Procrastination --- Now With Sand!!!

I thought today would have just a short break, after cleaning and grocery shopping, and then I would leap into my various piles of work. Well, instead I took the whole afternoon off. But it was good. There is an annual sandcastle competition and finally I went. I've always liked sandcastles and making them, although it's hard to get friends to want to make castles with me, and my nieces and nephews want to make something just large enough and fast enough to smash it right away. So I don't get to try out cool things.

But today I took a long long walk and sought out the sandcastle competition. Where the hell was it? Wasn't it at the beach? How the hell many beaches do we have down here --- they are all connected! I did find it eventually and discovered it was a nice little festival thing --- lots of food, lots of families and people hanging out, a sandcastle judging contest, really bad yet good old school surf rock from some live band. I don't actually know how to describe the music, except it was rock, but kinda reminded me of surf rock --- they had a Moog. The band wasn't bad, once you drop any snooty pretensions, but the singer was rather horrible. Jeremiah was a bullfrog, sir, but you sound like you are trying to ruin your voice screaming. In honor of all the walking I did I got fries and sat for a while people-watching.

You're right, that's not a person. I have lots more pics (and more that I didn't even upload!) so go click here below and see the rest. They are cool and will make you happy. You need to bring back your childlike wonder and sandiness, what with the soul-sucking job market being upon us.

sandcastle contests

Anyway, people-watching. I keep forgetting that California does not have to mean tall skinny blond obnoxiously rich people, which my city especially tries to deny (you wouldn't know from walking around downtown that we have a near-majority Latino population). But sometimes when you go to stuff like this that the Beautiful People are too cool for, you can see another, less plastic side of California that is great. And that's always nice to remember.

I'm very ambivalent about this place. And by place, I mean state, as I would be quite glad to leave the land of the Rich and Formerly Connected with Hollywood. The only thing more annoying than film industry types are film industry types who have made enough money to retire young over here and crow about it (their money and success justifies their brilliance and their every opinion, of course.) As I'm thinking about the job market and the possibility of actually getting a job somewhere, I keep vacillating between elation (I could go somewhere with weather! and non-plastic people!) and fear (why can't I stick with the part of the country I know? What if it's way worse than here? What if there are bugs? (there are pretty much no bugs in California, by the way)). Likewise, the thought of getting a job in this state also fills me with waves of elation and fear (I might be near my parents! Oh, god, I'd have to live near Californians! And how would I live in the land of high prices?). Those last thoughts all count for both fear and excitement, depending on the moment.

So in anticipation for possibly moving away from this state I feel like I should be taking advantage of its advantages more. Problem is, I'm not really the surfing- kayaking -boogieboarding -hangliding -parachuting -movie-making type. I like to sit on my couch and be lazy. But at the least I can move my laziness to an outdoor location and hang out on the sand. Maybe I'll even go out and do some of these things one of these days.

Another self-portrait. Contrary to what some people think, this is about as far in the ocean as I go. There's (shudder) seaweed and crap in there!