Long Day at Long Beach

As is usually the case, it's late at night and I'm sitting in my collapsible, blue canvas chair that is the kind normally reserved for tailgating, especially since my chair (originally my sister's, but she didn't want something this tacky anymore) comes equipped with two, expandable cup-holders sewed into the armrests. It's quite the conversation piece [That's the actual chair, to the right]. I'm still waiting for my couch to arrive. Actually buying a couch would help with the waiting time, considerably. I haven't done that yet, but will soon.

I'm recapping my day. One that really wasn't that long. Coincidentally, the titles for these pieces are arbitrary and the product of whatever creativity I can muster in under 15 seconds that, perhaps, in some way relates to the main thrust of said piece. "Long Day at Long Beach" seemed to make sense. It seemed well-balanced. The word long appears twice. "Short Day at Long Beach" would have been more apropos. In fact, now that I'm looking at the words on my screen, letting it sink in, it seems balanced, funny, ironic, a real winner. Damn. It's too late, though. You're stuck, long day it is.

In fact, it wasn't a long or short day, but medium. The girl I'm dating wanted to go to the beach. She wanted to go Sunday. I had Fantasy Football drafts to attend to. She wanted to go Monday. I had nothing else to use as a shield. It was beach time.

Her desire to go to the beach stemmed from two things: she really likes the beach and it was Labor Day weekend. It's my opinion that whenever you have a federal holiday providing additional days off from work, it's your duty as an American citizen to take full advantage and cut loose. The plan was to go to Greenport, Long Island where my friends' family lives and take in the sea air, drink a bunch of beer, eat exceptionally fresh seafood, play some cards, tell stories, and revel in the three-day weekend. Plan A was destroyed because of a Fantasy Football draft at 10 a.m. Sunday morning that seemed harmless enough months ago when the date was set. A week ago, however, when I finally pulled my head out of the sand, it became apparent that this draft was going to sever my holiday weekend in half, eliminating any opportunity to travel to Greenport and still have time to enjoy myself.

Welcome to Plan B: Staycation.

Staycation. I had never heard the term before, then I saw it once in an online magazine and now I'm bombarded with people using the term. When did this word become ubiquitous? I demand to know. Apparently, it popped up in the New York Times last year, or so I was told. Now it's everywhere, like Pinkberry. A few months ago, I'd never heard of Pinkberry, and if I had, I'd have assumed that it was either a clothing store for girls age 9-14, a knock-off Hello Kitty competitor, or something to do with pink berries. Now I can't walk three blocks without walking past one. In addition, staycation has infiltrated common diction so thoroughly that now I, the guy who didn't get the memo, am using it incessantly. How could I not? It rhymes with vacation, but means the exact opposite. It's very clever.

My staycation involved the following: sleeping in, making pancakes and scrambed eggs for breakfast at noon, seeing the movie Traitor starring Don Cheadle (Haiku Review coming next), not one, but two Fantasy Football drafts (I'm such a dork, that I completely forgot about a fourth league I was in until the day before the draft, which was at 9 a.m. Sunday morning, who is up that early on a Sunday? Thanks guys), napping in Central Park, napping at the beach, napping at home, napping in my sister's guest bedroom, eating fried chicken in a Korean restaurant of all places (actually good), cooking Lentil Soup (I had lentils, you tell me what you would've done with them), eating hot dogs at my sister's, driving around the city looking at buildings with my dad, throwing frisbee at the beach, and, for the first time, under duress, sharing a medium cup of yogurt, fruit, and yogurt chips at Pinkberry with the girl I'm dating.

In other words, staycations are the work of the devil.

Here's where the beach came into play. Labor Day. The quasi-Summer death knell was ringing. No more white pants. Time to soak up the last remnants of vitamin D while we still could. She wanted the beach, she needed the beach, and I was powerless to resist. Let's Long Beach.

The train heading out at 2:15 p.m. was packed, which answers the question, how many people are as lazy as me and willing to arrive at a beach at 3 p.m.? A lot. Two girls sitting across from us were in deep conversation with a late 30s, married couple. One of the girls, probably my age, either made the train ride or ruined it depending on whether you enjoy listening to someone who's completely full of herself for 45 minutes straight. Some snippets:

"I'm in a movie. In a supporting role. The film is great and it's getting great buzz. The director is fantastic, he's experimental, you should see it."

"I'm also a musician. I do rock music. I'm putting out my second CD soon."
"Are you in a band?"
"No, that's not what I'm trying to achieve. A band wouldn't work."
"What type of music?"
"Well, rock, I mean I got in a fight with my agent and he was so mean to me. I wrote a song about that. You can see it on youtube. It'll be on my new album."

"I'm going to move to L.A. Now that I'm not acting anymore, I just want to focus on my music."

I wish I had a voice recorder. Everything she did was amazing, everything someone said was amazing, everyone she worked with was amazing. In her world, no one's average. What a place to live.

Finally, we arrived. The weather was perfect, which was strange knowing that at the same time down in the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Gustav was pounding the shore raising sea level by more than 10 feet. Still, we soaked in the sun. When it got hot, we walked into the chilly water. When we acclimated to the water, we splashed each other with water, chilling us again. When we stood around long enough, I grabbed my frisbee and we played. When she threw the frisbee and hit a girl full in the back, I said, "Sorry, she's not that good." But she was good, that throw was just awful. As was her next one, which almost decapitated an older couple causing the woman to storm off in fright and anger. In her defense, it was windy. When we tired of frisbee, we jumped back in the water, inched out towards deeper water, thick waves rolling over, smacking our skin with salty surges, sinking into our pores, saturating us. When we were wet enough, we laid out again, dried off, nodded off, listened to people talk in foreign languages behind us, waves cresting in front of us.

We left just before sunset. The day which started late, ended late. Maybe it was a long day.

Jared