I'd Rather Be Indexing

And then there are the days, even worse than the closeout days, when I suck for absolutely no reason I can determine. These days are even more frustrating, because the waves are not too big, not beyond my skill level, and I can't blame them. Today was one of those days.

The wind was north, the waves small and not closing out. And I couldn't catch shit. All I got was one ride. The good thing was that I got up on that one without even thinking about it, and rode it all the way in. So popping up, the hardest part of surfing, is not my problem these days. It's timing.

I just kept going for the wave too early. And then I did what I always do, what I think all good surfers do, tried to adjust what I did on each new wave based on what didn't work on the last one. I tried and and tried, but nothing worked. I tried to make myself take off later by waiting two seconds, tried moving up on the board, tried leaning forward more while taking off, tried watching the guys who were getting waves and doing what they did. I just couldn't figure it out.

I have so much work to do these days. The long summer vacation is over. And the work I have to do this month is the most boring, tedious, and least fun work I can imagine. And yet, get this, when I was out in the water I actually had to admit to myself that indexing my book would have been more fun than what I was doing out there. I don't have much clue as to how to do an index, but figuring it out is much easier than figuring out surfing.