Am still not dead, or a hippie
Yesterday I went kayaking for the first time. Faithful readers will recall the fact that I am terrified of water I can't see through and am a strong advocate of chlorinating all the water on the face of the earth to kill the jellyfish. Me: "AAAAAAAAAAAA!FISH!" Everyone else: "You're a lifeguard?" I swim strong enough that I could pull everyone out of the middle of the inlet if I had to, but I know I would get eaten by a fucking whale or some shit.
Anyway imagine my panic attack when I found out that you get into the kayak and then get pushed off the dock backwards. I was having hardcore panic attacks, which caused me to shiver, which caused the kayak to rock violently. Thank god there were like three people with us who'd worked as kayak instructors. So one of the girls, Lex, stayed with me and talked me through it the whole three hours we were out. Mostly she was giving me instructions; she also told me about swimming in Eld Inlet with the bioluminescent jellyfish (and getting stung), and how to tell when a harbor seal is going to bite you. It was fairly funny that many of the girls were into smoking and kayaking at the same time.
It was hot yesterday and every asshole in the city was out boating and creating a ton of wake. I did scream like a little girl once. There were some pretty big waves and I caught a couple of them wrong and nearly capsized but managed to will myself back up. Unfortunately this was when we were starting back and I started panicking again and having trouble controlling the paddle; I would either paddle and not move at all or dig in too deep and tip myself over some more. So the whole way back- we paddled from Swantown up past Priest Point Park -required a lot of controlling the panic.
Then we went and barbecued and got drunk on pitchers of Hop, Skip, and Go Naked: vodka, pink lemonade, and beer. Mixed together. Which sounds gross but tastes good until 3-4 hours later when your stomach realizes what you've done and you're up half the night gagging and trying to keep your grilled eggplant down.
But in between bbq and illness, I watched Incubus starring William Shatner, "the only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto!" It was totally sweet.
Anyway imagine my panic attack when I found out that you get into the kayak and then get pushed off the dock backwards. I was having hardcore panic attacks, which caused me to shiver, which caused the kayak to rock violently. Thank god there were like three people with us who'd worked as kayak instructors. So one of the girls, Lex, stayed with me and talked me through it the whole three hours we were out. Mostly she was giving me instructions; she also told me about swimming in Eld Inlet with the bioluminescent jellyfish (and getting stung), and how to tell when a harbor seal is going to bite you. It was fairly funny that many of the girls were into smoking and kayaking at the same time.
It was hot yesterday and every asshole in the city was out boating and creating a ton of wake. I did scream like a little girl once. There were some pretty big waves and I caught a couple of them wrong and nearly capsized but managed to will myself back up. Unfortunately this was when we were starting back and I started panicking again and having trouble controlling the paddle; I would either paddle and not move at all or dig in too deep and tip myself over some more. So the whole way back- we paddled from Swantown up past Priest Point Park -required a lot of controlling the panic.
Then we went and barbecued and got drunk on pitchers of Hop, Skip, and Go Naked: vodka, pink lemonade, and beer. Mixed together. Which sounds gross but tastes good until 3-4 hours later when your stomach realizes what you've done and you're up half the night gagging and trying to keep your grilled eggplant down.
But in between bbq and illness, I watched Incubus starring William Shatner, "the only movie filmed entirely in Esperanto!" It was totally sweet.