P.O.S.

Christian over at Beer Can Beach introduced me to the concept of the "Paddle of Shame": the paddle-in at the end of a session when you're unlucky enough not to catch one in. For whatever reason the circumstance had never struck as worth noting, but now I think about it a fair bit. Today however, my paddle out to the lineup constituted a Paddle of Shame in its own right. Shame over not getting my act together early enough this morning so I could head straight to the beach after dropping the boy off at school. Shame that I took two wrong routes once I did pull my shit together, getting me stuck in two bad bits of traffic which further wasted the short window of dumpability the tides would afford. Shame, even, that as I surveyed the less than pristine "conditions" I knew that I had to paddle out nonetheless, if not for the fact that I'm always crowing about "getting at least one" then for the fact that it would only be my third surf in New York since January and only my third surf in the brand new Matuse winter wettie my sister gifted me for my birthday. So yeah, today's bobbing up and down in 39˚ water 40˚ air was more of a penitence; me trying to make up for some shameful shit. Hopefully, I've set the thing right. Tomorrow is a new day.

And yes, I "caught" one in. Quotations shamefully necessary.