Today I, Tara, went skateboarding in Southern California. I first met my friend Kristi in San Clemente at Cafe del Sol, which is like if John Hughes had to create a set for popular reality show “Southern California surfer taqueria.” The food is okay and half the people who work there are total dicks, but it makes a good place to meet and cram some fart fuel in the ass hole. Every Friday we eat at this dumb joint and then drive down to Oceanside to skate. Oceanside is fun to skate in many ways. Nothing is super challenging, but it’s varied and somewhat vast, and I sure can grind the schlitz out of some pool coping there, frontal and backways.

There is a moment every Friday, generally around 3:30, at which the park begins to deeply blow. A certain kind of 13-15-year-old kid gets there and skates like he’s wearing rollerblades while riding a scooter with a “Kick Me” sign taped to his butt and a bunch of Mag Lites strung together with rubber bands for limbs. They are the floppiest, dorkiest, most physically and mentally fractious shitworms in the world, and skating anywhere near them feels like trying to snuggle with a cocaine-fueled Whack-a-Mole champion. I do not like it. The flying boards, the constant yelling, the mild homophobics, the terrible style, the arrogance…and who is doing all their bleach jobs? The fuck? Is that just surfing or do they all have runaway teen girls hiding under their beds with Sun-In kits?

I don’t care about the answers to any of those questions. Because I think that boys that age should have blue tents while the newly menstruating girls have red tents. GROSS FUCK ME FOR SAYING THAT. Fuck everyone for ever talking about a woman’s body. But I think we all agree that ages 13-15 are hell on the rest of a society that has learned to bury their unchecked floppiness under layers of shame, anger and beer/red bull.

Just as we noticed things were getting annoying and terrible at Oceanside, Kristi and I mind-melded and realized we both wanted to skate Washington Street so we left. We drove down, bought more coffee (I mean, she doesn’t have an espresso machine in her station wagon, you guys), and rolled into Washington Street. What can I tell you? It was completely rad. I so rarely take photos because I am skating and I don’t feel like taking a photo. If you ever see one it is because I have FORCED myself to get my phone and document these rarefied moments. Why are most of my photos of cats and chihuahuas? Because that’s when my blood is pooling in my toes and I’m relaxing. Kristi hit her front smith stalls on the parking block in the flow area. I practiced getting high on the hips, grabbing my board frontside and other wonderful moves. I just deeply love a DIY spot. No bikes, no scooters, no jackasses. Well, until the two dudes with the four kids brought their lit-up wheels on cruiser boards and climbed into the area I was skating and let their boards go. Then I wanted to throw some hammers. Spoiled kids remind me that none of us will be taken care of in old age. These dummies are just going to sit around like boneless chickens checking their heart rate and shopping for tiny jet packs to attach to their shoes. You should either eat really well so you chug along like a freight train until you abruptly die at 84, or throw yourself into a drug hole so you die around 59 while you still have someone your own age who was abused enough to care for others to take care of you in the days leading up to that big dumb moment in a truck stop toilet when your heart stops after a big dump.

CHOOSE YOUR POISON.

After skateboarding we went out for poke in San Clemente. I thought white people only ran in packs like that in Portland. It’s nuts. There are shoe stores on the MAIN DRAG crammed full of rubber mats with straps called “shoes” made for portaging canoes and wading through tide pools full of West Elm lamp bases and potential sushi. There are clogs so ugly that a denuded hedgehog would blush for them. You can also get slim-yet-billow-y clothing that only bluebirds can put on you in the morning. It is the weirdest town but the poke at this little joint whose name I don’t even know is good.

I drove like twenty freeways home and made myself shower (always an effort) so I could sit here and write to you then watch some TV. My cats are snuggling, the heat is on, and I think I’m relaxed.