Blog Post #300! : Mush Brain

PP’s brain is just mush. She knows that there musta been lots of stories this last week. But where are they now? She just can’t summon them. Perhaps if she just keeps typing rambling something will appear. Or not……not…not….not….okay, that’s not working.


She remembers snippets of several stories. Shall we try that?

I.

“If you’re gonna swim in my lane, you need to stay on your side of the black line!” PP stops in mid lane to admonish super rambunctious teenager. He grins at her. His lanky brown arms flailing in happy abandon.

She shakes her head. Almost done anyway with her swim. When she gets to the wall, he’s there, grinning at her, “You sure do go fast!” he exclaims.
Her hard admonishing heart melts. She can’t help but grin back. His enthusiastic amazement wins her over. Not to mention that she’s always a sucker for compliments. “Well….I’ve got fins on.” She raises one leg outta the water to show him her extended blue and yellow foot.
His eyes open wide with delight. “WOW! I gotta get me some of those!” and off he goes, finless, weaving down the lane.

Not on his side at all.


II.






"I hada drove around forever!" She sighs as opens a locker, takes off her security guard uniform and dons a bright red swim suit. One of those with the old-fashioned skirts round it. The kind that PP cut off her swimsuit when she was 12.
“Yeah, the parking is so crazy round here,” PP nods as she squeezes into her suit.
“I sometime park in the lot, but then I don’t like to cause sometime I get outta here close to 10 o’clock and then …..” She shakes her head, “I don’t wanna go there. But I don’t wanna park out back either.”
”Yeah,” PP agrees, “it's super dark and scary back there.”
“Yeah it is.” She slams her locker closed. PP feels like if Red Swimsuit Skirted Security Guard by day is wary of parking out back, well then it’s a good thing PP never does. RSSSG looks like she could take on anyone when she’s got her uniform on.

But now?

She’s just ready for some water aerobics. “Craig’s class. He’s so great!” she announces as she heads out to the pool, humming to herself.


III.

“Your daughter is such a beautiful swimmer,” PP praises to Diabetes Woman in the Sauna. DW nods, “Yes, she is. She swim very good. Don’t you.”
The Daughter smiles shyly, nods, “I used to swim at college but they don’t have it anymore,”
“That’s a shame,” PP laments. “Must be 'cause of budget cuts?”
”THEY DON’T THINK THEY NEED SWIM BUT THE DO THEY CUT ALL THE SWIM AND NOW MY DAUGHTER SHE HAVE NO PLACE TO SWIM!” DW asserts, just a little too emphatically.

Sandy glances up from her prone heaterized position. “It’s like that all over. There’s no money.”

“BUT MY DAUGHTER!”

The daughter continues to smile, beatific. She knows something, but PP isn’t sure what. Maybe it’s just her defense mechanism again her mom’s overly enthusiastic crusading for her?

Or maybe she’s just had a wonderful swim here at the Oakland YMCA and her smile says it all.


IV

“You get what you put in to it. I tell you. That’s why I come here twice a day. Once in the morning from 8-9 and then again in the evening from 7-8.”

“Wow!” PP exclaims, genuinely impressed. She’d never be able to swim twice a day. But then it doesn’t really seem like Twice a Day woman is a swimmer. Sure she has a swim suit on, but her girth speaks of a more sedentary sort of floating then PP’s languid laps.

“Look at her!” Twice A Day Woman exclaims, “She don’t have one ounce of fat on her!”
Dyed Blonde Afro Woman laughs, kinda embarrassed as she settles down in the sauna. “Oh, yeah I do. I used to be a size 5 and now I’m a size 12 and I don’t know how the hell that happened.”

There’s a short silence. PP knows that Twice A Day Woman would give anything to be a size 12. “And look at her,” TADW points in PP’s direction. “SHE SO SKINNY! But that’s why you’re here. You and her,” She points to a shapely slim woman up top in her blue bikini. “I don’t’ know why the two of you is here, you so skinny. But I guess that’s why, right?”

Blue Bikini woman grins, doesn’t answer. Neither does PP. Another woman starts in about the movie It’s Complicated, “It’s so true to life. You just want to sleep with your ex one more time and then you don’t really want to but you do and well….” She chuckles. “It’s complicated.”






"You can say that again Girl.” TAW shakes her head, rises, lumbers out. PP watches her for a moment before she disappears round the corner to the showers.

Nothing complicated about swimming. If you wanna swim, you do; if you don't wanna swim, you do.

PP's brain has no mush around this. And besides, her brain likes this ending.

Even though it's still mush after (or because of) writing this blog!