Fight what you know

Throughout the entire month of August all I did was bitch and moan, "I haven't even been to the beach yet." I had not been to the beach yet because my weekends were always either booked or lets face it, I didn't make it a priority.

Last week I had decided that I was going to go to the beach on Saturday, 8/25, if it killed me. I was faced with obstacles but damn it, I hurtled over my hysterical mother who wanted me to stop by and I held my ground to my boyfriend's demanding mother who acted as if my going to the beach alone was an act of treachery or infidelity.

I got to the beach around noon and at four I called Mike to tell him I was never coming home. I had the most wonderful afternoon and I am just so pleased that I didn't accept that the summer was over (because it wasn't) and didn't just sit back and feel sorry for myself for not having had much of a summer.

It was wonderful to sit in the sun and listen to the waves crashing on the shore. I read and watched the surfers surf and the kids take surfing lessons some ways away from the guys who knew what they were doing. I took a long walk and collected shells and I watched babies experience wet sand for their first time. I felt my shoulders slowly back down from my ears and I even practiced my yogic breathing. I had a great afternoon and got back to Mike's parents house where we were staying, showered (you know, those great showers after a day at the beach!) and then went to a party with some great people and got drunk. It was a great summer day.

So yesterday, Tuesday, I got to go again! and Mike went with me. We went to a different beach, LBI, and Mike was kind of a crab. (I told him I should have left him at the beach so he could scuttle back into the ocean.) But overall, I had a nice time. I swam and played by myself (I tend to regress in age when I get to the beach) and I was surprised to find Mike watching me play at one point. I found a shark tooth! Mike says it wasn't and I say it was and after I held onto it for over 45 minutes while I played and got pummeled by waves, I lost it. I could have stayed a few more hours but Mike gets bored fast with the beach. It's just not his thing and I can't make him love something as much as I do nor do I want to really, but we had to go.

After a nice lunch and a beer we walked around and played in the arcade and checked out the kids on the freestanding water slides. Mike promised we could do that next year. I kept thinking of my brother Joey and how we used to go on those water slides when we stayed with my grandparents. It's a lot of running up stairs! Up down up down for two hours! It's a blast. It made me a little sad though that they shrank. They used to be 1,000 feet tall! They don't look it anymore. I remember how we used to race down the slides. Me and my two brothers would each take a slide and all push off at the count of three. It was great!

I have an obligation all this weekend but I decided I should hit the beach again on Labor Day. I figure September will still be hot so I plan to get a few more beach days in. It's better late than never and now the water's warm and after Labor Day the beaches will be pretty much empty so maybe I did the best thing by waiting. I guess like any season, summer is what you make of it. I had a great vacation in May and August is turning out to be pretty good so I think I can stop walking around bitching about how much this summer sucked. My summer doesn't end on Labor Day, but when the temperature at 2:00 PM is under 78 degrees for a consecutive seven days in a row.

To make yourself smile

I think I discovered one of the secrets to a good life. I'm willing to share it with you.

Every once in a while, if you can, buy yourself something ridiculous. If you see something special and it makes you yell out, "I have to have this!" even though you may not use it more than once a year, buy it anyway. You'll have a blast telling everyone about it and when it finally comes, you'll run that box straight into the house and tear it open with the joy similar to that you experienced as a child at Christmas.

Well, folks, I can make a giant cupcake!

Can you make a giant cupcake?



Mine came yesterday. You can buy one too here!

Oh, back to school, oh I'm no fool so it's back to school

School's around the corner.

Remember when you were a kid, back to school meant new clothes and A NEW THEME! The backpack had to match the binder and the pencil case and the lunchbox! Deciding on a theme for your supplies was no easy decision. My mom wouldn't allow me to just change my mind half way through the year and besides, did you ever try to buy an adolescent backpack in say, February? You can't. They don't exist. So you had to know what you were doing. My mom often times wouldn't take us shopping until the week before school started so it was slim pick ins - I had to settle for some mismatch and damn how I hated that!

So here I am thinking about what I require for school. All I really need is my textbooks and a graphing calculator. That makes me sad. I have an office drawer full of pens, pencils, highlighters and I bet I even have two or three sharpeners. I have notebooks even. I even have over twenty bags that could constitute as a "book bag". Lame.

So I bought a new "bag" to make me feel better anyway

and I'll buy a new crispy clean notebook.

The bag is the damn closest thing I could find to one some girl on the train had. I saw it and I was like, I have to have that bag! (P.S. - I love bags. More than clothes and shoes. If you know my mother, feel free to comment with any plethora of jokes you can think of. I LOVE BAGS!)

I saw it was an Eastpak so I scoured the whole website and didn't even find anything close. I went to a backpack website and looked under Eastpak and saw something pretty close so I bought it. It's not even a backpack. It's a shoulder bag made out of backpack material but it's not a messenger bag. I grew out of that phase.

Hey, anyone want fifteen messenger bags?

Oh and anyone wanna sell me their TI-83 plus graphing calculator? Go look in the junk drawer and let me know how much you want for it.

I'll trade you some messenger bags.