She wasn't a big girl. Not at all really. She wasn't skinny either though. Most of her weight rested in the flab-hammocks of her arms. In fact, I've seen a lot of swimmers with this physique - quite averagely sized people with really flabby arms. Perhaps it's intentional and they act as fleshy ores when doing the breast stroke.
This woman was not doing the breast stroke. Instead she was face down and kind of hurling her stomach in order to project her body and drag her lags behind. This whale-like technique was not only unusual but also very, very splashy.
Between her and a man practicing his butterfly, the waves made my early morning swim seem more like a Navy Seal training exercise. If it wasn't for the taste of chlorine and nasal gym announcements, I'd have expected a submarine to go by underneath.
There's always a set of rules at the side of a swimming pool:
No Running.
No Glass.
No Alcohol Consumption.
No Diving.
All swimmers must wear a swimcap.
Always use the steps upon entering the pool.
Yet there's a set of rules that are not displayed:
Use the steps only if you're using the first lane.
Dive in if you're a man.
The fatter you are the closer to the first lane, please.
Make sure you wear a swimcap, even if your back and chest hair is longer than that on your head.
Always show how you feel about the temperature of the water by shaking your head and saying 'bwuuah'
If the pool becomes busy, do not feel like you need to exit. Instead, take turns using lanes and dodge other swimmers.
You don't even have to swim! Jog up and down the pool if you like. It's not like there's treadmills upstairs or anything.
If somebody gets gets in ten minutes after you and gets out any time before you, they have failed!
Most importantly pretend like you're not judging anybody.
There is no rule however, written or unwritten, about the level of splashing permitted. For really thin, lightweight people, like me - people who are just pretending they're a frog in a pond, a rule like this would be ideal. I suppose the food chain reigns supreme and whales will always dominate our waters.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Saturday, 27 March 2010
The Perfect Accident
I saw a crash the other day. Well, I heard a crash and saw the aftermath. It was, in my opinion, the best type of crash you can see. Two taxis, one private and one black cab. Nobody was hurt. No passengers involved. Just pure idiot on idiot crashing.
Both had gone through a red light at a junction. It was late, in the town centre and the collision cracked between the empty streets and echoed down the alleys.
It was only me and my Dad who witnessed it. To everybody else in earshot it was merely a noise - a shutter closing on a store, a kid popping a Pizza Hut balloon, a firework for St. Patrick's Day Eve. To me it was reassurance that life does catch up with the gobshites.
You know the type of people I'm talking about, those naughty kids in school - rewarded with days out for "good" (normal) behaviour. The parents who take their child's free laptop (provided by the government for school!) and sell it on ebay. The people who walk into you instead of around you. The people who think that split second after a red light belongs to them and for the most part, get away with it.
P.S. check that ebay thing out it's ridiculous....Laptop Model = ACER EXTENSA 5235
Both had gone through a red light at a junction. It was late, in the town centre and the collision cracked between the empty streets and echoed down the alleys.
It was only me and my Dad who witnessed it. To everybody else in earshot it was merely a noise - a shutter closing on a store, a kid popping a Pizza Hut balloon, a firework for St. Patrick's Day Eve. To me it was reassurance that life does catch up with the gobshites.
You know the type of people I'm talking about, those naughty kids in school - rewarded with days out for "good" (normal) behaviour. The parents who take their child's free laptop (provided by the government for school!) and sell it on ebay. The people who walk into you instead of around you. The people who think that split second after a red light belongs to them and for the most part, get away with it.
P.S. check that ebay thing out it's ridiculous....Laptop Model = ACER EXTENSA 5235
Monday, 22 March 2010
Broken Bones and Open Mics
My wrist was broken. Definitely broken. And fat. And blue. Tighten your watch up a bit, go to sleep and in the morning, you'll know exactly what my hand looked like. I'd saved this boy's shots before, I didn't realise he could've hit the ball so hard. I played on, which was bad enough, but I still had to drive home.
Letting go of the wheel when changing gears, would have been more of a fun game, if I wasn't in agony. Somehow I made it home.
This was all two months ago and the wrist is still goosed. However where it closed the chance of playing football it opened a new, unfamiliar activity - like those foyers on Sci-fi films that won't open the door to the unknown, unless the door to the ship is closed.
The alien planet is an open mic night. You'd think having a broken wrist would hinder playing the guitar more than it would kicking a footy but the wrist has been fine with movement, it just wouldn't hold the strength of a fall, or a ball, or a wall, or a maul. Me and my dad play at this bar in town to an audience of about three people.
I've been going for about four weeks and it turns out my wrist is getting better too fast for my liking. I want to keep going but the open mic night falls on a monday (the same night as football). Doing something like this with my dad has been amazing for us both but I've been playing footy with my brother forever and I can't just quit him. The faster I recover, the more I run out of oxygen and need to get back on the ship. I just don't really want to.
Letting go of the wheel when changing gears, would have been more of a fun game, if I wasn't in agony. Somehow I made it home.
This was all two months ago and the wrist is still goosed. However where it closed the chance of playing football it opened a new, unfamiliar activity - like those foyers on Sci-fi films that won't open the door to the unknown, unless the door to the ship is closed.
The alien planet is an open mic night. You'd think having a broken wrist would hinder playing the guitar more than it would kicking a footy but the wrist has been fine with movement, it just wouldn't hold the strength of a fall, or a ball, or a wall, or a maul. Me and my dad play at this bar in town to an audience of about three people.
I've been going for about four weeks and it turns out my wrist is getting better too fast for my liking. I want to keep going but the open mic night falls on a monday (the same night as football). Doing something like this with my dad has been amazing for us both but I've been playing footy with my brother forever and I can't just quit him. The faster I recover, the more I run out of oxygen and need to get back on the ship. I just don't really want to.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Holy Smokes
It was upon fiddling with a HDMI cable at the back of my (wall mounted) tele last night which made me realise, my whole life has been about finding holes and filling them.
I was already out of synch because somebody was in my usual parking space outside the house. My parking space is one of those ‘holes’ that unsettles me if it contains anything but my car: A stray flyaway football, a lost branch, an intrusive neighbour’s vehicle etc.
The heat from the screen was strong on my cheek, but kind of nice, like someone’s breath (someone nice, of course). The actual T.V. was super awkward to get underneath. After half a minute of holding a weightless cable, it became the heaviest thing in the world. I caved and dismounted the unit. I plugged the cable into the appropriate slot and it was this moment the ‘hole philosophy’ came to me, because all of a sudden I felt satisfied – like I deserved a biscuit or something.
My theory is – holes, when filled, are forgotten and it’s the space between them which makes me anxious. For example, I’m looking for an internship in editing/copywriting and similar fields. If I go for an interview for any of these, this means I will be able to see the hole, I’d be standing on the edge of the - ‘internship hole’. It would be undoubtedly scary jumping into that hole, as with many holes. It’s like a metaphorical vertigo, peering over the edge of opportunity.
By the way, I think I’ve done incredibly well to avoid filling the sexual innuendo hole in this blog and I’d like to continue to avoid it in the finish (I'm sure everybody is capable of filling that hole themselves) . The interesting thing to me about holes, is that if they’re not filled by myself, they could easily be filled by someone else, resulting in a bad thing, e.g. the intrusive neighbour vehicle. Nonetheless, it could easily be a good thing:
At 4:30am today, my next-door neighbour’s car was set alight by two men (I’m aware this isn’t a good example of ‘good’ – but hear me out). Nobody was hurt and my car was safely two parking spaces/holes away. The lesson learnt was not to worry about unfulfilled holes and just be happy with the ones that are taken care of.
You might think the idea is a little too Alice in Wonderland and I don’t want to push it as far as to say ‘we all fill a hole/grave in death too.’ However, this thought helped me to stop looking for imperfections in my life and more importantly (at the moment with the intern hunt) - my C.V.
I was already out of synch because somebody was in my usual parking space outside the house. My parking space is one of those ‘holes’ that unsettles me if it contains anything but my car: A stray flyaway football, a lost branch, an intrusive neighbour’s vehicle etc.
The heat from the screen was strong on my cheek, but kind of nice, like someone’s breath (someone nice, of course). The actual T.V. was super awkward to get underneath. After half a minute of holding a weightless cable, it became the heaviest thing in the world. I caved and dismounted the unit. I plugged the cable into the appropriate slot and it was this moment the ‘hole philosophy’ came to me, because all of a sudden I felt satisfied – like I deserved a biscuit or something.
My theory is – holes, when filled, are forgotten and it’s the space between them which makes me anxious. For example, I’m looking for an internship in editing/copywriting and similar fields. If I go for an interview for any of these, this means I will be able to see the hole, I’d be standing on the edge of the - ‘internship hole’. It would be undoubtedly scary jumping into that hole, as with many holes. It’s like a metaphorical vertigo, peering over the edge of opportunity.
By the way, I think I’ve done incredibly well to avoid filling the sexual innuendo hole in this blog and I’d like to continue to avoid it in the finish (I'm sure everybody is capable of filling that hole themselves) . The interesting thing to me about holes, is that if they’re not filled by myself, they could easily be filled by someone else, resulting in a bad thing, e.g. the intrusive neighbour vehicle. Nonetheless, it could easily be a good thing:
At 4:30am today, my next-door neighbour’s car was set alight by two men (I’m aware this isn’t a good example of ‘good’ – but hear me out). Nobody was hurt and my car was safely two parking spaces/holes away. The lesson learnt was not to worry about unfulfilled holes and just be happy with the ones that are taken care of.
You might think the idea is a little too Alice in Wonderland and I don’t want to push it as far as to say ‘we all fill a hole/grave in death too.’ However, this thought helped me to stop looking for imperfections in my life and more importantly (at the moment with the intern hunt) - my C.V.
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