I am very, very clumsy. I walk into open doors. I once managed to cut my eyelid, while wearing glasses, by walking into a piece of wood. When I took dance classes, I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near the wall with the stereo on it. I fall down when I’m standing at the whiteboard.
But there are two things that I’ve always done very gracefully: play the piano, and get out of a swimming pool. This last is very important, and something of which I am very proud. This is the most dangerous part of swimming: the potential to look like a beached whale, no matter what you look like or how well you swim, is huge. And I do it very well. I have this great little hoist-flip-sit thing that leaves me, very neatly, sitting on the side of the pool with my legs dangling, and from there standing up without landing on my belly is easy.
Today I went to the swimming pool for the first time in….oh dear, years. Turns out I haven’t forgotten how, the graceful movements, the rhythm, the gliding elegantly through the water all came back with the first breath, the first plunge. But ohmygod it was painful. One length in and I was clutching the side of the pool gasping for breath. I struggled through 20 lengths of the pool, slowly, gracefully, counting my breaths until the end of the length when I’d gasp again, forcing myself to plunge back under.
Then, when I finally pulled myself to the wall at the end of the 20th length, looking forward to a hot shower and a warm pair of jeans, I started to haul myself out of the water (haul being the operative word).
And then, I fell back in with a mighty splash. I teetered on the edge of the pool, ass slipping, and then the whole weight of my suddenly whale-like, unco-ordinated, unco-operative, mutinous body hit the water.
There was no control, no ritual, no counting of breathes, pointing of fingers, stretching of legs. There was just…a splash, and some flailing, and a complete lack of grace.
There is a problem when the hardest part of swimming is re-learning how to get out of a pool.
My late night walk tonight had me trudging through snow in sneakers.
It’s been a long timesince I’ve done that, and the sheer stupidity of walking through snow in sneakers made me homesick.
Walking through quiet streets at night while it’s snowing has always been peaceful, and tonight it reminded me of beauty I didn’t think I’d find here, and I missed.
In other news, in crime shows like CSI, why oh why do they always end up in the dark looking for tiny evidence like hairs with flashlights? The electricity in the house works. Presumably, that’s why you moved the car from the street to the lab. That’s why they invented portable floodlights. It drives me effing nuts.
guess i’m not going swimming tomorrow morning. maybe i should see if the pool is open AFTER work – then it won’t matter what time i get to bed.
icanhascheezburger.com is wayyy funnier now than it was six hours ago. i will forever blame my mother for the fact that i am a person who reads icanhascheezburger.com. she told me about it. i started to read it to MOCK it, but, alas, as with so many things i do only to mock, it became a habit. like finger quotes, and letterman.
and john hughes movies, which i have an unnatural love for.
food cravings are stronger this time of night. despite the fact that i have a fridge full of food, including some easy-to-heat leftovers, i wanted apples and cheddar cheese. and so cut off a rather large chunk of mould from more than one side of the cheese in order to fulfill this desire.
i definitely started to think about going to sleep six hours ago. was absolutely going to be in bed at 12, after i got off the phone. got into bed. read 30 pages of Mao (i average 5-10, usually). turned out the lights. got up. checked e-mail, then picked up a play. which i started, and finished. am a geek. a GEEK.
just realized i’ve been leaving prepositions and articles out of all my sentences. my students are rubbing off on me, and my grammar is getting worse and worse. also capitals, but that’s because i’m being efficient with my typing (ha!).
went for a walk. why, when i need a cab at 3am, i can NEVER GET ONE, but tonight, they all slowed down just in case i needed a ride? WHY?
i watched 20/20’s medical mysteries tonight. there’s actually a disease called “FFI” – familial something insomnia – a disease in which something triggers in your brain and you end up with permanent insomnia and after 8 or 9 months with 0 sleep you DIE. i should stop watching medical shows. it brings out the hypochondriac in me.
will be setting my alarm several hours ahead. again. i keep starting out the night with such great intentions but then as the night wears on and i don’t sleep the alarm keeps getting set another hour forward, and then i hit the snooze alarm until 12:30, when i get up to watch judge judy and eat honey nut cheerios from the box before jumping in the shower and walking to work with wet hair. i KNOW. how exciting is my life?!
sleep now.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Yesterday, I went into a bookstore (always a dangerous undertaking).
I found the children’s section, and, I am not ashamed to admit, spent a ridiculous amount of money on some Dr. Seuss and Robert Munsch.
I can’t WAIT to teach my bouncy balls the song from Mortimor
My bosses are going to hate me.
When people find out that I have a degree in theatre, I get one of several reactions:
a) “Ohhhhhh. Oh. Well, um, what are you going to do with that then?”
b) “So you’re going to be a teacher, then?”
c) “My cousin was in a play once!”
d) *awkward silence*
To which I usually reply in one of several ways:
a) “Go into porn.”
b) “Well, that’s one idea, but I thought about maybe doing theatre, too.”
c) “Your degree is in English? I read a book once.”
d) “Wait ’til you see the corner I’ve sussed out in Toronto for my cardboard box!”
The other night in a bar, I ended up talking to some waygooks we had run into. I was the definite minority in this conversation: The other three were male, much older than me, and married, or as good as. And this time, when I told them that I was in theatre, and eventually planning to go back to Canada to pursue a career in theatre, I was met with…instructions.
These thirty-something men thought that with their vaaast experience, they could tell me how to be an artist. “Well, if you do that, you can’t be an artist. Real artists, like, real artists, don’t do that. And trust me, you can’t just jump into being an artist in your thirties.”
I said I was travelling to get experience. What am I going to write about, I said, “my incredibly privileged life as a student? Nobody cares.”
“Oh, well,” they said. “I suppose I can see where you’re coming from. I see your point. But listen, ok, and I know what I’m talking about, because my friend’s cousin’s husband did some theatre once so I know all about The Business. You say you’ll go home, but you won’t. And you’ll end up in Korea, where you Should Not Be if you are an artist, wishing you were at home. And, you know, The Business is all based on your reputation so you’re doing every wrong….”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Do you have a degree in theatre? Because I sure do!”
“Oh those twenty two year olds!” they said.
It blows my mind that people think that they can look me in the eye and tell me how they think I should live my life, or what my priorities should be, or that I’m doing everything wrong and clearly don’t have it together enough to be able to make responsible decisions about my life on my own. Like I ended up in Korea by mistake!
Filed under: idiocy (other people's)
Guy#1 – “This is a picture of that girl I was telling you about.”
Guy#2 – “Oh she’s pretty.”
Guy#1 – “Yeah. Really pretty. I don’t know why she can’t get a guy.”
Guy#2 – “She can’t?!”
Guy#1 – “Well, there was one a little while ago, but she can’t hold on to them.”
Guy#2 – “But she’s so pretty!”
My students asked me if I was pregnant again the other day.
My little ones were crowding around me – one dancing on my feet, so that I was concentrating on keeping him upright as he threw his whole weight back, one behind me with her arms cinched tight around me, a few reaching between me and the dancing boy to count my fat rolls (they have words for this in korean!), grabbing handfuls of flesh and giggling, at least two pounding on my shoulders. In the midst of all this, one of them patted my belly, much more gently than the children grabbing it (I’ll end up with tiny finger-shaped bruises, I swear), looked up at me, and said, “Teacher, baby?”
The rest got very excited, and they all started asking, “Teacher! Teacher, baby? Baby house? Is there a baby in there?”
“Yes there is,” I said. “There is a baby in there.” They went silent, excited, anticipating. “It was very delicious,” I said.
“Teacher!” they said, clearly disappointed in me.”You don’t eat baby!”
Then I got a very serious little lecture about how babies aren’t actually food.
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
Mum: Your father bought me the entire first season of Torchwood.
Me: What’s Torchwood?
Mum: You don’t know what Torchwood is?!
Me: I do, actually. I just asked that for kicks.
Mum: Really?
Me: No.
Mum: Torchwood is the spinoff from Dr. Who. The ONLY spinoff from Dr. Who. Obviously.
Me: You are such a geek.
Mum: What are you doing?
Me: Reading an 800 page biography of Mao.
Yesterday, in attempt to go back to my natural hair colour and thus end the viscious hair colouring cycle, I had the hell bleached out of my hair. Then, they put it into ringlets.
Picture a cheap, sad imitation of Marilyn Monroe, with vaguely orange bits. Picture that walking through a sea of black heads. Picture that sea splitting, turning, watching.
This happened for two reasons:
1. I can’t speak Korean
2. I had my hair dyed in a country where everybody’s hair is much, much coarser than mine, thus requiring much stronger dyes and bleaches.
“Your hair is very dry,” * said the hairdresser
“Maybe that has something to do with the three layers of bleach,” * I said.
Tomorrow, I’m going to go try to get it fixed, except maybe with scissors instead of more bleach. See? Prudence!
In other news, I’m spending the evening scrubbing things, and I just cleaned my bathroom floor with a squeegie. Yeah, the kind squeegie kids use on cars.
WIN.
* heavily edited for clarity, and excludes all grunts, gestures, bad grammar and wrong vocabulary.
I amuse myself by watching really terrible tv.
And I have taken, recently, to watching the Craig Ferguson show.
I don’t even like these talk shows. Leno, Letterman, Ferguson (all on one after the other) – I watch them, but I don’t think they’re funny. I think I watch them for the feeling of scorn, and smugness, I can’t have the during the day when I’m working with small children. You can’t snort and roll your eyes at a twelve-year-old you’re being paid to teach, but you CAN snort at Letterman. And I do. Frequently.
Don’t judge me.
Anyway, I really don’t like the Craig Ferguson Show, regardless of a certain charming, disarming smile that Craig (we’re on a first-name basis) occasionally displays. A charming, disarming boyish smile that reminds me of the boy. the boy I’ve not heard from, or of, in months. The one I accidentally liked. The boy who I also don’t really like, but I want him to smile like that at me, anyway.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me that I’m a bottle of medicinal sherry and a couple of cats away from sheer lunacy.
