CA Day One

Hi There. I don't always do so well, talking on the phone, but the last I can do is try to tell you some of the things that I missed saying, and probably will never say, if I don't write them down.

So, the flight out from Houston to LAX. One thing really stands out: I was sitting in my aisle seat, watching all the late arrivals go through their dance of trying to find space in the overhead bins, and here game a very large, very old Mexican woman in a mu-mu, followed by a Mexican fellow in a cowboy hat, holding the hand of a small child. As the woman drew abreast of me, she turned to try to shove something in the overhead bin, and in the process she stuck out her hindquarters, and enveloped my shoulder and arm with her buttocks and legs. It as extremely warm, soft to the point of a gooey texture, and my shoulder was wedged so firmly in between her buttocks, which were draped over it like a large hot-water bottle, that I sensed the outline of another cleft, if you get my meaning, much further in than the first, and my horrified imagination told me that a certain moisture was being transmitted from that dark place to my poor shoulder. Then it was over; the woman had secured her bag, and was lumbering rearward. I reflected later that my experience really was the precise opposite of a man groping a woman. Instead, I had been groped by a woman's private parts -- and while I can't speak for the female perspective in a typical groping scenario, let me just say, I did feel violated.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, and the drive along the 405 and the 5 was remarkable only for the fact that the traffic was stop-and-go even at nine on a Friday night. The hotel room was clean, and the grocery store where I purchased some water and some wheat thins was practically deserted.

In the morning AB picked me up and, in typical AB fashion, we had to drive to a spot, check it out, decide that it wasn't the right call, go back to his house to score a longboard, and then drive to a new spot, where we finally managed to park and paddle out. Del Marr, just south of the beach entrance. The weather was cloudy and cool, and the waves were chest high on the early sets, dropping to waist high on the later sets. AB let me use his longboard, and he rode RB's Island Girl, a board that is painted with flowers and has a particularly feminine shape -- AB hates the board, but derives a perverse pleasure from making it work for him. AB complimented my surfing -- of course it's easy to look good on a longboard, but it was still nice to hear him say that I was styling and dialing. Of course AB got into a conversation with a another fellow nearly as garrulous as him, and before long AB was telling his new friend all about his Hawaiian youth and his motocross adventures. Meanwhile I was sitting about 50 yards down picking off the lefts. Eventually it got too flat to surf any more, and we went to eat.

AB picked Swami's, a little SoCal/Mex joint just across the PCH from a famous break named after a meditation center. We sat outside and ate egg burritos, and AB drank coffee and ruminated on the state of his career, and on what he'd do once he made it out of the Coast Guard. After we were done we went to check another break from a cliff overlooking the water, and AB enjoyed critiquing the surfers below, but he felt that having his coffee tumbler in his hand would make the whole experience more relaxing and enjoyable, and he worried for a while about going to fetch his coffee tumbler, but in the end decided that we could just go.

I came back to the hotel and studied. Nothing interesting to report there. The room has two double beds, a rattling window unit for hot and cold air, and a tiny bathroom with a tiny, perfectly circular toilet. You can hear the traffic from the 5 rushing past at all hours.

After the studying, AB and I went to fetch another longboard for our afternoon session. While AB had enjoyed surfing Island Girl in a certain perverse way, the same way that men must enjoy making stubborn animals bend to their will, he was not willing to do a second IG session. We drove east, into the hills. The mountains rolled off, purple, in the background. There were moments when you came around a bend and saw a mountains side laid before you, with grids of agriculture and clumps of shingled houses, and large brown bald spots, furrowed as if in consternation, as if the mountain was trying to make up its mind if it should shrug its shoulders and dislodge all these bothersome creatures, or if it should continue to lie there, half-asleep. AB's friend lived in a little community about five miles from the beach, in stucco house with a pool and a vaulted ceiling. AB's friend and his wife are of Latin-American descent, and the living room was incongruously crowded with an extended family, including teenage girls and grandparents who were stuffed together on a small sofa, staring intently at the television.

After we got the board we drove to look at a few spots, and finally paddled out at Terra Marr, where we found a left hand peak. As we were pulling on our wetsuits only a single surfer was out working the peak, but by the time we'd gotten into our wetsuits and climbed down the brown cliffs to the beach, there were three surfers on the peak and eight more beginning to paddle out. They had seen the same thing, the were thinking the same thing and by the time we got out there, the peak was crowded. AB got frustrated with a few of the surfers, and made some comments, but nobody respond in kind, and once AB caught a set wave, he calmed down. The sets were easily overhead, and broke left for a long, long time. An enormous fellow, in a spring suit, riding a 30 inch wide, 10 foot longboard, caught one of the sets and came barelling left. It was quite a sight, to see this enormously fat, mustachioed, aggressive, hardcore dude on a massive longboard, just owning that wave, just claiming it and pumping it like a king. I was paddling out, and as I looked to right right and saw this fellow coming I kept thinking that I could almost hear the sound that a bowling ball makes when it grinds away on the alley, looking for some pins to bash into.

The left were fun. I had fun connecting sections, going to the top and bottom of the wave, and walking the board a little. AB was hungry, and went into the beach, and so I followed him in on my next wave. Then we ate at this Mexican restaurant nearby called "Norte." Out the window I could see a procession of luxury or antique cars, and it occurred to me that lots of people who live in SoCal don't have to work. They live on investments, or on royalties, or on some monies that the rest of us don't have, and can't even imagine, all sources of monies such as writing on balloons, or internet widgets, or grandfather's oil, or fast food, or god knows what. It seemed to me then that SoCal must be the place where you come when your primary aim is to enjoy yourself.

When the food came, AB and I ate like I think men often do: swiftly and silently. In a matter of minute the table was cleaned, and we were staggering out past the clatter of dishes and the buzz of conversation, out into the blue night.