between the rock and the cold, cold sea

So my exercise lately is going for a swim. (I swam to the shore and back in that image, not exactly endurance swimming but I'm building up.) Sometimes a bike ride and a swim. The sea surface temperature is up to a balmy 15C - well up from the 9C of back in late April, even if it's not exactly a Mediterranean sort of blissful, stay-in-all-day temperature.

What else is new with me? My beloved wife has offered to celebrate with a nice meal if I reach 50K words on my novel-in-progress - if I stop shying away from it, acting like what I write could never have value. (She didn't say that, exactly. But she's right, I should try to have more self-belief.)

Here is a poem I was reading:

The Blue-Green Stream

by Wang Wei
Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell

Every time I have started for the Yellow Flower River,
I have gone down the Blue-Green Stream,
Following the hills, making ten thousand turnings,
We go along rapidly, but advance scarcely one hundred li.
We are in the midst of a noise of water,
Of the confused and mingled sounds of water broken by stones,
And in the deep darkness of pine trees.
Rocked, rocked,
Moving on and on,
We float past water-chestnuts
Into a still clearness reflecting reeds and rushes.
My heart is clean and white as silk; it has already achieved Peace;
It is smooth as the placid river.
I love to stay here, curled up on the rocks,
Dropping my fish-line forever.

Today began at 1000, after five and a half hours' sleep, when my mother bounced into my bedroom and said GET UP IT IS WARM AND THE TIDE IS GOING OUT LET'S GO SWIM, or words to that effect.

(It was emotional bouncing, even if no physical bouncing actually occurred.)

This is how I came to be standing thigh deep in the Irish Sea before 1030, awake for less than a half hour, my entire bodily frame much less enthusiastic than usual about this whole cold, wet business. A mist was rolling in, and a group of regular strong swimmers were also about in the water - water clear and grey-green when you open your eyes under it.

I swam even more weakly and pathetically than usual, but I swam.

Then I went to town to spend the afternoon in the library, chasing citations, before hitting the gym for a good session.

Gym:
Benchpress: 1x5 @65kg, 1x5 @67.5kg, 2x5 @70kg, with a spotter.
Assisted pullup: 2x5 @25kg assist.
Unassisted pullup: attempt x5, nope.
Squat: 2x5 @20kg
Military press: 3x10 @4kg/arm
Shoulder fly: 3x10 @6kg/arm
Leg press: 3x10 @80kg
Treadmill: 0.5 mile in 05:00, constant running; 1.00 mile in 13:00, intervals.
Exercise bike: 35:00, in excess of 12km
Second treadmill: 3 intervals of 00:40 at 12.5kph, rest intervals 01:00.
Rowing machine: 1km in 05:30
Third treadmill: 02:00 incline, slow jog.

---

Now my knuckles hurt, but at least I've had an exercise. Benched more today than I did last week, which is something.

A light fog had rolled in. The sea was chill, just the right kind of chill to take the edge off a humid day without being cold, the colour of milky steel under drifting bands of mist. Just barely choppy enough to slap you in the face once or twice, so you'd know you'd been kissed, clear and pungent with salt. Perfect enough to make you cry.

A jellyfish sighting chased me out after only fifteen or twenty minutes, but god, that was glorious.

As of this day, I am three years shy of thirty.

---

I never thought, when I was younger, that I would know so many interesting people.

I never thought I'd be able to call so many interesting, wonderful people friend.

You guys. You guys. You've made my life better in so many ways. I don't have the words to say how much I appreciate you all, beyond thank you.

From the depths of my heart.

---

My day started with swimming in the sea. At Skerries, where the deep water is: the sky hazed where the sun had yet to burn off the damp, the sea grey and gently choppy and cold beyond the dreams of men. It steals the breath.

Twenty minutes in the water. Emerging to dress and eat lunch and catch a train. The sun burning off the haze, temperatures reaching 24C. The gym deserted, plenty of room to push intense alternating intervals on bike and treadmill.

A good day. I even managed to hand in my paperwork to the travel fund and see my supervisor!

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Now, dear friends, it is time for cake. And thesis. But mostly cake.

Writing up of the conference continues over at the wordpress blog.

I got up before nine today, to go to the gym and get home before full tide. The weather is stunning at the moment: sun, blue skies, light breeze, 20-22 degrees Celsius.

So, gymming! Benchpress 30kg + bar, 1x8 reps, 2x6 reps, with a lovely spot of spotting from one of the gym staff. Deadlift, 20kg + bar, 3x10. Chest fly, 4kg/arm 3x10. Shoulder fly, 4kg/arm 3x10. Standing shoulder press, 4kg/arm, 3x10. Bicep curl, 6kg/arm, 2x10. Supported bicep curl, 12kg, 1x5.

Then exercise bike, 10km inside 27:30. No running today. Had to get the train home to be in time to catch the tide.

---

I met my mother on the beach. We spent half an hour mucking about in the water. The tide was high and full, and floating somewhere out beyond the harbour mouth was the front bumper of a car (detail reported by lifeguard in kayak). The water was murkier and a little choppier than it was yesterday, but still blue-green. A little scattered about with surface collections of weed. The cold freshwater current met the warm water - in short, it was glorious.

I'm trying to improve my swimming capacities, which means I swim for a count of thirty and then muck about some more. (I am not a good swimmer, although it seems that the lifting has improved my upper body strength to the point where I'm better than I was.)

---

After beach, lunch of soup and a toasted sandwich, and shopping in the supermarket. No sooner did I get home, I realised I needed to nap.

Nap like a napping thing.

The brief but glorious summer continues. I read part of a book on the not-so-busy north strand and swam when the tide was high on the crowded harbour beach. Waves too high and wild to properly swim, but the water warmer (to perception) even than yesterday, almost temperate. Some Polish lads were peeling pink, and some black lads teased me in a friendly manner about going for a dip, and dozens of skinny Irish children screamed in the shallows and jumped into breaking surf.

But soon the summer will disappear, and we will wonder, "Was it all a dream?" "Does the sun even exist?" "Perhaps it was a hallucination brought on by chemicals in the rain." But by the Peeling Tomato shade of healing sunburn, we shall know it was true, and that once, once, the sun appeared in glory.

And the memory of light will endure behind the clouds of another year. *strikes a grand and tragic pose*

Therefore let us continue on towards suppertime. And have cake and grapes, because it is summer.

Books 2009: 46.

46. Sarah Monette, Corambis.

The perfect conclusion to the series. Fabulous; measured; painful; beautiful.

---

So, I took my books to the beach today. Study fail. But I did get to go swimming: not that I'm a strong swimmer, so it was more like dipping. But, still. Another fabulous day.

Books 2009: 35-45

35. Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter.

I found this book interesting, in a number of ways, in particular in the industrialisation of its magic and in the harshness of its social world. But its central thematic concern, or at least the central concern as it emerges (to me) in the chapter around Spiral Castle, which appears to be why does life hurt, is no longer a question which I find compelling, since it arises from an idea that the universe should or could be reasonable. But a good book, nonetheless.


36. Anthony Price, The Labyrinth Makers.

This was a gift from rysmiel, on our brief encounter in March, and a generous and thoughtful gift it was too, since it's the first time someone's ever given me a book and had it fit with my tastes. It's a very good book, well and gracefully written and paced, if with the sparseness of language that seems characteristic of the spy and crime genres. It's very much a British Cold War novel, and a very interesting puzzle it has, concerning a WWII plane uncovered at the bottom of a lake in 1969. The somewhat bookish Dr David Audley, uncomfortable out of his office, makes for a rather compelling protagonist, and if the gender roles seem rather antiquated now, well, it was a book of 1970, so I suppose it can't really be helped.

A very good book.


37. Ursula LeGuin, The Earthsea Quartet.

I'm not sure whether I should count this as one book or four, but since they're all in one volume, I'm going to go with one. A very interesting set of works, mellow of pace and mellifluous of language, and a n ongoing discussion about the nature of power and selfhood and choice.

I may well be the last person in the world to read these. But I'm glad I didn't read them younger: I think I can appreciate them now in ways I would not have, before.


38. Alma Alexander, Worldweavers: Cybermage.

The third book of Alexander's YA trilogy. In addition to the cool and mythic stuff of previous books, it has Nikola Tesla. I liked it a whole lot.


39. Jim Butcher, Turncoat.

The latest Harry Dresden book. Fast-paced, and equal to its predecessors in quality. I enjoyed it, even if I did see the traitor from a mile off.


40. Anne Bishop, The Shadow Queen.

A strangely incomplete and unbalanced book. I cannot recommend it.


41&42. Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf and Iron Kissed.

Read in the depths of my brain-deadness. They struck me as rather incomplete and slightly askew: but I believe it has been established I am no great reader of romances.


43&44. J.D. Robb, Strangers in Death and Salvation in Death.

Predictable futuristic mysteries, with no great grace of prose to recommend them.


non-fiction:

45. A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton University Press, 1996).

This is the first of my exam reading list that I actually read cover-to-cover (and is, along with David Mattinglys Tripolitania, which I did not have time to read cover-to-cover, one of two I now covet for my very own). It's not a particularly long book, but it is a marvellous investigation into the relationship between house and society, and exceedingly well-written: Wallace-Hadrill succeeds in making even his statistical comparisons of the different house sizes compelling. The inter-relationship of industry, status, family, servant and tenant is all examined.

I most sincerely recommend it: it has opened up to me entire new ways of thinking about the house in the ancient town.

---

This has been a weekend of surpassingly fine weather. On Saturday, I passed through the edges of the Dublin maritime festival, with all the tallships - oh, not many, only eight or so - drawn up along the quays, surrounded by stalls selling food and drink - fudge from the west of Ireland, breads and cakes from Italy, biscuits from Holland, cheeses from Belgium, wine from France - and spent a while listening to the band playing on the deck of the Kathleen and May, a tallship owned by a French company, engaged in transporting organic wine by sail.

I spent some time in the library, where I was reminded that it was a friend's 21st that evening, so there was Unexpected Party - I don't get to many parties, but I thoroughly enjoyed that one, mainly because I found a corner full of my college mates where the company was congenial and no one was utterly plastered - and slept in and got sunburned on Sunday. Today, there was swimming, in water much warmer than I expected that was nonetheless cold.

Tomorrow, I must return to studying for my final two exams: this has been a blessed rest, but I can't let myself get used to it, yet.

Swimming weather. I have become a nervous swimmer since my not-drowning experience, but the weather was perfect - 20 degrees and clear skies, the water practically balmy - and I managed to make a few metres several times over.

It's odd. I'm as competent a swimmer as I ever was - which means, for all practical purposes, perfectly able to keep myself from drowning in the waters I go swimming in - but lately if I'm in water over my depth and murky, I'm hard-put not to go all flaily and scared.

---

I'm so distractible lately. I swear. I can't sit down at the laptop and write, because I just play with the internets. I can't even turn the internets off and write at the kitchen/my bedroom table here at home, because there are just so many other things making a play for my attention and I can't get into the right headspace.

I still haven't unpacked my case from Crete. And there are a hundred and one other small things that need to be done and I'm not in the right headspace to do them, either.

So far, I'm at my best when I'm out of the house. College library seems to work. So does a café. Otherwise not so much.

I suppose I should pick one of the hundred-and-one things and do it, and thereby make a start at getting back into the right headspace. But, meh. I am avoidant.

So. Who has all the motivation, then?

Went swimming today. Once this morning, an icy splash at low tide, after which I hied me to college and did some stuff which will hopefully result in partial funding from college for my participation on the Crete dig.

Didn't go gymming, as it was too warm (25 Celsius and humid, I am not used to heat like this). So came home, and went swimming again.

( Cut for long story about Not Drowning )

It was a truly stupid thing to do, and I think I'm pretty lucky it didn't turn out worse. If the current had been stronger, the chop worse, or - godless heavens avert - there really had been a visible sizeable fish of any kind at all, I would've had to try to land myself on a rock and damn the embarrassment, or risk a less optimal outcome.

Another twenty metres might've broken me, too. Thirty or forty almost definitely would've.

I forgot the first thing every swimmer knows about the sea: The sea is not kind. The sea will drown you.

So you stay firmly within your competance, or you die.

I was, luckily, within my competance. But not nearly so firmly within it as I would consider safe.

I mean, I was okay. There were plenty of people there who would have been within their competance to rescue a (stupid) swimmer in distress. And certainly better I come up hard against the limits of my abilities in such a relatively safe dangerous way than some other time, somewhere else, possibly when I was on my own.

But. Still not smart.

I am so never doing that again. Next time I want to swim twenty metres plus? I will stay in my depth. Or arrange for a damn boat to be around, so I can escape imaginary man-eating fishes, if I feel the need.

So, that was my day. How was yours?

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*Yeah, I realise this is a kind of small distance. I did point out, not a great swimmer by any means?

**I should note that because of the chop, the water was quite clear? Clear enough to make out obstructions, or things three metres below, not quite clear enough to be immediately certain what they actually were.