Holding Your Breath

            On Sunday morning I started learning a fun song from 1972 by Serge Gainsbourg called “Laisses-en un peu pour les autres”, which means, “Leave a Little for Everyone Else”. It’s from the point of view of someone that gives their body to everyone and is chastising someone for getting possessive. My translation is in flux as I try to work out how to make it fit musically, but right now the chorus goes: “ Leave a little for everyone else / don’t take everything I’ve got! / Why would you overindulge yourself? / Are you some kind of nut? / Leave a little bit for Stephen / for Jojo and for Robert Roy / I will never be yours again / you naughty boy!”

            I spent a lot of the day trying to get caught up on my journal and got so much into it that I forgot to eat breakfast until it was almost time for lunch.

            I tried to take a siesta in the afternoon but only spent half an hour in bed. I dozed for a few minutes but didn’t feel sleepy anymore when I woke up.

            I got my journal updated in the late afternoon, but it was too nice a day o not take a bike ride and so I didn’t post my journal until afterward.

            Since the liquor store would be closing at 18:00 I wanted to buy a case of Creemore before taking my ride. As I’d spent all my cash on groceries the day before but hadn’t been near a bank machine I had to take my debit card to the LCBO store.

            When I was fourth in line for the cashier something was going on ahead of me. An attractive young woman was second and a middle aged drunk guy was behind her and ahead of me. I hadn’t been paying attention to what was said or done but suddenly she told him, “You can have my place in line!” and then stepped behind me. The inebriated man was oblivious and as he stepped up to the counter he happily told the cashier, “That hotgirl (yes he said it like it was one word) just let me go in front of her!” His six-pack was $11 and change. He paid with two fives and a lot of small change, some of which spilled on the floor.

            I’m not used to paying by debit and I needed to the cashier to help me find the right button to push for my chequing account.

            I left for my ride at around 17:00. A young woman walked by who was built like a brick shithouse and who moved at an aggressive but relaxed pace and looked like she was comfortable in sports. She was wearing sweats and had a ponytail. She looked like she might be of Portuguese descent. She turned north on O’Hara and I passed her on my way to Maple Grove but stopped halfway to stuff my right pant cuff in my sock so it wouldn’t get caught in my bike chain. As I looked down O’Hara to check for traffic before continuing on I got to see her one more time.

            Considering that it was a nice day and a Sunday there were surprisingly few cyclists on the road.

            I rode as far as Pape and Danforth and then came back. I went down Yonge. At Dundas, as usual there was one loud and passionate preacher warning people that if they don’t serve god they become slaves to the devil. The golden guy in the gold painted suit and fedora was doing his statue act while sitting rather than standing. It’s less impressive to see a statue sitting because it’s less statuesque.

            When I got home I posted my blog.

            I had a fried egg and a piece of toast for dinner with a beer and watched two episodes of Sea Hunt.

            The first story begins with Mike Nelson participating in experiments to see how the capacity of skin divers to hold their breath can be increased. Meanwhile an old flame named Jennie calls him and wants his help exploring the wreck of a sunken Japanese ship off the coast of California. Mike refuses because past experience with Jennie has taught him that she’s a reckless diver that endangers her life and that of those that have to rescue her. While he’s having dinner with Jennie an old friend named Johnny happens by. Jennie and Johnny hook up. Later when Johnny tells Mike that he’s going to dive to the Japanese ship with her Mike says it’s a bad idea because Johnny is not experienced enough. In order to save both Johnny and Jennie’s lives, Mike intervenes and agrees to dive with Jennie, which is her preference over Johnny. She hires a boat that takes them over the Japanese boat. Mike brings along two sets of tanks for both him and Jennie. They dive and find the boat but with their tanks almost empty they return to the surface to change tanks. Mike instructs the captain of the boat to use his compressor to fill up the spare tanks and he and Jennie dive again. Mike instructs Jennie to wait while he inspects the hulk for dangers but as soon as he is gone she swims into the other end of the wreck where she gets stuck. Mike finds her but can’t get her loose and so he goes to the surface for the spare tanks. But the captain has not been able to start his old compressor. Jennie had lied and assured Mike that the boat she’d hired was well equipped. Mike has to hold his breath in two deep dives to finally get Jennie free. The captain says Mike had held his breath the second time for three minutes.

            This was not even the record at the time. The record now for just holding one’s breath underwater is over 24 minutes but that’s after breathing pure oxygen for half an hour. The record without doing that it about 12 minutes. It might be a lot less during an actual physically active dive though.

            Earlier Johnny had invited Mike to go lobster diving and I thought it was a writer’s goof. Sea Hunt takes place in California and I thought that I’d hear there were no lobsters on the west coast. But it turns out that they have the California spiny lobster. It’s smaller and has no claws but apparently it tastes better.

            In the second story Mike is testing sonar equipment that finds fish. His boat approaches a Mexican fishing village where a group of fishermen are beating an old man named Arturo. They dock and take the man aboard to tend his wounds. His daughter Tessa comes to find him there. Mike learns that Arturo was beaten because he has found a special spot where there are lots of fish while the other fishermen are catching nothing. Arturo refuses to reveal the location of his spot and so that’s why they beat him. The next day Mike decides to follow Arturo’s boat with radar. He finds Arturo’s spot and finds that all of the fish below are in a straight line. Mike dives and finds that the fish are following the electrical current from an old telephone cable. Mike shows all the fishermen and Arturo his sonar device and Arturo offers to buy one for the village. Suddenly all the fishermen are friends. It seems unlikely that they would be fighting in the first place but also unlikely that if Arturo had been that stubborn that he would have suddenly turned around so quickly.