I mention often that I am writing in my head all the time, and it's mostly true.  I was writing in my head all yesterday afternoon, taking the half day off that I'd asked for to go sailing with a friend, although the sail date itself fell through.
    What I want is tough to get.  I want some rather low-key friends, and slowly I'm getting that.  I'm getting to know people around the neighborhood and stuff.  I also want a good friend, which in a way I have, sometimes.  Occasionally.  Not enough to rely on as a friend though.  I also want a good friend with whom I can have sex and it not ruin the friendship.  Something easy and wholesome and not a big exclusive romantic obsession.  I've had friends like that before, and miss them terribly, especially days like yesterday.
    I should take a drama course at Brookdale (now that I know where it is).  Theatre people are more like this than most.
    I miss you, Scott Gilmore.
    So, I left work and headed east, more or less aimlessly.  I got to Route 35 and drove until I saw what I wanted first, a cellular phone store.  I needed a power cord for the cel in the Beetle, but no power flowed through any of the power ports into the phone.  I took it in to be tested on their cigarette lighter mock-up, and it worked fine.  Damn.  Power problem in the Bug.  Now it has to go to the dealership.
    Next I found a car wash.  The Beetle was looking bedraggled, and the place had a Monday special.  The rags and things slapping against the decal work made me sweat, but it didn't look all that brutal.
    The cash supply was running low (read none), so that was the end of activities that require money.  I did go to Pep Boys to see if they had a bra for the car, since it may be awhile before the hole in the front bumper can get repaired.  All their bras were $59 and none were for a New Beetle.  That gash in the fiberglass embarrasses me so.  Such a fine car, and such an ugly wound.
    So I wandered some more and found myself somehow in Ocean Grove.  The street was shady and lined in Victorian houses converted into shops of all sorts, so I parked and walked.  No, I strolled.  I went slowly, and it felt comforting.  An attractive guy seated outdoors at a cafe complimented me on my hair.  I smiled and said thanks and KEPT ON WALKING??!!!  What has become of me?  A small chubby kid in a family of four made me smile, too, gushing about the "pretty lady with green hair."
    I passed a truly hideously old and decrepit box of a building that Gannon Construction was trying to work a miracle on.  The second floor had a section that overhung the first floor, and it was all propped up with makeshift lumber posts.  The entire exterior had been peeled away, and there were signs that a porch and/or balcony were missing.  It was ugly, and it looked like it would fall over at any second, and yet there was the sign and the truck and the clues that things were Getting Done there, although no crew was there just then.
    The more blocks I walked, the more Gannon Construction jobs I saw.  Painting here, adding on there, a bit of renovation.  I began to wonder just how big that business was.
    The boardwalk was warm and bright in the sunshine.  Only a few puffy clouds stuck to the sky, and umbrellas and bathing suits adorned the beach.  The smell of the wood from the boardwalk and sunscreen reminded me of something that wouldn't fully come up and be recognized, but it felt kind of good.  Kind of homesick-ish.  I went down a pier toward a fishing club and peered over the rail at the choppy little waves, gazed through them at the sand below, and wanted to be in it, there under the pier.
    No bathing suit, and this was most surely not the nude beach.
    I strolled back to the car and remembered something I'd been meaning to do for a long time.  I called information and found a UU church nearby, in Lyncroft.  Halfway home, I decided to go looking for it, instead of waiting until some Sunday to try.
    The directions I'd taken down were convoluted and inaccurate, but I had time, and I finally did find it, a modern angular structure in the woods.  One van was there, but I didn't want to disturb anyone.
    On the way to pick up the kids, I passed an orchard and thought that might be a good thing to explore with them.  I didn't notice the sign that said the hours were 9-5 until after I'd picked them up and found it closed.
    We decided on the nude beach instead.
    Sandy Hook State Park is up Route 36 and not all that far from home.  We got there around six or so.  The kids like to get undressed in stages, sorta.  They took off their shirts on the walk to the beach entrance.  They took off their sandals at the end of the boardwalk where the beach begins.  They did not, however, get naked right at the sign that says, "You may encounter nude sunbathers past this point."  They were almost to the water before we stopped long enough to get our clothes off.
    Boober found things of interest the whole time, most impressively (to him) the crab carcasses that seagulls had picked clean.  He ran about showing them to everybody who would look.  I got right into the water, though it had to be in degrees as the waves seemed cold at first.  Soon the water actually felt warm, though, and I floated and bounced and paddled and swirled like something that belonged there, in the sea, though keeping an eye out to the beach and the children.  I let them take turns coming out into the deep with me.  Boober clung to me giggling, and Moomie nearly drowned us both trying to kick and cling at the same time.  I showed him that telling me he wanted to kick allowed me to hold him out away from me, so that we both could make the best use of the surging water.  I floated sometimes, but not much because the presence of water hurt my ears; unusual.
    This was the first swim I'd had since the surgeries.  It was soothing.
    On the way back I showed the kids how you sing the blues.  I sang and sang, making stuff up, trying different rhymes, different forms.  I sang the blues all the way home.
    I'm blue all the time.  There was so much about yesterday that could have uplifted me and refreshed me, and I saw it, I felt it, but it didn't make much of a dent in the stack of blues.

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