Beach, swimsuits, and childhood

My roommates (who consist of one of my best friends and my sister) dragged me out of bed at 9:30 this morning. After a late night last night where the three of us stayed up till 2am. I was anticipating this, but it still pained me to abandon my pillows.

It wasn’t long before the early wakeup call felt very worth it. We got ideal parking (free on one of the residential streets as opposed to the metered parking at the beach), there was not a cloud in the sky, the weather was gorgeous, and there was hardly anyone there.

That’s the best part about Long Beach. Sunset, Seal, Redondo, and Huntington Beach are so close and cater so much more to the more touristy beach goers (snack bars, nearby establishments with food and drink) and surfers (we have a breakwater that makes the waves pretty nonexistent), that Long Beach gets completely overlooked except by the locals.

It was a wonderful day to be at the beach. My roommates swam for a bit while I remained a land-lubber this time. No offense to the ocean, I was just far too content on the sand to head to the water today.

I got a bit pink, but otherwise came out pretty unscathed. We stayed till around 2 and headed home, stopping at the nearby 7-11 for a free 7.11 ounce Slurpee (it being July 11th and all). A bit of cherry and a bit of Coca Cola flavor for me. I’m not a huge fan of the syrupy flavored ice, so the small cup was the perfect size for me. We got home, found ourselves ravenous, and one roommate offered to head to Ruby’s to pick up “dunch” or “linner” (lunch/dinner). YUM.

After eating, we found ourselves sprawled among the living room, feeling a bit drained from spending four hours at the beach.

I’ve been doing laundry since, as well as catching up on blogs and YouTube subscriptions… still in my bathing suit.

When I was a kid, we lived in an awesome townhome complex with our choice of about 5 different pools. And my grandparents had a pool. And we weren’t too far from the beach. And we had a lot of kids in our neighborhood, so water balloon fights, water gun fights, and “chase each other with buckets of water” fights were pretty common. Regardless of the water-based activity of choice, it was always exciting to have a reason to don the swimsuit.

Changing into clothes after a day of water and fun in the sun was like surrendering the freedom of summer. I remember hating taking a shower and changing into normal clothes. Of course, I was the kid who found it completely absurd that my parents wanted us to get out of the pool at 10pm after only being in there all day…

It is now 8:45pm and I am still in my swimsuit. I can’t help but feel a bit child-like. Feeling sundrenched and beachy, I’m trying not to think about the fact that I have to morph back into adulthood and leave for work at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

Edited: July 11th, 2009

Supporting the gays

Today, the California Supreme Court made a decision that, well, seemingly made no sense. I was actually expecting the hateful Proposition 8 to be overturned, to be honest. A small inkling of hope amid my typically cynical perspective… alas, I should have maintained my cynicism.

And so, I stalked Twitter, checking out the trends for #prop8 and #rejectprop8 which ranged from irate to inspiring. And the, of course, the random person who seems to feel that allowing all couples to marry somehow affects those who already can…

I had already heard, thanks to the local newspaper, the Press Telegram, that Long Beach would either be having a celebration march or a protest so after the decision was posted, I emailed the girls (my roommates – who consist of one of my best friends and my sister) and asked if they wanted to head down after work. Of course they did!

The March

At 7pm, we walked down to Broadway and started heading toward the street where it was set to start, figuring we’d just watch. You can’t really just watch, though.

We stood and cheered them along, shedding a tear or ten every so often. Families. Kids with straight parents, kids with gay parents. Couples. Single people. All different sizes, colors, ages, and genders (is it any wonder the gay community is represented by a rainbow flag?). There were churches there too, notably, St. Luke’s Episcopal and Refiner’s Fire United Church of Christ (the latter of whom passed out some blue wristbands!). My roommate also recognized a few people from her Catholic church, St. Matthew’s.

The Flags

We joined in at the tail, happy to add to the already impressive mass of people walking and support all those ahead of us in their cause. It’s always important to me to stay back a bit so as not to interfere with a pride that doesn’t belong to me. This was their moment to be angry and proud. Their moment to inspire each other to keep moving forward and continue fighting… and to let that pride and inspiration, in turn, inspire me.

My favorite sign of the night: “You haven’t won, you’ve inspired a movement that will overturn your hate.”

You Call This Threatening? Really?

Our experiences are necessarily different. I have the right to marry. I can read about Stonewall, I can read about Harvey Milk. But I can never fully understand what it’s like. And that’s okay. What I do understand is enough to make me feel hurt and angry for them so I certainly don’t mind stepping back a bit and letting them be proud of who they are, despite what the California state government wants them to feel.

I was proud to be at the Long Beach protest/rally/march today. I am proud to be a straight, single female supporting gay rights. And I will be proud when our nation as a whole gets rid of this Orwellian idea that we are all equal, but some are “more equal than others”.

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A few related links:

• Day of Decision
• LBequality.org

Edited: May 26th, 2009