I have been thinking for years that I should learn to surf. My parents are about three miles from a great surfing beach, and we go bodyboarding when we're down there. Feel I should take the next step!
Actually, the instructors are maybe six boys to two girls (there's a children's camp that is well attended. Which makes the whole thing that much more humiliating. Some of those seven-year-olds are really good.)
2: If you think about it seriously, I'd spend a couple of months beforehand doing pushups, squats, and yoga or something for flexibility. I happened to be doing the pushups, but unfortunately not the squats or the yoga.
I'm impressed! The chafing sounds horrible.
The chafing is horrible. But no one else should form an opinion about surfing on that basis -- I really am kind of a delicate flower about some kinds of plastic touching my skin. I can't wear Tevas, other than the suede-soled kind, because they peel the skin off the soles of my feet. So that bit is just me.
As someone who grew up surfing, I can attest that it's a tough thing to do casually. There's a reason that so many surfers are so fanatical about it. Unless you've got an uncanny natural talent for it, you really have to do it very regularly in order to maintain even basic competence.
I realized this when I came back to surfing after being out of it for a while. It was a lot tougher than I was expecting.
We did a stand up paddle boarding lesson last week with oldest kid. Did not need a lesson, it's really easy if you're looking for something easier.
Jammies says that it's a lot like the motion involved in doing burpees, which are something I don't like a lot.
The first time I went surfing I pulverized the bones i one of my toes and lost the nail when I stubbed it on a rock. The second time I apparently grabbed an unwaxed board and gave myself a rash over my chest and stomach.
9: It is precisely burpees, except that you need to land in a funny position on an unstable platform.
I found it much easier to catch waves when paddleboarding.
The thing that gets me about surfing is I have terrible balance, no matter how much I work on it. If you have balance you have hope on a surfboard; otherwise, OOPS!
I used to body surf all the time, because no need to stay upright.
To make it clear how pathetic the stage I'm at is, I'm not even catching my own waves. I'm lying on the board not paddling (the paddling that's killing me is just sort of moving around), and the instructor is shoving the board forward so the wave catches it. I just have to stand up successfully.
Congratulations, that sounds horrible but also great and impressive.
I've tried surfing I guess 7 or so separate times* and just suck too much naturally at it to keep going -- it was tons of fun, but my balance is also insanely terrible naturally and you need to go a lot to get decent and I just never was unemployed enough/got bitten with the bug enough for the getting up at five am off to the beach situation to seem appealing. It is a pretty incredible way to just be out in the water though.
*only one actual lesson, I'm old enough that the idea of surfing "lessons" seems weird and I still feel like the only way people can learn is somebody's older brother takes you or whatever. The lesson was of course way better than the older brother style teaching.
Surprisingly, skiing or snowboarding seems to stick way longer with huge gaps of not doing it than surfing does. I'm not really sure why that is, except maybe that skiing/snowboarding is just a lot easier.
Yeah, I'm a fairly lousy skier, but competently lousy, and I stay that way going on average less than once a year. This is way, way harder.
I've never tried post-Crossfit. I wonder if it would be easier. I'm guessing mostly not but maybe a tiny bit. Or maybe Crossfit has turned me into a superman.
My brother took me out surfing one time and it went unsurprisingly horrible. He also took me out snowboarding, also super horrible, but I've since gotten the bare minimum of competence with snow-boarding. As in, I at least find the day spent snow-boarding to be pleasant. I don't give a shit about getting off the green squares and I'm super chickenshit about going too fast. It's clearly one of those things where I didn't try it until I was an adult and so it scares the shit out of me.
19: Report back! In the name of science!
My greatest accomplishment paddleboarding was riding a wave all the way, and, when it disappeared over some really shallow coral, falling so that only my elbow was perforated.
19,22: seriously, if people are willing to incorporate citrus into their love lives, I think you can try surfing again.
Other thread I mentioned grad school colleague who had two kids. I also had someone else in my group who was a surfer and won a winter surfing contest that resulted in him winning some huge number of cases of red bull, and $10k.
I really enjoy surfing, but I'm pretty terrible at it, and haven't gone in years. The mellow of being out in the water, sitting on your board, waiting for a set to come in is hard to beat.
But a lot of the places I've surfed were far too rough for my abilities, and I had a lot of trouble paddling out past the breakers. Those are also the kind of places where the occasional huge, scarey wave will come and pound your face against the sand.
I did some body-boarding on clean little two-foot beach-break the other day. That's the kind of thing I can handle. It was fun, and I didn't get hurt.
I am also at the beach with way pale skin and painful, sunburned feet. But no surfing because no surf and no coordination. Anyway, at dinner tonight after 8:00 the lights at the restaurant were dimmed and my son asked why. I said it was because grown-ups look better in the dark. I am counting that as the entirety of the sex talk.
Lord, this sounds like my attempts (as an adult) to learn how to waterski. I have never managed to stay up.
30: I just taught the boyfriend! It's tricky, but having a good driver and powerful boat helps.
I want to do this really badly. but I'm in bad shape because I spend a lot of time bedridden. but I've always had a freakish amount of latent strength...I hurt myself when my back first started to get wonky because I was used to up and moving furniture. moving a lot of furniture is hard. I'm a great bodysurfer. I used to do whitewater kayaking as a kid; I just do ocean kayaking now, I can paddleboard. everyone can paddlboard, I think. I see them on the river a lot on S.C. and I sort of feel like yelling 'get a rowboat, son!" to the 55-yo white dude from hilton head, but whatever. they're awesome, actually; it just doesn't seem like a good way to travel a long distance. I would have to engage on a for real strengthening campaign to try--but that would be good for me anyway!! I need to do physical therapy and I'm not doing it because it's boring. if I hurt myself getting rolled in the surf really bad and mashed onto the beach I think my spine surgeon would be mad, tho.
Paddleboard is pretty good with kids too ... Two year old used to fall asleep while we paddled ...
I tried surfing once when I visited a friend in Hawaii for a week. Standing up wasn't impossibly terrible, but I remember what seemed like endless, agonizing periods of paddling, paddling, and more paddling.
33: I am going to use the "get a rowboat" line today.
The ocean seems just about the worst place to go with a SUP: I like rivers much better than lakes, because the river is providing motive power, and while maybe you still need to paddle because of a headwind or slow current, you're not providing everything, like you are on a lake. And the ocean isn't just a big lake, it's got a swell.
It's hard to apply sunscreen to the skin under thinning hair, but very important.
I moved from being 10 minutes from the ocean in SF to being 2 hours from the ocean on the east coast. I have not gone surfing since I got here. The swell reports look pretty dismal. I guess hurricane swells come by but I cant figure that out.
38: My wife has been trying to convert me to team hat for that same reason. Hat etiquette is tricky to pick up, unless you just default to "always take it off", in which case why are you wearing a hat?
40: I thought basic hat etiquette was just "if inside, or praying, take it off". Anything beyond that, like doffing, or professing an oath, seemed in the advanced hat etiquette box.
Hat etiquette is straightforward. When indoors, take it off; when outdoors, wear it except when about to immerse yourself in water or if you meet a feudal superior to whom you are required to doff it (not common). You may optionally also take your hat off outdoors if you have reason to believe it will be blown off or fall off in a situation where you can't retrieve it.
I'm jealous of the surfers, but not enough to do anything about it. Have been bodysurfing since kidhood, with long interruptions.
When indoors, take it off
Exception -- when entering a synagogue.
44: possible solution: wear a second, smaller hat beneath your primary hat.
44. What if you're entering a synagogue but you're not a Jew? Should you still keep your hat on?
Further to 42, citizens of the United States should properly regard their national flag as a feudal superior under some circumstances; when in doubt, see what everybody else is doing and follow suit.
46.1: I would say yes, but I am not a rabbi. Also, I haven't been in a synagogue since my nephew's bar mitzvah, and he graduated from college last year.
I thinks I'm starting to see the potential complexities in a flag-dense hat-sparse environment.
Plus we own a kid hat with a flag on it - if it was an American flag it would appear to expose the wearer to potential feudal hat paradoxes.
46.1 Yes.
I'm in a diametrically opposed situation to 40. I have decided to wear hats, long sleeves and long pants outdoors in daylight whenever possible. My wife tolerates the hat, but wishes I'd wear shorts and polo shirts more often. I cheerfully comply indoors and outdoors after dark, on friends' patios. I'm not trying to make a spectacle of myself.
if it was an American flag it would appear to expose the wearer to potential feudal hat paradoxes.
Not really, you (or your kid) just couldn't logically wear it. But I'm not sure if Americans of this generation still take their hats off to the flag - it feels as if it might be a bit passe.
50 the real danger (or opportunity) is in encountering another person wearing one.
My most elaborate beach trip this summer was to the Mississippi Sound in Biloxi. It was a great time, and it wasn't until several days later that I learned about the flesh-eating-bacteria problem in the Gulf of Mexico.
I am gradually coming round to team hat as well. Not due to thinning hair. I have the other ever-increasing-forehead type of male balding. It's a struggle to find a pleasant looking warm weather hat, though. The choices seem to be:
baseball cap - OK-ish, but not exactly dapper
panama - twat
lightweight fedora - twat
floppy sun-hat - sandal wearing German and/or hiker
What else is there?
Actually, scratch that:
http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Pith_Helmet-details.aspx
This!
re: 55
When I was in Turkey a few years back, that's what I went with. Straw cowboy hat. Very practical. Not really quite right for ordinary London street-wear, though.
You mean you don't already wear a Tam o'Shanter? I'm going to have to revise my mental picture.
Only in winter, heathen. With a wee ginger wig sewn in, for warmth.
With a wee ginger wig
Try a wee ginger pig, it's even warmer.
I actually found a shorter/narrower-brimmed fedora-like hats that I kind of liked on me a few weeks ago. (The style has it's own name, I'm sure, I'm just not an expert on hat taxonomy.) Finding hats I like is difficult, since I have an immense cranium. The expense ($85!) and the worry about looking like a douchecanoe stopped me.
Straw hats are so practical for summer that they need to be reclaimed from the twats. If you pick one that's about as formal as your usual clothes you look automatically less annoying, anyhow. The Dwarf Lord sports a boater on the rare summer days that warrant nicely pressed everything, but the West Coast is forgiving.
He once asked an elderly woman on a bus if busses were indoors or out for hat purposes and she said Honey, it's Frisco, do what you want.
If you pick one that's about as formal as your usual clothes you look automatically less annoying,
This, I think, is a crucial point.
The Sunday Afternoons shade hat is, if tied on firmly, the classic shape of a farmwoman's poke bonnet. Utterly practical, and always charming on tough river rafty dudes.
53 is a real problem, there are no non-stupid summer hats, it's just sad but true. Baseball caps are ok but don't really get the job done for which you want a summer hat. Some people think that they can get away with straw hats but they are almost invariably wrong. I think when you become for reals old the rules change and you can sport a hat, also if you're super fat they look better for some reason.
64 before seeing 61, not meant to be deliberately insulting.
Pretty sure that we discussed hats here before, too. It's too bad because I like the idea of hats but even when I've found one that I temporarily thought looked sort of OK, the really for real reality is that non baseball cap summer hats are just ridiculous. I mean sometimes you want to look ridiculous and that's OK, but that's the deal.
Yeah, the hat thing. I wear a dumb khaki-colored cloth hat at the beach to keep the sun off. I've been looking for something sort of panama/cowboy/floppy-straw that doesn't look too terrible for hiking, because the cloth hat is too warm. Not sure there's any good kind of sun hat that I'd feel comfortable wearing around town.
I bet Halford could pull off the Gonzo look.
I go to work in shirtsleeves, and cycle part of the way. I'd love to have an appropriate broad-rimmed hat, straw in summer, but the baseball cap folds into my bag, and is right for the cycling leg of my trip.
Seventy years ago men often wore straw hats in slouch shapes with shirtsleeves, but that was long ago. A hundred years ago outdoor workers looked about like the Amish do today.
The "redneck" was a mid-20th century phenomenon: an outdoor worker who didn't want to look like one, hence wore a baseball cap and teeshirt, often with long-term skin damage.
I've been looking for something sort of panama/cowboy/floppy-straw that doesn't look too terrible
You could try the Rene Belloq look.
My dad wears a straw Fedora hat that I think was actually marketed toward young black, hip (or whatever) men but that looks extremely conservative on him.
64: a lady would never knowingly offend anyone and a gentlewoman never offends anyone by mistake.
I'm amused by all this hat anxiety because, family or profession, I've always known hat-wearing men: engineers, services, sailing, farming, fieldwork. Clear-eyed experts, clean of limb, concentrating on a problem. Stout or thin, who cares? Stick a fork in me, I'm done! A panama for the city looks natural.
62 &c: also if you aren't anxiously on the make, douchecanoeness is less likely. Happily partnered men may have an advantage here.
I have a conical 1950s red straw, and an outdoors Bal Rouge tomorrow evening, but alas the hat is too wide to dance in. Dwarf Lord is suggesting our matching red Toorcamp labcoats.
Really, I don't think "you've got someone so you can look stupid" is very good relationship advice.
I came to write before seeing 73, but I'll say anyway that many men are extremely self-conscious about this sort of thing. I certainly am. I'm as happily-partnered as they come but it's no help.
Sometimes I'll see a mature woman on the train or therebouts dressed just as an un-selfconscious man would have in my youth: work boots, green Dickies, key chain, etc. Takes me back.
I'm amused by all this hat anxiety because, family or profession, I've always known hat-wearing men: engineers, services, sailing, farming, fieldwork. Clear-eyed experts, clean of limb, concentrating on a problem. Stout or thin, who cares? Stick a fork in me, I'm done! A panama for the city looks natural.
If there's one thing we know you know about, it's old-timey rural gumption.
Can you image a man jeering at the anxieties of women the way 73 does at that of men?
77: No, of course not. Women are too sensitive and delicate to be subjected to that kind of teasing.
Seriously, yes. I've even seen it on this very forum.
77: Really? The usual male reaction to women's conversations about appearance is much more dismissive and superior.
I think we can all agree that womens' fashion encompasses a much wider variety of cool hats than mens'.
Men are oppressed.
Can't tell if you're serious, idp. I'm not jeering: I think if you wear a practical hat even *very loosely* adapted to your circumstances you'll look fine. Probably better than fine. I guess it still might not be worth the crab-bucket mutual male mockery. ... If you are serious, after all, you're being obtuse in 77: men tell me how I should dress and move to better please them about every other time I walk in public.
I didn't know rednecks were dressing not-rural. Why baseball caps? The leisure dress of the day?
78, 79, 81: I know it happens, sometimes on these here threads. What also happens OTHTs is justified, righteous anger about it. Which some of us have taken to heart, and tried to be careful about.
Why baseball caps? The leisure dress of the day? That's my guess, yes. More modern, not like their stick-in-the-mud fathers. Didn't do any good, did it?
Oh my.
I've always known hat-wearing men: engineers, services, sailing, farming, fieldwork. Clear-eyed experts, clean of limb, concentrating on a problem
Sure. Not a problem: fashion sensibility is not the question, it's just plain old serviceability. Wear it if you need it, and don't worry about it.
83 before seeing 82. IDP, dearheart, it's troubling that you're receiving grief in your real life about your hat desires, but the same message applies as with women: other people are not the boss of you.
Summertime I wear one of these (canvas/mesh) outdoors. Too Panama for 53?
70
"Redneck" goes back to the 1800s. If you've ever worked outdoors in a straw hat you quickly learn that it doesn't protect the neck very well.
Allow me to express a frustration: it is difficult to find a hat for a baby boy that has a full brim. My toddler does not need a ball cap. He is not going to play baseball! He needs to keep the sun off his neck, which ball caps do not do. I managed to one after searching a few stores. But pink hats full of flower and ribbons? Easy to find.
It's bad enough that he already has a farmer's tan. (Yes, I slather him in sunscreen. I guess it's the Canadian redneck genes outing.)
idp, I still don't get how reflecting on how many men look good in hats is jeering at men's anxieties. It's not like the men here are saying they don't want to wear hats but are forced to by social expectation; exactly the opposite.
85: My housemate has one of those which he wears whenever. Sometimes when mowing the lawn. It looks quite smashing, I must say. Other times he wears one of those engineer's hats, like this. I see that's called a railroad engineer's cap.
87: For future shopping. I see more of the ball cap/fabric shade style that looks just a bit like a mullet on my friends' kids. Also, hats on babies? Very, very cute when tolerated.
Hats on men look kind of goofy. I will wear one if the sun is crazy strong like the tropics or something, but I dont look good in it or anything.
Hats on men look kind of goofy.
Unless you are an old-timey folk agriculturalist of yore, or a fireman on duty. And why aren't you an old-timey folk agriculturalist of yore, or a fireman on duty?
Also, hat admirer G.W.Trow is dead after "spiraling into madness":
http://nymag.com/news/features/29442/
I forgot my hat today, but am still going to run out to the library to pick up the interlibrary loan book that just arrived.
If you go to the webpage of the ace hotel in Portland and scroll allllll the way down to the bottom there is a years old pic of my kid making a somewhat odd face. He is in a hat, and generally cleaned up to celebrate his sister's graduation from reed.
88: I can tell you didn't mean to convey "manly men wouldn't have these anxieties" by 73, which is how I read it.
receiving grief in your real life Not how anxiety operates. It's what's been internalized, by your imagining what others will think. It's the long-ago laugh of a girl, or what clew called the crab-bucket mutual male mockery, which you may not have actually heard expressed, at least to you, in years.
I think the protection of straw hats depends on the shape and the tightness of the weave. They do help compared with the exposure of baseball caps and teeshirts.
In a hat!
But man you guys there are way too many kinds of accordions out there. Highly confusing.
And then you probably actually want some kind of concertina instead!
I spent today surfing much more successfully. Still very badly, but I was mostly getting to my feet.
On the downside, the sunburn is worse, and my hands are raw. So, ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.
99: I think you're having fun, LB. You just don't know it yet.
Have you been to the accordion store in "uptown" Oakland? They have so many kinds. The guy who runs it is kind of like the Comic Book Guy and basically won't have a casual conversation about accordions. He needs to know what kind of music you want to play before he'll entertain any questions. He then repeats, many times, that it's very important to get the right kind of accordion for the kind of music you are playing.
On the downside, the sunburn is worse
Try wearing a hat.
Thanks for the tip re avoiding that store! I think the plan in general is to discuss with SF's accordion maven and also check out faculty at the community music center. Seems like piano would be better than button given his piano skills? Buttons tho apparently have advantages ...
95.1: Ah, ouch, sorry. I meant... No, it doesn't matter in the crab-pot what I meant, or even what any woman thinks, maybe. I can say as a dowdy feminist that I got more freedom from ignoring parallel anxieties than I lost from the social pushback, and I hope it would be the same for you. But I can't know.
Bave, do you mean the accordion store that's around the corner from God's Gym? The excellent venue 21 Grand used to be there too, before it got shut down.
the accordion store that's around the corner from God's Gym
Good title for a Tom Robbins novel.
To make it a title I think you'd want to remove the "that's".
Yeah, I think it's near God's Gym. I've only been to the accordion store once and can't exactly remember what street it's on; in my mind it's kinda like Brigadoon.
104:I could tell by your reaction from the start that you're not meaning that; as LB says, the internet doesn't do nuance. IRL your meaning would have been unmistakable.
Halford's light-hearted comments are pointing to another problem: authenticity. I've had a fair number of outdoor jobs in my life, and felt fine about wearing the clothes that went with them, hardhat, whatever. But I'm not that now, and wouldn't wear the clothes for them.
What I am is working under close observation, unsure how I'm being graded in ways that can have important effects. It's humiliating at my age, and leaves me feeling like I'm back in HS in a bad way, but has the effect of causing my personal security to regress not a little bit.
Heh. Unless one is wearing something like this, any man's hat is less silly than most of women's clothing. Getting old is a pain in the physique but the mental/emotional freedom is great compensation.
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/9873/10846184_2.jpg?v=8CE041964957AB0
110: I don't care for impersonation but I'm not worried about "authenticity" as long as I'm happy with functionality. IMX "tactical" pants are great when on a photographic expedition in hot weather. One can never have too many pockets.
This is a very rare accordion that, when played, sounds like Mary Worth advising a friend to commit suicide.
I used to wear a hat all the time, rain or shine. It was a khaki canvas safari hat not entirely unlike the original Ultimate Hat. I like to believe I rocked it.
The for reals olds exception is definitely real -- my Dad had some brimmed summer hats that looked ridiculous on him 10 years ago, but now that he's truly aged the hats look pretty distinguished and not foolish.
Since I'm already going full asshole on this one, the more interesting question for me is the apparent "fat dude" exception -- summer hats with brims really do look better and less silly on heftier gentleman for some reason. I think this is part of the "big fat party animal" exception that also applies to Hawaiian shirts.
See, I know that's a fake comment because he didn't add "It should only be used to play Norse or Sardinian sea shanties, not Irish."
There are a couple of guys here with the hat, Hawaiian shirt, massive belly thing going. It looks distinguished if the belly is hairy and deeply tan.
Re: 101
That seems ripe for exploitation.
'Well, I'm really all about RnB accordian; but with a Moore Brothers / Three Blazers kind of retro RnB vibe. And there's an underlying death metal element to my harmonic sensibility.'
I've just skimmed, but I'm pretty sure Halford is right here.
Cala, search for "legionnaires hat" or "flap hat."
Anyway, my feet are probably not going to peel because sunscreen and not being outside as long. It was stupid hot today.
I remember visiting a keyboard store in Portland, Maine with some friends. The salesman's obsession with the "slap bass" effect became a running joke for long thereafter. Hey, you like that melody? How 'bout hearing it in slap bass? Sounds great, right?
Re: baby hats
XelA wears a bucket / kangol type hat. With skulls.
The type Ogged mentions also known as a kepi/keppi.
Adult ones:
http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Kepi-details.aspx
And why aren't you an old-timey folk agriculturalist of yore, or a fireman on duty?
Because I am a hard-boiled 1930s private eye.
I want to play accordion like this guy. What kind of accordion is that?
Piano, definitely, but beyond that it all splinters into a gazillion subtypes by region, musical style & manufacturer. The type of the free bass button accordion Maria Kalaniemi plays has to be in the running, of course...
123.last: and what kind of hat? You have to be very careful to wear the appropriate hat to match your accordion.
I may also have to grow a beard with no mustache.
He has a wide variety of hats, too young for facial hair.
109: Brigadoon reference kept me smiling all the way to library and back.
Thanks for the tip re avoiding that store!
The impression I have from local-to-you concertinists is that you should not avoid that store! A Comic Book Guy is just what you need.
Right. It sounds like you're actually looking for a real accordion to play real music with, so Accordion Guy would probably be genuinely helpful. I was a looky-loo who thought accordions were kinda neat.
I got so confused by 129 because I thought it was about Accordion Guy, who really is mostly pretty helpful but also super nice and not so all-fired accordion focused.
"Mama's got a squeeze-box. Papa doesn't sleep at night."
Hotel bars close early, I guess. Anyway, the bartender said last call is coming and asked me if I wanted to order multiple beers. I don't think I look like that kind of drinker.
Self-image aside, how many more beers did you actually want?
I have to start driving home in eight hours, so only one.
Also, hats on babies? Very, very cute when tolerated.
He tolerates them well! We managed to get him to do it by just making it part of the going-outside-routine. Hat for the baby! Oh, and hat for Mommy! Hats on our head!
So now I wear a white straw/paper hat with a wide brim whenever I'm outside with the kid. His is a bucket hat. Fortunately, we both have long faces, so we look fabulous in hats.
You can make a paper hat with a newspaper. If they still have newspapers.
Wait, who said long faces look great with hats? This...this changes everything.
What if you have a long face, a weak chin, and a large head? Like a grey alien with a big nose? Do hats still work?
I was going to ask the same question Eggplant did, except that I don't think I want to wear hats. But is that just false consciousness because I don't think I can pull it off?
138 -- it depends. Are you a party animal?
Surely, it's only a matter of time before the sombrero makes a comeback. Probably by way of the hipsters.
139: If you can't pull it off you've underestimated your hat size.
I find all this hat anxiety and phobia hilarious, but then I'm many many years into fanatical daily sunscreen, hats, etc., so that at this point avoidance of sun damage has become some kind of weird hobby, can't realm relate to non-vampires anymore.
I wear hats often, but then I'm old and fat, and usually don't really give a shit what other people think about my appearance.
143 is hilarious and yet I'm sure part of my problem is indeed in finding sufficiently large hats when I've experimented in the past. Sigh.
Much hat wearing chez nous, also probably absurd sartorial standards.
sufficiently large hats
I hear sombreros are coming back.
53.hat else is there?
Flat caps. I think ttaM would totally rock a flat cap of the slightly floppy variety.
We're all just being too Euro centric. The obvious solution is the fez.
re: 149
I've tried those, actually. Something to do with the shape of my head [big, square-ish], I look not good. Both the traditional flat cap style, and the more floppy ones. I did have one for a while that sort of worked, but the summery ones, not so much.
This sort of thing:
http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Cannes-details.aspx
re: 150
Not if the idea is to shade your forehead and neck. Maybe just go with a headscarf, Arab style.
Or a shamagh! Go for the nattarGcM of aibarA look.
Relevant:
http://s178.photobucket.com/user/StephWard10/media/calvin_and_hobbes-sombrero.png.html
re: 153
I usually have one in my bag, used as a neck-scarf or face-towel or camera-wrap, or whatever. I have worn it as a shemagh when I've been caught in blazing sun with no suncream.
Grrr. Definitely too badly sunburned to go back out for more surfing today. Stupid melanin-free skin and insufficiently powerful sunblock. Shouldn't SPF 50, reapplied every hour and a half, be enough to block a nuclear blast? I hate people who can tan.
Also, on the hats, the looking like a twat/douchecanoe problem is IME mostly solved by not actually being one. Men I know who wear panamas and the like as sun protection may look slightly peculiar, but no worse than that.
SPF50 allows 1/50th of the UVA through. If you are in the sun for long enough that 1/50 of the UVA x time in the sun is enough to burn you, you are shit out of luck, I think. The only alternative is clothing, or staying inside.
I'm of northern somewhat gingery stock, but luckily, while I do burn, I do also tan and SPF50 on forehead and nose, and a slightly lower SPF elsewhere is fine if I'm just in usual sun exposure. My mum and sister are both quite dark, and tan heavily, so I think there's some genes in there that produce actual melanin.
I expect that surfing for hours would test anyone's skin, though, if they weren't used to it. I'd guess that an opaque sunblock might help on sensitive areas. That zinc-y white stuff.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Dosage
I think the problem is the specific area -- while I don't tan, my face, arms, and legs get a certain amount of sun in day to day life, and I build up some protection. The backs of my knees, though -- there's just no reason to get much sun there unless you're deliberately lying on your face in the sun, which I never am. Unless I'm spending hours on a surfboard.
You could wear a burkini. Anyway, I haven't been burned like that in a while but I recall the pain.
I'm all freckles now. I wonder if those don't help.
Yeah, a long-legged/sleeved lycra bodysuit would have been an excellent idea. Bike shorts helped, but weren't long enough.
We have one of those suits for the baby. It's like a tiny Victorian gents bathing suit. He's never worn it, though. As he doesn't spend any time swimming outdoors [he's sort of done it once].
I had this question for some of the people when I was in Palo Alto. We were sitting at lunch and it was blazing sun. No-one apart from me seemed to stop to apply sun-screen, or had a hat on. And yet, almost none of them were tanned. If I was spending a fair bit of time in the California sun, I'd be pretty dark brown within a few weeks if I wasn't continually applying sunscreen.
So, what are they doing? Are they used to the sun but not tanning? Wearing some kind of stealth sunscreen?
Over the course of a summer, I seem to build up a fair amount of sun protection on the areas that get sun, without visibly getting much darker. I just burn less in September than I did in May. I'm somewhat darker -- if I put my forearm against my belly, for example, they're totally different colors. But no one would look at me and call me tan (redfaced, freckled, and kind of weathered looking, sure. But not tan.)
My tan is sort of ruddy/reddish, I suppose, rather than a really deep brown. But definitely darker than most of the CA people I was talking to.
The backs of my knees, though -- there's just no reason to get much sun there unless you're deliberately lying on your face in the sun, which I never am. Unless I'm spending hours on a surfboard.
Or snorkeling. Surprising how crippling it is to have sunburnt kneebacks.
Worst sunburn I ever got was snorkeling a coral reef. I'd worn a cotton tee shirt thinking it would offer some protection, but I've since learned a lot more about uv, what blocks it and what doesn't, and a white tee shirt is almost useless.
If I ever go back in ocean water I'll be wearing some sort of skin suit.
When I'm in the sun my face and hair both start to get red. Fortunately, not the same shade. And my hair really doesn't get very red anymore.
164: My guess is they don't spend as much time outside as you - particularly because they drive everywhere.
I put on sunscreen every single day in California (and in England; it's habit). I do build up a tan, but I spent a lot of time outside and I'm naturally darker skinned. I would guess that they're using sunscreen, at least the women among them.
And oh, LB - the back of your knees is the worst place to sunburn! Pretty much the only bad sunburn I've ever really had (I think I've peeled maybe 4-5 times in my life?) was there (from sitting in a metal canoe on a river in the desert) and it was absolutely awful.
While I am serially commenting, OMG am I so bad at surfing. No natural skill, no balance, and I'm so blind that I can't see anything so without special goggles (which I don't have) I was just blindly flailing about. But I still love being in the ocean. That part is good.
164: Either they normally eat outside at that time of day and don't show much of a tan but won't burn or they use a lotion with sunblock every morning.
LB, that kind of burn is miserable. Much sympathy. I burn readily and repeatedly, occasionally badly enough that I get sick. Every year in late summer, the marching band at my high school would have a week of drilling, and on days where we did backwards marching, I'd burn the backs or my knees (wearing sunblock). That was memorably painful, but I think hands are the worst. I washed my hands after putting on sunblock and then went waterskiing a few weeks ago. Ow.
159: Surfers traditionally deal with this problem by wearing wetsuits, but that's a pretty big investment if you don't plan on becoming a surfing fanatic.
re: 171
This was an academic cultural heritage tech conference. There were no women.*
* I lie, there were a few, but as it happened none of them were there the day we were eating outside.
176: I did actually think after writing that, "Wait. He was in Palo Alto. There probably weren't any women." But I was hoping otherwise!
Perhaps Minivet has it right.
Totally a male-female thing. I'd never put on sunscreen in Southern Cal unless I was actually at the beach or a pool or something. I'm not the fairest in the land but am definitely a whitey, your skin just gets used to it and doesn't burn. Women do it to avoid wrinkles.
This is true. And why, just today I was told everyone assumes I'm 5 years younger than I am! (But oh, hey, I'm totally in that age range where it's impossible to guess accurately just based on appearance.)
(But oh, hey, I'm totally in that age range where it's impossible to guess accurately just based on appearance.)
I think that's just about any age range from teenager on.
It was 37.9 before all the sun this week.
I vote for "Californians don't actually spend a ton of time in full sun", as when I would go to the desert or the cape or whatever whenI lived there when I came back I'd be much more tan than I was.
So I skipped yesterday, because pain. But today was cloudy! So I went surfing again. And reapplied sunscreen every ninety minutes. And again, I am so badly sunburned I cannot stand up.
It's like I'm incapable of learning.
But anyway, I have definitively determined that if there's something missing from my life, it is not surfing.
I know you want it.
That was a little creepy. Sorry. Hope you heal soon. I've been there, but not this year.
I for one am very, very sick of the sun, or maybe just the heat. I hate august and September with every ounce of my being.
I haven't for decades. I have all sorts of insane-looking beach habits -- if I'm not actually in the water, and there isn't convenient shade, I huddle under a sarong or a beach towel or something. But I've been doing that for so long that I'd kind of forgotten it was necessary, rather than just a weird thing I do.
It was really a gloriously mild summer here. Rarely too warm.
Right. It was rarely too Northern Virginia all summer.
We had some hot days, but it really wasn't that smoky much, given how many trees burned to the west of us. Low 70s here today, and through the weekend, as our street festival is getting rained on (but not out).
