I can't swim underwater - I've always bobbed right back up to the surface or pretty close to it, even when I was skin and bones at 145 lbs. Nowadays I'd probably float on the surface like cork.

In a lake or a pool, I know I can get to land in any direction if I swim far enough. The ocean, NSM.

What ita and Brenda said. When I think "lake", I think Lake Michigan. Small and swimmable do not mesh with lake in my head.

I get weirder about lakes and oceans. Lakes because I fear various animals and oceans because I have nearly been drowned numerous times by powerful undertows (and because of animals).

This me, except for the undertow thing. I have this irrational fear being attacked by something under the water and not being able to plant my feet. I have no idea where it comes from. So I'm fine with a pond or lake until I can't touch bottom anymore.

I also nearly drowned in a creek when I was a kid. It wasn't super deep, but I fell in, inhaled a bunch of water as I landed and then the water was too murky to tell which way was up so I panicked. Luckily one of my friends pulled me out.

Swimming in a pool, I don't have a problem. Though I still can't make myself dive. I just can't force myself to leap headfirst into anything, water or no.

Is she rolling up the windows and turning off the AC, Aimee?

Heh. This is my sister - she's probably going to stop them and ask for a pass.

My legs don't float but the rest of me sure does.

My mom can't swim, but that has nothing to do with her background and everything to do with her weird mental blocks when it came to her mother as a teacher.

My mom loved to swim . . . she grew up in Japan. She made sure that my brothers and I all swam. I don't know if this was a Japanese thing or a middleclass thing or what.

Li'l Sphere and Lillian are killing me with teH Cute!

Q&A with ED. (Total fluff, I'm afraid.)

When do people learn to swim? There are pictures of me swimming as a toddler, at a point when we lived on the coast. I have not entirely wrapped my brain around the idea of municipal pools, even now -- the Arlington [municipal "pool"] Reservoir, where I swam as an older kid, was a set-aside section of a lake.

I know that some colleges still have swimming requirements before you can graduate, and I recall learning this fact with the same dumbfoundedness as if you had told me you had to pass a class in pat-your-head, rub-your-belly before graduating. Who can't do that (assuming physical capability)? And what bearing can it possibly have on your academic career?

Random: Eric Bana is on my tv talking about Munich (that's the movie right?) and it's increasing my Bana love.

He sure is pretty. Also, pulls off accents nicely.

If I can get that initial head-turn, then maybe people will stay to see a little bit more of, like, the message.

Tru Calling, Eliza? Tru Calling?

I was kicked out of Mormon girls’ camp for talking about seeing two men kiss. I’m trying to find new things and—what do they say?—a higher power. Something bigger than myself.

Like gay porn?

Oh! I hate to segue from ED, against whom I hold no bad feelings to Scarlett J, but, well, I'm a SJ-hata. They played clips from Match Point on the podcast I was listening to yesterday, and somehow her bits sounded...like they were going straight up in the air, where her costars sounded like they were talking to people. It was very weird.

Who can't do that (assuming physical capability)?

Have you ever tried to teach an adult to swim? Not inconsiderable.

I learned to swim because of a couple of reasons 1) my mom doesn't swim that well ( actually she doesn't swim badly, but it isn't a strong skill) my theory is she grew up on the ocean where it is harder to swim 2) as a baby - I may have hated sand - but I ran to the water. So all there of us had endless numbers of lessons. If I hadn't hated my instructers I might have done well competatively . But I didn't even think about it until I was In my 30's .

Sadly, I don't swim much now. someday I would love to have a a lap pool.