As I write this post the last hours of Official Summer are whizzing past. The alarm clock has already been dusted off and inspected for operability and now we’re just killing time on our way to its first rude squawk since school let out in June.

I always get pretty depressed about the end of my summer. Not so much the weather part of it. That is guaranteed to hang on for another three months in these parts. I’m a little bummed about the end of Official Summer during which there is no school, no PTA and therefore no obligation to set down the tequila or put on clothes. I’m not ashamed to admit it: summers around here are kinda sorta clothing optional. 

Not strictly speaking of course - we don’t run completely naked through the hallways of Matulich Manor - it’s just that short of a presidential visit, I rarely find occasion to dress myself or my offspring up in anything more formal than swimsuits. I even managed to start my own salsa company last July wearing nothing more complex than a stringy tie-dyed number.

Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Sunrise. Sunset.

Therefore I figured that I’d mark the final morning of Official Summer by jumping into the ocean for a swim over and through the massive kelp forests of Monterey Bay. 

I even wore a bikini for the occasion because I’m sentimental like that.

And I wore a wetsuit over the bikini because dude, that water’s freezing.  

If a better way to spend time has ever been devised I have yet to discover it. There is nothing more enjoyable than treading water offshore in the lift and roll of swells, pulling oneself through kelp beds in a half swim half crawl and watching the tourists watch the sea from the sea. Where else but a kelp bed can you lay around and watch the harbor seals pop their cat-like heads up close enough to cop a whisker feel?

And when it was over I was kinda bummed that this really, truly was IT. The End. Adios. Over. Gone. The period at the end of a well-loved quote.

I tried to be ok with it. And I was for a little bit, until I found myself sitting at the top of the stairs at my in-laws house in Santa Cruz where I could still smell the saltwater and seaweed coming off my sand-covered flip flops.

And that’s when I realized that I need to sell a ton of salsa or begin a life of high-paying white collar crime so I can just hang out at the beach year round.

I finished my first triathlon on Saturday and if you have me added as a friend on myspace you are undoubtedly sick to death of hearing about it and are probably wishing that I would shut up or drown or at least get my toes run over by a bicycle during the next one.

I wouldn’t mention the whole thing again if it weren’t for the fact that I almost didn’t finish my first triathlon because I almost gave up and swam back to the beach because about seven minutes after the gun went off ye olde Evil Voice Inside My Head shook off its Zoloft hangover long enough to remind me that I was, in fact, terror-stricken.

Boy is that water murky.

Shut up Evil Voice.

Casket murky.

Thanks Hemingway, what the hell is that even supposed to mean?

It’s just, well, it’s dark down there. When you’re face down, you know, like in the water, swimming? Don’t you feel a little like you’re having something slammed shut in your face?

No.

Like a casket? Or a shroud?

That’s really sick.

Sure gives a whole new appreciation of the phrase “watery grave” doesn’t it?

Are you going to start in on that Jenny Greenteeth bullshit again?

Nah. But I bet being in it’s a lot like being buried.

Go to hell.

Well, that is, if being buried meant you couldn’t breathe. I guess in that sense the water is worse than a casket, huh? Because you know, you can’t breathe.

I’m a strong swimmer.

Suuuuuuuuure you are…

(A few silent moments during which I begin to hope the Evil Voice has succumbed to an adrenaline overdose.)

Woo boy! I bet there could be ten… fifteen… maybe even thirty bodies down there and you’d never know for all the murk.

Steph?

Steph?

Get lost. You’re not the boss of me.

Yeah, yeah. You’ve trained for this, blah-ta-te-blah-blah-blah.

Don’t you have anything better to do?

Better than this?

(Looks around. Kicks at my frontal lobe.)

No, not really. Hey! How’s your breathing?

Get lost…

I bet you’re feeling a little straved for air about now huh?

No.

Sure you are. Can’t breathe?

I’m breathing just fine thank you very much.

You know, just because nobody’s drowned in this event yet doesn’t mean there can’t be a first…

Gah! Shut up! I’m fine!

Are you? Sure you’re not having trouble breathing?

Yes.

Positive?

Yes.

Absolutely certain?

Oh honestly… 

You’re panicking. I can see it. Here. Let’s get one of those medics in the kayaks.

Do that and I’ll…

You’ll what? You know you want out of here.

I’ll switch from Zoloft to Jack Daniels and Xanax cocktails.

Sure you will. Hey, what’s say we get out, dry off, catch a movie. What’s the point of this whole thing anyway? To prove that you’re better at not drowning than the next guy?

No.

Oh, yes. You’re outta here.

No.

Sure you are. Tell you what we’re gonna do… we’re going to flag down one of these kayaks, tell ‘em you need to get out of the water…

And that is when I had an honest-to-God, full-blown, hyperventilating-holy-shit-I-can’t-breathe-and-I-think-I’m-going-to-die panic attack right there in the middle of the water during which I blew several precious minutes floating on my back and trying to decide whether I would continue chasing the pack into deeper water or accept disqualification and drag my sorry ass back to the beach. The Evil Voice almost won. But that was before I started thinking - really thinking - about what it would be like to quit and how stupid I would feel once I was back on shore watching everyone else finish the swim and move on to the bike and run portions.

So I turned back over and continued even though all I really wanted to do was get out and run home where I could curl up in bed and suck my thumb.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine gave me a self-help book on coping with panic disorders. I have yet to read the book but the title popped into my head; Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. It probably sounds stupid but I repeated that damned phrase to myself over and over and over and over again until the panic attack was over and all there was left to do was try to make up for time lost.

I set my peripheral vision on the strongest swimmer in the pack: a competitor whose wetsuit had an orcan stripe that gleamed white through the murk, and I kept my head down and stuck to her side until we made it back to shore.

Then I passed her and just about everyone else in my division on the bike.

(Pictured above: This is me on the verge of a total psychological meltdown.)

A couple of weeks ago, just before I seemingly abandoned my blog, my husband and I decided to take the kids on a family vacation. Since he and are alike in that we find the prospect of taking a two year old on a plane about as inviting as performing home dental surgery on one another, we decided to vacation close to home.

Also, the in-laws had taken their RV and skipped town, thus leaving their Santa Cruz County digs, fully-stocked liquor cabinet, porn collection and cache of guns lonely for company.

Kids? Meet Mr. Tequila and Mr. Glock. They’ll be your babysitters for the next two weeks.

Before our vacation I decided to try my hand at triathlons which means enduring the Pacific Ocean’s sub-Arctic conditions which means purchasing a wetsuit which means that somewhere between the words “Honey” and “I’m thinking about doing triathlons” my husband shelled out a few hundred bucks to cover his wife from neck to ankles in neoprene with nary a blowjob to show for it.

But he got even. And how.

So while we’re in SC we decide to take the kids out to the beach. He picked Sunset Beach; a lovely stretch of sandy coastline that shelves gently into Monterey Bay. It is quite a relaxing spot if you are, in fact, intelligent enough to remain on dry land.

At any rate, we arrived at the beach. I had my wetsuit. My husband and kids had parkas. We were ready for an authentic Northern California beach excursion minus the hypothermia that seems to plague bikini-clad tourists who’ve watched too much television.

I’m not going to bother going into detail about the ambivalent signage everywhere that indicated that yes, while it was true that one could technically swim at this particular beach, it was not generally advisable. Not that there were signs that specifically said “Keep Out” or “perhaps you should reconsider” or even “update your life insurance.” Instead, there was a plethora of directions on how to survive should the ocean throw an undertow, sleeper wave or riptide your way.

I’m also not going to bore you with details of waves several feet taller than me, jellyfish and kelp infested swells, or even the fact that I would have had to swim halfway to Japan to get beyond the surfline.

Sufficed to say, things were not going well. I was taking a ton of foam in the face and within ten minutes I felt like I had eaten a salt lick. Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of water? These are but a few of the reasons why - when I saw the nice boy with the lifeguard gear waving at me from the beach - I was more than happy to pack it in.

“What’s up? Is there a problem?” I asked the kid, not that I didn’t know the answer. Of course there was a problem; some idiot at Fleet Feet had set me loose with a wetsuit.

“Um…” The kid started to hem. He didn’t need to talk. His expression said it all, Lady, there’s a whole list of reasons you have no business being out here but you’re a sasquatch and I’m afraid you’ll rip my arms off before I reach #50.

“There’s an awful riptide comin’ through here today.” The kid stammered. He pointed to a red warning flag that was most definitely not there before I’d gotten in the water. Not that it wouldn’t have been helpful to know. “Could you, uh, just swim closer to the lifeguard tower?”

“Do you mean swim closer to it or get out?”

“Um…” The kid looked at me and then looked at his feet.

“Look, what would you do?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t be swimming. Not out here anyway.”

“Can you just tell me that I’m being kicked out of the ocean?”

“You’re being kicked out of the ocean.”

“King Neptune thanks you.”

Everyone! It’s Blondie’s 30th birthday!

Sorry I haven’t posted for nearly a week. How are you folks? I’ve missed you guys. Is everyone good? Still breathing? Got all your limbs? Good.

Last week I finally did it. I unplugged my Internet, for the most part anyway. I have a book I should be writing. I have dishes that need to be done. Finals are next week. Oh, and Officer Montgomery has promised to throw my ass in jail for neglect if she ever catches me again exposing my daughter to internet horse meat and escort services.

So I was kinda forced to kill the Internet. Pull the plug. Take myself off the E-Bay and blog-fed life support system. So I yanked the cord out of the wall, the lights went out, and e-mails immediately started piling up on Google’s server. World Wide Web go bye bye.

The result? I am now fully prepared for finals. All the laundry is caught up. The dishes are spot free. My children no longer have those unsightly restraint marks on their wrists and ankles. I’ve written a huge chunk of my book. It’s been at least five days since I’ve had to answer the question “Mommy, what is that man doing to that chicken?” I’ve made several batches of cookies, two gallons of salsa, and dinner four nights in a row. All my rugs have been vacuumed and steam cleaned.

…and I have realized something:

I need to drop acid or run naked through a crowded mall to counteract this flurry of domesticity before my brain melts and leaks out my ears.

But then I realized something else. I do have something un-domestic on my horizon! I’m going to do the Alcatraz to Fisherman’s Wharf swim! (And yeah, I’m still planning on diving with the great white sharks, but at $875 a pop I’ve realized that’s a dive that’s going to have to wait until November of 2008. And I need something un-domestic to happen, like, really soon lest I become a mindless suburbanite Stepford clone who listens to adult contemporary stations and lives for Pottery Barn sales.)

So where was I? Oh yeah, so I’m going to swim Alcatraz in August. And I haven’t done an open water ocean swim in Northern California in… well…. almost ten years. So today I tell my husband that I’m going to head down to Fleet Feet and check out their wetsuit rentals this next week. You know, so I can make a trial run in the bay and figure out what all I need to tackle the whole “swimming in water that will make you hypothermic in less than twenty minutes” thing.

Now, my husband is an engineer and is possessed of all the character flaws that come with the breed. The concept of taking on a task more complex than getting out of bed without a slide rule, calculator and butt-load of data is completely foreign to him. I, on the other hand, would skip off gaily to Sub-Saharan Africa and forget to pack underwear.

Him: You’re going to what?

Me: I’m going to Fleet Feet to get fitted for a wetsuit for the Alcatraz swim.

(This time I use finger signals to get my point across.)

Him: You’re still doing that?

Now, this is a common tactic of my husband whenever I come up with some brilliant plan that involves stuff like running marathons, climbing Everest, or applying to mortuary college. He forgets all about it. That is, until I follow up with something that makes him realize I am dead serious and not flaking on this. It’s not his fault really. There’s a reason I’ve never been mistaken for ‘the responsible one’.

Me: Yeah. It’s in August. So I should probably get moving on it.

Him: Ok… um, don’t people die in the bay? You know, of the cold?

At this point I gave him my best Tara-Reid-gets-asked-who-the-Speaker-of-the-House-is face. I’m scuba certified. I’m actually quite familiar with the dangers of swimming in water as cold as San Francisco Bay. Still, I couldn’t resist fucking with the poor man.

Me: Die? Oh yeah. All the time.

Him: Wouldn’t you… ah… feel better, uh, just watching this year? You know, until you get a good feel for what you need to do to prepare?

Me: Watch? No way. I just need to figure out if I need a wetsuit.

Him: It’s freezing out there…

Me: Yeah, sure. Look, you don’t think I’ll need one of those hokey shark repellent devices do you? Like some electronic beep’s gonna keep those fuckers at bay.

Him: Sharks?

Me: And don’t even worry about that jellyfish infestation off Angel Island. Please. Like some glob with tentacles is really that dangerous. I mean, paralysis doesn’t always lead to death.

Him: Paralysis?

Me: Oh, and they are dreaming if they think I’m wearing one of their silly yellow swim caps. Me. Get lost? Pshaw. Like I’m going to need to be visible. Tidal drift my ass.

Him: Lemme call and get our life insurance adjusted…