Right for me

11:30 am. Wake up.

I see no way of ever making it up for dawn patrol, or even before noon. That's because on a day I've been out trying to surf, I get so tired I need 12 hours of sleep. I can't understand why this is so, when I haven't really surfed and so haven't used my arms and legs (and especially on a day like yesterday when there was absolutely no paddling). To make it up for DP, I'd have to be in bed by six p.m. I did this when I was at surf camp. But it's hard to do in real life.

1:30 pm. I call C., even though I said I'd call him in the morning and it's now afternoon. I can't get through.

2:00 pm. I check out the waves---as small as yesterday. I sit on the beach awhile awaiting low tide (5 pm). Though it's the middle of the day in the middle of the week in the middle of April, whole families are out: young girls in bikinis, dogs running, kids playing. (Shouldn't they be in school?) I don't have a bikini on but it's warm enough for one. Where's my umbrella drink? I'm still going to wear the 6/4, though. The only concession I've been able to make to the arrival of spring is to switch my lobster gloves for the five-fingers.

5:00. I shoulda known. I have never had two consecutive good surf days ever. There is this law (a corollary perhaps of the famous Murphy's law or the law that the more important the engagement you cancel to go surfing the crappier the waves will be) that every good day is followed by a sucky one. I can't blame the waves, they are only slightly less well-formed than yesterday's, probably from the wind being on it all day. I can't get any rides and I can't get up. Once again my right (front) knee is coming up behind my extended right elbow (got that?) pointing in the wrong direction and making it impossible to get up. I'm not trying or not trying to do that, it's just happening.

I think the waves are (as the pharmaceutical ads like to say) right for me. I decide that ankle-high is enough to try to handle and I should never go out in anything bigger. This, after three years, is where I am. Well, the bright side is that I won't have to worry about crowds or people dropping in on me---I'll practically have the "waves" to myself.