HUNGRY

That was the theme of the Memorial Day weekend, which involved precious little surfing. Mostly I drank, and ate; I was ravenous the whole weekend, but, inconveniently, this never seemed to coincide with food at a barbecue. I was invited to three of these events, which seem to take place at unpredictable times between five and eleven p.m. The only one where I ate was the one I wasn't invited to. The rest involved lots of drinking.

Yes, the "surfing lifestyle" thing involving hanging out, beer, smoking pot, and cooking burgers in the backyard overwhelmed the "surfing" thing, at least for this weekend. I excuse this with the fact that it was Memorial Day, after all. I really wanted to surf, but I found myself being dragged to the beach at three a.m. for activities that have nothing to do with surfing. I did not wake up before twelve all weekend.

The first day, there were really good (read: too big) waves, chest to head high. But it was hot and I wanted to get wet, so I went out anyway. Caught a couple of whitewaters, but I didn't stay out very long because I was TOO HUNGRY. Next day I went out right after brunch, and was starving again within an hour. But I made myself stay out the regulation two hours.

I did not do well. After talking with C. about the whole thing, I am, perhaps, more confused than ever. He says it doesn't matter how many pushups I can do or how strong my arms are, that popups are about your legs, not your arm strength. He says you should barely use your arms at all, but should use your legs to stand up. This is contrary to what I've been taught and what just about every surf instructor has said to me (including the ones at that lame-ass surf camp). I don't understand how you can pop up without using your arms. What is going to push you up? I've been told and told not to use your knees, but if you don't use your knees how do you push up with your legs? I guess you can use your feet if you're on a longboard (and we were told to use toes as well as arms at surf camp), but what if it's a shortboard? C. says it's OK to use a knee to get up. He does that sometimes (he's my age). He's telling me to do it cause it may be the only way I will ever get up. But that's not even a solution, because all it does it get me up with my feet facing the front, and I go down in a second before I can try to turn them around.

I've pretty much decided it's a waste of time going out by myself with no one to help me out. K. was with me but too busy riding waves to really watch me. However, since I can't ride, I had plenty of time to watch her. She uses her knee to get up, though she thinks she doesn't. She says it's the only way she can balance on the board, and that makes perfect sense to me; standing up slowly using your knee you can control where you place your feet, whereas with a real popup, it seems to be a crapshoot where your feet end up, and little chance they will land in the right spots. Am I right?

C. was nowhere to be found when I was in the water. He says he will go out with me, and I think he will; however it's become clear he's much more interested in other activities that preclude, at least for me, getting up early in the morning. Memorial Day he was up and out of bed early to get some good little waves, while it was all I could do to roll over and get four more hours of sleep. (And of course by the time I got to the beach the waves were gone.)

This is really all fine and very much fun for Grandma, but I see how it could become a problem somewhere down the road. Very far down.