Duck Dive

It's official: I am in a funk.
The kind of funk that catches you by the toe and sucks you up over the falls, inhaling salt water and sand. The kind of funk that has you suddenly realizing that you are touching the bottom, and yet when you finally do stand you find that your bathing suit has been wrenched to the side, exposing one chicken-skinned boob in a very unflattering squashy sort of way. That kind.

For the past few weeks I've been doing acupuncture. Did I tell you? Because it turns out I have a sluggish liver. Along with various cowlicks, although that is neither here nor there. Each week I lie down in a very warm room while a woman sticks needles in the webbing of my fingers, along my calf, inside my ears. She also has me taking some herbs but of course I only just now read the fine print and saw that one of the ingredients is something called "Semen Citri Rubrum/Ju He." Screw the Ju He, I want to know if this is semen semen, and why must I take 6 capsules in the morning and 6 at night. Anyone? Anyone?

Years ago I tried to surf. Bryan bought me the prettiest turquoise longboard and I did my best to look nonchalant while changing into my wetsuit in the parking lot. The thing is I not only have a sluggish liver but also noodle arms and a freakishly large amygdala, seeing as how that's where fear is located in the brain. Look at the dolphins! Bryan said, and then he took a wave and left me bobbing there wondering how he was so sure those were dolphins and not sharks.

Now I know: a dolphin's dorsal fin moves up and down while a shark's snakes side to side. Of course when you're afraid it's hard to pay attention to things like direction of movement. Or breathing. And so I also learned the fine art of the duck dive, the act of pushing downward into the depths when you cannot handle the wave coming straight at you.

Anyway, that's where I am now, taking semen pills and wondering where I stand on the age old question of cowlick versus callick.