I fell in love with her, my little Surfer Girl

I lived a very privileged life growing up...I went to a private school, had a couple of cars passed on to me by my parents (including a Jag that I trashed only a few weeks after receiving my license...that's kind of a fun story to tell, I might post about it some time), and I didn't have to work through high school. I was free to hang out on weekends and surf and after school was also spent at the beach or doing homework and just hanging out. It was a very rude awakening then for little princess me when the summer I graduated high school my Dad told me it was time to find myself a job. I figured I would just continue to hang out, collect allowance, and attend college for 12 or whatever hours a week. I bitched and cried and didn't want to get one. The truth is, I hate change. I was overwhelmed at the thought of starting college and getting a job for the first time all at once. So I searched and searched and got an interview at Target and got the job, but then decided I didn't want to work there at all. I spread my search out further and decided since I was planning on moving to Huntington Beach, I might as well look for a job there. I ended up getting called in for interviews at both the Jack's Newport location and the Jack's Huntington location. I was skinnier then and thought I looked cute in a surf brand tank, some jeans, and some Reef sandals, but when I was offered the job at the Huntington location the manager was like "We wear mostly t-shirts and jeans here, nothing too revealing" so I took it to mean I wasn't allowed to wear my tank top anymore. It blew my mind to then see what the girls from the girls' store would get away with wearing and I laughed later when my friend Crystal told me she had basically been told the only thing that we weren't allowed to show up in was just our bathing suits.

Anyway, so I started work the day before I started my first day of college and I was nervous. I didn't know the protocals. I didn't know if I had to ask permission to use the bathroom quickly or anything and I wanted to do a good job (because while I am lazy off the job, I like to do a really good job when I am working). The first month and a half were pretty boring; I either guarded the dressing rooms to make sure people weren't stealing stuff/hooking up in them or worked one of the sections of the store folding shirts and helping customers find stuff. I was stoked when I got asked to work on the registers and that's when I started loving the job. The girls I worked with: Jen, Crystal, and K-10 were so much fun and it was so cute to see who in the store had a crush on which girl (one of the couples that developed then is still together now, 5 years later!). There was also one boy, Hung, who worked the registers and he was in with all the owners and friends with all their sons/nephews. Once I started working the registers, I also got to know the boys who sold the boards and wetsuits better. One by one my girls started leaving to start school somewhere else or to get married or whatever. Hung went to work in the main office and develop the Jack's website ( http://www.jackssurfboards.com/) and I was left to take over as the head cashier. At this point, I got to know all the owners really well and stopped being afraid of them. I still miss getting harassed by Bob, Ron, Little Mike, Sean, and Jamal (all co-owners) and Moe (the security guard) at least once a shift. I also got to start ordering some of the merchandise for the front counters, along with Bob's permission.

A year had passed and I thought I'd leave Jack's and do surf lessons instead as the pay was better and it meant never having to work until 10:00pm (we were open from 8am-10pm, every day of the year except Christmas). I worked my last day and then went away to chaperone a surf trip to Fiji with my old surf team. Over there I realized I wanted to come back and work at Jack's so I came back with my tail between my legs and asked for my job back. I think I got punished and put back on the floor for a little bit, but then the big yearly comp, the U.S. Open of Surfing, came to town and they needed all hands on deck and I got thrown back on a register.

Time passed and I was kindof goofing off at school and doing the bare minimum. I was still passing and still getting good grades, but I was doing school around work rather than working around school. It got to be that I had worked at Jack's for about a year and a half, only half the people or less that I had originally started with were still there and those were mostly managers or guys who had been working the surfboard section for a few years.

I remember one day these two giggly girls came strolling in to the store with their arms linked together. One had wavy, red hair and the other had long, super straight, dark brown hair. I rolled my eyes and was like "who hired the high school chicks again?" I think I even asked my friend Heidi about them...like who they were, what their deal was and all that. Turns out, they'd soon become my best friends at the shop. On my 20th birthday I trained Bri on the registers and really liked her personality. From there I looked forward to seeing her on shift and hanging out with her and then once she had warmed up to me, her friend Katie did, as well.

A few months later, Nae was back from her first year away at college and I had probably the best summer of my life. Nae came to work at the shop and we had so much fun working together along with Heidi, Bri, and Katie. The time seemed to fly by and we were the cool kids at work so we got away with plenty. We were friends with the managers, like Cheyne, Kenny, and Peter, as well as with nephew's/sons of the owners like Hemzeh and Akram and they'd all hang out near the counter and joke and gossip with us all day, too. At night, I'd head to Bun's apartment and drink a lot and I found out as I stumbled around her pool area one night that Bri and Katie lived just about 5 doors down from her in the same apartment building! Other nights we would pick up Heidi and her and Nae and I would go to parties at Kenny and Geoff's place to hang with everyone from work. I was single at this point and it was just fun to hang out with all my friends and not worry about my stupid exboyfriend. I really can't explain it now or make it seem as fun as it was, I guess, in this post, but it was a great time in my life.

Halfway through the summer the owners me to help out and help manage the girls' store for some shifts. There was a newly hired manager in the girls' store that didn't fit in to the Jack's mode of things, in my opinion. Not looks wise because I'm not the stereotypical blonde surfer girl that you'd think would be working at a surf shop either, but just she'd make the girls do dumb stuff like write about their shift after it was done, like "I liked this about today's shift....I didn't like this about today's shift..." and I thought it was dumb, corny, and unnecessary. So being immature and 20, I wrote her a note saying I thought these end of shift notes were dumb and wasting our girls' time, I mean they were working 8 hours for minimum wage and then they were supposed to write a mini diary entry each day when they were done? Lame! So I think I was promptly sent back to my head cashier position at the main store. I don't think I really got in trouble, the summer season was just over so they were slowing down at their store and didn't need my help. Not two weeks later this newly hire manager got fired for taking in dodgey checks from her friends for a significant amount of merchandise...dumbass!

That was another thing that blew my mind: how many people got fired for stealing or doing dumb stuff like that. I think retail jobs are like that in general. I never took anything, not even a bar of wax or stickers or anything without permission. I got good discounts on all the things I wanted so stealing just never seemed worth it to me, but to lots of people the appeal of all that cool stuff sitting around was too tempting.

Anyway, so summer ended and Nae had gone back to school and by this time I had been accepted to the University out here so I knew my time at Jack's was coming to an end. Those last four months were still a lot of fun. I looked forward to coming in and seeing all my friends and sad that it was going to end. Katie, Bri, and I started calling our crew the "Jack's Elite Crew" and on my last shift with them I brought in cookies and shirts that I had made for them with their names and Jack's Elite Crew on them. They also threw me a party at their place with everyone from the shop pretty much coming. I got sloppy drunk, I think I asked Cheyne to make out a few times, and then drove him and Hung home with my friend Patty and as we were walking to our car I decided I would do a sneak run and jump on to Hung's back and instead jumped on him and knocked him over...I was so embarassed when I remembered the next day and again when I saw him a few days later. But in general I thought it was so cool that the girls had thrown me a party and everyone had turned out (whether it was for me or just for a party didn't matter, they were there). Leaving was really sad, but I thought I'd be back that summer to start working again and told everyone as much. I ended up not coming back to the U.S. until that Thanksgiving when I went back to Jack's and asked if I could work the season for them. The boys were all still there, but by that time Bri and Katie had found other jobs and Heidi had had a baby!

I still look back on my time at Jack's as one of the best times in general in my life. I was part of the family and it was a big, crazy, fun family to be a part of. I'm still friends with Bri and Katie and try and see them whenever I go home. Bri and I talk a lot over email and she had even asked me to be in her wedding (but I couldn't because I didn't have enough money to go home this past May)! I haven't talked to Heidi since right after she had her baby, but I'd love to get in contact with her again and I know Katie still talks to her so maybe there is some hope there. Just recently Cheyne added me on Facebook and through him I found Hung, and my other friend Peter just popped up in my "People You May Know" feature. I don't talk to any of them on there, but it's nice to just have that link to them still and know that I could talk to them if I wanted to. I'd also love to pop in and see the owners at some point because they were all really good guys and I miss them and their advice.

Like I said, this post doesn't do it justice because I don't have any really crazy stories to tell (well, except for this time this guy K-Rod "borrowed" my phone and took it in to the bathroom and took 5 pictures of himself posing in his underwear on my phone for me, or the time Nick and Aaron Carter came to the store, or the time I rang up one of the lesser known Jackass guys, or the time when we made fun of someone's girlfriend for wearing Barbie pink blush really heavily, or every week when the handicapped group would come in and their care taker would hit on one of the other cashier's and tell her how he'd like her to check out his studio and how he'd like to paint her) but overall it was just the whole experience of working there that was great and I will always look back on that time very, very fondly.

Setting the Scene

It's 1am, Saturday morning and I can't get to sleep...Boyfriend is up in Queensland now for his cousin's wedding and I was too poor to go. Tomorrow I'm taking Boyfriend's Mom out to dinner and a movie for Mother's Day since she didn't go to the wedding either. Happy Friday to everyone back home!

I thought that before I could tell the Costa Rica story I'd better introduce some of the characters from it.

Mr. G: Our faithful surf coach...always the first in the water, no matter what the conditions. At 6 am on a freezing and windy Saturday with little to no swell this guy would try and get us pumped on the surf conditions...a bunch of too cool 16 and 17 year olds are generally "blah" about the world to begin with and throw in someone with a passion for something and there is going to be some snickering/not appreciating of the stoked attitude of that person. He is an amazing surfer and all around good guy. He moved up to Santa Cruz right around the time Nae did, as he had also gone to school there previously, and he reconnected with an old friend and they fell in love and she is now his wife and she is gorgeous and an awesome person and they've got a cute little toddler now (who ran around our house with no pants on at Christmas and who fell in love with my Dad for letting him eat cupcakes before dinner and who was freaked out by Madagascar cause he doesn't have a tv out his house to watch...and who can already speak and understand both German and English and point out Venus in the sky....can you tell that I love this kid?!) and another baby on the way. He's grown on me over the years...I think he mellowed out a bit and I grew to appreciate his positive outlook way more and now we are friends rather than teacher/student and I am very glad that we have kept in contact with him and just wished I would've appreciated that stoked attitude back in the day, too.

Me and Nae: The only two girls on the surf team. I didn't compete, though Nae did...I hate competition plus there's not a girl's bodyboarding division so I just free surfed. Not only were we the only girls on the team, we were some of the youngest people on the team and when we first joined I couldn't drive so we became dependent on various people to give us rides to and from the beach. We weren't there for the boys at all; we both genuinely enjoyed surfing and getting to go on trips for cheap, but it was an awesome perk as I mentioned in another post to be surrounded by all the cutest boys from school. Even though I wasn't a fantastic bodyboarder and Nae wasn't as good of a surfer then as she is now, it gave us some credit with people at school...the boys, although maybe they didn't like us for the most part as friends or otherwise I think appreciated the fact that we were out there trying and were there to surf and not to flirt with them.

John Wayne's Grandson: A really nice kid and a really good bodyboarder. He wasn't "cool" and he was the youngest person on the team so he got picked on a bit by the older boys, but handled it well.

The Artist: I didn't know him very well, he seemed nice enough and he seemed pretty quiet. I think basically he was just a big hippie. He had a painting of a duck on his surfboard that he called quacklepuss...this duck would eventually become our team mascot and the name of our surf team....Team Quacklepuss!

The Mass Murderer: I can't even remember this guy's real name or if he was a good surfer or not. I don't remember him really being on the team or doing much with us, other than being on the trip. He was cute in a whitetrash sort of way. I mention him just because he comes up in the C.R. story at some point.

Bren: Good bodyboarder, hottest guy at school in my opinion. I don't remember seeing him at all in my freshmen/his sophmore year but I spotted him and the "custom x" writing on his bag probably in the first week of my sophmore/his junior year. He was a nice guy, again, another quiet one. He liked to do some stuff by himself and I don't think he tried that hard to be cool...I think it was him, though it might have been the artist, that was given the nickname "the Lone Wolf" on the trip, no idea what happened to him

Bran: he was a surfer, Nae was in love with him, he was really short, he played football for awhile too before he gave up cause I just don't think he was motivated about life in general. He is a key player to some of the drama in the C.R. story so remember him. Also, the one thing I remember about him is that he had a really pretty and popular girlfriend his senior year and she asked him to prom or some dance or something wearing a whipped cream "bikini" ala Varsity Blues! I'm sure it was hot for him, but I'd be straight up embarassed if I was that chick, knowing that the whole school knew you liked to get naked and cover yourself in food for your boyfriend. I sometimes wonder if they are still together...I wonder how many times he's cheated on her if they are...he just seems like the type looking back, although at the time he seemed nice enough

Overindulged Asshole: was my carpool for awhile, but wasn't too great of a carpool. I remember one afternoon it was raining but we decided to hit up the beach after school anyway. It was a bust and nothing was surfable so we decided not to paddle out. Well Asshole has me, Nae, Bren, and Bran with him and Bran lives right near him and Bren, Nae and I all lived fairly near each other and not that far out of his way...we were out of luck anyway. Asshole dropped us at some random Carl's Jr and said "good luck getting home" basically. I don't think we had a cell phone and my mom was out of town and dad was still working nights and sleeping during the day at this point so we couldn't get a hold of anyone. Finally, Dad came and got us (but not before having dinner at Carl's Jr, cause really how we he miss an opportunity for that, haha). This guy was kinda cute, I had a crush on him for about .5 seconds, but then would be grossed out hearing him talk about all these (younger) girls he dated and how all he wanted to do was put it in their butts. Keep him in mind, too, you know with a name like Overindulged Asshole he's going to bring the dramz...

The Nice Guy: best smile ever, seriously just a nice, fun guy, was the only one who really wanted to be friends, although one day we did get in a fight because I had hit a dog right outside of school before starting the day and he came up and teased me about it at lunch and made me cry, but he apologized. Anyway, yeah, a great guy I'd say. He works for/helped start a surf company that is getting big in Orange County and apparently sells at a shop in Costa Rica now, too (http://www.tavik.com/)

Dick: not named because he was one, that was just what he was called...before the Team Quacklepuss name got finalized, we were nearly going to be called "Dick and his boys", before Mr. G said it wouldn't be cool to Nae and I because we weren't boys, we didn't mind we thought it was funny, he was a nice kid, too, younger-in Nae's class, and he was fun to be around, as well

K.C.: I had met in Spanish class the year before and became fast friends with. He was nice and fun and made Spanish class fly by. He's still seems to be a really nice guy and goes on mission trips to build houses (and surf) and stuff. My mom had him in her car in C.R. and really liked him, too. He was nice to everyone and the type of kid who could get on with grown ups.

D.Mini: Also in my class and good friends with the guy Bun liked at the time. He was a super stoner and always getting in to trouble at home. His family situation seemed a bit weird and he came and lived with us for a few days (maybe it was only 1, I can't remember now) one summer because things were going on at home. He longboarded and was just a random, fun guy.

Photo Larry: Professional Photographer, looks like the main guy from the movie Powder, but is so cool and could totally kick your ass if he wanted to, funny guy, good guy, takes great photos and has/had an awesome girlfriend that came along on the trip, too, and kept Mom company

Doug: Friend of Mr. G, chaperone on the trip, friend of Bun's older brother I think, didn't see him again after C.R. but would've liked to as he was pretty cool

The trip story might have to wait til Monday, we'll see what happens with the rest of my weekend, but now that you know the characters, it'll be easier to write the story.

Happy Mother's Day Mom...I know you'll eventually read this one :) I miss you and love you heaps!

This is Why You're Fat

Is an awesome website (http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/). I’m a fat kid but those pictures and the levels of gluttony on that site even make me feel a little queasy. Speaking of all things fat, here in Australia you can get a “mayonnaise swirl” on your pizza! Barf! You used to be able to get a fried egg on your pizza here, too, but I don’t know if they still have that. One place also had a “surf and turf” pizza with steak and shrimp on it. I can see going to a fancy pizza place for dinner and splurging on something like that, but this is just a regular chain pizza place that delivers and the pizza costs like $10. It doesn’t sound appetizing at all. Last weekend S and I tried this local wood fire place and the only chicken pizza they had had sesame seeds and honey on it; it was definitely different. I think I’ll stick with my pizza margarita.

I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. I was healthy and a decent weight in high school but since I graduated I’ve gained a bunch of weight. I think I just got lazy: I went from getting up at 5am 3 times a week to surf, plus surfing most afternoons, to eating all the time with the loser exbf and working fulltime, plus being a fulltime college student. If I lived back in Orange County and had a surfing buddy, like I had in Nae in high school, I would love to get back in to bodyboarding. Here I am deathly afraid of getting eaten by a shark. We’ve just had 3 attacks in 3 weeks in my state, so I don’t feel like I’m being irrational. I was able to lose a bunch of weight and got to go on the trip to Hawaii, but I’m embarrassed to say, I put it all right back on after the trip. Last year was a pretty stressful year trying to finish up and I just didn’t focus on my health at all. While I was back home, Dad bought me some Hydroxycut and it seemed to really work for the time I was taking it before S came to town. I am back to taking it now and it totally kills my appetite. This time it hasn’t killed my cravings though, I am trying to be good and for the most part am fighting them off on my own. I’m already down a few pounds this week, and some might be water weight, though I don’t know cause I have to drink between 8-10 glasses of water a day. S is also feeling chubby, he’s not, he’s normal, he’s just not toned, but this is good cause he wants to be more active. I live close to a lake so last weekend we did an hour and a half walk near the lake on one day and the other day we mowed my football field/jungle of a lawn and that took us about 2.5 hours. He is also going to get me a beach cruiser bike sometime soon so we can ride around the lake and down to the beach and stuff. Being outdoors doing fun stuff like that is my preferred method of working out, though it’d be nice to have a treadmill in my living room to just walk on while I watch TV. I’m here sitting around anyway, might as well make it healthy and I wouldn’t have to go like hardcore, just walking while I watch and burning some extra calories. S’s Dad has one that he’s not using anymore, but S makes a good point, as soon as we brought it over and had it, his Dad would get the urge to use it again. No one ever really grows out of being a toddler….MY Toy! Haha, oh well.

It Begins

In high school I was a pretty avid bodyboarder. Now, I’m not saying I was a good bodyboarder but I enjoyed it and went whenever I could and enjoyed the perks of being on my high school’s surf team (hanging out with the coolest boys in school, getting to travel for cheap, etc). I was acquaintances with lots of people at school and had a core group of friends, but I spent lots of time at home, too. My high school days were like the golden days of AOL, being online was still new and exciting to a degree. I was still amused by chat rooms (which, sidenote-do chat rooms still exist?) and I liked looking for member profiles of boys who were my age and also bodyboarded to chat to. One night as I was on looking at profiles, one popped up from a guy who was about a year older than me, who bodyboarded and lived in Australia. Nothing seemed more exotic at the time. So I IM’ed him. It was a friendly chat about surfing, wave conditions, and what life was like in Australia. Little did I know that that chat would set me on the course to my life that landed me in Australia today. S and I started talking a lot. We had so much in common and we didn’t ever run out of things to say. We talked for months online and then I got a boyfriend, but we still continued to talk, I’m sure even about the boyfriend, because while we might have liked each other online, S and I were still living real lives, as well. Over that year S sent me a few letters and we started talking a lot again when my boyfriend and I broke up. He even sent me this awesome letter that I still have and all these burned CDs of Australian bands he thought I’d like (though I didn’t listen to them because they had awful names…..Grinspoon anyone? Haha) before I went on a safari to Kenya. I even brought his letter with me to Africa and read it at night when I was bored. I also sent him postcards and picked him up a bracelet and an arrow from real Masai warriors on the trip. I had just lost a very good childhood friend to suicide and I was pretty mixed up at the time but S was so nice and seemed so perfect. I remember writing in my journal that I wished he and I lived closer so we could meet and see if we got along as well in person. After that, I got back together with my loser exboyfriend and S was cool enough to play along when he’d call as someone I met through one of the boy’s on the surf team, rather than a random internet friend so my loser exbf wouldn’t get mad. Childish games right, but whatever, I was 18. S and I lost contact for about a year there, but I still thought of him at times. Loser exbf and I fought all the time and eventually broke up (well like 4 times, back and forth, I was messed up at the time and thought I was in love for the first time, ok?) and although I had never wanted to go away to college or leave, what I thought was, my perfect life in Orange County, I decided I needed to move away for a change of pace. I was originally planning on doing a study abroad thing in London so I could experience a real winter and stuff, but then I remembered that I kindof knew someone in Australia and maybe he could help find a school to go to, plus the weather would be more what I was used to, plus our dollar was worth more down there, and plus it was freaking Australia. I searched through my room looking for S’s phone number or email address. I called his house and his Dad picked up and it was pretty awkward asking if S was home, he wasn’t. He spent most of his week at his friend’s place since it was closer to the university. So I left a message and a phone number and wasn’t sure if I’d hear back from S/the message would make it to him. I remember going in to see my Mom that night, as she always read in bed before going to sleep while my Dad watched TV, and telling her that I had contacted someone I knew from online about schools in Australia. She was excited, my parents are awesome and supported my decision to study abroad. I think it was the next night that S contacted me and we got the ball rolling….
More to come tomorrow!