Hello all!
What a trip to be back in Huntington Beach, California. This is my birthplace, and although I haven't been here in about a decade, all of the quirks are inexorably seeping back into my consciousness. Like some sort of radioactive dye, LA is permeating me--seeking out buried memories and marking them for retrieval--and the feeling is both alien and familiar. The long, featureless, and mostly industrialized beaches, the worst of Beaverton sprawl and smog mixed with Spanish colonial architecture, and clear fall days in the 80's. It is both paradise and hell...
On the paradise side of things, I have surfed every day I've been here. Up at 6, down to the beach by 7:30, wading out into the surf with my 8 foot funboard. The sand is surprisingly coarser here than I remember, and there are little shells everywhere (link to technissimo). I remember those... The water is also loads saltier and the familiar flecks of gold tumbling in the water remind me of childhood weekends in the sun. I bought a used 3.2mm wetsuit for $45 the first afternoon I was down, and have to admit--that was the best 45 bucks I've spent in a while.
I am still getting used to the mental space generated by not having to do anything. It has put me in a sort of anxious place to tell you the truth... I am out on the water and there is often some tickling in the back of my mind that something needs to be done. But there ain't shit that needs to be done but surfing!
:P Speaking of, I've gotten loads better. I've managed to standup on a few and even been able to cut just a little, but most of the time I'm pearling, or getting tossed in a washing machine just trying to get out there. Actually, I am referring to my time out in the water more as paddling--not surfing. You will laugh if you know what I mean, but jesus... I will have Arnold Schwarzenegger's latissimus dorsi soon. 
These aren't the dolpins I saw, but you get the picture!
The coolest thing about surfing in Southern California so far though, are the dolphins. The last few times I've been out, pods of dolphins have come within a couple board lengths of me--so close I can almost touch them--and it has been so amazing. I am surprised at how big they are! And they surf too! The come up to the breakers, and they ride them in with us. So Jase (my friend I am staying with here) and I will bang out rhythms on our boards and try to entice them to play with us. It is wild.
Cash is coming out early next week, so it will be cool to surf with him soon.
Oh, and as far as hell is concerned. Last night I found myself in a pernicious circle of it on Sunset Strip. Fucking Hollywood man. I hate that place. Plastic people, Prada, and 6 dollar California rolls. Ferraris, lipstick, and Entitlement. I don't have the energy to write much more about it, but in my opinion, LA is definitely the worst place on Earth I've been to yet. Enough about that.
More later, and pictures soon!
~dave-san
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