A Deceptive Seventy-Degree Sunday

It is the middle of January, and I went to lounge at the beach today.

Only in San Diego!

Maybe it's because I did not get a chance to hang out with my friends at all over winter break or because I did not really spend much time at "home" in San Francisco, but I feel kind of like I lack closure; I don't feel ready to be back in my dorm room here in sunny southern California.

Dare I say that I actually feel a little... homesick?

Other than feeling slightly depressed and lonely after my parents left on the night I moved in at the end of September, I have not once missed home since college started; there was always way too much going on and I just didn't have time to miss home.

Now time seems to have stood still and all I can think about is going home and hiding in my room.

I have never been the type to get homesick, so this is a completely new experience for me.

Let's rewind a bit; sunlight was beating through the blinds covering the window and completely filling my dorm room when I woke up this morning, so I checked the weather immediately after getting out of bed.

Super sunny seventy degrees in the middle of January? Seriously?

The first thought that crossed my mind was "PERFECT BEACH WEATHER!!"

After a bit of mind-numbing, rip-my-fucking-hair-out-of-my-scalp coercing (seriously, should it have been THIS difficult to convince people to go to the beach with you on a sunny day?), I headed down to Black's Beach with a towel, an article on "social constructionist perspective," a green highlighter, and my cell phone in a tote bag with my roommates.

Instead of the relaxing, warm-sand-between-my-toes, nap-on-the-beach-with-waves-crashing-softly-in-the-background afternoon that I had envisioned when I so enthusiastically suggested heading down to the beach earlier this morning, I spent an hour and a half sitting on damp sand, surrounded by heaps of smelly seaweed infested with little insects that loved to crawl all over my extremities, on my one bath towel shared with two disgruntled roommates, battling the strong sea breeze that seemed to have suddenly appeared along the shores the moment we sat down in the sand to taunt and torture us.

I still thought the bright blue water and the crashing waves were beautiful and I didn't mind the damp sand because it made building little sand bumps with my hands all that much easier, but I was annoyed by my obviously-not-happy-to-be-on-the-beach company who made snide remarks about how "noisy" the waves were and how "smelly" and "gross" the seaweed and damp sand were.

I didn't even mind the bugs (and I am scared shitless of bugs and have nightmares about bugs crawling on my skin/into my ears sometimes) crawling on me as I much as I did all the under-the-breath complaints and blatant passive-aggressive signals of discontent I was bombarded with as I sat on a small corner of my OWN TOWEL that I was graciously sharing with my ungrateful company this afternoon.

Did I mention that I had to share my towel?

"Complain, complain, complain, bitch, bitch, bitch, BLOW MY FUCKING BRANS OUT" sums up my afternoon on the beach pretty accurately and succinctly.

As we walked along the beach on our way back up the hill toward campus, I noticed several groups of girls lying on their backs in the sand, sunbathing in bikinis. Even though it was a sunny day and sunbathers on a beach in southern California is a typical, iconic image, something felt inherently wrong with the picture.

Just as the sun was shining so unexpectedly brightly and bringing a much needed burst of warmth to what seems to be a guaranteed dark and gloomy winter (if not meteorologically, then emotionally), something just did not feel right about the present situation.

The last pair of sunbathers we passed were lying near the rocks that lined the sandy path leading out of the beach, and as we turned and stepped onto the path, I saw something that sent a shiver down my spine.

There were bugs crawling ALL OVER the sunbathing girls' unsuspecting, bare backs!

They were lying in an area with especially damp and gray sand, so their surroundings juxtaposed with the goosebumps-worthy image of dozens and dozens of small insects partying on their bare backs created a fearful situation that I would not soon forget.

While I huffed and puffed up the steep hill toward campus (boy, am I out of shape!), trying to get that horror movie-esque image of the mini invasion of the girls' backs by the combat squad of small insects that I had just witnessed out of my mind, I managed to pinpoint what felt so wrong about the sunbathers on the beach that had been bothering me.

Even though the sun was shining brightly, the beach was full of people peacefully lounging around in the sand, and the waves were crashing ferociously in the background, something about the scene along the beach felt dead.

I was surrounded by people (two of whom were sitting a little too close to me for my liking) on the beach, but I still felt completely alone - not in a peaceful solitude way, but in a "HOLY SHIT, I am alone in a haunted graveyard on Halloween at midnight" kind of way.

I felt like I was in a graveyard full of rotting things and rotting bodies, and seeing all those bugs crawl around on the seemingly "lifeless" bodies lying on the damp, gray sand all along the beach really kind of freaked me out a little.

On the surface, people were just hanging out on the beach on a rare, sunny-enough-for-the-beach winter day, but just a few inches below the cheery exterior lay imagery freaky enough for a cheap horror movie.

Again, on the surface, the sun was shining and solar-powered Californians were especially happy about having an unexpected opportunity to recharge their batteries before going at it for the long haul, but with a little digging behind the misleading facade, you would have found a very frustrated and slightly depressed Californian native who would have given anything to sleep in her own bed and curl up on the floor of her freezing, San Francisco bedroom again.

It's crazy what a random call from your mom informing you that she had just bought a new, super high-tech toaster oven and laughing at you for intentionally "forgetting" to pack those nasty Omega-3 vitamins can do to you.