I Need a (Clothed) Vacation.

Ah, Emmy.  Our talks get me through the day, the week, the year, my life.  This bitch keeps me constantly laughing, thinking and dreaming.  She told me today that I should go to the nude beach in Miami to see the withered 80 year old men with their yellow teeth and small ding dongs (well, that part's a direct quote from DR, actually).  And while I know I'm not suited for any beach (much less a NUDE beach), it got me thinking about vacation and how long it's been since I've had a real one.

I told Emmy about Randy and I laying on the beach and John coming up to us saying, "Jesus!  You look like two pieces of newspaper laying on the sand!"  We're white.  Grayish white, even.  Newspaper was a pretty solid description of our skin pigmentation.  I'm like a whiteish-grayish-clear.  My veins are VERY apparent.  The paleness is why tattoo artists love me and why the cast of the Jersey Shore thinks I should be hospitalized, or at the very least institutionalized.  Locked up FAR away from any beach clearly.

I'm ultra-aware of my body and its imperfections.  I have trouble walking around my apartment without a towel from the bathroom to my bedroom!  I know what I look like (and it may actually look worse in a bikini - score one for Emily).  I told Em if we were to go to the nude beach, she'd look ahead in the distance and wonder why there was a white trash bag full of vanilla icing and library books with tattoos blowing about the beach.  And frolicking, I would be.

White trash bag full of vanilla icing and library books with tattoos - on the BEACH!

The sad part is - I LOVE THE BEACH!  I love the fine grains of sand, I love the salty smell, I love the HOT sun.  I love writing in the wet sand and dipping my tootsies into the cold water.  (I'm irrationally terrified of open water, however, so I don't go too far in.  Aquatic plant life that touches my feet is automatically transformed into dead bodies - well, the full heads of hair on the dead bodies- floating somehow close to the floor of the ocean and moving like silk back and forth with the waves...  against my legs and any rock is surely a crab or open shark's mouth waiting for me to put my whole foot down.)  But I know my limitations.  So most of the time, I'm pretty covered, aside from an occasional sunning with just shorts and a bikini top on.  OCCASIONAL.

The last time I had a real vacation...  well...  I can't really remember.  I don't know that I actually ever have.

This June, however, I'm having one.  I'm going to Portugal and staying HERE.  Yes.  That's right.  The same place Bono stayed.  If he wasn't such a tool, I'd boast about it.

Anyhoo, I think it will be my first REAL vacation.  Good food, beautiful surroundings, great company and relaxation.  Oh, relaxation!  I can't wait.

Until then, I'll work on getting some of the vanilla icing out of the trash bag and a few of those library books returned...

xo,
Rachael