"'Well, to make a long story short... ' 'Too late.'"
When I was 11 or so, I read a bunch of Christopher Pike books (at least, I think that was the author), which were sort of R.L. Stein-y in that horror-for-young-adults, written-about-high-school-students genre. Having the overactive imagination that I do, I get scared easily, and being as impressionable as I was (am?), I spent several nights not sleeping as a result of the fear. I also remember a lot of the details from the books – one of which started with this chick getting murdered as she was scuba diving when this guy cut her weight belt and she ascended far enough and fast enough that her lungs popped, or something. Whatever it was, she died. I also vaguely recall the same book involving someone who had been poisoned, which resulted in kidney failure and then a whole bunch of conversations taking place during dialysis, but that could have been a different one… frankly, the memory of the cheesy horror is all just mushed into one big Tale from the Crypt.
My point: I’ve been scared of scuba diving ever since. The idea of being in a situation where if something went wrong you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it and you’d die just scared me. Similarly, as much of a star geek as I am, I don’t think I’d want to go into space, either. Dude, something goes wrong and you’re screwed... Point is, the idea of scuba diving has long been one big phobia for me. Which, of course, means I am obligated to conquer said fear and actually do it. Ever since my parents and I had identified the actual location of our vacation, I’d been planning on diving, and today? Whipped that fear – whipped it good.
Took this class first, at which point I decided that I didn’t actually want to go in the ocean, because did you know that you have to breathe through your mouth? I *never* breathe through my mouth, and ever since I had a boyfriend who pointed out how stupid people look just sitting there breathing through their mouths and how his children would be taught to *not* be mouth-breathers, I’ve even become a bit bothered whenever I’m forced to watch a mouth-breather. And since scuba diving requires mouth-breathing, it honestly took me 15 minutes of inhaling plastic and pool water before I figured out how to use the “reh-u-lador.” Fortunately, though, our cute little pocket-sized instructor Guillermo was uber-patient, I got the hang of it, and we headed out to do a shallow dive along this reef (supposedly second best in the world, after Australia’s). It was predictably fabulous, and I loved it, and I’m pretty much ready to finish certification and become a scuba bum (or is it a dive bum? I don’t know the terminology) if I could figure out a way to do it while, you know, still finishing grad school. I hate that some of the best hobbies are expensive.
Anyway, so we got a video of us and a few of the things we saw (anemones, lobsters, eels, huge schools of fish, etc) so if I can figure out how to post just a little clip of it, I’ll share the hideousness that is me in a wet suit. I know it’s hard to imagine that I could ever be anything other than completely gorgeous, but it seems that in my case, “wet suit” is synonymous with “ugly stick.”
Also, did I mention that it’s ridiculously warm where I am, and ridiculously cold where you are (Paris, NYC, etc)?
