at practice, it's fun to laugh at the swim team working their guts out while you sit in your chair. Beyond that, there are the regulars. There is one lady who, before she does her workout, must make sure that all the floating balls on one lane line are evenly spaced. She may go back and forth 2-3 times perfecting the spacing. There is a man, the OCD lady's husband, who will get so hilariously angry if we leave the shallow-end door leading outside open. There's the private boys school that comes to swim and cause laughter to well in my chest. They have a little less than perfect form.

The water aerobics classes are a cut above. The sea cows are constantly finding new ways to make the day interesting, humorous, or a pain in the backside. Lifting up lane lines for arthritis victims, jumping in the water too early and causing the swim team to get irrate and splash just to be contrary, the fact that they must have their ten minutes in the hot tub following their class, all these things just make me laugh. Ooooooooom!

Later on in the morning, around 8:15, we are joined by a group of old men who will stand in a small circle and hop about cracking horribly corny jokes. They always get me to chuckle.

As terrible as it is to go to work at 5:00, I find humor in the work day.

Also, I get to dress up like I'm Irish and have Beehives/Mia Maids call me Máthair during Camp! Woohoo! I'm so excited. This is no "Sham," camp is going to "Rock!"

First Rescue

That's right! You get two posts from me today. Why? Because I needed to put this up eventually and now is as good as tomorrow. That and I haven't done a creative post for a long time. To explicar, (don't even comment on that, bluebird) patrolling is obviously lifeguarding. We have an "under 9 rule" that says all kids under 9 must be with someone 15+. However, kids can get "duckie passes" if they are 6-8 and prove their swimming capabilities. So, I commence.

Blistering heat battered the ocelot's neck and sweat trickled between her fur follicles. The river patrolling had been particularly draining that day, but in sooth it had only begun. Foolish fishes flopped across the waters carelessly. This only added to the ocelot's poor mood. How she wished she didn't have to watch them from the land! But that was not the current matter.

Reverting her eyes back to the fledgling finch in the river, she held in a sigh. The little thing could hardly keep her head above water. Not that she was in any great danger. There was a sizeable stone jutting out of the water to grip should she truly begin to drown.

The ocelot was rather put out with the mother finch at her side. One of the rules of the patrollers was that particularly small animals must be accompanied in the waters by an animal capable of taking care of them. However, they had exceptions. If young animals should prove themselves able to take care of themselves, the patrollers would let them do so unsupervised. The finch mother thought her fledgling was ready for such a challenge. However, by the looks of it, there was no possibility that the ocelot would let her wander about alone.

Tiny squawks cried out wordlessly. The fledgling was pleading for help. The ocelot's muscles tensed and adrenaline tried to force her into the water. But for a moment, she paused, wondering if the fledgling would notice the rock beside her. But the small bird was too frightened to take any heed of her surroundings. The ocelot plunged into the current.

Swimming to the small ball of feathers was no difficulty, and soon she was beside the bird. The little thing had noticed--just before the ocelot reached her--the stone and was clinging to it desperately. Coaxing her gently, the ocelot placed the orb of damp feathers on her head and swam calmly back to the bank. It could have been far worse, but under no circumstances was such a feeble creature going to be allowed to play in the waters alone.

Pulling her bulk out of the flow, she put the fledgling back on firm ground next to her mother. The ocelot raised her eyes to meet those of the larger finch, saying with her eyes and the placing of her lips what she thought of the young one's swimming capabilities.

"Did she pass?" the mother finch asked pragmatically.

It was going to be a long day for the ocelot.

This happened sometime last week-ish. I don't really know. All the days just sort of mush together.

Lifeguard Insanity V

Just to show you how weird us lifeguards are, (yes, I know it should be we lifeguards, but I don't care) I'll tell you how we were spending our time waiting to open today. We were all lined up on our DI couches talking about how funny it would be to rotate the lap pool backwards. The sad part is, we actually found it amusing. Then we thought of ways that we could start in the middle of the rotation, or even do a criss-cross switch back sort of thing. When we ran out of ideas for that, we watched two girls play volleyball/hacky sack with diving sticks. That entertained us for up to ten minutes. It was really funny though.

Anyway, nothing interesting at work today, just a large amount of messes for guards that weren't me to clean up (the leopard seal had to clean several up, but it's his own gosh darn fault for breaking his arm and getting himself on the cleaning crew for the entire month). No one drowned while I was there, which is good. But people are starting to notice that they always have me guarding the kiddie pool now. Even when I take other people's shifts I somehow end up with C pool. It's definitely a conspiracy to truly rob me of my sanity.

Lifeguard Insanity IV

Today, I sang to myself nearly the entire time. Since I was on top of the slide tower alone a lot, I started to sing about the things I saw, and Timp was swathed in misty clouds. Utterly stunning, to be sure. What resulted is this thingamajig. I'll probably be working out the notes on the piano tonight.

The mountain on the horizon
Marks the end of all that I know
Yet it beckons and cries
And begs to be climbed
But I don't know where to go

I think I'll try to write other verses soon. The melody that it goes to is kind of cool, if I do say so myself.

The sky was gorgeous today. I love storm clouds and all, but that wasn't even it. When the sun started coming out while the rain was at its worst, two astoundingly bright rainbows appeared. It's a good thing no one was in the pool I was guarding, because I was rather preoccupied. Then, as the storm continued to fade away into the east, a clump of cloud patches covered the sun. Yet, because of the breaks in the cover, visible rays of sunlight trickled down into the sky, lightening the horizon. But this was not the end. Did any of you see the sunset? The clouds were alight with brilliantly colored flame. An elegant stroke of heavens paintbrush along the lingering clouds. Too bad my mom had stolen the camera and left.

Now that I'm done rambling about the heavens, here's a funny story from lifeguarding. Maybe not as funny now that it's after the fact, but it was the highlight of my day beyond the sky. I was guarding the slide pool, as you may have guessed, and there was a birthday party there. A few of the invitees were too scared to go down the straight slide. Such is the way it always is. If the lifeguards are bored enough (we were) then we try to coax these reluctant people to go down the slide. Well, there was one guard who though it would be extremely amusing to tell one of the reluctants that if she went down the slide, the one guy who was guarding on our pool would kiss her. Already amusing, right? But what's more, after twenty minutes of contemplaiting it, she went down the slide. And she expected what she was promised. The guy found out about this promise after she had gone down the slide. Nothing really happened, 'cause he was still working. However, after we closed, everyone was still clearing out and another guy from a different pool came and asked the guy on our pool (for clarity, Guy #1) if he wanted to kiss the girl. Guy #1 answered no, because he didn't, and the girl was the same age as his younger sister, and knew his younger sister. Besides that he just didn't want to. Nevertheless, Guy #2 got this devilish grin on his face and went and got the girl. Awkwardness continued. Using the excuse of puttin ghis tube away, Guy #1 went off t0 the shed with the girl following him. I almost believe his account of what came after, but I really don't quite think I do. He says that he gave her a little hug, a little kiss, said sorry, and tried to go on his way. She asked if he wanted her number, and he said something to the effect of, "No, I'm fine." We had a joyous time teasing him about it while cleaning the locker rooms. Sadly, that was the most interesting thing that happened at work today. One guy told Guy #1 that he should have kissed her out in the open so we could all laugh forever about it. He said, "You'd be known forever at the pool." Then Guy #2 said, "You'd be a legend." The other guy continued to say, jokingly, "Hey, you could've been lifeguard of the week." That just topped off my night.

EDIT - Due to compications with comments, no comments will be allowed on this post. Lo siento. R.U. Serious, please do not comment again.

Flutterbying

So today I subbed for one of the Rec Swim coaches. Some of the kids are our age, but I neglected to tell them I was three years younger than their other coach. It was the second day of butterfly week and let me tell you, it was a funny, funny thing to see. The sad part is, I started out worse than they are right now. I think I scared the second group though. I started dancing around and singing Jekyll & Hyde out of boredom. Yeah, they kinda looked at me oddly after that.

I LOVE LIGHTNING!!! And not just because it got me out of lifeguarding early. It was awesome to get paid to watch a lightning display. And then it started raining! I love the rain! La la la la. I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a wonderful feeling I'm happy again! Well, I was happy before, but it just cheered me all the more.

Then, even after the joy of watching floundering swimmers, a lightning show, and dancing in the rain, I got to go do baptisms for the dead. It was so nice and peaceful. All my worries just floated away and my current shoulder pains were nonexistent. I love the temple. Bluebird, we should go to the one down yonder and take pictures. I figure we've done two other ones, why not a third? We should get pictures of as many as well can. We could make a temple collage.

Lifeguard Insanity III

Two new characters have sprouted from the fertile soil of a bored mind during the past few days out in the sun. Four others are half-formed, not yet ready to face the glaring eyes of the public. For now, I introduce you to Sulinarë, who's vessel is the Sun, and Montohl, who's vessel is the Moon. One is born of Time and the other of Nature, but none save perhaps the mothers can remember who was born of who. Montohl tends to be moody and speculative, slightly erratic, but all in his own cycle. Sulinarë is constant, ever reliable and often turned to. Hmmm, I'm seeing connections to certain real world people here, but I'm not going to go into that. And don't worry, if I mean you, you'll probably know soon enough.

Lifeguard Insanity II

Today, I will impart with you the true nature of lifeguards. In sooth, all we claim to be is a farce. Our title is insider code for "Over-glorified Janitorial Vultures." You don't believe me? Think about it: we sit in our plastic and metal nests waiting for someone to start to die. Then, when all potential deaths are gone, we clean up any residual traces of their presence. I did a lot of that last part today. Yuck.

Something's Missing...

It feels like I'm missing a limb. Especially last night. At the dance, I kept turning to talk to the bluebird and, get this, SHE WASN'T THERE! And I would go off into some unpopulated corner to dance away from the "circles" and who would be with me? NO ONE! The feeling was like when you think there's another step in a flight of stairs and you lift up your foot only to bring it down and find there's no step after all. It was like that all night. It got irking near the end there. As a result of the severe lack of bluebird-ness, I stuck around the malamute for quite some time, then had several discussions with the flying squirrel, then went around and told folks like the Congo peacock to dance. But it just wasn't the same. *sigh* Oh well, I'll survive.

Lifeguard Insanity I

I shall begin numbering the "Lifeguard Insanity" posts as I'm sure there shall be many. Yesterday at work I sang myself this little ditty (I really don't know why I did or where the inspiration came from, but I don't care, either). It has music that goes along with it, but I can't remember any of it now.

Hold me like you'll never let me wander
Console me that our love will never fade
Show me in your ever silent way
That you will always love me,
love me like you do today

Enfold me in the soft wings of a dove
Hold me like a guardian angel from above
Surround me with knowledge of your love
And never let me forget, never let me forget
the way you hold me today

Yeah, definitely weird. But that was only the beginning. I later moved on to inventing an entire musical. The plot line was hideous and the music was worse (this point was accented by the fact that I was singing all the parts). And the only character who had a name was Elizabeth. All the other characters' names kept changing to whatever fit in the music at the time.

Today I just sang songs from Jekyll & Hyde. However, I did have to save someone for the first time. Pitifully, it was a girl that was testing to see if she could be in the pool without a parent even though she isn't nine yrs. old. Guess who didn't pass that test? Good, you're all very clever.

I'm sure that later installments of my thoughts as a lifeguard will include more songs, probably some nonsense rhyming, and possibly descriptions of music that has no words that comes to my mind anyway. I hope it doesn't scare you all too horribly.