Nathan's Journal

So, would I totally lose any cool points I ever had if I admitted that a few minutes earlier I was dancing around the apartment in my sleep pants to Lady Gaga's Poker Face?

Yeah, I thought so. Just ignore the above. Your retinas will stop burning eventually, I promise.

So. This past week has been incredibly busy. Mostly due to work. I love my work, I really do, because I find it endlessly interesting, but they've been having departmental meetings all week, and jesus, I hate those. Boring, boring, and can I say, boring? Yeah. If I have something interesting to focus on, I'm fine, but stick me in a meeting, and my mind starts bouncing from one thing to the other, like those super-balls I had as a kid, bouncing higher and harder and faster with each pass. By the end of a two hour meeting, I'm practically fucking vibrating with nerves, and its hard to sit still. Chris should know this by now, and cease and desist with the Glare 'O Death. I'm like teflon with that by now, I've seen it so much. It's much better for everyone if they leave me in my labs and send me a report, with anything that directly applies to me bolded, or something. And think of the havoc I could wreak if I wasn't making myself behave like an adult? It's a scary thought.

Enough of that. I'd rather think about last weekend. The Clean Water Classic surf contest. Woot! Tons of fun. Surfers from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, California and Hawaii competed in the professional and amateur event. There were a lot of events, including competitions for Masters Long Board and Short Board, Women’s Long Board and Short Board, Stand Up Paddle Heats, and the Keiki Heat for Kids.

It's only Pro/Am surfing contest in the region.Last year there were more than 150 people in competition--I think there were over 200 this year. Two days out on the water, with like-minded people competing and enjoying themselves? Fucking heaven, as far as I'm concerned.

The first heats started out Saturday at 7am on the jetty, and ended about 3pm on Sunday. Over the course of those two days, there were something like sixty heats, most around fifteen minutes. Six or seven people per heat was pretty normal for Saturday, with two-to-four competitors in the semi-final and finals on Sunday. For once the weather was fucking spectacular, lots of sun and with solid overhead waves. Perfect.

It would be great to say that I won the Pro/Am competition, but nah, I didn't. People who win at the Pro/Am level are generally professional surfers, and in spite of the fact that I've surfed most of my life, I'm just a talented (and incredibly handsome and sexy) amateur. I surf for fun, not as a livelihood (though what surfer doesn't dream of doing this for a living?). I didn't win Best Wave--that's more luck than skill, having that perfect wave handed to you--but I did get second in both Men's Longboard and in Stand Up Paddle which is nothing to bitch about, given some of the talent out there on the water. I was pretty damn happy about the whole thing.

On Saturday night, sponsors for the event got together and put on a great party with a surf theme (really, what else did you expect?) and more than five hundred people showed up for that. Each Surfrider chapter in the region presented displays on their special local issues, campaigns and programs. It was at the Westport Convention center (sadly, not on the beach itself). There was a presentation honoring local surf shop owner and Pacific Northwest surf pioneer Cam Brady. There was also a special guest, Joe McQueary, one of the catalysts for the shortboard revolution. This guy is sixty-four years old, and was pulling into barreling overhead surf on Saturday with a skill none of us could match. He's like a surfing rockstar, and got that sort of crowd and attention. He deserves it, too. There was lots of food, nothing alcoholic to drink (sadly), and they had some good music by a band called, of all things, Angry Panda. Had to snortlaugh on that one, man.

These things are always a blast, but it was more fun because Jay was with me. The guy literally doesn't know a stranger, and he's one of those guys who knows how to work a crowd. Plus, people dig his accent. He took pictures and talked all day both days, and at night, well. We had a lot of non-G-rated fun. Man knows what he's doing and is really fucking good at it. He's fun in and out of bed, which is more than I can say about most people.

So anyway. Worked all week. Jay was busy, so last night I fucked off to a club to work off some work-related stress. Danced a while, picked up a pretty thing, went back to her place, bounced around, and now I'm back in my own apartment. Definitely not blasting Lady Gaga at extremely high decibels and most definitely not dancing in pajamas. Because that would be vastly uncool, y'know.

Charlie, my landlord, left me a note saying he was renting the apartment across the way. Might need to watch the music volume from now on, I guess. Hope it's not someone stuffy and stodgy, like the last one. I guess it's hoping too much for someone hot, huh?

Yeah, I thought so.

I'm at work, and I swear to god the clock is moving backwards.

I love my job, seriously I do, but man. I'm restless and it feels like someone replaced all my joints with springs. Boing, boing. And honestly, wasn't it noon five hours ago?

After work, I'm picking up Jay and after I get my boards and equipment, we're heading out to Westport. This weekend is the Clean Water Classic, and I'm looking forward to it. It's the only Pro/Am surfing contest held in the region, so I have to be there. It's organized and put on by volunteers of the Pacific Northwest chapters of the Surfrider Foundation (yes, I am a member), and it's the major fundraising event for the local chapters of the Foundation. Monies gotten from this go into activities and programs that focus on water quality, beach access, ocean health and shoreline preservation--all things I work to help, given my field of work.

Plus, you're surfing. Can't beat that with a great big stick.

I grew up in California--Oceanside. My parents own a surf shop there, and I swam before I could walk. Surfing, swimming, snorkeling, diving, boating. It's all good. Don't know anything else that makes me happier. Well, sex ranks pretty high on the list, but you can't fuck all the time, no matter how much fun it is. You start to chafe after a few hours. *g*

So, anyway. My career brought me from the warmth and sunshine of California to the clouds and cold of the Pacific Northwest. You might not think so, given the weather, but there's a fairly good-sized surfing community here. Gotta wear a wetsuit all year round, including gloves and boots (not really boots, but sorta like neoprene sneakers) and a hood, because it's cold here. Water's usually 40-60 F, and that's hypothermia cold. I miss surfing in nothing but board shorts, but eh. At least I'm surfing. The waves aren't what they are in California or Hawaii, but they're respectable, and I have a good time. Westport and further north, La Push, are places I go to often--every weekend, if I can make it.

Jay and I are heading to Westport later today, and spending the weekend. He's got a place rented. Jay will be spending his time photographing while I surf, and when we're not doing either of those, we'll find fun of a different kind. Jay's a great guy. Lots of fun, great sense of humor, a champ in bed. Knows that sex is for fun, doesn't try to make it into anything else, which is really a huge relief. So many people you sleep with want to try and make it more when it really isn't.

Anyway, really looking forward to Westport with Jay. If that damn clock will stop going backwards.

It's all about ME!

Enigmas

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving
there with his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparentbell?
What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards
a new question touching on
the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone,
and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand
the electric nature of the ocean spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this,
that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes
time has made the
petal
hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.

I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)