PCH

Cool Breeze, Pretty People, Fruity Drinks

I don’t know why people rag on Southern Californians as being aloof or in a bubble; that’s a bubble I would gladly join.  The water is clear, the air is crisp, the people are beautiful, and the drinks are plentiful. I have a great friend Kelly Nicholas, who is yes, tan, and yes, gorgeous, who grew up in Laguna Beach.  She always has a relax way about her in even the most stressful of situations.  Running the beaches of Laguna, I can imagine that if the ocean air flowed through your veins as a child, that any stress could be calmed by the sound of gently crashing waves.  I also have never understood why people get irritated by pretty people.  There are gorgeous people all around me; it makes me want to run harder, take better care of my appearance, and generally be better to my body.  I would gladly be the ugly duckling in the land of the beautiful, versus a swan in the land of the ugly.

I spent the first part of the day on a run in Laguna Beach.  As I made my way to Newport, I hazily remember a very drunken fourth of July with Kelly, Jeremy, and Marcus where we spent the entirety of the day drinking along the streets of Newport.  I discovered Newport in a sober way today, and I gladly enjoyed a delightful spinach salad and green juice, two doors down from the marathon drinking bars of my past.  I spent sunset at my new favorite beach, El Matador, north of Malibu proper.  I unfortunately lost most my pictures from El Matador, so if you want to experience it, you will have to visit yourself; it’s one of the best cliff beaches I have been to in So Cal.  I had a great fish taco dinner at affordable Malibu Seafood.  I backtracked to spend the night and morning in Santa Monica; I walked along the boardwalk and got a much needed eyebrow wax by a salon picked at random off the internet.  To my delightful surprise, the esthetician was an Aspen native and we gossiped about locals.

 I spent the night in the Santa Monica HI Hostel, which provided a hot shower and warm bed.  When I was brushing my teeth, an early twenty something asked me if she should be beach chic or rocker chick for the luau party, and then asked me what I was wearing to the luau.  Not that I would have attended a hostel sponsored party in my college years, but tonight  I felt truly content being the old lady who went to bed early.  When I woke at 7 am, only two beds had bodies in them.  Turns out the luau must of have been a rager if no one made it back to their bed.   Sometimes in the phase of emerging adulthood, you have to choose your adventures and give a smirk and a memory to those things you’ve done in past chapters of your life, which you gladly left in your past thankful not to relive in your present.