Florida
Bright and sunny and warm and breezy, here in Florida. At mom’s new house; a genuine crazy-lady’s house. A riot of camels and … well, that’s all, really. More camels than you can possibly conceive of. There may in fact be more camels in my mother’s house than in any given Pennsylvania-sized chunk of the Arab world.
I went swimming, today, for the first time in months. Normally I can’t stand the water – or rather, normally, I can’t stand the water temperature. Swimming pools and oceans are nearly always far too cold; my mother thankfully feels the same way, and has hers cranked up to a delicious 92F. I love the feel of the water moving around my body, forming vortices that swirl and cluster around my spread fingertips. I’m constantly fascinated – like a two year old still learning how the world reacts to different motions, or like Guildenstern for that matter in R&G are Dead – fascinated by buoyancy and displacement, the balance of my body against the foam noodle. I experiment with wave motion and speed – I watch the ripples build up against the leading edge of my finger as I move it in an arc with increasing speed, then see them disappear behind it as my hand breaks the water’s “sound barrier” – that is, my hand moves faster than the speed of surface waves on water.
Today was rather bimodal. Ten feet out of the driveway we got a flat, and spent the next two hours waiting for AAA, mounting the spare, heading to Volkswagen, fixing the flat, and remounting the tire. That was not at all how I wished to spend the morning. However, from there, we drove to CompUSA where my mother rather generously spent $700 on me – a HP ipaq 4155 and a keyboard for it – so now I have something to take notes on in class next year. And it fits in my bag (my little bag!) .. And has built in wireless Ethernet. Gorgeous! Then, a turn for the worse again – two hours of sitting in central florida traffic to go less than two miles to a restaurant that ended up being closed anyway… and then back home, where I swam happily once more in the bathtub-like pool.
What I feel, right now: laptop, hot, nearly burning, on my lap. Must be removed soon. Velvety couch, lumpy pillow. Feet acting as heat-sinks, barefoot on tile floor. My right foot, resting crossed on my left; the pressure of heel on ankle, a rubbery shearing force. Shins pressed to one another, a hint of a tickling draft from the open patio doors. Shorts bunched to my right side (suddenly my whole body becomes ticklish; it happens when one pays too much attention to every nerve ending). Shirt a bit damp where it got splashed earlier; chlorine scented. Hair in a post-pool tangle.