A Hundred Feet To The End

There are few things scarier than falling into patetic pace on a relatively empty avenue with a stranger in New York. You can feel the awkward distrust; the annoyance at encroachment. All in context of a confining city so packed on certain boulevards you could bash into someone without fluttering a lash. But this is the consigned fate of the dog walker. Dogs have a mind of their own, and one with rhythms that ask for more apparently. If you catch me lock step with you on a deserted stretch, just know it's the dog, the dog.

Friendship has its own meanings. It keeps them to itself. I do not feel obliged to pry. But everyone has their own version of it. A slight to one person is another person's homage. Hog the scene and one guy'll sock you. Skedaddle and another will forsake you forever. The fine lines only get finer too. Me, I'm the "in a pinch" sorta friend. There for the big event, if it doesn't put me too far out see. Often ghost-like in the mundane perhaps. This is fine with me, but others see it differently. But I wouldn't know, I never ask.

Apologies are like that too. Some people like to hear you apologize. Sorry a byword for buddy. I'm not one of those either. I'm too sold on evolution. Shit, that asshole you were yesterday? Frankly I'd rather not hear from him again. What's new Stan?

Saturday I drenched myself in cold water and good company, bobbing around on too long a board with a rattling fin with its emergency seat elbow room in the box. I hate going left with a hood on, my equilibrium, that inner compass of fleeting (or fleeted) athletic prowess, shut out, muffled intrusions only giving me the wrong cues. But really, the beach was an all star cast of good people. There are times when one shows up to a surf community event and it's all hand wringing and stare downs, everyone out to prove they're up to snuff. Saturday was one of those gatherings where everyone had the right attitude. Maybe it was the seasonably warm weather that caught everyone off guard.