I Can Say What I Want Again!

             This is the way I like to imagine that my tucks look. Fat chance!

My dad told me to keep a low profile in terms of Jared and the blog, as Kent (Jared's father)
had made an offhand comment that led him to believe Kent might have read my blog. I had little else to talk about other than Jared, his mission or, more correctly, non-mission, and his new tattoo.
I used the time I might have spend blogging to pursue various athletic activities from my past. I hurdled, I went to the gym and did a little of the gymnastics and tumbling stunts (for lack of a better word; I'm not yet good enough to call what I do a routine, but I'm slowly regaining lost skills.)

Incidentally, I've since learned that neither Kent nor Jared has any knowledge of this blog. Kent kent Kent. Jared Jared Jared. Mormon Mormon Mormon. Mission Mission Mission. Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo.So there! I can say anything about them I want, and they'll never klnow the difference as long as Jared's mother doesn't tell.  I'll be cautious even there, though,  as I know that the mother/son umbilical cord is never fully severed.

My gymnastics instructor was watching me a month or so ago when  I was doing what is now for me a particularly difficult vault but something I would have nailed with ease back in the day.   Something in the height and the manner in which i quickly rotated a quarter turn into a flip indicated to him that I had likely been a diver at some point in my athletic career. He asked about it.  I told him I dove for three years in high school. He told me that an adjunct staff member had been the university's dicing coach before the dicing team was a a casualty of  the major budget cuts that hit the UCs. He said the guy would be interested in watching me dive. Why is a mystery to me, as our school has no diving team.

Regardless, when I went to the gym  to workout, the gymnastics instructor or professor (I don't really know which he is) told me the diving instructor was on the premises. I mentioned not having a swimsuit with me. He looked at my leotard somewhat critically. He was always complaining the a gymnast of my skill level should have higher quality leotards than those I wore. He said that my leotard looked more like a swimsuit than a leotard, and that regardless. it obviously wasn't expensive enough for me to be concerned about the chlorine damaging it. I agreed to meet up with the guy. He called the guy on his cell phone.

I asked the former diving coach to give me about three dives before watching me, as I had not been /on a diving board in about eight months. He chatted with the gymnastics instructor/professor as I took my warm-up dives.  Then I took my first real dive, with the instructor watching.  I went with a backward dive with a twist and two-and-on-half somersaults. I wish I could say it was spectacular, which it most definitely was not, but I did complete the required elements and had a relatively clean landing. he told me to do the same dive again.It was about 75% better. i went with a forward dive to a  pike to a somersault. It was better than my first dive, but not as clean as my second.  Without even looking at the former coach, I headed back to the ladder to repeat the dive, which was much more precise than the first. I did a few miscellaneous not overwhelmingly impressive maneuvers with tucks, pikes, somersaults, then decided to be bold.

I went to the platform, climbed the ladder, approached the end of the platform, and did a handstand facing the water. I then did a combination simultaneous half-somersault and twist.  I actually nailed the thing. I'm still not sure what possessed me to even try it.

As I climbed out of the pool, the gymnastics instructor/professor said, "That's probably enough."

I reached for a towel that the former coach had placed on the handle of the pool ladder.  I dried myself and approached them. "I wish you'd been here ten years ago," the former coach commented.

"Ten years ago I was in third grade," I apologized to him.

"Have you thought about transferring to a school with a diving team?" he asked.

"Not really," I answered.  "My plan is to start medical school the year after next, and I'd lose too many units if I transferred."

He looked down at my leg -- at the site of the now-healed but still lightly-scarred fracture. "How'd that happen?" he asked, pointing at my lower leg.

"Freak hurdling accident three years ago," I said. "Another runner tripped over her hurdle, sent it forward into my lane, and then came down on top of the hurdle as it fell on me."

"Compound fracture?" the former coach asked.

"Yup," I nodded. "Both bones. And my right clavicle, too, though at least that one wasn't compound."

He and the gymnastics guy winced in unison.

"looks like it healed pretty well. Kids' bones tend to heal straighter. And  the scarring is pretty faint. I'm guessing it looked like railroad tracks for the first year," the diving coach commented.

I nodded again, thinking silently, "If it's  so damned faint, how did you notice it so easily?" I'm still quite self-conscious about the scarring.

"If you were just a little younger and a little more muscled, I'd say you had Olympic potential, but it's not very realistic with either your age or build unless you really wanted it. And it doesn't sound like you do."

 "No, I don't. Diving has always been something I did for fun," I told him. "And training for the Olympics doesn't sound like much fun even if i had a chance of making it, which I do not."

"Why don't you sign up for club diving? It's competitive but pretty low-key way. People are out there mostly for fun.  We're already  into the quarter, but I could probably get you on a team," the diving coach  said.

"He runs the league," the gymnastics guy said. "He can put you on any team he wants you on."

"When does this happen?" I asked him.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00," he replied.

I thought for a moment. "I'll be there," I said to him.

"I'm warning you," he added. "I'm putting you on the worst team. They need all the help they can get."

We said our goodbyes and I headed to my car. I had a blanket in the trunk of my car, which it placed on the seat of my car to protect it from wetness and chlorine.

So I now have a new hobby. I'll probably get swimmer's ear, but there are drugs for that.

Home Again, Home Again: Teenage Alcoholic or Not?

I'm back at home briefly to take part in a couple of athletic events. I have a track meet tomorrow. Almost two months ago I had greater than average success in my hurdling events after downing a beer the night before. In the interest of science I'm repeating the experience. I have a bottle of Guinness ale, which I am dowing as fast as I can. It really doesn't taste all that wonderful to me, and I have to plug my nose to get it down. Then I have to find a good hiding spot for the bottle, because I'm not going downstairs to dispose of it tonight. Even one beer leaves me entirely too happy to escape my parents' detection and consequently be the recipient of an informal breath check. Tomorrow it will be easy enough to drop the bottle into a neighbor's recycling bin.

I'm going to bed right after finishing the beer and brushing my teeth. Then if my parents happen to come in to ask me something, they'll attribute my lack of coherence to being woken out of a sound sleep as opposed to being tipsy. My parents were relatively cool about it last time I drank a beer, but instincts tell me it was a one-time amnesty experience and that, were I to be discovered again, I wouldn't walk away from the situation totally unscathed. My parents will read this, but not for awhile because they're very busy, and it will be old news and the statute of limitations will have expired before they get to catching up on any of my blogs.

Lest any reader be of the opinion that I need to hook up with Alcoholics Anonymous, AlaTeen, or whatever rehab institution that so sucessfully cured Lindsay Lohan's problems, this is only the second beer I have consumed in my life, and I've never drunk anything harder. I'm experimenting with the idea that a beer the night before enhances my hurdling performance the following afternoon. If I totally suck tomorrow, I'll know that the first time was a fluke, and I'll leave the beer alone. If, on the other hand, I break any more local records the day after consuming the beer, I may have to consider the apparent cause/effect relationship.

If such happens, I may consult the director of my mental health facility, who does ot technically manage my case but does oversee my care. Does anyone know if a doctor in California can legally prescribe small quantities of low-alcoholic-content beverages to a minor for therapeutic purposes?

I relly don't want my experiences to turn into a Lifetime Channel movie entitled, "Alexis A., Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic." I may not be able to convince anyone of the sincerity of my approach -- that I'm legitimately experimenting to see if the relaxation effect and resultingly better quality of sleep after consuming twelve ounces or beer, or ale, or whatever it really is, as I don't know the difference, can result in a stronger athletic performance for me. As far as drinks go, I'd choose grape Kool-Aid any day over just about any other beverage.

Furthermore, even if my research indicates that there is athletic benefit to my consuming a beer the night before a track meet, I wouldn't choose to drink a beer the night before each competition. For one thing, the impact might lessen over time. I'd savw my aaace-in-the-whole for the most important athletic events -- qualifying meets, league, divisional, are , or state meets.

Incidentally, I haven't a clue as to how consuming alcohol the night before a competition would impact my diving. I have two sports with which to concern myself. If I begin drinking before important competitions of both sports, I may as well make a reservation at the Betty Ford Clinic.

Nice Diversion

Pseudo-Aunt and Uncle are in my area for the weekend for doctor's appointments and job interviews. Pseudo-Aunt has adult-diagnosed cystic fibrosis, and, because she and Pseudo-Uncle will likely move to somewhere in the southern California area when Pseudo-Uncle begins his residency this summer, she chose to begin treatment here since she had so little remaining time in Utah. Pseudo-Uncle had two interviews for residency positions. They're staying here for the weekend because one interview was Friday and the other is Monday morning.

Pseudo-Aunt's appointment was OK. It's not as though there appears to be sufficient lung damage since she was last seen about six weeks ago. The problem is that the doctor really wanted her to gain weight, and she lost two pounds even with drinking four bottles of water before she weighed in. She was sick twice in the past six weeks, which undid any hope of even maintaining weight.

Pseudo-Aunt and Pseudo-Uncle were both in slighly bad moods last night, she because the doctor ragged on her so much, and he because the doctor told him it was his responsibility to do whatever he had to do to make her gain weight. So he nagged her throughout dinner about not eating enough. I attempted to make things better by eating less than she did in order to make it seem like she was eating an acceptable amount by comparison, but that only caused Pseudo-Uncle to nag at her more, saying she was a poor example for me. Then he started hassling me about my eating habits and how I needed to gain even more weight than Pseudo-Aunt.

Today we walked around the campus I'm likely to attend next year. The director of my facility had obtained permission for me run hurdles and to dive at the facilities there. We all ran hurdles. Pseudo-Aunt is really good considering she'd never done it before. She's short but long-legged, as I am. Long legs are a decided asset in hurdling. We were both better than Pseudo-Uncle. Pseudo-Uncle dove with me. He has some natural diving ability and no apparent fear, but he looks somewhat like an ape in the air when he's diving.

It was my turn to pick the restaurant at dinner. i picked a "===== ========
rewing Company," which is a local restaurant I've been to with the director of my facility and his family. His daughter -- the one who's a complete brat and is supposedly a younger version of me even though I don't see the resemblance -- likes the restaurant because it appeals to picky eaters, which I also am. The Pseudos liked it well enough, although we had the same arguments as at dinner the night before. This time I wasn't even trying to pick at my food.

I'm staying with the Pseudos at their hotel for the next two nights.(I checked for bedbugs, as I always do at hotels. I've never been in a hotel with bedbigs as far as I know, but one can never be too careful in that regard.) When we got back to the hotel room, Pseudo-Uncle sat on one of the beds and asked Pseudo-Aunt and me which of us wanted to be beaten first. It was a bit unsettling to me, but Pseudo-Aunt whispered, "On the count of two, run right at him. We can take him." Even the two of us together couldn't take him (he weighs a few pounds more than the combined weights of the two of us), but he didn't beat us. He was joking.

We're watching an episode of "House." A velociraptor is crashing through the glass of the hospital lobby and attacking the people. More correctly, a patient is hallucinating that it is happening. We're actually semi-watching, and all of us are on our laptops. Pseudo-Uncle is remaining in the room under protest while "House" is on the TV. He hates all medical programs, as do all doctors, my dad included, which means that I have to love all medical shows. Being oppositional is hard work at times. Pseudo-Uncle especially hates "House," but Pseudo-Aunt likes it because she thinks the doctor who plays the character of "Chase" looks like Pseudo-Uncle.

Tomorrow we're sleeping late, eating brunch, going to the beach, and eating a take-out lunch there, then eating dinner. Pseudo-Uncle says that the effort of getting Pseudo-Aunt and me to gain weight is turning him into a manatee. I'm staying with the Pseudos until Monday morning, when they will return me to my facility before Pseudo-Uncle has his last interview. I'm going to fly to Utah to visit them in about two weeks.