Seven days without swimming makes one weak.

I appreciate swimmers, except when they take their half out of the middle when we’re sharing a lane. Over the years after damaging joints from sports, running and hiking, I am left with the pool and a yoga mat. It works for me and I don’t miss the other things too much, but we swimmers are a dedicated bunch, and with good reason.

It takes a certain resigned self-confidence to allow oneself to undergo the inevitable Greek Chorus of negative self-images that accompany the locker room changing experience. On the street, our clothes shelter us from the worst, but in the changing room, all that is stripped away, so to speak. Yet, we do it anyway, some of us every day!

Then, as the self-recrimination has been quieted for a moment, the swimmer must undergo the of immersion into water we’d normally avoid. We’re told it’s the ideal temperature for laps, but many days, I don’t agree. Granted, in the summer, it feels great, but in January when it cold and bleak, it’s a bitch.

Next, immediate shrinkage or NE occur, to add to the problems of self-image. It is for the best that guys suffer shrinkage rather than an equivalent to nipple erection (NE), or else there would be arrests of guys in Spandex on the pool deck.

Finally, the pool is a demanding mistress. She requires your attention and your dedication. Either you visit regularly and pay your gifts of exertion, or you will suffer mightily when you do return. Oh, and did I mention that the Goddess of the Pool is infinitely patient? She will haunt your thoughts like the sweetness of a favored lover.