This post mentions dead animals in the fourth paragraph.
Been feeling very frustrated with my inability to convey my feelings/thoughts into English words and speak them out loud to other human beings. When posed with a question, my mind immediately goes blank, and any attempts to summon the correct answers is like pulling them up against quicksand. The more I pull, the easier the ideas slip away. It leaves me feeling stupid, and probably looking stupider.
Today I spent mostly with one of my good friends from work, one of the people I actually feel comfortable being myself around. He's ten years older than me, and a nonstop chatterbox, mostly in an endearing way. It was a two-hour drive up to the beach where our team had coordinated a cleanup project, and not a moment there or on the drive back was spent in silence. After we got out of the car, he pulled me aside from the group and told me that he enjoyed our friendship and was glad to spend the time growing closer as friends. He's always saying sappy shit like that, and I eat it up -- who else can say they have such kind and appreciative friends?
We split into our trash pickup teams after a huge confusion about a) which beach we were exactly supposed to be at and b) where the representative for the volunteer organization was. We were supposed to get started at 10:45, but we didn't set off until a little after 11:30.
The tourist beach a few minutes down the road was absolutely packed, with zero parking. But the beach we ended up at was largely empty - the far end of the beach was covered in black and green seaweed. It squished densely underfoot and let off a ripe, fishy smell. Dead crabs were everywhere, tiny flies swarming away at them. We found an eel skeleton, curled up by some boulders, with only the last inch or so of tail with flesh intact. I found a blob of mysterious transparent goop - I thought it was plastic until I nudged it with my shoe and felt the mushy resistance. One of the coworkers on my team came over and nudged it with a knife, revealing the stingers of a Lion's Mane jellyfish.
Despite the full group being about twelve people, the rest of the group disappeared after we got started, and it felt like the entire beach was the four of us: me, my friend, two semi-unfamiliar coworkers, and one of their kids. On the walk back to the grove, I took off my Crocs and enjoyed the soft sand.
Ok well I have to go because it's Weed and Dinner time.