SUMMERRRR!

It's on---the summer roller derby we call the surfing beach.

While it's good to see so many faces not seen since the end of last summer, it takes a while to get used to being confined in a small crowded area once again.

Today the waves not as good as predicted, but nonetheless the hype had brought people out who were determined to surf no matter what.

There were at least three times I caught waves with my name on them, only to find somebody else sitting right in my path unable or unwilling to get out of my way. When that happens even if I've caught the wave perfectly I don't even try to stand up. That is because I think (whether it is true or not) I am better able to control and steer the board while on my knees or my belly. I rode these waves in prone in order to avoid hitting somebody, and they were good waves and so fun they would have been fun to actually, really surf. Which got me thinking: if I did pop up in this situation couldn't I steer the board well enough to avoid a collision? At this point I think I could, but I'm not sure enough to risk hitting somebody. The only way to know is, well, to do it. I've gotten much better at making the board go where I want, i.e. turning, but in a critical situation I am not sure I could do it well enough. I believe I could, but haven't tried. Maybe next time?

The return of the evening session

For the past week or so Lake Ontario's the only body of water I've seen---yeah, beautiful, and yes it has waves, and I bet some people even surf it, but not me.

Back home at last, I had an evening session tonight, the first time since last summer...ah, an evening session. A sunset session, in fact. It wasn't until evening that the first rays of sunshine appeared today...and then the water was glassy and the sunset was lovely (marred only by the condo on 96th Street that has increased in size alarmingly since the summer and now obstructs the setting sun).

I felt fat and out of shape and out of practice, plus I'm still fighting the remnants of a cold, but I still managed some rides and God it felt good.

Sunset sessions were pretty much all I had my first year, but for a long time I've been getting out in the morning when winds are generally better, and I had almost forgotten how lovely a sunset session can be. I stayed out until 8:30 when it got too gloamy to really see the waves coming in.

A note to the cyberstalkers

You may have been wondering why I haven't deleted the latest comments by the twelve-year-olds-in-forty-year-old-bodies who routinely post harassing and/or obscene comments on this site. I have a pretty good idea who they are; they are obviously people who know me since they often include personal information that strangers wouldn't know. With the help of law enforcement agencies, I'm in the process of finding out exactly where those posts came from, and deleting them would be counterproductive.

Note to the morons: You might not realize that there are laws now against harassment by internet, and that you can and will be prosecuted.

The rest of you, please just ignore them.

Surfing and...

Today was a totally unexpected, unplanned surf session. The kind where you wake up, look out the window, and rearrange your plans for the day.

The waves were bigger and a bit tougher to figure out than they looked, and the wind adverse for most of the session, but I still got a couple of fun rides.

Now I gotta do a zillion other things. Honestly, if I told you how many things I have to do today, and how challenging they are, it would boggle your mind. It kind of makes me miss the old days when it took four hours to commute back and forth to the waves and surfing took up the whole day. It was kind of relaxing to know you had no other purpose that day but to surf (and then depressing if the session was bad and you'd blown off your work). Now that my commute is 30 seconds, I have most of the day left afterwards.

The only way to handle such a day is to just keep focused on one thing at a time, because if you think ahead to the four other things you have to do and the places you have to be before the end of the day, you will lose it.

Like last Sunday, I had to do a bookstore reading in the evening after surfing and sunning in 90 degree midday heat (and we all know what that takes out of you). I was pooped by 4 p.m. but the show had to go on. And it did.

All I can say is, Thank God for Red Bull. I don't know what I would do without it. That stuff kicks ass.