Sea Legs and Wake Surfing

The first time R and I hung out, he said something about how he can surf on a lake and I thought he was joking. I probably laughed too loudly as I do when I’m nervous and gave some witty response along the lines of “Nah-huh!”

He didn’t elaborate then, but I found out on Saturday afternoon on a boat in Connecticut that you can, in fact, surf on a lake.

On Friday after work I threw some clothes and a bathing suit in a duffel bag and took a cab to Grand Central. I’m not quite sure how I survived 5 years of living in New York without ever stepping foot in Grand Central Station, but there I was, completely awed like a tourist. All of these years taking Amtrak or New Jersey Transit from gross Penn Station and I didn’t know what I was missing: marble archways, fast-moving ticket lines, nice shops and restaurants besides Hudson News or Houlihans. I think I’m in love.

I got there about an hour before my train because I wanted to get a gift for R’s sister, whose lake house we stayed at for the weekend. I meandered through a stationary store, wanting to buy everything in sight for myself, but decided that it’s really difficult to buy a gift for someone you’ve never met. So I went with what I know: food. I called MomOh from an outpost of a very famous bakery and asked if bringing a cheesecake was weird or good. She voted good, conveniently, because after deliberating between the chocolate or raspberry swirl I was only a few moments from drooling on the glass bakery case.

I was pretty nervous about meeting R’s sister and brother-in-law because that’s a Big Deal in the world of dating, but it went fine (I think). The cheesecake was well-received, and we had a great time cruising around the lake in their very cool boat. By the second day R’s young nephews warmed up to me and weren’t afraid to climb all over me in the boat. R taught me how to wake board, water ski and wake surf, though I definitely spent more time falling and getting water up my nose than standing and riding behind the boat. My favorite thing was the wake surfing (which I kept accidentally calling “boat surfing”). Like water skiing or wake boarding, you start crouched in the water holding the rope handle, and the speed of the boat pops you out of the water. Unlike water skiing or wake boarding, your feet aren’t attached to the surfboard, which is a bit shorter and thinner than a conventional surfboard with a rubber grip surface. If you’re really good (I wasn’t), once you get going you toss the rope back in the boat and continue riding the wake just by shifting your weight between your front and back feet. By Sunday afternoon I could get up quickly and surf in the wake with the rope slacked, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to throw it back on the boat and risk losing my ride. It is by far the coolest water sport that I’ve tried – I like it even better than kayaking.

The world is still a little wobbly from being on a boat for two full days, and I feel a bit like I cheated on The Beach with The Lake. It was just a fling, I promise! It didn’t mean anything!

But of course, that’s always a lie, and the trip meant a lot to me.

I'm leaving work early and meeting up with R to cut his hair. He bought clippers and decided that my rooftop would be the perfect locale for his haircut. I have about zero men's haircutting experience, and piss-poor hand-eye coordination. We'll see if we're still dating tomorrow.