the pie filling on the pie

So yesterday I was all like "What should I do? Go outside? NOT LIKELY", being a total summertime grump. And then Ryan was like "Hey, let's go to this very popular swim hole place near-ish to our house." And I was like "I dunno...." and he was like "...and then we can get pie ..." And I shushed him and said "You had me at pie".

So basically I was bribed out to this swimmy place. Kind of. I also sort of wanted to go because, you know, summer...water...bathing suits...day off...etcetera. I haven't really done any of that yet.

We arrived. There were greasy torsos as far as the eye could see. The kids immediately leapt off the highest rocks they could find into the water, with me barely having enough time to shout "WAIT UNTIL I CHECK IT'S SAFE" and peering over the edge, looking for rocks or sharks. They were fine.

Thirty seconds after that, Ryan had whipped his shirt and shoes off and was having jumping contests with the boys.

I stood around, casually leaning on giant boulders on the side of the rocks, keeping track of every person who may have looked at me. I eventually took my t-shirt off, you know, to blend in. I kept my vans and denim skirt on though. Bikini top and skirt.

I brought my Holga with me. And a book. You know, for something to do. But immediately realized I didn't want to read. It was too weird. The only other person there with a book was this portly man with a lot of grey chest hair, who was lying on his side in a vaguely seductive-esque pose. And I think he was "reading"...by which I mean "pretending to read but staring at 18 year old chicks".

I watched the boys jump off stuff for a while.

Then I watched big boys do shots of something and then jump off fucking ridiculously high cliffs for a while, closing my eyes every time they hit the water so I didn't have to see somebody die. (Don't worry, nobody did.)

"Are you gonna jump in, Nova?"

"Uh...I don't know yet."

"The water's warm! It's not bad!"

"Yeah well I don't really like swimming very much."

"What are you doing?"

"Um...just...standing here."

"That sounds boring."

"Yeah."

I took some rad photos with my Holga. I think. We'll see. Maybe. Last time I dropped any film off at the only place in town that can develop them, they threw my photos in the garbage! WTF? The lady said it's because I dropped them off in January and they can't babysit people's film for so long, and then she said that they were probably all over-exposed or blank or something...but anyway long story short WHAT THE HELL? And I WANT MY PHOTOS. So yeah. Hopefully next time it all works out, you know, for me.

But when the film ran out, because it turns out I had it set to take twelve photos per roll instead of twenty like I thought I had, then I was all out of distractions.

So I went for it.

I took off the skirt and the shoes and stood on the rock beside Ryan's seven year old. From inland a little bit it looked like nothing. Especially with little kids leaping fearlessly off of it. But standing there I could feel my vertigo, my fear of heights and my fear of swimming in weird deep water (which was actually only like fifteen feet deep or something) kick in. My heart started racing irrationally.

"Calm down", I told myself. "It's fun. The water will feel awesome. You're so bored anyway. Just do it. Everybody else is doing it. Quit being a chicken."

I had to finally ask the seven year old to count us down and jump at the same time as me.

3, 2, 1, GO!

*SPLASH*

HOLY MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S COLD

It was so effing cold I couldn't catch my breath. Ryan was swimming nearby and I was trying to shout angry things at him about how he's a liar and it's freezing, but it came out all gaspy and weak.
you *GASP* lied *GASP* aaah! *GASP* I *GASP* can't *GASP* catch *GASP* my *GASP* breath!

I tread water as hard and fast as I could for a good two minutes just to warm up, and then it was okay. But seriously, I don't know why I believed the water was warm. The water is never warm when people tell you it is.

We swam for a bit, stood up on slimy rocks in the middle of the water, I got touched by two fish and didn't panic, and I had fun.

The pie afterward was just the icing on the cake. Or...the apple pie filling on the ... pie?

Something awesome.