Vacation Recap

It's been a crazy vacation, in more ways than one.

I like the beach, but I don't like wearing swimsuits — women's swimwear is always, well, too feminine for me. I usually get around the problem by wearing a t-shirt over my swimsuit. My mother, however, hates when I wear a t-shirt over my swimsuit. For whatever reason, it just seems to drive her nuts.

My aunt — her younger sister — seems to share this trait. The entire trip, the two of them were nagging me to take off my t-shirt before I went in the water. Their tactics were slightly different; my mother kept saying things like "You're going to wreck your clothing by getting it all full of saltwater, Jackie", while my aunt kept telling me how I didn't need to feel ashamed of my body, as though either of those were the issues.

Eventually, I stopped swimming when they were around and just brought my book to the beach instead.

I still wanted to have the chance to go swimming, though; we were at the beach, after all. So one night (it was a few days ago; the 19th, I think) I snuck out and headed down to the ocean.

I don't know if night swimming is even legal, but no one was there, and no one caught me. I only stayed a few minutes. It was kind of spooky. Even with the stars out, it was really dark; I think it must have been a new moon. The water was cold and I kept thinking about sharks.

The really spooky part, though, was when I got back. Luna had been Skyping me in my absence. One of her messages said something like "Jack, I want to talk to you, please come back." The message after that said, "I'll be here when you get back from swimming."

I immediately wrote back asking her how she knew I'd been swimming. She ignored my question and just told me she was happy I was back.

I mean, I was on a trip to the beach. I suppose she could have just guessed I was out swimming. But I'd never been out swimming late at night like that, and I hadn't told her I planned to go swimming at night. I don't know; it's probably nothing, but it gave me the creeps.

Luna and I talked almost every night. The past few nights, though, she hasn't been online at all. I take that as a good sign; maybe she's been having less trouble getting to sleep. Alternately, maybe Donna's been using her laptop in the evenings and hasn't let Luna on to talk to me.

I've talked to Erin a fair few times, but just small talk. I pointedly haven't been discussing Luna with her. I think if I did tell her, she'd get concerned, and I don't want her to feel concerned about this. Whatever's up with Luna, I've got it under control.

Apart from the weirdness, it's been a good vacation, though. We stayed in a nice beach house a short distance from the ocean. I really like being near the sea; the smell of the ocean is amazing. It makes me feel strange to be near so much water. It's like standing at the edge of the world.

The ocean is a little scary because it's easy to forget that it's not just an empty expanse of water. It's full of life, so much more life than we have on land, so much of which is too tiny to see. Stuff like that is cool, but at the same time it kind of freaks me out.

Oh — I almost forgot. Luna's rock. I kept it in my suitcase the whole time we were there, except for a couple times when I took it out and held it up to my ear again. Sounds crazy, I know, but I just want to know whatever it is that Luna heard when she held it to her ear. It's probably just the blood rushing through her ears or something like that — like with seashells — but I think it's odd that she can hear something and I can't hear anything.