Quotes from The Diving Pool

Quotes from The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa. I copied them down this morning.

"Her lips were like two maggots that never stopped wriggling, and I found myself wanting to squash them between my fingers."

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"He would come down from the diving board and return to the Light House, where his muscles would warm and soften like silk floss, and then he would soak up all the things that set my nerves on edge—Naoki’s raspy voice, the scraps of food flung about by the children, my mother’s endless chattering. It seemed strange that he could be so good when life had treated him so badly: a father who ran off when he was born and a mother who had abandoned him for the bottle. I prayed desperately to be bathed in his kindness."

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"I was sure that Jun would dive into only pure water, and I wanted his dive into to me to be perfect. I wanted him to enter with no splash at all.

Once we’d finished talking about that morning so many years before, we couldn’t think of anything else to say. The sound of time flowing between us became the sound of the water trickling quietly from the faucet until dawn."

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I'm going to a one year old's birthday party tonight, which actually should be a lot of fun as all of my coworkers will be there. It is rumored that my former boss will be showing up and, most of all, I'm excited to see the one year old's mother (and him, of course, he's a cutie!).

But someone needs to remind me that I need to start reviewing French grammar! Tutoring starts on Tuesday and I'd like to be able to tell him that I actually do know a little bit of French!

Conversations

Recent conversations with customers:

(With an older middle-aged customer who asked me out a few weeks after his son asked me out.)
Him: * sniffing the air * You smell good!

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(Two separate conversations with the same customer. “Her” in the second conversation is my coworker.)

Him: What are you doing tonight?
Me: I have a friend coming over.
Him: A friend?
Me: Mm-hmm.
Him: Girl friend or boy friend?


Him: What are you doing tonight?
Her: Going home and going to bed. I have to work all weekend.
Him: And you. What about you?
Me: A friend is coming over.
Him: A friend, a friend! I’m always hearing about these friends!

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Old Customer: You can see anything you’d like as long as I still have clothes on.
Me: Could you pull that on… out!?

(My coworkers had fun with that story when I told them about it.)

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It's been a long weekend of work, work, work, a dinner out with the work girls, and a little bit of homework and movies mixed in. This all equals little sleep over the weekend, which is always a great way to start a new week of classes! Oh well. C'est la vie!

My niece and nephew start swimming lessons tomorrow and I'm going along to help my sister out. These are fun days, so I'm excited! At the start of a new semester with a poetry workshop (as my senior seminar!) I am full of ideas, which feels wonderful! So, things are good. In addition to that, I have a busy week of work planned. Hopefully at the end of this week I'll be ahead a few weeks ahead on my class reading. That would make life even better right now!