Oh the shame . . .

I’m just going to go ahead and throw caution to the wind and say this, and risk any judgement that may ensue. Here goes: I. Can’t. Swim. Whew. There you have it, folks. I’ve tried and tried, and I just can’t figure it out. I jump in the pool, and I immediately sink to the bottom. You’d think this bubble bottom of mine would serve as a buoyancy device, but alas, it seems its only real purpose is to wear holes in the backside of my jeans. I like to think of myself as an athletic person—I could throw a pretty sweet windmill pitch and even hit a homerun (once, and it was of the in-the-park variety), I managed to dribble a basketball and even get it through the orange circle on occasion, I can throw a spiral (okay, maybe every 1 of 5 throws resembles a spiral, but still) and I can even catch the football, if you kind of just underhand toss it to me. I once tore all of the skin off of the left side of my body thanks to an awesome fall during a rollerblade race, but gosh darn it if I didn’t win that race. But get me near a body of water, and unless I have my floaties on, I’m going straight to the bottom. I almost had the opportunity to take swim lessons once, when I was a wee toddler, but my older brother was such a brat that he got kicked out of lessons before I even had a chance to go, and my mom was too embarrassed to ever go back (or the story goes something like that). So, thank you Brandan, I may never forgive you. Ha! Only teasing, of course. I still claim you with pride, despite this obviously very life-changing wrong you’ve done me. So this is my plea to you, my friends: someone teach me to swim so that I don’t have to live in such shame. I would be forever grateful, and even bake you delicious baked goods.

Okay, moving on. I’m substantially less grumpy after my little rant yesterday, and to prove it, I will only talk about happy things. For example, I made it to the dog park this morning, and my dog was slightly excited to stretch out the legs. I think I counted 15 sprinting trips the length of the dog park before he finally stopped to sniff something. And how about that sunrise this morning?! It was a beaut! I kind of wish I wasn’t witnessing it as I was parking my car at work, but what can you do. I had coffee in hand, so I’ll take it. I’ve got some very exciting data to analyze today, and will throw together an abstract before noon tomorrow (nothing like deciding to present at the very last minute), and I’m not even lying when I say I’m actually excited to do this. I love research. Just love it! And I’m having lunch with a great friend. How can this not be a wonderful day?? Now, I’m not really very good at asking for things, but there is just one itsy, bitsy, tiny little thing that if someone could help me with it, it would guarantee the best day I’ve had in at least 4 days: teach me to swim. J