Also

I've been wanting to start surfing for a while but the whole thing is so daunting and intimidating that I just kept putting it off as something I would do at some point in the far off future.

It seems the future was this weekend. Sam picked me up and I wasn't feeling very good, and I have to admit, I was kind of being a jerk. I don't like doing things when I have no idea what I'm doing, especially if I feel like it's a public forum, and surfers are notorious for having these complicated hierarchies and all this unspoken etiquette and they call people 'kooks' when they flail around without reason (that would be me) and as we got closer and closer to the beach, Sam got more and more excited, and I got gloomier and gloomier. I was imagining all sorts of humiliation and perhaps death by drowning (which doesn't look like drowning). And it was kind of raining. We went to Short Sands which requires a walk down a trail to the beach and I was just like: doom, doom, doom. And there's the sad fact that my wetsuit hood squeezes my face and makes me look like a teletubby.

But then we actually got in the water and it was so fun. Yes it's cold. But wetsuits are warm and the only thing that was cold were my hands. And paddling is exhausting. When you finally get out of the water and try to walk, you are shaking like a wet dog. But I finally stood up, like, actually kind of caught a wave (three times this happened!) and it was indescribably exciting. Total triumph. DFP. Sam said he had never seen a bigger smile on my face (teletubby smiling). I cannot imagine how fun surfing is when you are actually good. I'm done for.