SWIM. FAIL. GO HOME.

I am taking swimming lessons in an attempt to become intermediate. I aspire to mediocrity. And while I knew how to swim, I wanted to refine the strokes that I knew so that I could not freak out the lifeguards with my flailing. Except the lifeguard at my gym who wears a big fur lined parka with the hood pulled up and totally deals drugs out of there (allegedly) - he wouldn't notice. Hence, swim classes at the local Y. Some definitions:

My swim instructor: blond, Johnny from The Karate Kid (who was not the guy in One Crazy Summer, nor is he the guy in Revenge of the Nerds. . .there are a lot of '80's movies rife with evil blond men - I thought it was all the same guy. . .who knew). Anyway, he says "bro" (pronounced br-AH), possibly has popped collars when not swimming, and is about 16.

Me: old, tired, crotchety, has the soul of a 93-year-old, manages to fall over in pool.

Johnny is under some sort of delusion that I am Michael Phelps. First, he makes me swim lots and lots of laps. In a row. Without a rest. Which is HARD. And makes me do my strokes right, which gives my brain mini-aneurisms because I have to change my rhythm and start inhaling under water in my confusion. But these things are to be expected, because I need to learn. And get some stamina and endurance so that the old lady with the flower swim cap doing sidestroke will not school me. So these are not the reasons why Johnny is so very evil. For this, he is only a little evil. Like Emilio Estevez in Breakfast Club. A sort of boring tool with the potential for evil.

But the evil escalated last class, because next on the agenda? Butterfly. What is up with that? Am I going to the Olympics? Well, in my head, I am (also am hilarious, a novelist and have won a Grammy). But in real life where it requires work, talent and determination? I have not these things, Sensei.

But he says no worries, after Butterfly, I will learn flip turns. Apparently he wants me to die.