I suck.

I suck at a lot of things I try. I suck at putting on makeup. I am pretty sucky at tennis. I REALLY suck at swimming, which makes triathlons interesting. I suck at remembering details. I suck at holding onto things, like hotel keys, cameras and cars. I also recently discovered I SUCK big time at surfing.

Actually, to say I suck at surfing would imply that I am good enough at it to lack skill. So I negative suck at surfing. I assumed once I moved to San Diego I would instantly become a good surfer. My friends Jason learned to surf when he moved here and does it all the time now! But for me, this was  not true. As a matter of fact, I  think I may be getting worse.

I went a few times when I first moved here on a foam board. Since then I have been on various sizes of boards hearing that "You can catch anything on a long board." Oh really? Like what? Seaweed? Humiliation? I thought that "catch anything" meant any size of wave, not so. Turns out you need some semblance of skill to be able to do that, no matter what size board you have.

Oscar, who is an excellent surfer, has taken me a bunch of times and has tried, unsuccessfully, to scare me into learning to surf. He will yell things like "Don't do THAT! Don't ever do that!! You'll kill yourself!" causing me to yell back "Don't do what?! There was just like 50 things I just did! What do you-" cue wave smashing into my face. So our little "surf lessons" turn into me scared to death trying not to do anything but cling to my board for dear life while Oscar then yells at me for not doing anything. This usually ends with me getting out of the water and reminding Oscar that when I teach him how to snowboard it does not include me yelling at him that he may die or kill someone. This reminder is usually delivered with a slew of various curse words.

Aside from surfing with Oscar I have also surfed a few times with my friend Tara. Tara, who is the picture of calm, was apparently not warned that every move you can make on a surf board is a potential death wish. I know this because she is not afraid to paddle out and get thrown about by the waves which leads her to eventually catch one. Needless to say I much prefer surfing with Tare except last summer while we were surfing together I got stung by a sting ray. In addition to being fun to surf with, turns out Tara is also very good at picking me up and carrying me out of the water with blood dripping from my ankle.

So as you can see, my surf stories mostly consist of me being really crappy at the sport or getting injured by various aquatic life forms. However, a couple years ago my good friend Ashley was kind enough to pass along her surfboard to me when she moved back to Utah.I have the board, I have the wet suit, I just lack the skill.

So here is my new resolution: I am going to conquer this surfing thing. Even if it just leads me to decide I  don't really like it, I am going to at least get good enough to figure out how in the hell to do it. I know 33 is a little late in life to learn a new sport but you know what? My Dad was in his 40's before he learned to snowboard and he kills it now so it can be done. If you're like me and looking to try something new in 2011 but can't get beyond that initial frustration, just picture my 40-something Dad on a snowboard in the middle of a blizzard and realize you probably can't look as stupid as he did. Thanks Dad!