And the sun has come to Earth

Even though I still felt like crap yesterday, I couldn't bear another afternoon of laying around trying not to stick to things. So I went to the beach to escape the heat.

Now, I knew everyone else probably had the same idea, so I specifically chose a beach in the Marin Headlands that I had easy bus access to but is far enough away from population centers that I hoped would keep it relatively quiet. All I can say is, if that was relatively quiet, I'd hate to have been at any other beach. I was completely unprepared for the gaudy beach-umbrella bazaar of wet sandy tennis-ball-chasing canine bliss, wave chasing screamy toddlerhood and writhing mass of sunscreen slickened humanity that met me oceanside. It was something I've only seen in photos of vacation destinations, and it was difficult to stake a claim on my own personal stretch of strand without violating some of my personal space rules.

But I did and I spent four glorious hours in salt sprayed coolness. I read, I pocketed a few pebbles, I lost feeling in my feet wading in the freezing surf, I turned every 15 minutes like a pig on a spit, and... I fell asleep. A dangerous, nonflipping sleep. I have no idea how long I was asleep, and it was only last night that I learned the extent of the consequences of that nap, when I awoke to the extreme discomfort of sunburn.

Spare me the lecture, lovelies -- I'm totally paranoid of the sun as a general rule, wearing a hat and slathering the sunscreen on my face, ears and neck whenever I'm outside for more than 20 minutes. And I was wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt to protect my arms. But sunscreen and hairy legs generally don't mix too well, plus my legs usually aren't in a position to be getting direct sun anyway. ...Unless I snooze on my back at the beach with my feet splayed. So now exactly half of each leg is bright red, from my achilles and calf around the inside to my shin. The outside half, still the same white. It's seriously like someone drew a line down my shinbone and spray painted me on one side of that line.

Also, because my arms were behind my head, I have an inch-wide strip of sunburn below my bellybutton where my shirt slid up.

I'm a dumbass. And I'll be purchasing some spray-on sunscreen before I next venture out into the UV.