I have been outed. One of the rowers told me she'd spoken to the
href="http://dichroic.diaryland.com/dicentric.html">newspaper photographer
when he came out to take some photos at practice on Wednesday. He told her about
online diaries, and this one in particular -- the word he used was "hilarious",
she said. So if you're reading this and you're anyone from rowing,
hi.
That's all right -- when the reporter originally interviewed me,
she asked if it was all right to use my name in her article. When I told her she
could, I made my decision about going public. Anyway, some of the things I've
written may be biased -- it's a personal diary, after all -- but I've always tried
to tell truth as I saw it, even to pointing out other possible
interpretations.
The photographer came out to practice today, as
well; DI had told him he could ride the coaches' launch. I was surprised at how
well his flash seemed to illuminate us, since most of the row is pre-dawn at this
time of year. Nice camera.
Today's practice was light, because most
people (but not me, damn and blast it) are racing this weekend, but fun. We did
several "leapfrog" races -- row the boat for 10 hard strokes, then balance it,
with oars off the water, and see which boat goes farther. The women's eight beat
the men's almost every time (except once when we had some major crabbing going on)
mostly because we can balance better, It's a matter of center of gravity; I've
noticed that men, especially burly ones, fall in the lake more often when rowing
tippy single sculls.
The rest of today will just be for packing and
then driving to San Diego. Wish Rudder luck in his race, his fourth in three
weeks.
Next weekend we get to stay home -- yay! I've decided to go to
Philadelphia for a weekend next month, to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday and
my brother's 30th, only three days apart. Besides, his girlfriend invited me to a
30th birthday party, and my parents are being weird about not being invited. I may
be useful to have on hand, to keep explaining why one wouldn't necessarily want to
invite one's parents to a drunken writer sort of bash.