You Know You've Got It Bad When . . .

you should be working (i.e., preparing the syllabus for your first class, which meets tomorrow) but all you can think about is surfing. So what am I doing? Procrastinating by doing another blog entry. I need to wax my board. For the first time in a long time, I don't even have a quiver. I am now down to one board. Obviously, I can't get back in the water if that board has no wax on it. But I still feel like I should at least pretend to do a syllabus for tomorrow, right? Hmmmmm. Well, it can wait.

Back to the subject of quivers. I have gone through so many boards in the last three years. I think there are two reasons for that. First, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I initially thought I'd end up on a shortboard. I thought shortboards were surfing. I'd never seen longboarding before. I'd been watching surf contests on TV since I was a teenager. I suppose I just assumed that everyone surfed a shortboard. Anyway, my first official board was a 7'10" mini longboard. (I say "official" because it was the first board I bought with someone's guidance. I had another board before that and it turned out to be a big guy's shortboard, which meant it wasn't right for me. Now that I've surfed for awhile, I understand boards much better and I can see why that was the wrong board.) I had to be talked into that length (the 7'10"); I thought I should get something shorter. Now, here's what happened to change my mind about me and shortboards: I was watching a professional contest on TV one day and said to myself, "That doesn't look like much fun." Don't ask me why I thought that. I don't even know if I'd seen real longboarding by that point. I just knew that I see didn't how I would enjoy doing cutbacks, gouges, etc. I think, now that I am really giving this some thought, I perceive shortboarding as something that requires intensity in order to excel. I no longer have the capacity for that kind of athletic intensity. Motherhood, rather than age, took the intensity from me I think. I'm intense when it comes to my kid. I don't want to be intense now when I'm being athletic. I only want to have fun. Okay, I've digressed and now I have to get myself back on track. Here's my progression with respect to board length: 7'10", 8'6", 9'0", and 9'6". I had a 6'6" board that was considered a short longboard. I didn't like it. It got sold, just like every other board except for the 9'6". Oh!! I'm talking about reasons why I've gone through so many boards. The second reason I've been through so many boards is that now I'm trying to find the boards that fit the way I surf. I know what I'm capable of. I know what designs I prefer. So, it's a matter of finding boards for the various conditions I usually face. My longboard is perfect most of the time. However, you can't surf a single fin log at a beach break when the waves get big. I'll probably end up with a 7'0" Channel Islands MSF (which won't get used much if the winter waves continue to be as pathetic as they have been). I guess that negates my comment about my boards all being long and perfect. I don't think a 7'0" is considered a longboard.

Alright, I'm done. I'm going to watch TV . . . I mean, look at the textbook and do some work.