Splash

In an attempt to get into shape, I have started swimming three times a week at the St. Kate's pool. It's been really nice--convenient, reasonable alumni prices, and almost always a lane to myself or shared with one other person.

But that guy, Captain Speedo, the one who tried to woo me with his talk of turds in the pool, is really starting to get on my nerves.

Earlier this week, I was minding my own business, counting laps and letting my mind wander as I fell into that predictable rhythm of swim, breathe, kick, swim, breathe, kick, when all of a sudden--
Splash!

Rudely awakened from my swim trance, I stopped in the middle of the pool and looked to my left. Captain Speedo had friggin splashed me, and was treading water with a big grin on his face. "Hey," he said.

"Hi," I said, reflexively. I found myself treading water too, waiting for him to explain. I thought there was some emergency. I half expected him to say something like, "Sorry to splash you, but we have to evacuate the pool---it was a turd after all." or, "Someone is drowning, quit swimming."

But he said nothing. He just kept treading water with foggy goggles and that silly grin.

Two parts annoyed, one part angry, and a half part flattered, I just nodded and then continued with my swim.

This was on Wednesday. When I went this morning, all lanes were taken except the lane next to the pack of men in Speedos. I took a deep breath and hopped in--I wasn't going to miss my morning swim because of some flirtatious man. I just kept swimming, without stopping, keeping my head underwater as much as possible.

That seemed to work. I guess if I have to be inspired to swim as fast as possible, then this is as good a way as any.

But I do feel a little bit objectified. I mean, I'm in a swimsuit. He doesn't even know my name.

At the very least, he could introduce himself. I mean, I only recognize him by the color of his Speedo.

Before I Go

Lisa is one of my favorite students. She is ten and painfully dramatic.

This week, we learned about a new time signature. She was having trouble feeling the pulse of three beats in a measure, so I asked her to count out loud.

Looking shocked, she took her hands off the piano, stared at me with an open mouth, and then wailed, "But my life is already horrible!" She went limp and collapsed headfirst onto the keyboard. Imagine about thirteen half-steps suddenly ringing out from beneath the wailing head of a ten-year-old.

Wincing, I said, "Lisa, it's not the end of the world. In fact, I will count with you. Okay, ready? Here we go: one, two, three, one, two three....." And she slowly and defiantly sat back up and started participating.

She has also discovered that her electronic keyboard can make some really fun sounds, and after she successfully completed the counting exercise, she hit a button that filled the room with the sound of applause and cheers. She stood up, grinning, and took a few bows.

Ever the calm, fun-hating piano teacher, I said, "Sit back down, Lisa, and let's go to your next book."

I am always impressed with her knack for exaggeration. I can relate to this, a little. Or a lot. I think the ability to reasonably stretch a story is part of what makes stories so interesting. I mean, come on, did she really hit thirteen keys? I don't know, I didn't count, but she may have. So I have come to expect her reactions to be a little bigger, a little louder, a little stranger than what is essentially true. After all, I have the same affliction.

At her lesson last week, I had asked her to open her Performance Book to page something or other. She slowly and deliberately opened the book to the aforementioned page, set it on the piano, and then looked at me from beneath a droopy head of hair.

"I didn't practice this page," she said, sadly. She said it completely shamelessly, but she had the look of a girl who just lost her puppy.

Accustomed to her pouty reaction to the concept of "practicing," I sighed. "Lisa," I said, "You know you are supposed to practice every day. Otherwise it makes it really hard for us to make any progress. I might as well stay at home."

She nodded, solemnly.

"So why didn't you practice?" I asked her.

"I spent the entire week in the hospital!" She said this with wild, wide hand gestures.

"The entire week in the hospital?" I repeated. "Wow, that sounds really serious. Are you sure you should be having a piano lesson right now?"

Most kids would say something like, "No way, I shouldn't be having a piano lesson right now," and then dart off to play a video game or something. But Lisa?

She sighed and looked at me with her big, round, tragic eyes. "I just....I just want to have one more, before I go."

On the Inside

I forgot to bring my guitar to music class at the preschool this week, so it made a perfect day for talking about the piano. I gathered ten bouncy four and five-years olds around the church basement console and gave them a keyboard overview. Then I tapped the soundboard and said, "Does anyone know what is inside a piano?"

Andy, a four-year-old class clown who routinely grins and gives his peers purposeful sideways glances in order to make them giggle, raised his hand. This time, though, he wasn't trying to make his buddies laugh. He tilted his head and, teeming with sincerity, said, hopefully, "Water?"

Turd or Hairball?

What does one do when she is in the middle of her morning lap swim and a pack of men in Speedos interrupts her to team-flirt by making really asinine comments about the turd-shaped hairball in the deep end?

If she is me, and she is already feeling insecure in her new kelly green, high-hipped swimsuit, she does this:

She blinks through her foggy goggles and politely laughs when Captain Speedo stretches out his arms along the side of the pool and puffs his chest, winks at her, and says, "Turd or hairball? I know it's a hairball, because I went to check it out. It tasted more like a hairball, so I just left it on the pool floor."

Then, when she can't think of any appropriate response (or any inappropriate response for that matter), she simply dunks her head and swims away. And that is that.

Hi, Lace

There is one word in the English language that I have trouble articulating. I can't exactly figure out why this word gives me trouble--in fact, I'm not convinced it's the word that gives me trouble but maybe all the people who can't understand me when I say it. In a great cosmic irony, that word that everyone misunderstands when they hear me say it for the first time is "Liz."

This is how a first conversation usually goes when I meet someone new:

"Hi, I'm Liz."
"Lace?"
"No, Liz."
"Leese?"
"Uh, nope. Liz, like L-I-Z, short for Elizabeth."
"Oooooohhhhh! Liz! Why didn't you just say so?"

I'm not kidding, this happens almost every time. It's sooooo weird. I'm not sure if it's the "i" sound or the "z" sound that I don't say clearly enough. Or maybe the combination. I mean, a name like Liz has really strong consonants and a pretty dull vowel in the middle. And it's so short--if I don't say it exactly right in the fraction of a second I have to pronounce my own name, I'm completely misunderstood. Or maybe I mumble. Maybe I have come to expect this sort of murkiness around introductions and I just relax into the slurry, jumbled sound of my own name.

Sometimes I actually anticipate the situation and introduce myself like this:

"Hi, I'm Liz. Short for Elizabeth."

This alleviates all confusion, right off the bat. People may think I'm strange for specifying my full name, but I guess that's better than having them think I can't pronounce my own name.

This weekend I had an especially awkward experience regarding telling someone my name. I was performing at Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, where I had never been before. I was sitting in the front row before it started, silently calculating my path to the guitar and trying to remind myself not to trip over the cord when a friendly young woman sat down next to me.

"Hi," she said, "I'm So-and So."
"Hi," I responded. "I'm Liz."
"Lace?"
"No, Liz."
"Lies?"
"Nope. Liz. L-I-Z, short for Elizabeth."
She paused, then smiled. "You have a beautiful accent. Where are you from?"
Embarrassed, my cheeks flared red. "I don't have an accent," I said. "I grew up in Iowa."

So-and-So was not going to let it go at that. I'm sure she saw my crimson face and my shy eye contact, full of embarrassment and horror that this conversation was happening. But, no, So-and-So wanted to keep talking about how strangely I say my own name. She grinned and exclaimed, "Oh, wow! It's just that the way you say your name sounds like you have an accent. That is sooooo coooool. That you say your name differently. Like it's your own word. Very cool. I totally thought you had an accent. How do you pronounce your own name again? Lease? That is cool."
I blinked and didn't say anything.
"Nice to meet you, Liz," she said.
"You too, So-and-So."


Usually the new people I meet have either seen my name written down before they speak to me (job interviews, new students, etc), or they are introduced to me by someone else (friends of friends, etc). But those times that I meet someone on the spot and have to introduce myself, I am not worried about making an overall good impression, I am not worried about having a bold handshake, nor am I worried about charming them with witty conversation. I am petrified with fear about pronouncing my own name.

So after the experience with So-and-So, I went directly home and practiced saying my name in front of a mirror. It sounded just right to me! It sounded exactly like "Liz." What is wrong with other people? Then Stacia came in, saw me mouthing, "Liz. Liiiiiiiz. Lizzzzzzz," and asked me what on earth I was doing. I explained to her that I have trouble saying my own name, and to prove it I said, "Hi, I'm Liz."

She raised her eyebrows, indicating that she had learned something new about me. "You do have a lisp," she said, "But only for that word, I have never heard it otherwise."

Angrily, I retorted, "I do not have a lisp. My name is just too short for people to listen to it properly."

Then, last night, I attended a twelve-step meeting. You know how it works--you go around in a circle and everyone says, "Hi, I'm Whoever." And the group responds. "Hi, Whoever."

I had never been to this meeting before. When it was my turn, I said, "Hi, I'm Liz."

And the group responded, "Hi, Lace."

Side Effects

I went to Borders today to use up some of the gift cards I received last week. I also decided to treat myself to a small soy latte at the coffee counter.

There were two baristas. The first one said, "Where did you get your nose ring?"

"Um...I don't know, I mean, I've had it forever," I said. I really was not in the mood to talk about facial piercings. I just wanted my latte and my books. I had found the Best American Travel Writing Anthology for 2007 and was itching to get home and page through it. Also purchased--Bel Canto/Ann Patchet, The Omnivore's Dilemma/Michael Pollan, and The Year of Magical Thinking/Joan Didion.

"Well," the barista continued, "I get mine at Fluid Ink, except for my navel jewelry, and my grandmother was soooo angry when I got my nose pierced. I had to try to hide it every time I saw her."

The second barista said, "My family hated it too! I get my body jewelry at blahblahblah place. I only like to wear studs in my nose. Rings just get caught on things. Except one time I snagged my nose stud on my sweater and it ripped out. That really hurt, but it wasn't as bad as the time my dog caught my hoop earring in his mouth."

I stood there, quietly, completely amazed at the unsolicited self-disclosure. Is that a side effect of too much caffeine? Should I have ordered a decaf?

The first barista said to me, "At least I got the left hand side of my nose pierced. In the olden days, prostitutes pierced their right nostril in order to identify themselves. And I also heard the the right side is the one that lesbians get." She paused, stared at my right-nostril pierced face, did the math, and then said hushedly, "Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean that you are a prostitute."

"Thanks for the coffee," I said. I didn't tip them. What the fuck.

Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2

So the next application to send out went to the University of British Columbia. I meant to send it on December 31, but I arrived at the Industrial Station Post Office in St. Paul at 3:03 to find the postal workers shooing customers out the door.

"Closed! We're closed! Sorry, we're closed," someone was saying to each person that tried to get in the door. "Closing at 3:00 for the holiday. Closed!"

Dammit.

"Is...there another post office that is open later?" I asked.

"Airport 'til 4:00," the frazzled woman said.

The airport?! I was not going to drive to the airport. No way. We all know what happened the last time I rushed somewhere on 494. So I decided to try sending them through Fed-Ex. Why not. I drove to the Kinko's/FedEx retail and mailing location on Grand Avenue and hurried inside to find a line of people there too.

A woman on her cell phone was saying, "God, I can't believe the post office is closed. I had to take these late Christmas cards to Fed-Ex. They are going to charge me way too much money."

Yikes. I really had no idea what to expect price-wise, but this was important and I just wanted to get the application off my hands.

When I found myself at the front of the line, I saw a very young Kinko's employee looking back at me. She must have been 19 at the most, with bleach blond hair and a piece of gum smacking around her mouth.

"Uh, hi. I have these packages to send, and this one is going to Vancouver."

"Vancouver?" she said, looking confused.

"Yeah, Vancouver, BC." The teenaged blondie looked dumbfounded. "In Canada," I clarified.

"Canada?" Smack, smack. She chomped on the gum and stared at me blankly.

"Uh..yep. Canada."

Appearing to use the very last bits of energy she had, she reached over and took the package. She looked at the mailing address and then looked back at me. "Are you sure this zip code is right?"

"Yes, it's right. What do you mean? Did I write the wrong postal code?"

"Well, I mean--smack-- it's got letters in it."

I blinked. "Well.....yes it does. I'm sure it's right. I copied it directly from the website."

Kinko's Girl didn't seem to buy it. "I'm going to look up the zip code anyway." She started paging through a thick book with her brightly colored fingernails. I waited patiently for her to discover that in Canada, that far away, foreign land, they actually have a different format for their postal codes! Can you believe it? Numbers and letters?!?

She couldn't find the answer she was looking for in that book, so she picked up another one. I shifted from one foot to the other, aware that time was just drifting by and I had to be somewhere in twenty minutes.

"So...did you find it?" I urged. I was trying to be understanding.

"Uh....yeah. You wrote the wrong zip code." She pulled out a fat black marker and blocked out V6T 1Z2. She wrote something else in its place, something not even close to what I had written previously.

"Are you sure that's right?" I asked skeptically.

"Yup," she said. Smack, smack. She typed something into her computer. "Ok, that'll be $57.50 to send all the way to Canada."

"What? How much?!" I could not believe that was correct. I have sent heavier packages to Australia for about 1/10 that price. It was just a packet of documents. Nothing heavy, nothing fragile, nothing that would have to go through customs.

"Yeah, and if you want someone to sign for it, it'll be an extra ten dollars."

"You're kidding. Forget it. I'll wait and mail this with the post office." I grabbed the packet and stormed out, furious that it had taken me so long to not get a damn thing done.

I decided to just send it out today, January 2nd, which was fine. There is still plenty of time because it isn't due until the 15th. And when I got home I looked up the postal code again--and I had had it right from the beginning. Ooooh, numbers and letters?????

I returned to the Industrial Station Post Office 55104 this morning with the packet headed for British Columbia. The postal worker who took the packet was very knowledgeable, and she didn't even blink at the international address.

And it cost me $5.74 to send it all the way to Canada.