Click images for desktop size: "Rosewood Canvas" by Vsal Fascinating that Bush appears to be as insensitive to affluent kids in Blacksburg, VA as he has been to the poor kids of New Orleans. Maybe he just hates people.
My demeanor is getting bad. This is a time I miss Southern California. When your infected with this general malaise of heart, mind and body LA really does have it all.
Depression is something you have to work hard to cling to when there are 40 foot palm trees swaying against cloudless blue skies. You can think about the sunsets being so spectacular because the pollutants are killing you also make pretty purples in the air, and you can think about the rats that infest the palm fronds, but if you need to do that there's not much hope for you anyway.
There's Taquitz Rock out by Palm Springs, Joshua Tree where you can go remind yourself that you're still alive by clinging to rocks. Where if you make a mistake you will probably die. Nothing brings the senses and concentration in focus like pain and imminent death. Never met a rock climber who suicided.
But there is mainly the surf. There's something about floating in cold salt water, straddling your board and looking out at the ocean. No matter what's behind you in front of you is vastness. Somewhere in the world there is always a storm. The storm comes to you in line after line of waves.
Some people look at surfers and call us "the monks of the sea", which to me just proved they didn't know what they were talking about.
But like all things that are 99% wrong there's the 1% that's true.
Surfing has gotten to big. There's only one ocean and just a few hundred miles of decent breaks. Like on a 6 foot northern swell there might be 300 - 400 people in the water. Half of them will drop down on one 20 foot section of wave.
And the rush from hearing the girls gasp when you pull off your wet suit off your shoulders isn't nearly as cool as the rush of having a wave to yourself.
But when I would get to the point . . . this point, what ever you call it, I'd go to a break called Zero's. It was hard to find, a left and even on ankle snapper days had a totally crunching shore break that keeps the beach goer's away.
On small days the place was deserted. Even on good days lefts are the province of the goofy footers. It was a small point and didn't often mesh up with the pounding beach breaks for tubular action. Pain was too much for the kuks so it was a place you could go and have an ocean to yourself.
The one percent that's true about "sea monks" is that you do sit out there, half your body immersed in water, some of the time your teeth are chattering and you just stare out into the ocean. Your watching the lines form figuring what ones will peak right at the point.
You're not doing any complicated math. In your head there's nothing but white noise and the moving image of the humps of water rolling in.
Sometimes there's a playful dolphin or an annoying sea lion that forces you to accept your not truly alone in the universe, because sometimes you need the reminder, but most of the time there are no distractions, no thoughts, no hammering through problems or issues, there's just the wet and the lines.
Yeah, so the same people who romanticize surfers as meditating monks have that as their soul/sole argument. The same people also tell you that if you leave anything on the beach the surfers will steal it. One a good day you turn and catch the peak with two strokes, then take that plummet as you fall down the face of a mountain of water, timing and preparing to crank a bottom turn that will propel you back up the surface, maybe for lip smack, or get some air, or just shred the face.

Click images for desktop size: "Distressed" by Titanium Thing is you don't know. There's no enough time to plan these things. You can only react to the power of the wave. If you stop to think or plan you probably wouldn't die but you'd get tumbled along the bottom and probably look very uncool.
Its a slinging rush that defies description. Better than sky diving, better than drag racing. Just better. So fast, so pure reflexes and vision. You always walk away from a session feeling something elusive, something private. Surfers always understand this. They understand that we all experience the same thing and that our experiences are always personal and profound and private.
We can understand the rush of finding a 25 footer that peels out perfectly, we all can, but we also understand the stuff that happens in our body and mind belongs only to me or to you. There's only the acceptance that we are individuals who rely only on ourselves and that language and paintings and film can only convey so much.

Humor not helped much by my paycheck. The mammoth 3% raise didn't appear. They insist they're right. I know they're wrong. What's the problem with sending me the payroll details via email instead of waiting 5 days. I think I'll get cheated.
And the little puppy is still at the shelter. This saddens me.
I got some new food that is guaranteed healthy and not subject to recall. I can breathe easier except my lovely puppy has diarrhea. They say it seems to be prevalent this year. I have no idea what that means. It hurts me to see her suffer.

My foster dog got spayed Thursday. I'm supposed to keep her calm. I've no idea how to do that. She won't drink the brandy.

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