Here is one of my favorites that happened not too long ago...
It was a dreary day in lab. Experiments weren't working right, labmates were stressed about their own predicaments, and there was a general cloud over the day. Luckily, living in San Diego, that cloud was only metaphorical, as the sun was brightly shining and the weather forecasters were jubilantly crowing about 15-22 foot waves in the surf report.
I had my camera in my car (I try to bring it with me just in case I need a quick break from lab and want to be reminded of the beauty of the outdoors), so without any hesitation, I jumped at the opportunity to photograph some big swells and extract myself from the general grumpiness of lab.
Now, normally I have a spot where I love to photograph the ocean, but on this day I had ants in my pants to try something new. Back when I was running all the time I often ran by the Torrey Pines Gliderport, and I recalled that there was a hiking trail near there that descended the 200+ feet down the cliff from the gliderport to the ocean.
The view was breathtaking--none of my pictures will do it justice. There were a few other hikers around me, all giving me odd looks (was my fly down? mascara running? hair doing a weird cockatoo thing that it sometimes does without warning? Nope. Well, that's strange...), but I just wrote it off as them being shocked by my pale skin, as most of them were bronzed.
There's really no other way of phrasing the mental onslaught of horror, extreme embarrassment and disgust that washed over me.
Allow me to back up a bit.
I was shooting away, when I saw a man on the beach, running. Now, people run on the beach all the time. Men will often show off their lean (or not-so-lean) physiques while jogging on the beach. This guy, however, was oddly all one color. Wait, WHAT? It looked like he was jogging in a skin suit.
Oh my holy word. The telephoto doesn't lie. HE WAS ONLY WEARING SKIN. He was "NEKKED"!
I suddenly became aware. Aware of my surroundings: I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. Don't freak out now. Aware of how I looked: "20-something disheveled redheaded lady with a telephoto lens overlooking....Oh no...BLACK'S BEACH!"
For those of you non-San Diegan dwellers, Black's Beach is a nude beach. Yep, they have those here in the States. Nope, curious readers, there wasn't a damn sign about it anywhere that I looked. I could have used some warning.
I scrambled, throwing my camera in my bag, turning tail and hauling butt back up the 50-odd feet I had descended down the cliff. Now folks, I do believe if I had been timed, I would have set the world record for scaling that path faster than any other mammal alive or dead. I finally made it to the top, wildly looking around me to see if anyone had watched me. The only people I saw was a startled group of Chinese tourists, taking a family photo at the top of the cliff. Here I was, sweating, bleary-eyed with fear, red-faced from my exertion and embarrassment, hair definitely doing that cockatoo thing, and they started to motion as if they were either A) going to help me (how, I don't know) or B) ask me to take their family photo. Before I made solid eye contact with any one of them, I sprinted off to my car, camera bag awkwardly bumping my butt with each pounding step, reminding me of the naked old man butt I just saw.
So to recap, beautiful view, prune butt (not a beautiful view), self awareness, scared tourists, and a renewed passion for knowing exactly where I am at all times, and whether or not that place may be near naked old guys.
Where's Waldo? Don't worry, Momma ('Cause I know you are). The image is too pixelated to even see butt crack ;).
