Back to the Water

I finally signed up for a gym in my area and started my year-long Swim for MS "today" (yesterday, as of this writing).

I framed the day by making these "quadtychs" (I think tetratych would sound better, don't you?). The latter captured the story of my first day in my Swim for MS. The facilities at this Y are all-around five-fold better than those we had in Omaha, and the locker room is a calming place, the way it's decorated, rather than a place where you're sure you're going to get Athlete's Foot, a place you'd be more interested in running from than actually using as a shower and dressing room away from home. So that was exciting. Really feel I'm getting the bang for my buck (though I have 12 free-trial days first, which is a nice consolation since I chose the Y over New York Sports Clubs for their larger breadth of amenities, and I would've gotten January free had I chosen to take NYSC up on their junk-mailed offer).

Anyway, beyond the locker rooms (the Y is always nice because it comes complete with Sauna and Steam Room), there are two pools here, one of which is a therapeutic pool (5 meters shorter than the large pool), which I used as it was possibly the first time I'd been in the water in a year, and I wanted a stress-free experience at the outset of my Swim for MS (the large pool's lanes were all full of fast-paced swimmers at that hour). This therapeutic pool has the most amazing decor, evoking a bit of a classical feel. Quite an experience!

Further proof this Y is a superb facility? They have one of those awesome SuitMate machines, which I photographed as I realized they're not necessarily familiar to most people. I have encountered them at several pools during my college Swim Team years, and they're terrific. 10 seconds to ring out your swimsuit and avoid a soggy gym bag! Truly terrific, isn't it? I had some fun editing my photo of the SuitMate.

And as I exited the Y, I was almost immediately accosted by a PSA poster, stating that "Every 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV." It
was an interesting thing to run into after my swim, as MS has certain similarities to AIDS -- MS being a non-contagious autoimmune disorder (or thought to be an autoimmune disorder, at present) with its own T-cell problems.

I walked home with a scarf folded into a triangle wrapped around my wet hair, protecting it from further winter damage. There was a scene in Mad Men where a girl got in her car and sat there tying on a headscarf, which was where I got the idea to get in touch with my ancestors and protect my hair in both Russian and 60's fashion at one and the same time. Bla, bla, bla. Anyway, I felt so weird walking around in a headscarf that I took a self-portrait at the end of my walk home and blended the photo with an abstract I created by taking my favorite blue holiday lights and transforming them into falling stars with some kinetic photography (+2 exposure time). A little bit of fiddling later, and ta-da! A tetratych!

The second tetratych/quadtych wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as the first, which unfortunately I can't share with you (though I suppose I could've shared one of its frames, instead of the one I've chosen). The photo you see now is the edited multiple exposure of me at the end of my jam-packed day, keeping warm in what too many people somewhat inaccurately call a "babushka" (Babushka is the Russian word for grandmother, so I understand the confusion, but the stress is pretty much equal on all syllables; when people stress the middle syllable, they just make the word hideous).