Apparently his underwear fit like a glove.
That’s pretty much the best thing I have to say about my white water rafting trip today. Literally I went white water rafting today and I’m just like yeah cool that happened. I went last year, and it was the same then.
Get up for 6 am, pick up the other people who are going with us, drive an hour and a half over to where we’re meeting our guides and everyone else going rafting today. Hop on a bus with a guy from Switzerland named Martin, who has an amazing beard. Have a long bus ride to where we’re getting into the river. Sleep on bus, fake it for the camera and get myself a moment of glory in our $55 DVD of the day. I’ll share when I get it.
Our guide, Matthew, was a pretty cool guy from South Africa. For the record, last year I was with a man named Kelly. He was here this year, according to our video, but I didn’t remember his name until it was too late. Anyway, our guide this year. He was the guy in charge of everything. So we left last, because he had to make sure everything was good to go.
Then we had to be FIRST in line, meaning we had to paddle hard all the way up to the front. I forgot how to paddle over the last year, so my biceps were sore when we got there. Then he taught us how to paddle (leaning backwards as you paddle to use your weight) and it was all good.
We went down some rapids, wee, we get wet, yay. It was supposedly 20 degrees (though at 9 am when we started, maybe not) but it was so cloudy you wouldn’t know it. The threat of rain has been very aggressive for the past few days, and it’s going to be bad when it finally starts. Not a very good choice of weekend, I guess. But by the time lunch time came around, my brother and I were freezing because we didn’t have wet suits or magic waterproof clothing like our father. We cultivated a fire, had hot chocolate and warm soup (as well as wraps and some other food stuffs) and just barely started to feel our fingers again and get dry when the call came to leave.
Probably around 12:30, we have a 45 minute bus ride back to the beginning so that we can run a different channel of the river now that the water levels have risen a little. We make a tour of the bus, shouting out our name, where we’re from, and a joke/embarrassing story (can be about anyone on the bus!)/whatever. Many people had nothing. I spoke my name and location loudly, and shared a story about a bus full of awkward people who couldn’t come up with anything funny off the tops of their heads. Some awkward chuckles were had and then we moved on. Eventually people started yelling out jokes, and that’s where that gem comes from.
Early in the afternoon, we begin the hard rapids. The ones where you have to paddle instead of hide in the boat. The ones where one side of the river is a bunch of pointy rocks and you don’t want to go over there. Starts off with one to get us nice and wet (great, now we’re cold again) and then a little bit later we get to The Butcher’s Knife. Inside The Butcher’s Knife is a wave called The Chopping Block. There are three options for proximity to The Chopping Block: far, medium, or close. My dad volunteered us for close. We went straight for it.
The wave “hit [him] like a literal punch to the chest,” and the left side of the boat plus the guy in the front on the right were all pushed off of the raft. I was nearly pushed, from the middle right side, off of the left side. I caught myself on the side of the raft and managed to stay in, leaving myself, our guide, and an incredibly tiny, incredibly frightened woman from our group behind to manage a rapid aptly named The Butcher’s Knife. He handles it like a pro, while I react instantly and rescue people as they appear. My brother pops up first, then my father, then another from our group, then the guy from the front right is rescued by my dad as I rescue the third person. Scared woman, not so much on the reaction times. We managed to keep all of our paddles and recovered quite well. Life went on.
The part where 4/7 passengers (guide included) fall out of our raft is on video, so you can see that in a couple of weeks. The rescue, not so much, because rescues are ugly and not good on film. But I’m proud of myself at least, both for staying in and being useful to the rescue. I paddled until there was no longer water beneath my paddle, and then I was almost dying and then I was rescuing. In the span of a few seconds. Some people might have been terrified, or felt an awesome adrenaline rush, or whatever. Nah, not me. I just liked the rescue part, from a strategic point of view.
We did some more rafting in the afternoon and went back and I didn’t have a beer even though I’d be old enough there, so one was available for me. It was across the border of Quebec, not that most of you will understand that, but the important thing is that I was in another province and the drinking age is 18 there. I drove us home because my dad figured, sweet, I can have some since we have another driver.
I drove us home, we had two bits of difficulty, but we got home safe and sound. White water rafting: completed. I’ve done my duty. The end.
It’s not that I’m a boring person, but that I’m not a physical, adrenaline person. I don’t need something more exciting than rafting to get my blood pumping. It just doesn’t pump that way. I could jump out of an airplane, or go bungee jumping, or go on a crazy hiking trip. I could do all kinds of crazy adventurous things, I’m not afraid of it, because I’ve faced my fears before and I have yet to regret it. These people are mega safe. That’s their job. It would not be an option for you if there were any serious danger. I just wouldn’t enjoy it enough to justify the cost, or even the time. I wish I could go adventuring for a living (as some of the raft guides do, and I’m not kidding) but it’s just not my life. Mother Nature won’t keep me company at night, unlike some of those dudes.
I’d love to do that stuff with a friend though. It’d be fun with someone else, especially if we’re both terrified. Or in the case of week long expeditions, starving and cold and devoured by tiny, tiny predators. Someone to keep me company, right? That’s more like my life.
——————————————————————-
So with a move to a place with actual facilities comes the questions about why I don’t take advantage of them. Why not come to the gym with me? Why don’t you go bungee jumping? Why don’t you go ride the public transit around, as if that’s important when I’m not going anywhere? The problem is that I would rather be me, than go out of my way to please other people.
This is something that’s been on my mind recently, as my dad revs his Be Like Me Machine, and even more so the gym thing. My dad used to be tiny like I am. Then he gained a hundred pounds of muscle. Then his metabolism got old and he suddenly had a hundred and fifty pounds of fat instead. I don’t want that. I’m underweight, but I’m fit enough and I work on that in my own way. If I start going to the gym, and try to beef up like he did about ten years ago, I do fear that I’ll end up old and fat. My main issue comes back to preferring a leaner body for myself, and not feeling the need to go out and beef up at all. I don’t need fifty more pounds of muscle on my frame. I’ll do definition, so I look pretty, but I (me, as a person, Matt, Demi, the core of what is me) do not need to have muscles like my father, or even like a friend of mine with a similar build. He’s tall and lanky, but from all the physical labour and sports he’s done over the years, he’s lean and wiry. He doesn’t have bulging muscles, because of his height, but he has the strength. I’d be alright with that, but it’s not me. It’s not who I am. It’s not even something I need to be.
I’ve just come off of an argument with my friend Max about whether or not I’m fit, where he judged me to be unfit because I’m underweight and my ribs stick out. Instead, I should be doing those triangle push-ups and gaining weight/muscle mass enough to cover all (most) of my protruding bones (har har), in his opinion. He’s an adventure guy. He’ll go biking for hours and just love it. Run so long and far that he pukes, and just shiver from excitement. Or dehydration, but don’t tell him the difference. The thing is, that’s not me. That’s who he is. His definition of fit is someone who feels fat if they sit around playing video games all day, and gets so sick after doing that for a while that they NEED physical activity.
That’s not me. I will never, in my entire life, be able to cultivate a feeling like that in the core of my essence. I forget about not dong my crunches (didn’t have time for those today, but I don’t like to do it right before bed either because I have a hard enough time settling in to sleep as it is) far easier than I forget about all of the things I haven’t done yet when it comes to video games/anime/articles to read/whatever. Of course an hour or two each day, or even most days, is a paltry amount to dedicate to physical activity. Seven hours a week or something? There are plenty more in there. But how high is it on the priority scale? Do I sacrifice my workout (or gym time, which could be the same thing) or do I sacrifice whatever else I need the time for?
For me, it’s quite low. Low enough that making a dedicated routine would be pointless as it wouldn’t last. Not because I’m incapable of getting off of my fat ass to do it, because I did it for a long time, every single day, when I wanted to impress a special someone. Eventually I slowed down because I realized I wasn’t even doing it for my benefit, and she wasn’t really looking anymore to begin with. I just end up doing other things that I value and it’s like eh I’ll write a nice tumblr post tonight instead of doing crunches and flicks. Even though the tumblr post takes longer. To illustrate what I mean about the priority thing: I couldn’t convert tumblr time into workout time. I couldn’t dedicate the same amount of time to it. I’d just end up doing other things with most of it.
I spend, oh, half an hour to 45 minutes on the computer in the morning running through a routine of daily browser based games and a few news sites. Nothing super disruptive, and I can do it later in the day obviously. But if I stopped doing that, I doubt I’d convert the time into early morning workouts instead. I value the games for different reasons and I like to know stuff, but I value those on different levels than I value being fit when no one will even see nor will I need to apply the fitness. I can get by a day or two without working out. But how could I possibly miss a day in my daily games! That would be inefficient!
Anyway I hope I made my point. I already knew what my point was. But I wanted to think out loud a little so I can respond better to the inevitable returns to this subject. The basic idea (me trying to be me) was there, but I hadn’t needed it yet so I never really expanded on it.
———————————————————————
Also I just quit Opus Deorum (probably only took a minute per day, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it - just grinding stats) and Freewar (idle grinding a passive skill in a game I don’t care for - simply because I could) but I can’t bear to part with any others. Billy Vs SNAKEMAN, Dragon Tavern, and The Ruins Of are all games I spent money on for a damn good reason. I’m about to spend $50 more on Billy Vs SNAKEMAN to get myself 17 months worth of tiny bonuses. Nearly three bucks a month. Nothing wrong with that, and the guy deserves my money. I love the game and I have a friend who loves the game and we spend twice as much time talking about it as we do playing it, if not more. The Ruins Of is just a cool little thing, and for that the money spent on it is far lower ($10 so far, and probably forever - I doubt the future involves spending on it) but the guy deserves that too. Dragon Tavern is raking in the cash, and it’s also the heaviest time investment, and it’s also where I’ve spent the most money. Jeez. More than a hundred and fifty dollars, for sure, but I have no definite number. It sounds really bad as a lump sum, but at one point it was 2x the credits, and in general I’ve built up bit by bit. I don’t regret it, though. Psychological tricks though they may be, I’m ok with spending that money. It is nothing when you consider all of the money I have held and spent in the last two years-ish of playing it?
——————————————————————–
Also my backspace and space bar keys are getting a little squeaky on my laptop already. Space bar, not sure about that one, probably just hitting it badly or something but it’s not like it’s been receiving heavy use. Backspace, though… Well… Just how I write, and this includes instant messaging.
edit: also I included the square brackets thing like a proper journalist because I realized what they mean. It’s when you’re rephrasing someone to put the sentence into proper context. If they say it, you quote “[the wave] was like” instead of using something unspecified, or in the wrong person if they say I or whatever.
