MY FUCKIN’ EAR, FRI 27APRIL2012 MOR

Location: HB

Crew: Solo

Time: 0630-0830

Conditions: 3-4 FT, choppy, jumbly, morning-sickness.

     I have a hell of a weekend coming up. I have to take my cousin Chelsea, who’s doing her first year of college in CA from Maui, clothes shopping for her sorority formal. After that, we have to pile into my sister’s Honda Element and go to Vegas to help my mom move back to L.A. To make matters worse, I’ll be missing out on the swell this weekend, so this is my only chance to get wet.

     I don’t even get four hours of sleep. Blame it on my current, single lifestyle that allows my every wakening moment to be beckoned by my PS3. Still, it’s 0530, and I’m up, getting my gear together. 

     I reach HB in good time. Again, it’s deceiving here. I see some guys looking at the water then walking back to their cars. I have to pick up Chelsea by 0900, and I didn’t come all the way out here to not paddle out, so I suit up. A familiar HB acquaintance, Adam, is changing as well. I reintroduce myself as Randy’s brother and ask him where Jim is. He says hi and that Jim is hard to track down. 

     So how do I know that it’s bad? Save for the couple guys out by the river jetties, HB is empty surfwise. It’s such a shame. The wind isn’t even bad. It’s sunny, but the water is just fucking weird. There are huge clumps of foam all over the inside and where the sand meets the water. The peaks are breaking fast, and the shoulders taper down so quick that there aren’t any faces to work with. The SS tells me that the conditions might improve with the tide going down. It doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m committed and invested. 

     The water smells stale like the water that pools in a broken dishwasher. I’m careful not to take a sip; I’m not in the mood for an HB Martini, especially to start the day. 

     I sit where I believe it’s breaking and wait . . . and wait some more. I see Adam making his way over the sand. Five body boarding groms show up just south of me. I catch a couple waves that fizzle and closeout—nowhere to go. I accept the circumstances I’m in; I’ve been bamboozled. Still, I curse the foam, the stench, the lack of shape. It’s such a contrast from my last session here with Francis. 

     Another wave approaches. I’m careful not to sit too deep and not too far on the outside. The peak stands up fast and curls over, but I’m further on the shoulder where it’s slower. As I’m dropping, I’m surprised to see a little shoulder to work with. I’m pumping and accidentally pump a little too high, but then my board swivels back down in such a smooth, spilling fashion, and then I’m pointed back down the line without losing speed. I’ve never felt this before. I think I pulled off an “imitation floater.” The shoulder’s tapering down to about two feet, but I still outstretch my arms and manage a little arc to end the ride. I fall at the end of the turn, but it’s still a exclamation for a fun, unexpected wave.

     I resurface stoked. I love the foam, I love the stench, I wouldn’t mind to drink just a little bit of the water if it just so happened to splash in my mouth. It’s a jewel of a ride given that this is HB slop. 

     The second decent wave I get is a right. It’s a little fast, but I force a turn off the lip before it crashes down. 

     The tide is lowering, but it’s not helping at all. I had hoped that it would, but . . . that’s just the SS. I catch a wave right at the peak, and it closes out so fast that the lip turns to foam before it crashes. I try to ride it out, which I can usually pull off, but the tide’s so low that all the water sucks out from the bottom. My left ear smacks the water so fast that I barely remember falling. I’m shaken around a bit underneath, and when I resurface the back of my throat feels parched and dry. I grimace as I grab my board and paddle out past the break. My ear throbs. It feels like someone cupped both of their hands and slammed them against both earholes. I can’t stop spitting. The back of my mouth is a mucous factory. The pain subsides after fifteen minutes.

     I walk back to the car, not triumphant but still glad that I paddled out. I change and head out to Fullerton where I pick up Chelsea. From there I take her to the best Chinese food in Torrance, and we mall hop to find a Windsor so she can buy a dress. 

     “Matt,” she says, “Does this color look good on me?” She smiles. Despite her turning nineteen in a couple months, she’ll always be that little toddler running around my Grandpa’s old house on Malialani Place. 

     “Yeah, yeah. Sure.” I look back down to my phone and play with the apps. I’m horrible at this sort of thing. 

     We head back to the house where my sister picks us up, and then . . . the madness begins. MOVING SUCKS.