Son of a Beach

With today being the last nice day according to the weather soothsayers, and today being my last day of being a bum for a week with the upcoming Dodgers homestand, I impulsively decided to hit the beach. Despite living in Los Angeles for most of my life, the beach and I are relative strangers.

But I just wanted to get a base coat of color for the summer, so I packed my iPod, Kindle, camera, water bottle, towel and blanket and motored to Redondo Beach. Here are some pictures and commentary.

This is the view as I exited my car. Yes there are steps that lead down the cliff and onto the huge kitty litter box. Also note the absence of people. This is only a positive.

Well on my way down there was a very evenly colored man with lovely abdominals climbing up the hill as part of his exercise. I wanted to lick the sweat off of him, but knowing how irritating it is when people fuck with me when I work out I leave him be and find my spot.

I found a nice spot to lay my blanket out. Unseen in this picture is that there’s a small incline where it appears the water meets the sand. So there’s no fear of the water reaching me.

I did take off my shirt (shock!!) and hopped into the water. Not only did I forget how cold the water is off the Southern California coast, but the waves were pounding pretty hard. I’m in the water for all of five minutes, and I returned to my blanket. I laid out, opened my Kindle reading The Lure by Felice Picano while listening to the second half of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. For some reason going to the beach brings me back to high school.

Oof. My pasty white legs. Thankfully sand was covering most of my awful feet so I don’t have that much shame. Can you imagine the time when my legs actually had color and weren’t translucent? I actually remember.

I turn over, change music to the best of Deee-Lite, continue reading and become oblivious. Eventually I feel toasty even though I do not detect and color change. I put on my shirt, pack things up and run off to my car. And no, there are no shirtless pics of me thankfully.

This is one of the best things about the excursion. The road I parked on was freshly repaved and the sidewalks redone, so what used to be parking meters were just stubs. So except for the gas this was a free excursion, and who doesn’t like free?

And this is looking south toward the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

I really need to do this more often because not only is it therapeutic, I am really fucking pasty. That’s it.