Amateur hour

For the first time in my life, I went out surfing by myself today during my lunch hour. It was very intimidating -- the whole time I felt like a total poseur. The fact that I drove into the beach parking lot with my board strapped to the top of a red Mercedes sedan, rather than a crappy Dodge Dart or a pickup truck, didn't help. I got some funny looks from the guys with the bleached out hair who looked like someone had called and asked for surfers from Central Casting.

The waves were decent -- there's a bit of a south swell -- but they were breaking a long, long way out, so I was paddling forever to catch anything. It was easier to stay and catch some of the inside waves, so that's what I did. And I was out for about 25 minutes, caught a couple of good ones, caught a couple of mediocre ones, and took a couple of dives. But I did it, and without humiliating myself.

Everyone is congratulating me and telling me how brave it was for me to just contact the law school out of the blue and propose a new course and get it on the curriculum. But I felt much braver heading out to a local break -- White Plains is not a tourist beach at all -- and holding my own among the big boys.