Another November Over...

Awesome day... awesome day... totally awesome day.

Got up early and checked the surf... North didn't look good, but I went to Long Beach and had an amazing time. The water looked cold but wasn't... it looked like it would be a tough paddle out but it wasn't... and I ended up catching a chest high peeler on my 11' board... with no hood on. I got a bit of a sun tan, even. It was as if it were summer all over again. That ride was exactly what I needed (and having been needing for WEEKS now)... I stayed out for hours and caught a few more, though none as exhilarating as that first peeler that went on forever.

The rest of the day was filled with normal everyday things that were made much more tolerable by the much needed ride. It's slightly frightening how much difference catching a wave makes. I become much more productive... not, however, that I have done anything really all that productive today. In fact, I haven't done anything productive in a long while. Of course, not having someone else's business to run or dreams to make come true makes being productive a lot more challenging. I have no vision... and living amongst others who have no vision really isn't conducive to getting serious things done.

And but at least I've finally realised this... that I have been nothing more than a symbiotic parasite on those with a vision... and it took moving to a place with no suitable host to recognise this. As I look around again, I'm realising that I had best come up with... something... and soon, too. December isn't even around the corner... it's rushing straight down the corridor.

Sage Advice from Gerard Manley Hopkins

26. The Candle Indoors

SOME candle clear burns somewhere I come by.
I muse at how its being puts blissful back
With yellowy moisture mild night’s blear-all black,
Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye.
By that window what task what fingers ply,	5
I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack
Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack
There God to aggrándise, God to glorify.—
Come you indoors, come home; your fading fire
Mend first and vital candle in close heart’s vault:	10
You there are master, do your own desire;
What hinders? Are you beam-blind, yet to a fault
In a neighbour deft-handed? Are you that liar
And, cast by conscience out, spendsavour salt?

I'm home... I'm mending my fading fire.

Rain and Snow...

I went for a surf today with the 11' NSP despite the fact that I probably shouldn't have. I got up and went to check the surf. It looked horrible on every beach all the way to Long Beach. As I was driving to Florencia (determined to find a place to surf), I got a message from ULTE1 and a phone call from Michael. ULTE1 convinced me to abandon my quest for surf and to instead join him for breakfast. Michael was making a final effort to convince me to go to the Margaret Atwood book reading. Having no interest in Margaret Atwood, I had no intention of going to her book reading... but for some reason everyone I saw didn't even ask if I was going... they just assumed I would be there. "Oh, I'll see you tomorrow" "What's happening tomorrow?" "The Atwood thing." "Oh. I'm not going." "You're not going?!?!" "Nope." "How come??!?!" &c &c.

And then I'd have to explain that I'm just not that into Atwood, and that just because I like to read, it doesn't mean I'd go to every literary event that comes to town...

In any case, after waffles and opera and minor car repair (which was inspirationally masculine), I went and scraped the wax off the Southpoint and then put on a wetsuit and went for a surf.... or, more accurately, a paddle. After a paddling furiously for an extended period of time... I made it to the outside. No one else made it to the outside... which made it special. Once outside, however, I realized that there really was no point.. and I was more likely to suffer than to get a good ride... so then I went inside... and left.

I have been diligently procrastinating since I got home. I put an ad up to sell my surfboard... and I wasted a number of hours on the internet. I am now sleepy and ready for bed. I have successfully postponed engaging with microeconomics for the evening.

Add inches to your board!!!

Right after I'm finished writing this post, I'm going to strip the wax off my 9'1" Schopenhauer and put an ad on Coastal BC and sell this board. It'll sell easily, apparently... because there are very few used longboards in these parts. I am selling my first surfboard. I... am selling... my first... surfboard.

After switching to 11' boards, I didn't want to ride the 9'1" anymore... I assumed that I wouldn't want to ride anything smaller than an 11'... but the more people I talk to, the more I keep hearing that a 9'1" just isn't long enough for a longboard. A work friend said that he wouldn't ride any longboard under a 9'4"... and then not long after, ULTE1 said the same thing... that a longboard has to be at least 9'6"... this was not what I remember from my early readings about surfboards... the consensus among the literature seem to have suggested that anything above an 8' is a longboard... as it turns out... the caveat was that it has to be above a 9'4" to be a useful longboard...

I went to "jingle into Christmas" today... (it's a Tofino thing... all the stores stay open late and offer free food and alcoholic beverages... and people go from store to store eating and drinking and shopping... I thought it a little weird at first... but I'm definitely getting into it this year... I even went to the Legion (first time ever) for their turkey dinner)... and tonight, at the surf shop, they convinced me to sell my 9'1" and buy a 9'6". Considering that, ever since the time Bluepath gave me a concussion, I've been super paranoid about taking out an 11' board in overhead surf, trying a 9'6" isn't a bad idea... especially since there's going to be another I don't know how many months of winter left... and winter will come again, year after year...

And selling my first surfboard... that's sort of a big deal... but there's really no other way of going about it... I'm not going to surf this 9'1" ever again... so why would I keep it? I remember buying this surfboard on Hallowmas 2006... and taking it out for its inaugural ride at South Chesterman... (incidentally, i think that's the last time I surfed South)... ULTE1 was there... he zipped up my zipperless wetsuit for me. That's the board I'd drive back and forth from the city... getting it in and out of an elevator to the 21st floor... where it had its own room with a view of Mount Baker. It's the board on which I got my first white water ride... it's the board on which I got my first ride on the green... the it's the board on which I made my first bottom turn...

So many memories...

Of course, I'm not going to catch another ride on this board... and having a board that I won't be riding just isn't the thing to do. So... it'll be a wax and a final polish with the citronella... and then soon it will be goodbye. I just hope that I don't get overly sentimental and can't go through with it... that is how packrattism happens.

This weekend though, I'll be going out with my 11' NSP. I've decided to keep the 11' G&S as my summer board... winter just seems a little too hazardous for a super heavy 11' glass board.

You totally googled me...

Uh... yeah... I did... but don't we all? Isn't this sort of... the thing we do now? Google each other... see what's out there... do up an open source profile? Find out as much as you can about the interesting people you meet or read? Sure, sometimes it gets to be a bit too much information (the make and model of one's major appliances, for instance)... but googling seems to have become a normal part of "getting to know" someone.

Randians and Kantians

Despite having sworn off all community events two years ago, I went to this year's Oyster Gala on Saturday. Earlier in the year, I found the Food and Wine Festival surprisingly enjoyable, which renewed my hopefulness insofar as Tofino community events are concerned. Still, you won't catch me going to the Martini Migration anytime soon (that one is surely going to call for electro-convulsive therapy afterwards).

I saw quite a few people at the oyster gala whom I would not usually see... my neighbours across the street, for instance... I have never really seen them anywhere... not even across the street... but they were there... and basically told me they watch my livingroom through the window. That was a little odd... because while I'd always known that people look into my window (large, floor-to-ceiling windows (not quite to the ceiling because the ceiling is just so incredibly high))... I had never expected anyone to TELL me about looking into my window.

Anyway, I met a cute boy with glasses at the Oyster Gala... well.. I didn't quite meet him, I see him almost everyday... but I had no idea how incredibly entertaining he is... he's sold his soul for art, in a manner of speaking... and tells fascinating stories... the only curveball was that he out of nowhere announced that he's an Ayn Randist. I've met plenty of Randians in my life... but they all tended to be engineers, scientists, mathematicians, etc... never an artist... and it makes sense... because what would constitute objectivist art? Geometry? I began considering whether or not it is possible for a Randian and a Kantian to get along (my Kant is heavily filtered by Schopenhauer... but when faced with a Randian, I will unreservedly declare myself a Kantian (with the caveat that I'm really more of a Schopenhauerian Kantian)). Randians and Kantians... don't know... I just don't know.

I haven't surf in over two weeks. Probably almost three, if not three. My life is falling apart!!

I will surf this weekend. I will surf. I will surf.

I think I must surf... because lately, I've been deleting as much as I write... (for a few weeks now)... and while I suspected that it has something to do with having had to remove a few entries as requested (because I was too lazy to edit out the bits)... I'm not entirely sure that it isn't a seasonal affective writer's block exacerbated by not surfing.

Wait a minute... of course I'm Kantian... this is called ding-in-itself for god's sake... I can't believe I didn't pick up on that earlier. Brain must be atrophying.

Thanks, Anthony! These are el awesome.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

La Toussaint

It's a Sunday... and a statutory holiday in France... which means they get a long weekend, I think.

I can't believe it's been THREE years. On All Saints' 2006, I bought my first surfboard. I also bought my first winter wetsuit... and since then, even in the summer, I haven't ever worn my summer wetsuit again.

All Saints' 2006 was also the last time I surfed South Chesterman. Yes, there is a surf beach five minutes from where I live that I haven't surfed at in three years. Maybe today is the day? The swell has gone back down to 3 metres... and as of right now, there's supposedly just a little bit of an east wind... which I also think means that there are better beaches to surf than South Chesterman.

Cleaning up breakfast... and then loading up the car...