the beach at night
July 2, 2003 01:25 PM

This pull started a couple of weeks ago, before the dogsitting incident and the Saturday from hell but not that bad after all.

This pull is daring me to change my mind about something I said awhile ago. It was still chilly then, and when we talked on the phone and I said I didn't want to go back there I was cold, even in my light spring coat.

But maybe I do want to go back. To visit.

The People At Work [They really do behave like a single entity sometimes, it's not just me talking.] are all talking about going to The Lake or Duck, or Corolla or somewhere. Around here, people go to the Outer Banks or a variety of places all described as The Lake (south) or The Cape (north) in the summer to swim and rent houses.

No one goes to the town next to my home town to go to the beach. Presumably it's declasse. Or maybe it was that one year with the riots.

And I don't go either. I generally don't even a miniscule urge to go, despite sand and all night miniature golf, bumper boats and go karts.

This pull started, though, and now I'm thinking about late night trips to the beach and condos and the abundant tackiness that is the strip. Pucca shell - or better still, faux pucca - necklaces and that nauseatingly sweet salt water taffy and hideous cocoa butter smelling neon t-shirts.

All my memories of the beach are apparently grounded in the eighties.

Still. Maybe we'll go. Not to The Lake or any acceptable destination. But right to the cheesetastic heart of the summer. We just might.