I just got back from crawling through the attic checking on a long wire antenna that I have strung up there years ago. Yeah, I'm also one of THOSE people (a ham radio operator). We've had a lot of roofing, air conditioning, and remodeling work done in the last few years and I was curious to see if the antenna was still intact. After a lot of crawling around to get from one end to the other, I found the antenna to be in good condition.
Even in the early morning, it's still hot up there from all the heat trapped from the day before. Plus the attic is now even more crowded than before with ducts, cables, wires, nails, and staples that like to catch and rip into clothing, and into me. Thinking that clothing was more of a liability than an asset, I decided to do without it this time. OK, I wore shoes. It seemed that every time I got snagged, poked, scratched, or badly cut going up there, my clothes provided me no protection and instead they just got ruined in the process. Plus, I sweat buckets up there and my clothes would usually get so soaked, unwearable, and smelly that they just got thrown in the laundry room right away afterwards, anyway.
I'm happy to report that crawling around up there nude was the way to go. Without clothing to snag, I was able slither through the tangle of ducts, rafters, and wires is if I was almost not there. I also seemed to be more careful about keeping myself further away from where nails or staples might be lurking out to get me and I managed to come out scratch free. I was a lot cooler and more comfortable with the sweat just sheet flowing off me and not accumulating and chafing in my clothes, like would happen otherwise.
As noted in my Practically Naked posts, wearing clothes is often a lot more of a liability than an asset when one is doing physical work.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Naked At Lunch
I few months ago, I ran into a couple of short interviews with an author, Mark Haskell Smith, about his latest book "Naked at Lunch, A Reluctant Nudist's Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World". After reading the reviews, it didn't seem like it was a stupid fluff piece, so I bought the electronic version and made my way through it. The premise of the book is that he wanted to investigate what all this nudist/clothing-optional stuff was about, and with the air of detachment of a pseudo-journalist or armchair sociologist, he went about having a wide range of nudist experiences to find out what he could about "those" people.
It was a good read and he certainly had a lot of high end experiences that most of us will never be able to have or afford. I've had some of his basic experiences and found his reporting of them to be insightful and genuine. Black's Beach (near San Diego) was my first experience with social nudity and a clothing optional beach. His description of the place, the people, and hiking down there and back was spot on. And I like his description of Haulover Beach near Miami, Florida as being a drop dead gorgeous beach right off the main highway, right in the middle of everything. It is a shining example of what a modern urban beach should be.
He likewise found it odd, as I did, that the staff of Desert Sun Resort in Palm Springs were all dressed up appropriate to their jobs, while everyone else went naked. Stephane Deschenens, owner of Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park, has a wonderful podcast called the Naturist living Show. His latest talk was on the subject of working in a nudist club and why, in his resort, the staff is nude. I have to agree with him.
Mark did a nude cruise, which I've never done. But then, I don't like themed cruises. They're expensive and I like the diversity of everyone not trying fit the same mold. Likewise, I enjoyed his description of Vera Playa in Spain and of course Cap d'Agde in France. Two places I'll probably never get to. He highlighted people dressing up erotically at night and some of the swinging at those places. Sorry, but that stuff turns me off. Which is why I'll probably never go either place.
The one experience he had that I would have really loved was "The Naked European Walking Tour". A group that gets together annually and day hikes in the Alps, base camping for a week together. Being a long time back-country hiker and lover of mountains, I would LOVE that!
He interviewed some interesting people, including Scott Wiener, the city supervisor in San Francisco who put into place the nudity ban there, nudist historian and academic Mark Storey, Felicity Jones (co-founder of Young Naturists America and my favorite young nudist blogger), and many others. And he covered a lot of history about nudism that I didn't know. And yes, not all of it was pretty.
It wasn't a light fun read (and free Kindle book) like "Going Bare" by John Harding, a brit who needled his wife into going to a nice low key French resort (La Jenny) with the family, and loved it. La Jenny sounds a lot more appealing to me than the fancy resorts do. Nor was it a throughout sociological study, like the book "Nudist Society", which I enjoyed and if Mark Smith had looked for it when he visited the "American Nudist Research Library" on the grounds of Cypress Cove Nudist Resort, he would have seen the copy of "Nudist Society" I donated there several years ago.
Either way, buy Mark's book. Maybe you'll learn something. He claims that he was simply acting as a "reluctant nudist" and that he still isn't one, even though he thinks society misunderstands it and that simple nudity shouldn't be criminalized the way it is. Maybe he still doesn't get it. All a nudist or naturist is, is someone who actually likes being human and doesn't mind actually looking like one. Perhaps, he fits that description and still doesn't know that, in fact, he is one (simply human = natural nudist).
It was a good read and he certainly had a lot of high end experiences that most of us will never be able to have or afford. I've had some of his basic experiences and found his reporting of them to be insightful and genuine. Black's Beach (near San Diego) was my first experience with social nudity and a clothing optional beach. His description of the place, the people, and hiking down there and back was spot on. And I like his description of Haulover Beach near Miami, Florida as being a drop dead gorgeous beach right off the main highway, right in the middle of everything. It is a shining example of what a modern urban beach should be.
He likewise found it odd, as I did, that the staff of Desert Sun Resort in Palm Springs were all dressed up appropriate to their jobs, while everyone else went naked. Stephane Deschenens, owner of Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park, has a wonderful podcast called the Naturist living Show. His latest talk was on the subject of working in a nudist club and why, in his resort, the staff is nude. I have to agree with him.
Mark did a nude cruise, which I've never done. But then, I don't like themed cruises. They're expensive and I like the diversity of everyone not trying fit the same mold. Likewise, I enjoyed his description of Vera Playa in Spain and of course Cap d'Agde in France. Two places I'll probably never get to. He highlighted people dressing up erotically at night and some of the swinging at those places. Sorry, but that stuff turns me off. Which is why I'll probably never go either place.
The one experience he had that I would have really loved was "The Naked European Walking Tour". A group that gets together annually and day hikes in the Alps, base camping for a week together. Being a long time back-country hiker and lover of mountains, I would LOVE that!
He interviewed some interesting people, including Scott Wiener, the city supervisor in San Francisco who put into place the nudity ban there, nudist historian and academic Mark Storey, Felicity Jones (co-founder of Young Naturists America and my favorite young nudist blogger), and many others. And he covered a lot of history about nudism that I didn't know. And yes, not all of it was pretty.
It wasn't a light fun read (and free Kindle book) like "Going Bare" by John Harding, a brit who needled his wife into going to a nice low key French resort (La Jenny) with the family, and loved it. La Jenny sounds a lot more appealing to me than the fancy resorts do. Nor was it a throughout sociological study, like the book "Nudist Society", which I enjoyed and if Mark Smith had looked for it when he visited the "American Nudist Research Library" on the grounds of Cypress Cove Nudist Resort, he would have seen the copy of "Nudist Society" I donated there several years ago.
Either way, buy Mark's book. Maybe you'll learn something. He claims that he was simply acting as a "reluctant nudist" and that he still isn't one, even though he thinks society misunderstands it and that simple nudity shouldn't be criminalized the way it is. Maybe he still doesn't get it. All a nudist or naturist is, is someone who actually likes being human and doesn't mind actually looking like one. Perhaps, he fits that description and still doesn't know that, in fact, he is one (simply human = natural nudist).
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