Fun weekend

Do your surf buds ever disappoint you? Do they ever promise things they can't deliver? Do they lure you into a night of drinking with the promise of a redeeming dawn patrol, then fail to wake up?

On the advice of Collider and my bud K., I headed out to surf on Saturday, only to find my plans foiled by the evil MTA. (The subway to you non-city folks.) It turned into a three hour trip and when I got there I found the surf blown out and my friends well into the Bacardi. The good part was that K. has recruited our downstairs neighbor, R., into surfing, or shall we say trying to surf. Well, at least he bought a wetsuit. But by the time I got there they didn't want to go out. I allowed myself to be talked into drinks and dinner and waiting til Sunday morning to surf.

Can you guess what happened? Yes, you can. No one woke up before 9 and then there were all sorts of excuses why they'd "love to go out, but can't."

Farts on them both. I went out alone anyway. I needn't have worried about being by myself; I counted 25 people in the lineup. The waves were waist high, which made me nervous, but there were long lulls and they were well shaped.

It turned out to be a blast, even though I arguably outkooked myself. I headed (unknowingly) for a woman who was even more of a beginner than me. She was immediately friendly, and we got into a little convoy with a friendly guy who took it upon himself to give us both advice. Being out with a worse surfer always does wonders for my confidence! It helped that she made me look so good the guy heaped compliments on me, totally undeserved. On the bigger waves I 1) took a ride with one knee on the board and one leg up 2) rode a wave in sitting down straddling the board. I have no idea how either of these things happened. Both of these were a first, even for me.

Then my two new surf buds went in, so I floated downstream where the local surf mafia was out in full force. I said hi to the ones I knew and was close enough to speak to, but it felt too weird to paddle over to anyone just to say hi, especially since I had nothing else to say after that. I am never sure about approaching people in the water, especially since I have a very soft voice and I think that no one can hear me unless I'm right in their face. (Which is probably true.) Also, I am never sure about recognizing people when they're all in black and all wet, and I'm not sure whether they can recognize me. It seems the main way of identifying people is by their boards when we're all black dots floating along, no? Even if I think I know someone at least by sight, I'm too shy to just wave to them in case it's not really them or they don't recognize me.

But nevertheless I ended up in another cozy convoy of three, approached by a very friendly young girl who commented on my (K.'s) board. I guess board comments are always a sure bet convo starter.

The surfing? I tried. A couple of times when I was going for a wave people were actually encouraging---"Go for it"---and I did, and nailed the waves but couldn't stand up. I ended up riding them in on my knees and learned something. The reason I can't stay up and ride when I do get up is not because the waves run out of steam. Even these small waves had plenty of power for long rides when I was on my knees, i.e., balanced. No, the reason I can't stand up for more than a few seconds and the board stalls out and I fall off is that I am not balanced. The moment I stand up I do something to slow the board down, even if I feel like my feet are in the right spots, and it quickly stops. Perhaps it's a matter of how much weight to put on each leg, yet by the time I would figure such esoteric things out, it's far too late. I definitely have most of my weight on my back leg.

C. is confident he can teach me to surf. He says he can do it by the middle of June. He's sweet---did I mention what a lovely, gorgeous man he is? A man, not a boy like so many of the guys out there. However I have to say I don't think it will work. Like most surfers, he doesn't think about what to do, just does it---while the only way I can do anything is not only to think about it but to figure it out and understand it. I truly believe that the main reason I can't surf (if it isn't my bad knees) is that I am just not smart enough, by which I mean I can't think quickly and can only focus on one thing at a time. Surfing requires you to execute and coordinate five or six moves within one second. My brain doesn't work that fast. In addition, I know from an old injury I had that my reaction time is abnormally slow, and there's nothing I can do about that. Even if it's only a fraction of a second slower than normal, that's enough to screw up the surfing.

Oh well, we'll have fun trying.