Float like a butterfly
So this week I have to master the hardest stroke in swimming: the butterfly. Been practicing for weeks. To gain strength and endurance, I did a month of bootcamp exercises three nights a week in the dark in a public park alongside thin, fit 24-year-old blonds aiming to be "buff brides."
Humiliating. Much.
Doing the butterfly, you should look like a sleek dolphin, rising up and out of the water in one smooth motion. But unlike dolphins, I have arms and in this stroke, your arms should fly up and then slice down into the pool just as you finish the second dolphin kick. And somewhere in there, you have to breathe.
I don't look a dolphin doing the butterfly. I look like a wet and angry seal having an asthma attack while trying to beat an otter to death.
In some fit of "that sounds fun" about a month ago, I signed up for a Red Cross course to become a water safety and swimming instructor. We started last week. We continue this week. So fun splashing around in a cold pool three hours a day in late December.
Nipply. Much.
There's a swimming test AND a written exam. The other students in the course are high school and college kids. I feel like Delta Burke trying out for the Aquacade.
So while I'm glub-glubbing through flip-turns (another requirement) and a dive off the spring board (help me, mommy!), here are links to some good reading to keep you amused:
Wondering why the Starbucks espresso in a Barnes & Noble doesn't taste right? The Starbucks gossip blog tells you.
Ken Levine is a veteran sitcom writer (Frasier, among others). His blog offers tasty-delish inside dish about network shows and, well, he just writes funny.
Speaking of funny, NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip isn't. And Levine is among the comedy writers who tell the LA Times
why.
Somebody's way obsessed with bedbugs. Read it and you will be, too.
And if you need to return some of the ugly crap you got for Christmas, first listen to This American Life talk about it on NPR.
Back in the New Year! 2007 is an odd number, so it's bound to be interesting.
posted by writer @ 9:30 PM
8 Comments:
Thanks for the goodies!!
Andy
Thanks for the link!
I don't look a dolphin doing the butterfly. I look like a wet and angry seal having an asthma attack while trying to beat an otter to death.
^^^
*Laughed so hard I got a look from the boss* Great entry, prof! And thanks for the links!
-Nat
Dolphins are sensitive animals who die in captivity. Plese do not make fun of the poor things. They get under stress throughout their sorrow and even more unhappy lives.
Thanks for your immediate consideration.
-Matt
Thanks for all the links - I really didn't want to work this afternoon, and now I don't have to! :-)
anonymous matt -- she wasn't making fun of dolphins, she was making fun of herself :P
I'd say it's more splendid to learn to swim for the sake of it than to perform laps in the hope of becoming a "buff bride." Good for you.
Happy New Year!
Am 65 year old woman who just tried learning butterfly this morning for first time. Your description of the "wet angry seal .." was priceless!
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