Amanda Failure Princess

in keeping with my general existential theme, that being failure, i cannot afford to have even a low-cost heath insurance plan. i am pretty much legally blind and my glasses are hideously ill-fitting, scratched, and horribly out of date, so i rely on my contact lenses. seeing as i have no insurance, i have been wearing the same disposable monthly pair for like seven months! this is wrong on many levels, but i have justified it by removing and cleaning them meticulously each night. well, my eyes have been bugging me  lately. i have experienced itching, soreness, and sensitivity to light… all VERY BAD THINGS. oops. well, i have been trying to wear them less, but my glasses make me feel useless because they suck so much. last night i had a dream in which my eyes hurt the whole dream and they were getting puffier and puffier, like an old person's eyes, all hooded and saggy. then, finally, i looked in the mirror and i had morphed into MICHAEL DOUGLAS! wtf is that supposed to mean?

i don't know what made me think of that just now. i guess because i have been trying to wear my glasses to water aerobics because it's not super-important to see perfectly or look good, but it's hard to have on glasses in the water. there is this one girl, no, two, who wear glasses and they are both kind of the nerds of the class and they always strain really hard to hear the teacher, try to be extra-fast and impressive, and don't really ever smile or talk to anyone else. total over-achievers. it's kind of hilarious. on the other end, there are these two women, and i mean WOMEN, like, in their 30s, who obviously know each other outside of class because they talk THE WHOLE TIME. i always try to stand either away from them or near the radio, but they not only talk, they also have the nerve to stand in the medium-front-center of class! i like to be toward the front on the side, so i often end up right near them. every time i have a class with them, i think of things to say to them like, "hey, maybe you guys wanna talk about this later over lattes?" or "well, your mouths must enjoy this workout!" but then i just lower my head and suffer in silence because i don't want to alienate myself from everyone in the class. i guess some things never change, by land or by sea. 

last night's class was mediocre at first because we had this one teacher that just basically stands at the edge of the pool and does these weird interpretive dance moves while practically whispering the instructions. normally, i would most def be into interpretive water dancing, but since it is a) done with no sense of irony whatsoever, and b) so unlike the GREAT workout we get from our two other teachers, it's frustrating and annoying. 

then, at the very end of the class, there was this nice little moment. we were all doing the bicycle, pumping our legs in the water while using pool noodles as handlebars, when the teacher put on tina turner's version of "proud mary." slowly, softly, thirty women in a swimming pool began singing along. it was kind of embarrassing, but by the rippling glow of the underwater lights, i don't know, it was also kind of beautiful.

"rollin' rollin' rollin' on the river…"