August 06, 2001
capsized
The Guy has been in England for three days now -- he left on Tuesday -- and he calls me twice a day: once before bed, his time, once when he wakes up, his time. Vak, who was sitting on my cubicle floor giving me requirements the first time he did it, leered at me. I could hear my voice melting when I realized who it was, and I couldn't help myself. It's disgusting. I make myself sick.
But isn't it cuuuuuuuuuute?
It's ice cream day today. Yay! I have a chocolate ice cream sandwich. Now I don't. I threw it away. I don't like ice cream. I keep forgetting that. I should have gotten a fruit thingy.
For the first time since going blind in Crater Lake, I'm wearing my contacts. I blink a lot more when I wear them, a good thing considering all the computer work that I do; it's still kind of alien, having foreign bodies in my eyes. I'll switch out of them before I head down to Tara's and the Foothill Observatory tonight. Did I mention: I've gotten obsessed about astronomy, of a sudden? No? Never mind, then. I'll go into that at some other point.
On with the journal.
Riding with my sister at the wheel:
"Why's this person tailgating me when there're three lanes completely open all around us?"
"Don't think I'm going to change lanes just for you, buddy. Don't fight this battle, 'cuz this is one you're gonna lose."
I love my sister. She's nuts, too.
On Saturday, I started cleaning The Guy's apartment. He didn't want me to do it. I told him it was impossible anyway; I'd just give it my best shot. Hah. My best shot. That was ludicrous.
The first time I visited his apartment, way back when we started dating, I thought I saw the floor move. "Take off your shoes," he invited, while he bustled around in the kitchen. I eyed the carpet -- unvacuumed, I swear, since he moved into the place six years previously -- and demurred. I left my shoes on. He thought it was cute. The reality was, I was scared of the kind of stains and fungal growth I might end up picking up on my socks.
And that was just the first time I went to his place, mind you. He'd actually cleaned up for me. It's gotten worse since then.
With him safely packed away in England, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to do something about the pigsty he calls home. "I don't see what the problem is," he protested over the phone. "I'll just move out at some point and they can keep my security deposit."
While I was growing up, my mother told us stories about her first apartment in the US, when she cleaned her apartment from top to bottom before she left, and was not only given back her security deposit, but was invited back by the landlord to live there again. We used to stay in hotels and strip the beds, dust the countertops, and fold the sheets in neat stacks atop the mattresses before we left. When we emptied the trash in the car, our parents would have us wander around the parking lot and pick up any other trash we might find so that we could put more trash into the bag we were disposing of, "as long as we're going to the trash bin anyway."
Needless to say, The Guy's solution to the CDC ground zero site he calls his apartment wasn't really acceptable.
I piled into the car on Saturday afternoon with a bag of cleaning supplies: sponges, mildew remover, bleach, comet. "Three hours I spent there," I raved at him over the phone, later. "I spent two hours scrubbing your kitchen floor. With a sponge. And comet. You do realize that the linoleum on your kitchen floor was supposed to be cream?"
"You're mad," he marvelled. "Are you going to break up with me now?"
"Three hours!!" I ranted. My voice was reaching subsonic levels. "Pots are not supposed to be fuzzy around the edges when you've finished washing them!"
"I told you not to do it. Did you clean the entire apartment?"
"THREE HOURS ON THE KITCHEN!"
He started to giggle.
Launchcast is trying to convince me that I like 'The Thong Song.' Every time I launch the application, it's one of the first songs that Launchcast plays. I haven't rated it; it's a sort of morbid fascination on my part that keeps me from getting rid of it altogether. I'm just curious to know how persistent the Launchcast algorithm is regarding this issue.
On Sunday, I almost died.
My sister and her boyfriend claim that I didn't, but I know perfectly well that I heard panic in his voice when he asked me if I was okay. He asked me multiple times.
Background: I went whitewater kayaking down the Russian River with my sister and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend is an expert at kayaking; she's advanced enough that between the two of them, I felt fairly confident I wasn't going to actually die. By way of insurance in that respect, the keys were tucked into a pocket on my lifejacket. "There," my sister said comfortingly. "Now, if we want to get home, we'll have to fish your body out of the river, at the very least."
Technical background: I've only gone kayaking once in my life. That is to say; I've gone kayaking twice, but I've only really gone onto the water once before. With kayaking, you end up wearing something that looks like a rubber lampshade around your waist, the bell of which fastens around the mouth of the kayak. This way, a seal is formed, which keeps you from taking in water. The bad thing about this is that it means you're effectively locked into the boat, so if the boat tips over and you don't know how to roll, you'll drown. This is why there's a handle on the front of the skirt, which one pulls in order to be popped out of the kayak. So.
I capsized on the first rapid, a small thing; I got wedged against a rock, and the current happily flipped my boat over. After a few seconds of thrashing panic, I swallowed some of the river and managed to pull the skirt. When I surfaced, the boyfriend and my sister were bobbing nearby, waving encouragement.
"Did you see me?" he asked, anxiously. "I was waving to you. Like this."
My teeth were chattering; in between cold, the surge of adrenaline, and an idiotic, glorious fury at the river, I demanded: "And y-y-y-you th-thought that would h-h-help?"
"Sure," the boyfriend said, smiling sunnily. "It was encouraging, see?"
"I was waving too, Yuhri," my sister carolled from nearby.
I fished out a few choice four-letter expletives and climbed back into the kayak...only to capsize again on the next rapid.
I was raging by the time I was fished out of the next one; my feet were bruised, my knees were scratched up, and my shoulder was pulled out of joint from banging up against rocks. For the first time, I had a real sympathy for the College Boy and the way he felt when he was dumped in the San Francisco Bay.
The next two rapids I managed to take in the proper fashion: above water.
Then we got to the big one. And that's where everything went very bad.
At the very top of the rapids, the same thing happened that always happens; I got pulled sideways against a rock, the current pushed hard on the boat, and despite my best efforts, the kayak tipped and started sending me backwards down the rapids, underwater.
For once, I didn't panic. I attempted to reach the skirt, only to find out that I couldn't because the force of the current had pressed me flat back against the kayak itself, and the combination of rocks and water force was keeping me away from the skirt handle. Then I remembered that I'd gotten stuck at the top of the rapids because the boat was too wide, and I imagined what would happen if I got stuck like this at the bottom of the rapids, wedged between rocks and unable to reach the skirt.
That's when I learned the true meaning of terror.
The problem with panic is that one instantly loses all semblance of sanity. I instantly started trying to get air by twisting for the surface, and ended up breathing in a lung's worth of water. Miraculously, my twisting managed to bump the boat past the last possible wedge, and into relatively calm water where I managed to reach the skirt after all. It felt like hours. It lasted all of a few seconds.
I exploded out of the water choking, coughing, sputtering like a tuberculosis patient, and instantly lost my footing. I went under; another lung full of water. On my way back up, I cracked my head on the boat -- helmets are a Good Thing -- and managed to cling to it long enough to find some better footing. It was not a proud moment for the Hirata family. I was livid: not at the very happy boyfriend, who claimed to be very proud of me for going down the entire rapids underwater without ever trying to pop the skirt; not even at my sister for taking the exact same rapids without turning a hair. No, I was furious at the river. How's that for logic? One day, I swear, I'll make it down that river without capsizing. I refuse to let an f***ing river beat me.
I made it the rest of the way down without anything major happening; we saw some water turtles staring at us, spotted some otters eating fish, and a beautiful white heron attempting to raise a family in peace. In total, it was a six mile float, taking us approximately two and a half hours. It was glorious. It was fun. It was really, really irritating. I hate losing.
Today, I made a catalog of my injuries. I have a split toenail on my left foot, and bad bruising on my right. My instep looks like a big purple plum. My right ankle won't move at an angle. I have scratches across my knuckles on both hands, a bad cut on my middle finger, and criss-crossing scratches on my elbow. My right knee pops every time I move it. My right shoulder is experiencing a lingering, bone-deep ache, and my left arm won't lift above the shoulder.
I'm going to do it again. I am. Soon. Hurrah! I'm going to kick this river in the ass, dammit. And The Guy's going to go with me.