Composite makeup post

Can it really be true that I posted nothing this December? Obviously it is. All I can say is that I have been overwhelmed with work, and a surf trip was cancelled. I had a deadline right after New Year's, and I was willing to give up some surfing to meet it, but honestly there weren't all that many surf days. It was either flat or huge or freezing cold or some combination of those. For a week or more I was too busy to even look out the window at the surf. And stressed. Majorly stressed.

So I will just note that I took advantage of every surf day I could, and that made me think about how much I missed surfing, and what lengths I will go to to get waves.

Am I addicted to surfing in the way some guys are? It can't be, because being an addict involves getting doses of adrenaline and all those chemicals that happen when you really surf in real waves, and I never get that. So what is it? I definitely don't feel right when I don't surf for a long time. What is it, exactly, that I'm missing? Gotta wonder about that...

Deprived of waves for three weeks, I ventured out in a blizzard, ignored the naysayers who jeered at me to "stay inside," and made it out and back in overhead waves safely and without fear. I didn't ride any, but I paddled for the smaller (head high) ones.

And then a Christmas Eve surprise of tiny little peelers with several people out. We surfed until the sun went down on the brilliant day. The water was surprisingly cold and I froze despite the sun and light winds but didn't want to go in. I surfed with a friend I hadn't seen in a while who just happened to be there. "Have you got hot chocolate at your house?" he asked as the sun got lower. I didn't, but I did have champagne and cookies, and we toasted the holiday.

Christmas morning was gray, sideshore, with just two boys out who had probably gotten their first boards for Christmas and were missing every wave. Later it got bigger and choppier. I got wet but no rides.

And then New Year's Day was beautiful and warmish, with a crowd. I went for the bigger waves and got them, and the photographer on the beach got a photo of me riding a wave more than ankle high, a first in my life! It was at least four feet. Similarly, the young woman on the blue and green striped board, a novice who I'd watched for a while, got a nearly head high ride and her astonishment and pride was in her posture and her face and the way she ran up to the photographer afterward to make sure he'd gotten the pic!

I think he later lost the pictures of both of us! Because I haven't received mine.

Trust me: There does, did, exist a picture of me really looking like a surfer. Once, on New Year's Day 2010.