Solar-Induced Lethargy

Today is the sort of day when, if I had any sense of self-indulgence, I would call in sick to work and spend it on the beach. I grew up near the ocean, and beach-hookie was one of my favorite and most necessary survival traits in high school. Having a reputation as a goody-goody academic nerd made it incredibly easy to get away with skipping class, since noone ever expected me to do anything naughty, and I spent the vast and overwhelming majority of my senior year wandering around Seaside Heights binging on sunshine and soft-serve ice cream.

I do not want to be good, right now. I want to call my boss tomorrow morning and tell him I'm at an emergency conference of some sort, and that he can cover my shift for me. I want to dig out my bathing suit for the first time in far too many years, and slather myself in waterproof sunscreen, and spend the day in the ocean. I want to feel the wet sand squinching between my toes, and the sun beating down on my head while my legs slowly turn to ice in the water. I want to smell salt and seaweed and funnel cakes, and I want to walk along the edge of the water while the waves lick my feet and wash my footprints away behind me.

I want to find a rocky beach, and spend the afternoon poking around tide pools and climbing down into precarious niches to watch periwinkles creep around and hunt for horseshoe crabs and sand dollars. I want to come home with sand under my nails and salt on my skin and sunshine soaked into every pore, enough to last me through the next weeks at work until I can run away again.

Imagining it is almost as good as the real thing....