a small difference

someone smart said this: "i dont drink, i just dont see the appeal. maybe im better for it, or maybe im just always sober. who knows. who cares.". that person has a clue. more of a clue than ive got. i wish i said that, or even COULD say that, but in truth, its not that easy to let it slide by. the truth is that for years, everytime someonesays they are going to go out drinking, and it doesnt matter if its someone i know well or just some jerk on the bus, but everytime i here those words, a little part of me just goes "ugh". a little bit of me just gets repulsed and, can i admit it, disappointed.

i guess i dont have a straight up view of the whole situation. yeah, mine is a little bit jaded. im not going to get on a pity party or the complain train. its just that the only thing i have ever seen come out of that seemingly harmless liquid is destruction and misery. thats it, i mean, even at parties, when pople are having fun, it looks fake, when someone laughs, its at some drunk dudes expense. then i start hearing stories of people getting taken advantage of or just straight up raped, and i hate it that its hard for me to feel sorry for those poeple at all. mostly itsjust the family and friends that ive seen get screwed over byt it, and the list is pretty long. so then someone says theyre gonna go out drinking, or saying how drunk theyre gonna get, and its like if i think its ok to do that, im pretty much looking at all the hell my family and friends went through and syaing "thats no big deal". and when someone you used to be good friends with gets killed by a drunk driver, it IS a big deal. then you consider that virtually everyone in my age bracket does this, and its like jeez. no wonder i get alittle bit frustrated by whats happening.

so in the end, its just never ok. it never has been, and i dont think it ever will be. and i guess for the rest of my life, everytime someone says they are going to get drunk, or everytime i see that beer can on a table, im gonna get a little bit....nerved. it would be a hell of alot easier to not care, but i think if i didnt care, id be at the bottle as much as everyone else. and given my personality and habits, that owuld be a bad day indeed.

hence, a large part of why i thought i could never date a girl who drinks. i just didnt want to feel that little bit of edge towards a girlfriend. its not cool to look at your own girlfriend and be totally unattracted to her for those few hours. not good for a relationship.

so i always said i couldnt date a girl who drinks. i never thought i could either, until i met you, and then i realized that hey, maybe i could. maybe its worse in thought than it is in reality. i always figured that if i met someone super special, it would be something id overlook becuase otherwse id be throwing away a million good things about someone just becuase i dont like one thing. hence, you.

i guses i should have figured that URI wasnt the place to go if i wanted to hang with sober people, and by that i dont mean people who are just sober at that moment, but people who are permanently sober. i mean, i know one person who doesnt drink. just one. i alwasy wanted to meet a group of people or sometrhing that doesnt drink at all, i mean, people who never ever touch the stuff tend to think differently, and have a different and unique type of personality. one thas generally pretty cool be around. i met a bunch at MCC and we all got along super well. but that group doesnt exist, atleast not here. the percentage of people who dont drink at URI is so close to zero that it is negligible. im negligible. interesting.

i dont know. just such a small difference that makes such a big difference. it sucks thats it a huge difference, and it sucks that i care. it sucks that it bothers me at all, and i kinda wonder what life would be like if i drank just as heavily as everyone else. would probably be alot easier. i wouldnt have to go to a party and wonder where everyone went. i wouldnt have to be disappointed by 99% of my own generation. basically, it would be alot fewer times that id be bummed out, and thats usually a good thing. for now, the best that ic an say is that i dont drink, i dont see the appeal. maybe im better for it or maybe im just always sober. who knows. but what i cant say is "who cares". because i care. more than i should. more than i wnat to.

BRAIN STEW: when youve got about a million unrelated ideas pummeling through your head, but when you go to write you got nothing...

...so i'll make a cake instead.

funfetti.

excuse me...you forgot something

Time dialates when travelling at extreme speeds, accoridng to Einstien.

According to me, time also dialates when very bored, or under stress.

Carry on.

prophecies

so here we are, right? things are looking up. i know how i feel. i learned my lesson, thought my self through. admitted my mistakes, admitted my short comings. haven't done that in long time, so thats all a good thing. i realized what im missing, and realized how much i want to be back with you. and we kissed, and we have fun together. so things are looking up.

i hope.

somehow no matter how many times i say that, i don't believe it. not totally anyway.

its like some shadow lurking around every smile and every sentence we both say. and everytime we laugh we laugh a little bit too loud, and every touch feels just a bit tense. every glance a little sad and every word a little bit too reluctant.

call it busted trust.

i made a few stickers back in the day about it. back when i dabbled with graffiti. inspired by an unfaithful girlfriend, the split from loyalty was brought on by a few too many alcoholic drinks during a particularly festive new years. the design actually came out pretty sick, if to say the colors were not thought thru, altho i dont have the stencil anymore. last day of the last semester of my first failure at uri, i put everything, paint, sketches, ntoebooks, stencils, and markers into a few boxes and hucked them into some random dumpster, its contents long since destroyed in an ungrand finale of smoke and fire at some landfill.

but yeah, i digress.

im here now. by that i mean i'm here. standing infront of you. waiting. ive said my pieces. i know what i want. you.

but i remember the whole thing. keeps playing through my head like a goddamn black and white film, specks of dust blurring the image like the tears that blurred my sight. some frames missing, jumping ahead to an emotionally violent scene with fragment of audio blasting through, sending a shot of adrenaline and alittle bit of implosion through my blood everytime, only to suddenly cut off, rendering the next scene deceivingly silent, as if great damage was being done behind soundproof glass. locked inside a movie theatre, unable to stop the film from playing, disturbed at what i saw, terrified of what comes next, only i know becuase im the fucking director....

i watch myself come into your house, and here myself tell you that its over. just...out of the blue, in your eyes. audo cuts out there and i see my lips move, but i know what i say, and i know i tell you that i dont love you anymore, and i want to be alone. its like i can sit in that theatre and yell and scream at the film, saying "dont do it!". because i know now that was just wrong. that was just stupid. that was one of those things i look back on and go "where did that come from? that was not me." and also one of those things that no matter how many times i realize it was a mistake, the reprocussions may very well be permanent. i throw an otherwise perfect relationship into the gutter, and part of myself along with it. and probably part of you. and i caused tons of hurt, some to myself, but mostly to you. and i stop there.

call it busted trust. the idea that one person who loved another comes along and does such a thing. now how do you trust that person again?

you don't. i see it everytime you look at me. every single fucking time.

and i can tell that when i say i love you, you don't believe me.

so anyway. here i stand, and ive said my piece, made my move, and waiting to see where your piece falls. and i'm tearing myself to pieces, becuase i know there is a very decent chance, and i very understandable and rational probability that you will just walk away. i feel like part of you already has. and if thats what you want to do i cannot and willnot blame you for it. why would you want to come back to me after what i did to you?

its your call. if you want to leave me for a while and let me stew over all this: fine. if you want to leave me forever becuase youve stewed over it enough: ____. got no words for that.

how could i just walk away from you? how could i just let you go? i couldn't. can't you see that?

im at your mercy. whatever you say flies. i have no room to argue, i have no place to say your wrong, and i have no buisness telling you to stay when in everyones eyes, the trust has been busted.

now I'M the one sick of pretending. i dont want a shadow of doubt to linger over everything anymore. i can't pretend everything is fine and dandy when know its not. your call. just one favor, and i mean it so much i want to scream it. if you're going to leave, don't lead me on. please don't.

but. if that favor went ungranted, it would definetly be poetic justice.

what the hell have i done?

perhaps this is all a bit irrational.

so what happened?

man. i found some of my old blogs. they were always the result of the same thought process; a breif enthusiam for writing, maybe an idea or two, and then after the idea was typed, the blog would be forgotten, only to be discovered months later after a later occurance of the same thought process led to the creation of a new blog. and so on. ive probably got close to 10 floating around, who knows where they are at.

one thing is apparent tho, i used to be a much better writer. ha., dont really know where it went. anyway. check out some of the stuff from RAMBLINGS, one i made a long time ago. and click...HERE

i like the first and last one. forgot i even wrote those. kinda makes me want to dig up all the old crap i wrote over the years, thats lost in some obscure folder on my computer, probbaly locate din the system folder for all i know....haha.

well. even if i lost the ability to write, i certainly did not gain the ability to spell. haha.

home

im trying to sleep. WAS trying to sleep. im getting up in six hours to go surf something, its probably going to be big, and im more nervous than i should be. then the roommate decided 11pm is a good time to blast crappy music. guess ill be having my share of redbull tomorrow. why on earth is he practicing singing at 12:21?

so im up, at 1153pm, and listening to my own music in an effort to combat my roommates. i put on chainheart machine, but decided some mellow hip would be better than metal for falling asleep. and im lying there, listening to sweatshop union, and all i can think of is chile.

i can still see the sand. the sun. the way the pacific reflected the intense desert sun. i can still taste the dry air, and smell the desiel fumes that give the place its distinct smell. i can still see those little fishing shacks, with the busted up car in the "driveway". all i can think of it what i thought on the 6 hour busride back, the one thought that never left my head.

"this is God's country. this is home."

and so im lying here now, and its hard to believe a place like that even exists. i miss it more than i realize sometimes. i guess it takes a sleepless night at 1153pm to realize it.

i miss the people. i miss how every buisness in the world closes at 6pm so everyone can go home for dinner. i miss the stray dogs, and the way theyd follow me everywhere. the vultures, that all got up and flew around at sunrise, every morning. i miss the sunny days with an ocean alive with swell, and rivers of sea foam rippling thru the sets. i miss the hostel, and being cold all the time.

the trip started out as a surf trip, and thats all it was. thats all i thought it could be. one thing thats cool about bodybaording is that no matter where you go, and no matter how huge the cultural barriers, you can alwasy apddel out into a group of folks and feel right at home. all you need is the ocean. i thought about that for a long time. how i never really leave home. i never go somewhere totally foriegn. even if i dont speak the language, i can still look at other spongers and go "yeah. i do this too". and he'll be thinking the smae thing, even if its in another language and reads more like "suem msuh28323 df j@# @........ .".

but it ended up being a whole lot more. just go back and re read what i just wrote, i only mention waves once. it ended up being a whole bunch of things. i guess the things i got out of it are things i never thought would happen. i love that. anyway. the point is, the place got under my skin. got into my soul, i guess, altho that sounds so cliche i cant believe i just wrote that. but as i left that desert, i felt like i was leaving home. the only culture shock i ever had was on the return. i guess im still in that culture shock stage. just surprised at the difference. still. and i dont like the difference. i stepped off the place into the US and it didnt feel like i was coming home. it felt like foriegn soil.

i guess i connected with that place harder than any other place ive been, even my own town. hate to admit that. and even tho its been six months since i left the desert, it feels like the trip isnt over. like im still reeling from the experience, and i hope i will be forever. but after finding such a perfect haven in the middle of a violent and msiguided world, i didnt want to leave, and i dont want to be away. home was once defined a place to go and rest, and thats what chile is. its a place to rest from all the trivial and overthought concerns of the USA and the city i live in. its rest from the things that dont matter. thats home on a bigger scale than just a house, or a bed. even tho its in the middle of nowhere, and in the middle of the harshest enviroment on earth, its this is little haven, tucked away. i feel like the world could end and iquique would never know.

i need to go back. maybe chile should happen, becuase apparently oz wont. ill go back someday. but in the meantime, im lying here, waiting to fall alseep, with desert sand, hot sun, and ocean waves crashing through my head, half listening to music that makes me ache just a little bit more than i expect.

i just think its funny that i had to travel 3000 miles away to find home.

into the storm

So somethings brewing. The Atlantic is stirring up again. Sunday should be intersting. Hopefully Monday too but i'm not optimistic about monday. Various sources say various things. The most optomisitic is the nearshore model calling it 10-12 feet.

10-12 feet. I remember the last time it was supposed to be that big. I rolled up to dickies at like 630am, on some cloudy november morning, listening to island in the sun from weezer (i dont even like that band...), and i remember hearing it first, then as I walked over the little sand dune, i remembering seeing these massive closeouts, overhead and a half, double overhead, whatever you want to call it. huge, top to bottom barrels, and the first thing i thought was "this looks like pipe". the one dude out there who surfed it was looking terrified, barely ducking thru these bombs as the detonated on the sandbar, throwing massive explosions of whitewater a good 15 feet in the air, easily. ive never seen footage, photos, or any beachbreak that rivaled that day. i surfed green hill instead, thinking it was just a hectic closeout.

back to this sunday. its supposed to snowing like a madman too. so its gonna be huge and snowy. sounds like that day last march, i think, or the march before, the semester i lived by myself. that day was nuts...

i remeber getting up that morning, i think it was a sunday too. and checking the charts and seeing it was supposed to be huge. 12 foot. actually quite similar to the forecast we got going for this coming sunday. and then looking ouside and seeing how there was a legit blizzard. the TV was buzzing with warning, watches, advisories, and weathermen in snowy conditions saying not to go outside unless its an absolute emergency. the news, the weather channel, the school, everyone was saying it was THE blizzard of 2005. wind was about 45 mph with snowdrifts up to 4 feet, and ic ouldnt see more than 50 feet ou my window. as far as i knew, my nieghbors had evaporated into white.

funny tho, not for one second did i ever seirously consider not surfing it. that not how it works. i dont get ot choose when i surf. i surf when the waves say i do, and that might very well be in the middle of a blizzard. and if it is, then so be it. ill surf in the middle of a blizzard if the waves say i must.

anyway, the wind switch was supposed to be around noon. i saw it coming on the weather.com radar. i could see this straight line where the snow just stopped, and as soon as that line reaches us, the snow just turned off. the weather channel said the wind was offshore, and when i went outisde in the gray, it was.

i headed inside, with the heat blasting, and pulled on my stuff. all of it. hood, gloves, booties, the whole nine yards, just standing there in my million degree apartment watching the TV, with a red scrolling message underneath a babbling weatherman, saying not to go outside unless it was an emergency, and bring plenty of water and batteries, and tell everyone wehre your going and so on and so forth and yadda yadda....i swtiched on the TV, hit the lights, and went outside to go surfing.

i managed to drive the entire way there, blasting music, probably soilwork, tho its funny i dont remember what song. i usually know exactly what song was played for memorable swells. not this one tho. one lane was half plowed down rt one, just wide enough for one car. slow was already blowing across the pavement covering it up faster than road crews could control it. 45 minutes later, i pulled into a parking lot, hoping the unplowed lot wasnt too deep that i'd get stuck. a couple was in the car next to me, and as i stepped out, i remember them both staring at me. probably thought it was the time they were going to see me.

i remember walking thru a waist deep snowdrift. wind was whpping offshore, must have been about 40 mph solid. it was lightly snowing, but the wind and blowing snow made it difficult to even see the waves. i just remembering seeing these ghostly shapes bending, warping, and finally breaking in the distance, and the outline of two surfers already out.

the paddel out was more like being blown out. i never thought a spot could hold up in wind like that. i dont know how dickies did it, everything else in the world would have blown out long ago. but instead, i surfed a perfect peak. solid overhead barrel, huge and heavy, and i surfed the "main" peak, something i had never done before., one hell of a day for a break in.

session was alright. wasn't very makable. for some reaosn i just wasnt compelled to stay, so after maybe an hour of getting barrel, worked, and stoked, i walked out. i remember seeing these ghosts of waves, perfectly hollow and hideously heavy, just hgrinding and exploding onto these sandbars. it was so mystifing, watching these derdgers explode thru the snow. all i could see was vague outlines, but it was enough.

i ende dup going to green hill once the iwnd died down a bit for the best barrel session ever at the spot.


anyway. back to this sunday. suppose it might be like that again. i just keep thinking of those two sessions. just...pivitol points in my surfing, ya know? stuff id like to remember for the rest of my life.

when good times go bad...

sometimes you're sure of things. you'll find the times you're most sure of things are times when you're doing the wrong things. and when you feel like you're flailing through life, swimming upstream, or just treading water in a really big storm, those are the times you make the right decisions. i kinda think people are better decision makers when the life they know is in peril, and they know it is in peril. maybe its just going with instinct, or maybe its becuase you've alreadyygiven up, so you just say "screw it" and put your faith in faith and just go with the most obvious decision. the razor, right?

whatever. but for whatever reason, you go thru hell. and you keep going. someone famous said that. "if you're gonna go thru hell, keep going". and its kinda true, becuase after all the stupid decisions you make, and all the idiot things you say and do under the guise of "intelligence", "rationality", or "self-assuredness", you come out alive. and yeah, you probably feel like a fool, and you may have even made a fool of yourself...but halfway thru hell, you took a moment,realized things were sh**ting the bed, and just gave up. that moment of giving up is where everything good happens. for me, i think of it as giving up, consciously or not, and just being like "god, im clearly inept at the wheel, so just show me where to go. 'cause i can't.".

and when you come out of, you're worn down, but grateful for the rest. things feel better. remember that feeling in your chest you used to get after you cried when you were little?
almost like you're breathing easier? its a good feeling. and not only do you feel better, you are better. you actually did something right, and maybe when that situation rolls around again, you'll already know what to do. its how we learn.

so anyway. i thought id take a break from studying black holes and Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Objects to reflect. yeah. i know. its not over. but its close. most importantly, ive given up. its all up hill from here, and thats the little bit of comfort i need.

sat-sun-mon

so the last few days have been interesting. first, sunday night. swell fills in to max size around 2, which is when i got in the water at judith. the wind was so-so, coming from the WSW-W. not really the best. good enough for the north sides of judith, so i paddeled out in the fog with a few other guys.
at first the fog was so intense i couldnt really see shore. i could see only the few people close enough in the water, and whatever waves were nearby. judith's fog horn kept me oriented, and the occasional dots of a parked cars headlights. that was it tho. at first, the waves were lame. head high on the sets, but the period was super short. seven seconds, i believe, which is nothing more than semi-organized wind chop. i got only a few decent waves. i saw this fun peak to my right, which bowled up over a few shallow rocks, but couldnt seem to find it. i nabbed a few decent ones tho, so it wasnt a total bust, and threw a forward or two. after about a half hour the period started to go up, to 8 or 9 seconds. this threw an extra two or three feet on the wave, and gave it some length and organization. got a nice long right whcih i was planning on taking in, but ended up paddeling back out to a peak further down the point. it was a bust tho, so after paddeling about 300 meters to the main peak, i took one in. the view from the top showed what the extra two seconds did: long lines were filling in, at solid overhead. the fog had cleared.
the next morning i drove around a bit. nothing looked too appealing. wind was out of the WNW, and light. i saw some spray off the spot in the distance, so i drove over and checked it out. it was ok. weather was perfect, which made for good early morning backlit waves. i didnt surf it. the sets were too inconsistant. but this one bomb set came through. i saw it coming, this stacked set, and was so pumped. first was solid, second wave was bigger, and the third was one of the biggest ive seen at the spot. probably 8 foot, maybe 10. usually the place it consistant around 6, so i was pupmed to see something bigger. it was so good tho. the lip crumbled, then backed off, and then threw so hard and far and heavy. the left looked PERFECT.
ended up surfing dropping east beach. chest high on the sets. relaxing session. one surfer out, one skimboarder on the beach, and perfect weather. i made one nice right, and got another long right tube to a closeout. fun times.
tuesday was good late, after the swell filled in. short period, but TB was fun anyway. real peaky. i got some decent waves at first, but better ones when the tide dropped. two weak barrels, but according to andrew they looked solid. wave of the day: walled up bowling right. dropped in, set a line, and hit the lip. got launched pretty high given the conditions, and threw a decent roll. moved up the beach to the sea wall and found a super heavy peak breaking in a rip current. fun times there. the rip made the paddle out cake. eventually got too dark so i took a crappy one into shore.

so

about a week or so ago, i had this session at pt judith. it was late, i spent most of the day looking at waves wondering if i was worth the paddle out. i hit jamestown first for photos. it was ok but nothing special excpet for the bomb set that came through right as i was leaving. i got some super sick photos of the set. some of the best i have of any wave, period. but there was such an obscene amount of wildlife in the water i decided against surfing it. a HUGE flock of birds, including the ones that divebomb into the water, flew/sat right on the takeoff zone. and then this huge seal pops up right next to the rock in the take off. so i decided not to deal with the wildlife and go elsewhere. judith was the call late in the day tho. i paddeled out after alot of indecisiveness. turned out to be a great decision. first it was just ok. chest high, maybe head of the bomb sets. i got some waves, did some forward spins on a couple of lefts. only about 20 guys out, which isnt bad for judith. then later, there were only 5 guys left, and the sun started setting, which is really nice to watch from the water. but on the other horizon, the full moon was rising. so it was sunset on one side of the sky, and the water would be all yellow/gold/blue when looking that way. and then moorise of the other horizon, so there were stars and the silver glare from the moon on the water. looking one way and then other gave me the feeling of being on the edge of two worlds. pretty neat. then the ISS flew by. it moves real slow, but its incredibly bright. about 10 minutes later, it was really getting past sunset, but the moon was bright enough that we could surf anyway. at this point it was down to me and two other guys. so we were just trading waves, dropping into one and then paddeling out as quickly as possible to cram as many waves in before the light disappeared. i found my own peak, which was super fun. i took this one left, and the first thing i see is this surf pull into a complete barrel. i was so pumped. judith never does that, i've only gotten one ok tube in the last three years. i was super pumped, and just decided right there i was not leaving until i got a barrel myself. i paddeled over, subetly as not to be invasive, to the surfers peak. i got one wave; too far on the shoulder. another set came through, and i took off deeper. i saw it wall up and stalled as hard as i could, thinking "no, i missed the tube"...but then it pitched right over my head and i was nice and depe beind the curtain. it was really something else. ive had bigger, heavier, and deeper tubes, but the best thing ever was looking out of the barrel, with my field of vision framed by the pitching lip of the wave, and watching the moonlight light up the inside of the barrel. i managed to squeeze out of it, super pumped, and threw a rollo on the end closeout. barrel + roll at judith, of all places.
after that, i was just so content. i dont really know why. ive had bigger, heavier, and more critical barrels than that. i guess it was just the lighting, the time, the place, and whole setting, and how i knew i was going to get barreled long before it happened. the rest of the session went well too. i threw the most pefect rollo ever a few waves later, and took one in after everyone left. being out in the ocean at night by oneself is un-nerving
so ive had bigger and more critical surf sessions, but this one was still one of the best. just being out there, with God, the ocean, the sky, and a few other people, is enough. i couldnt give enough thanks for those few hours.