Tomorrow is Monday.

Monday's A Working Day

Tomorrow isn't really Monday, but tomorrow is effectively Monday for me. I feel like a loser going to bed at 10:30 on a Friday night, but I'm tired, and I have work in the morning. I start my fo'realz work-week on Saturdays, and have Thursday and Friday off, so my schedule is a bit odd. But as I was driving to the mall today, I realized I've started into a habit that took me much longer to start last year.

I talk to myself.

I don't just talk, I chatter. I talk about what I should be doing, what the people around me are doing wrong, and what I'm currently doing. Often, I talk to myself in other languages. Namely Spanish and Chinese. I try not to combine the two, because I have a hard enough time ONLY speaking Spanish when I'm supposed to be speaking Spanish. Odd, but somehow fitting. I just have to take great care to not do it while people can hear. It's somewhat like nose-picking-- common, but completely unfitting for public.

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Beware of Jellies

I stopped to ponder, the other day, the incidence of what we like to call 'Zonies. 'Zonies are from Southwestern states, usually Arizona. They are one of the most interesting groups we have on the beach (besides the woman that gets naked behind Seaside Tower every Tuesday morning-- I salute you, o nudist one! You are a rebel with no apparent cause). They interest me because they come to the beach with such arrogance. But such misinformed arrogance. It's the arrogance of the kids who learned to swim in the 2-foot-deep kiddie pool at the YMCA and haven't ever seen the ocean before.... but hey, they owned that pool. Bitch please.

They are also, inexplicably, terrified of jellyfish.

Now, this makes no sense to me at all. I get questions about sharks daily-- this is to be expected. There are dolphins out in the water, and to the untrained eye, or even just to someone not paying much attention, those fins could be mistaken for sharks. And hell, who ISN'T terrified of sharks? It's bred into our culture to be scared of what's lurking in the water. Jaws was a cultural phenomenon in its time. Stingrays I can also understand. Most people have a vague idea of stingrays as "those animals that killed the Crocodile Hunter." The logic that follows is usually this: "shit, that dude hunted crocodiles, and every other crazy animal ever, and he was killed by a stingray. And the sign says to beware of stingrays. AM I GOING TO DIE?!?" Well, no. You aren't, unless you're rather allergic to bees; our stingrays are small. But stingray stings, I'm told, are not pleasant--in fact, they hurt like a motherfucker if they're a solid sting. But do 'Zonies worry about stingrays? No.

Fucking jellyfish.

"Do they sting? Does it hurt? Will I die? What kind are they? When do they leave? Where do they come from?" As if I'm personally running a motel for jellyfish out in the surf somewhere, and I'm responsible for the infestation.

I can't blame people for not knowing things. I don't blame people for not knowing things. But the arrogance astounds me. The entitlement is just shocking. There's a general feeling of frustration and anger at me as I inform these people No, There Is Nothing I Can Do About The Kelp, and Jellyfish Live In The Ocean And I Can't Change That. I can't fathom the attitude-- the "why are you so USELESS and STUPID, you HAVE to be able to do something about the natural wildlife" attitude, coming from a family of land-whales with their wet suits on backwards, body boards upside-down, and surfboard leashes around their wrists. Oh the IRONY. I choke on it.

Reflective post; thoughts on the last few days.

I am thinking about leaving my agency.

Next summer I will have two years of ocean lifeguarding under my belt. I'll have survived "rookie" status (in my first two summers, really), and moved on to a somewhat different limbo-status, in which I will no longer be a new guard, but I won't be anywhere close to an old guard. It's a vague, wavering respect for experience that easily disappears when compared to an older guard. If I try for another job next summer, in a different agency, I am pretty much guaranteed a spot with fairly high pay.

Today was the first time I considered leaving my agency. I spent the past two days at a class learning to drive the trucks and quads on the beach, as well as parking trailers and driving code 3 (lights and sirens). I realized how different my agency is from all the others.

In my first post, I said my agency is male-dominated. That is a slight mis-characterization. I am the one female full-time staff member this summer. One other female works three days a week. Two more are called in only if shifts can be covered by no one else. It's a testosterone-injected environment. Essentially, it's a fraternity. I realize that I am not the typical lifeguard. I am smart. Hell, I'm pretty damn smart. I'm driven academically. I love to read, I love mental challenges. I value intelligence, wittiness, and ability to carry on intelligent conversations. I'm also driven to excel in athletic arenas. If I weren't, I would not do the job I do. I think I'm a pretty interesting person to talk to-- I'm well-read, and able to talk about almost anything in some level of depth. I'm always interested in learning new things. I'm quiet-- but I always listen. But regardless of all of this, I cannot break into the social structure of the agency. Kaitlyn, Kelli, and I will always be outsiders in some way, and this realization has been particularly heavy on me for the past few days.

As I said, I attended an inter-agency class on vehicle operations for the past two days. I made friends there. People who were easy to talk to, friendly, without being standoffish for no apparent reason. People respected me and what I had done to get where I am, without judging me for my lack of Y chromosome. No one made me feel uncomfortable for being female; they treated me like just another person, rather than some anomaly to be studied and examined, and carefully kept out of the loop.

And I finally realized who my coworkers remind me of-- frat boys, looking for their next score. Let me cut to the chase-- I try not to envy their targets because they (the targets) have something I do not. That is absolutely not what this is about; I am not being a jealous female in this case. Said targets are tall, and thin, and beautiful. But my body allows me to do things those women can only dream of, just as theirs allows them to do things unknown to me, I'm sure. My body is imperfect, but I need to respect it for its abilities. It's difficult, however, to be reminded, day after day, of how imperfect you are in the eyes of all the men around you. It's not because they're men-- it's because they're people, they are my peers at this moment, and they make me feel small. I try to remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said about people not being able to make you feel inferior without your consent, and I try to keep a good sense of humor about everything. I feel like it's a personal dig sometimes, though-- you'll never be like her, you'll never be good enough. I could weigh ninety pounds and I wouldn't be good enough... too much muscle, too bulky. And it's really hard not to take that in and internalize it, and nurse it, and let it grow. Internalizing it is bad, and I know that of all things, this is what I absolutely MUST let roll off my back like water.

So I let them stare, I watch the water while they watch the girls through the binoculars. I don't complain, and I don't make a fuss. I am, perhaps, being a bad feminist. If I were stronger, I would protest. If I were stronger, I would speak up. And I hate that I am so distraught over this. It seems an insignificant issue. I am just emotionally drained. I'm drained from having to work three times as hard as my male counterparts just to have some recognition that I am alive and breathing. I'm tired of pushing and pushing and having male peers rewarded for my work, or being ignored regardless of how hard I work. It's draining and I am tired of it.

I don't know the right thing to do in this case. If I make a fuss, I will make things worse, much worse. If I make a fuss, I will permanently be on the shit list of the people around me. But I feel that not making a fuss, or at least talking to someone about it, is weak. If I don't, I am giving in to the pressures of the people around me. Maybe they're trying to make me leave. Maybe that's just me being paranoid. It doesn't matter, because I'm fucked either way. The system is set up to screw the whistle-blower. The question is whether I have the strength to take the brunt of that on my shoulders and carry on, or whether I want to deal with the passive misogyny so prevalent in my agency.

OH MY GOD JET SKI

This is why I became a lifeguard. THIS. BEHOLD:
















Jet skis. Oh man. Nothing better than riding on the back (on that sled-thing behind the operator). I spent a good two and a half hours on one today. As a result, I have no skin left on my knees or elbows. But goddamn, it was totally worth it. And I was having such a bad day this morning... I was really looking forward to moping all day, too. But it's hard to mope when you have a JET SKI DAY! YAY!

It's going to be really fuckin' hot today. You know how I know this? It was really fuckin' hot yesterday, and really fuckin' hot the day before.

Fuck.

Are you new here?

I consider myself a quiet person. I'm reserved around people I don't know or barely know, content, as the old adage says, to remain silent and be thought a fool (rather than to speak and remove all doubt). I'm shy, but I don't consider myself anti-social. I'm friendly if you talk to me first. If I know you, and think fondly of you, I love hugs and cuddles and most forms of affection. If not, stay the hell out of my personal space, thanks.

My tower is my personal space. I opened it, I'm closing it, and I'm sitting in it for eight hours. Me, no one else. All my stuff is spread around it, right where I like it. I have my chair in the spot I want it, I have the phone within reach. I have it organized. And I consider my tower like a desk in an office-- no one would expect another person to run amok in their cubicle, looking in drawers and reading files and all that. It's basic etiquette-- it just isn't done. When the person coming to break me out comes, they don't mess with the radio, they don't eat my food, they don't rifle through my stuff, and vice versa when I break someone out. It's just polite. The tower is part of my bubble. And I don't like people in my bubble.

So you, dear readers, can imagine my chagrin when a man approached my tower, climbed the stairs, offered me his hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Ned from Public Works. Are you new here?"

Am I new here? Me? You are in my tower! What are you doing in my tower! Get off my tower! I would be less offended if you had just grabbed my ass!

But he continued: "I don't think we've met."

"No, I don't think we have. I'm Sunburned Beachmonkey." We bloody well haven't met, you tower-infiltrator. I would remember some old guy getting all up in my shit. "I'm not new, this is my second summer here."

"That's nice. I'm surprised we haven't met before! Is Mike or Bill around?" Mike and Bill are well-known lifeguards that have been around for an eternity.

"I think Bill might be at headquarters today." Freaking out, freaking out. Weird old man too close for comfort, and he's on my TOWER. Oh God, just go away.

I don't know if Ned was actually from Public Works. I made smalltalk with him for a bit, him telling me about how he wanted to go back to work, but the doctor told him his muscles are still too atrophied to do anything. Then he left, with a stern, "you make sure none of these people get in trouble, now." Well that's what I was trying to do, Ned. You just make it difficult.

Stupid Questions and the Sixties

Tides Are Caused By What?!?
I get my fair share of idiotic questions. "Can jellyfish kill you?" No. No they cannot. "Are those SHARKS?!?!" Oh, you mean the DOLPHINS jumping around in the surf? "Am I too close to the bluff?" Do you need to ask? While staring at the tide board with the water temperature written on it: "what's the water temp today?" But I got the best one ever today (and it's not the first time, either-- this one just jogged my memory).

"What time is low tide on this beach in the morning?"

Well, darlin', you see, it changes every morning. What morning did you have in mind?

"REALLY? Well, how do you know?!?!"

We have these nifty little things called tide books. They tell us when the tide is.

"Why does it change?"

.....

"Why does the time of the tides change?"

.....

"Well?"

The moon.

"What?"

Jesus H. Christ! The moon! The moon makes the tides change.

Thankfully, the phone rang before I could start telling her off for being a complete dipshit. But sometimes I really want to. Just in case anyone is confused: the tide changes every day. There are four tides a day. At high tide, there is a lot of water on the beach. No, I can't do anything about it.


The Sixties

I've always held that I was born in the wrong decade. I just can't decide which decade I should have been born in. I'm a pretty big fan of electric blue eyeshadow. Maybe the eighties, which I missed by a few short years, were the decade I was meant to experience. But I'm not a big fan of the synthesizer, which was overused to a fault in eighties music. The fifties, with their bubblegum poppy sound, are fun and lighthearted and romanticized greatly in today's society, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not a housewife. Maybe the 20s, with the roarin' jazz scene, and the ambiguously-sexed flapper girls. I could get into that. Especially top hats, they're pretty badass. But it's not my calling.

Let me preface this story with this: I love showers. I am hugely concerned with the environment for the most part, but I indulge in 15-20 minute showers on a daily basis. Why? Well, I like to be clean, for one, and the beach injects sand into places I didn't know I had. Secondly, long, hot showers alleviate the chill that comes from sitting around in a wet swimsuit all day. On with it.

Guys, I love the sixties. I love the music, I love the feeling of the era, the hippie-dippy, peace-love-freedom-yeah-man stoner vibe. I hate the war with every fiber of my being, to the point where I'm not even sure which war I'm hating on-- Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? Who cares! Peace and love, man, peace and love. I have been greatly disappointed by the aging hippies in my life. They've turned from sharp-tongued, astute, acerbic critics of government to wet-noodle run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists. Boo. Am I allowed to love the sixties without being smelly or a conspiracy theorist? Can I shave, wear a bra, and shower daily and still emulate this wonderful decade? Can I be hopeful for the systemic foundations the country was built on, while hating the corruption of pure systems?

But the reason I'm having a fantastic day today has nothing to do with these aging hippies, or my shower conundrum.

Today, a surfer my age (20ish) walked by me, and without irony, flashed me a peace sign, and said: "Peace and love, friend."

Peace and love indeed.

Confession time!

So, everyone-- I have a confession.

Whenever you set foot on my beach, I judge you. Judge, judge, judge. But it's more than just judging-- I profile you. Yes, I am a profiler, and I am not above racial profiling either. Also, I have a number system. Let me explain.

Let's say one hundred people come to my beach on any given day. It's a lot higher than that, but let's use it as an example. Twenty-five of those people never enter the water. Of the seventy-five people left, about half are children and teenagers, and then the second half is adults and a small amount of Old People. About ten of these people are proficient swimmers.

So based on experience, I devised a checklist. My profiling checklist goes like this:

1. The person is getting in the water. Shit. +1 point.

2. The person is very old or very young. Mother Nature will find it hilarious to make the rip flash wherever this person sets foot in the water. +2 points.

3. This person is overweight without appearing to be in any kind of decent shape. +2 points.

4. This person is so obese that (s)he causes tidal waves when (s)he jumps in the water. +4 points.

5. (S)he is carrying a body board that may as well be made of wet bread, and floats about that well. +2 points.

6. His/her wetsuit is on backwards (it zips up the back, people!). +3 points.

7. (S)he uses the words "dagnabbit," "ain't," "y'all," and "dubya" in a non-ironic manner. +2 points.

8. There is a caravan of 1.8 million children following the matriarch about. +2 points.

9. Farmer's tan. +4 points.

10. Enters the water wearing a t-shirt (usually a white t-shirt for some reason. People, t-shirts don't protect your skin, they just make you drown more easily!). +3 points.

11. Attempts to attach body board leash to ankle. Proceeds to trip over self all the way to the water and faceplant on the water's edge. +4 points, and +1 bonus point for idiocy.

12. Is a marine or other flavor of "macho" man. This type HATES to accept help, especially from a girl. Suits me fine, I don't have to bust my ass to save an idiot. Also, to the marines/manly men out there: you aren't as great of a swimmer as you think you are. +4 points.

13. Since I spent so much time making fun of the Midwesterners, here's one for you: any non-English speaker. They usually cannot swim, (Mexicans and Indians I've noticed are particularly bad... or maybe they just come to my beach in droves) and it's impossible to communicate. The men also usually are the aforementioned "manly" men, and like to refuse help. +3 points.

14. Asks about an "undertow" (these don't exist in the ocean, only in rivers), talks about a "rip tide," (rip tides occur miles out to sea, rip currents appear on the shore), or asks if the dolphins are sharks (mammalian fins and shark fins look exactly nothing alike). +2 points.

15. Is an adolescent male (aged 12-23) trying to impress a female. Big trouble. +4 points.

16. Makes any kind of Baywatch joke. Hey guys, you realize that not only are you entirely unattractive, but you're making yourself seem old? Pam Anderson hasn't been hot in YEARS. In fact, her face looks like a leather sofa these days. +5 points.

The higher the score, the more likely the person in question will be a rescue. It helps me keep an eye on troublemakers and idiots.

Day one: the battle of the bluffs begins.

Bloody fucking people and their complete fucking inability to read signs.

Yes, it's the first day and I am reduced to the f-word.

There is ONE set of stairs to my beach. One. I put that huge orange sign that you looked at perplexedly there because to get to the beach, you have to WALK AROUND THE BLOODY SIGN. The sign, incidentally, says "stay clear: cliffs unstable" with a picture of some big fucking rocks falling on a person's head. Just for the more visual learners, you know.

Does that mean that YOU, oh entitled one, deserve to sit beneath the cliffs? No, that means I have to leave my tower to run over to you and tell you to please move, because the bluffs are unstable. Now, I don't really care about the running back and forth and up and down and whatnot. That's my job, and I get payed pretty damn good money to do it. But what I DO care about is the fact that I am one person watching a half-mile of beach. And while YOU demand an explanation of why you cannot sit under the unstable bluffs (they will fall. on. your. head. and. you. will. die) no one is watching the rest of my water.

I know people who work in retail must deal with this too-- the idiot who tries to use the out of order vending machine (with the coin slot they ripped the tape off of to stick their money in), or the moron who slips and falls right in front of a "Caution-- wet floor" sign. But this is a little different-- someone could DIE while I'm reiterating what these people should have been intelligent enough to deduce in the first place. I always start the day with such enthusiasm: "if I put the sign HERE, there's no WAY anyone can miss it!" Alas, it works for about fifty percent of the general beach populace.

Becoming.

I seem an unlikely candidate for lifeguarding. Short of peroxide out of a box, I am not anything close to what a normal person would consider blond. My sentences are not peppered with the words "dude," "gnarly," (I am unsure exactly how to spell this word, since I'm pretty sure most of my coworkers who use it are illiterate and it is written down infrequently), "sick," or "ill." Unless, of course, I am sick. The best part about all this is that ninety-five percent of what is said in lifeguard towers can be re-created with any combination of these four words. It's ill, dude.

I am perpetuating myths here, I think. My coworkers are sweet, if not a bit vapid, and like it or not, I am one of them. Sometimes I wonder how exactly I ended up where I am, and there's not really an easy answer. I joined junior lifeguards when I was twelve and someone told me that it was difficult to become a lifeguard. So I decided "screw you, I'm becoming a lifeguard." And then I did. I guess to a certain extent there was more to it than that. Being an overachiever meant that I spent most of my summer either in summer school so I could take AP classes and still graduate on time, or at the beach. It meant that I waded through two years of some of the worst government-sanctioned sexism I've ever experienced as an intern, helping run the junior lifeguard program. Ah, military and para-military organizations-- the last stronghold of sexism in government. But regardless-- these things aren't funny. They aren't even inspiring, so there's no need to harp on them. I spent four weeks-- eighty hours, ten hour days on the weekends-- being so cold I wanted to die. I cried on every lunch break. I've never been so stressed in my life. It was boot camp for lifeguards. It was miserable, and if I never have to go through it again it'll be too soon. Do I regret it? Not a bit. Is it difficult? For some, maybe not. But I can tell you this: in my academy, forty people started. Twenty were thrown out the first day for not making the first swim time cut. By the time the academy was over, we went from a class of forty to a class of fifteen.

So getting into that tower on the first day? That, my friends, is the most amazing feeling ever. It dims, but it never leaves. It's what makes it okay when a pasty land-whale of a Midwesterner trots out in a microkini and flirts with your coworker (who is trying very hard not to laugh). Ladies, just a tip-- they see the best of the best every day. If you aren't the best of the best, you're going to be laughed at. It's that simple. We have binoculars, and if they're interested, you will know. It's that feeling that stops you from laughing when fifteen minutes later, said land-whale lumbers out of the water as fast as her tree-trunks can carry her screeching at the top of her lungs about jellyfish. Then she decides she doesn't dare to brave the dangerous shallows any longer-- so she lays out on the beach (usually removing her already disturbingly tiny top), causing locals to run about in a panic, covering her with wet towels and trying to return her to the sea, thinking a whale has beached itself on the sand. And all the while-- you try not to laugh, while relishing your fantastic vantage point. Because you're a lifeguard-- and you're badass. Hell yes.

Blog virginity, and the epic tale of the shittin' man

Short of a terribly whiny stint with a livejournal in high school (I am very ashamed) this is my first trip into blogland. Because I work with the public on a daily basis, I have been exposed to a variety of silly, if not downright bizarre behaviors by the general population. I can't imagine this blog is going to get any more traffic than the people I know who have the url, but just in case, I'll cover my ass. What you need to know about me:

1. I work for a small, predominately male lifeguard agency somewhere along the coast of California.
2. If you know me and want to respond, please don't use my name-- for my sake, my coworker's sake, and the sake of the city I work for.
3. All the names here are pseudonyms.
4. This is all 100% truth; everything here has happened. And after reading some of these stories, you will understand the need for privacy.

That's all the rules for now. The season starts officially in a week; until then, I will regale you all with tales of last summer's shenanigans. And now, for....

The Epic Tale of the Shittin' Man

The bathroom in the main tower, is, to put it lightly, sketchy. It has two doors, neither of which lock securely. So for me, my paranoia of being walked in on in the bathroom, coupled with the random males that roam the lifeguard station aimlessly-- this bathroom is a thing of nightmares. I prefer to take my chances with the possibly HIV-encrusted thrones in the public bathrooms rather than play roulette with the bathroom in the station.

I was on my break (I use the word lightly, for reasons that will be expounded upon later), and I needed to pee. Rather than holding it all day, I decided to brave the public restrooms in the park. Most people understand that the beach and the park have a tendency to attract crazies-- and a park by the beach? Well, it's a crazies-mecca.

As I quietly relished the shade and relative peace of the bathroom stall, I heard stomping.

Clunk. Stomp. CLUNK. STOMP.

CRASH.

The stall next to mine in the woefully unisex bathroom was torn open with a battle cry: "IT'S SHITTIN' TIME!"

Never have I heard a man so intent on doing his business. Before I could be party to the surely audible er... shitting, for lack of better word, that was about to occur, I decided to leave the poor man in peace.