A lot's happened since I was able to post last - I've traveled to Pennsylvania, Hawaii, California, and Texas, celebrated a wedding anniversary for the first time, qualified for my first national swim meet, competed in that national swim meet, tried my hand at open-ocean swimming, had a panic attack while trying my hand at open-ocean swimming, snorkeled with the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, sang a song about how to remember the name of the humuhumunukunukuapua'a about three hundred times, tried fifteen wines in a single tasting, endured a late-April blizzard, caught the Martian death flu, and knit way too much. It's been fun but I'm really relieved to be back at home. And once I get over this Martian death flu, I intend to start having some serious Alaska adventures because my friends, spring has finally sprung.

The swim meet is coming up and starts this Friday. This is a Big Deal because it's the only short course yards meet of the year, it's the first meet I've swum in in two years, and because... The Adversary will be there. I've written about The Adversary in my much-neglected swimming log/blog before, but most of you probably don't follow that blog (hey, I wouldn't either, it would be fantastically boring to anyone except me) so I'll catch you up.

The Adversary was someone who was on the Buckner Masters Swim Team when I moved to Anchorage two years ago. She's the type of person who will either a) turn any conceivable comment around and start talking about herself, b) take any conceivable comment and turn it into an excuse to be extremely negative, or c) amazingly, take any conceivable comment and apply both a and b. She and her then-husband were having problems and she bitched about him constantly to people that barely knew her and had never met him (it is so telling about people's character when they do something like that). She is basically a thoroughly unpleasant person. Thing is, she is a very naturally talented swimmer, but she was so stuck on herself and thinking that her shit didn't stink that she was under the impression that she didn't have to work hard.

Apparently when I joined the team it upset the balance a bit and knocked some reality into her world. She is also a 400 IMer and when I joined the team she was faster than me. Well, if I have someone to lock onto I will and so I did and I used my dislike of her to fuel my own motivation. Before she knew it I was going faster than her in practice and I began to hear subversive whispers of "Stacey's going to beat The Adversary in the meet..." which was fine by me. If she heard those whispers and began to work harder in practice that just meant we were going to have a better race. I've always maintained that while I didn't like her, I always liked swimming against her.

Anyway, the meet came around and I beat her in the 400 IM - she maintained that she had a back injury but whatever. She had such a long list of excuses for slacking off in practice that I wasn't about to believe one that she whipped out come meet time.

Well she's not on the team anymore. I haven't seen her for a while and as far as I knew she had gotten a divorce and moved far away.

That is, until I got the psych sheets for the meet and saw her name in there. She has the nerve to enter herself in the 100 breaststroke, which she does not swim well... well, we'll see how that turns out. The thing that's really cheesing me is that she entered the 200 IM too - with a faster seed time than me - but didn't bother signing up for the 400 IM. I guess she just hasn't been working hard enough to train for that one, but there's no surprise there...

The only thing that's really bugging me right now about the meet is the 200 freestyle. I entered that because I like middle distance but I'm not particularly good at it. The Adversary is swimming it too and she always had a faster free than me - no surprise, everyone does. I'm a breaststroker and an IMer, not a freestyler. Anyway, ours is not a thickly populated age group, so if by some fluke she beats me in the 200 IM and the 200 free (notice how I'm not even entertaining the possibility she'll beat me in the 100 breast?) she'll win the high point award in our age group, which is unacceptable.

So yes. I'm a tad competitive. If I wasn't I never would have made it as far as I did in swimming. I guess the psych sheets have officially done their job....

I can't even describe the way my stomach does a happy little somersault every time I see Cory's hand and see the ring on his wedding finger.

Of course, right now I only get to see that in photos. I was scrolling through wedding photos today and came across this one and as I zoomed in I saw that bit of shiny stuff on his ring finger and I melted all over again.

That's one thing I hope I never get used to.

In the run-up to Super Tuesday, it seems that a lot of other pretty important news stories are being glossed over. Luckily, in between speculation about who will win in what state and blah blah blah (OH MY GOD, PEOPLE, IT IS STILL NINE MONTHS UNTIL ELECTIONS AND I'M WAY PAST SATURATION) NPR played a snippet about Oregon passing a law allowing civil unions for same-sex couples during their hourly news broadcasts. I wanted to hoop and holler in the car!

See, I consider myself half from Oregon (living in Washington in a suburb of Portland will cause this sort of confusion) and it was a really, really sore point with me when Oregon passed a civil union ban during the last Presidential election. Its passage always puzzled me - the bulk of the population lives in the liberal western side and anyone who has wandered the streets of downtown Portland at night would share my befuddledment. Anyway, it would appear that the state is going for redemption now, which is awesome, because really, people, laws that restrict rights have no place in any constitution, be it a state's or a nation's. Granted, the law that bars access to marriage to people with matching fun bits is still on the books but at least cooler heads are trying to find a way around it.

So kudos to you, Oregon. You make me proud.

It's old news by now: several communities throughout America are passing some form of legislation that bans, of all things, baggy pants.

Don't get me wrong, I think the the way some guys wear their pants is ridiculous and god knows I gave my brother all kinds of unending crap when we were younger and he insisted on sagging. I'm all for guys actually wearing their pants at their natural waist, of all places. But putting it into law? That's an extremely slippery slope, if you ask me. It's not at all surprising that many communities are grouping it into the realm of public indecency, which in itself is an extremely subjective grouping. What's next? Are we going to ban people from wearing their hats backwards, or pass a law that prevents them from wearing them indoors at all? Are we going to ban wearing red shirts on Monday? Or are we just going to go after what is different and group it as indecent? Because, really, guys showing boxers is pretty tame compared to the way a lot of girls dress, and I don't see anything about that being legislated.

For me, that's really the crux of the issue: we, as a society, are apparently so offended by seeing the (still covered) backsides of some guys that we're willing to throw the book at them, but when a female dresses in a similar way - or in an even more aggravated fashion - what happens? I have yet to hear of a law that forbids women from wearing low-rise jeans that show their thongs or even their ass cracks. See, guys at least have the common courtesy to wear long shirts that for all intents and purposes render their skivvies invisible, but women are baring their backsides. Apparently, female plumber crack is the new black.

So I, a women who dresses pretty modestly - especially compared to a lot of other females in this country - am worried about the message that this sends to other young women. No no no, we don't want guys to dress in a way that shows an iota of skin, but girls, your bodies apparently mean so little to you and are so undeserving of respect that you are permitted - nay, encouraged - to flaunt every inch of it. Yeah, I get that the female form is supposedly more beautiful and all that. And guys, you should really pull those pants up, because you look absurd. But girls, that's a message you'd do well to heed too, because it's a lot harder for other people to take you seriously when it looks like you don't even have the ability to cover your own ass.