Geeezeer

Well, despite what I said in my earlier posts, I am now working on that elusive all over tan. I’ve added a bit of discipline to the mix. Set the timer for 15 minutes each side, then a couple of days later 30 minutes. By the time I find the time to get my sun bath in the sun is at an angle, so lesser chance of a bad burn. Today and yesterday time was limited due to increased cloud cover, but I still feel some residual warmth on my buns. I will gradually increase the exposure according to my schedule and the sun’s schedule. I tan quickly this time of year, especially if I apply an after sun lotion.
Next week is the Volleyball Tournement at Lake Como, Lutz, FL. Will go to observe, as I can’t yet devote the time to play. Will work on that problem later.

Came across this Kindle book on Amazon by Liz Egger:
How To Get Naked And Not Get Arrested!: A quick guide to hassle free naked leisure, fun, pleasure—and profit! Kindle Edition
$3.50
The statistics she uses in the free preview are astounding. I hope they are accurate.

Was far too chilly at 40f (4.4c) when I got up this morning, but by noon it was a quite pleasant 60F (15.5C), so I went on a 3 1/2 mile walk on the prairie.  Quickly got naked as there was nobody else at the trailhead.  Alas, I had no sooner started back when I was startled by another hiker.  He turned around, and went back the way he came.  However, he stood on the trail for a bit and I wondered if he was going to try to gather some photo evidence of my nude state.  I took a different fork in the trail and he did not follow.  Discretion being the better part of valor for the afternoon, I remained clothed.  A good thing, as the trail started to fill up – And this on a weekday. Don’t textiles have to go work someplace on a weekday?

I am thinking I should classify my nude hiking trails like this:

A. Absolutely Safe for Nude Hiking (ASFNH)

B.  Sometimes Safe for Nude Hikng (SSFNH)

C.  Rarely Safe for Hude Hiking (RSFHH)

The problem is the variables: Weather, Time of Day, Weekend, Weekday, in Season, off Season and any permutation of these.

I once went nude walking on a deserted Gulf of Mexico beach at midnight during a full moon, and almost bumped into a fisherman.  Hard to be able to walk naked anywhere these days.

This is something of an ongoing  project, something to  be carried close to hand if someone else objects to one’s being in a nude state.  The questions assume an accusation of public indecency or the violation of a law, whether real or imagined.  Feel free to add your own questions.

A checklist concerning the legality of nudity:

1. Is the person male or female?
2. What portions of the body are unclad?
3. Does the statute prohibiting nudity discriminate between men and women?
4. Does the nudity involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages?
5. Does the nudity involve the consumption of other recreational drugs?
6. Does the nudity involve the solicitation of sexual activity?
7. Is the person engaged in sexual activity?
8. Does the person have a reasonable expectation of privacy, or of not being observed by others?
9. Is the person in a densely trafficked area?
10. Is the person in a lightly trafficked area?
11. Is there a statute specifically prohibiting nudity in the location in question?
12. When the person noticed that he/she was being observed, what did he or she do?
13. Is the person engaging in activity that is otherwise permissible had he or she been clothed, i.e. hiking?
14. Was any commercial activity, such as buying or selling a product, whether legal or illegal, present or involved?
15. Is the complainant aware that nudity, per se, is not legally obscene?
16. Were there other overt acts of indecency or obscenity aside from the bare fact of nudity?
17. Do the governing statutes accurately, clearly, specifically define the alleged behavior as unlawful?
18. Were the complainants damaged in any way?
19. Are the person’s demeanor, behavior and activity within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech?
20. Do the person’s demeanor, behavior and activity, applying contemporary community standards, have a tendency to excite lustful thoughts? [Consider, for example, the common practice of wearing of a thong bathing suit on the beach, street or in a hotel lobby in a resort area.]
21. Does the complainant subscribe to extreme views of public morality or otherwise own a prohibitionist mindset that falls outside the community norm?
22. Did the arresting official personally observe the behavior in question, view documentary evidence thereof, or is the official relying solely upon the words of another person?
23. Are any of the complainants involved, whether private or official, expressing a moral judgement on the persons involved?
24. Did the questioned behavior take place in an inhabited area or a wild, uninhabited area shielded by vegetation from the public eye?
25. Have the legislatures of local governing authorities [municipality, county, state] addressed the behavior in question?
26. Have the regulating authorities specifically addressed nudity in their rules and regulations?
27. Is the case law less a legal opinion than an exercise in moral indignation?
28. Is the allegedly offensive behavior purposeful or accidental?
29. Was the allegedly offensive behavior openly, knowingly and deliberately made before others?
30. Were these other persons reasonably expected to be shocked by the performance? [Consider, for example, the cartoon where a person in an overcoat flashes occupants of a nudist resort.]
31. If the complaint is of indecent exposure, who are the exposees?
32. What was the physical distance between exposer and the exposee?
33. Was the exposer totally naked, or was just part of the individual’s anatomy exposed?
34. Was there an unmistakably erotic attempt to focus the attention of others solely on the sexual organs of the exposer?
35. Did the alleged exposer sport an erection?
36. Did the alleged exposer touch any part of his own body or any part of anyone else’s body during the incident in question?

Yesterday, I dropped my pocket camera [Canon PowerShot SX720HS] on the concrete floor, shattering the glass viewfinder.  It’s usable, but just barely.  Like one of the reviews said, the jpgs are a bit mushy.  I’m a fanatic about image sharpness, so this is a welcome, if inopportune, chance to upgrade my photo capabilities. Would love to hear recommendations for a new pocket camera.  I have had 2 Canon EOS SLRs, and managed to screw them up both by dropping on the ground or dripping sweat on them.  A pocket camera works best for me – it’s lighter and unobtrusive. I love the image quality and light gathering ability of the Apple iPhones, but I’m limited by their small image size.

Features I’m looking for:

• High resolution in the printed product.
• Ability to add a polarizing filter [not critical, but nice]
• 20 to 25 megapixels
• Rangefinder would be awesome.
• Professional quality

If you can suggest a camera you use, I would be very grateful.  Please tell me what you like about your camera.  I’m not wedded to any manufacturer.

[reposted from my original, with one fact corrected]

I Learned to Walk Barefoot Today.

A few days before Christmas, the heavens dropped seven inches of rain on us within 24 hours, most of it overnight.  This is normally our dry season in Florida, the beginning of drought conditions.  The dry season offsets the summer monsoon rains. The trails and the kettles dry up so that we can move about freely in the back country. Not so this week.  The trails were more flooded than I had ever seen them, and the only way to get around them was to wade through the saw palmetto.  Not a smart thing to do, clothed or naked.  The last time I did it, I learned why these 1400 year old “trees” are called “saw.”  The fronds are ok, but the stalks have tiny little teeth their whole length.  The only thing that saved me was I did remember to carry a walking stick that day, and used that to push aside the fronds so that I could pass more or less freely.

So today, I said to myself, I will wear sandals instead of shoes and socks, and if the sandals get wet, not to worry.  I’ll just wade through the water, and squish through the rest of the trail.

When I got to the first flooded portion of the trail, I said the short version of the Serenity Prayer, took off my sandals and my shorts, and trudged on through barefoot, now totally naked.  Why is it that we are afraid of water here in the subtropics?   No streams or rivers nearby for alligators, the black racers (harmless snakes) are usually seen in my backyard where they catch unwanted critters, but not here on the trail. The rattlesnakes are holed up sunning themselves on a sand outcrop somewhere. The surface underneath my feet is either grass or sand.  What is wrong with my mindset?

If it were not for my backpack, I would have been totally nude.  My footsteps were far more silent than if I had walked with shoes or sandals.  I watched very closely where I put my feet and so I traded a cardio workout for a slower look at what nature had to offer.  I did have to continually remind myself to bring my eyes off the ground to see what my surroundings had to offer.  Ospreys and bald eagles soaring in the air, several different species of epiphytes blown off the trees by the wind and just by chance noticed some wildlife so rare in these parts of Florida that I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that I saw.  I really need to invest in a trail camera one of these days.

Our area is infested with feral hogs, said to be a leftover from DeSoto’s Florida expeditions.  Don Juan Ponce de Leon had some pigs with him on his last voyage a bit south of us.  However, he never got to exercise his agricultural skills nor enslave the Calusa as he planned.  Ponce received an arrow in his thigh for his efforts, and died of the wound in Havana, Cuba several days later. No loss there.  Anyway, the pigs are nasty, making a mess of the trails and are otherwise unfriendly.  The local trappers can’t keep them in check, so I do carry a weapon for protection.  But generally, I expect them to leave me alone, and vice versa.

As for the gators, I don’t mess with them.  My wading, barefoot or otherwise, is limited to the trails.  The little kettle pond in the second photo is connected to the river that has some world class gators.  The trail around the pond was flooded, leaving no safe passage.  I have seen enough photos of gators jumping out of the water to catch a bird, so my default is to stay five to ten feet away from the water’s edge.

In all my years of hiking, first in the Adirondacks, then the Catskills and the Appalachian Trail, I never walked barefoot.  Steel shanked boots were the norm, and definitely wanted if you are carrying a pack of any size or weight.  Not only that, but two pair of socks to keep the blisters at bay.

Today was different.  Walking barefoot was like skinny dipping for feet.  Off trail, I had to pay particular care where I placed each foot.  To walk silently means to avoid pain from stepping on sharp objects.  If it’s a noisy object, it may well be an uncomfortable object.  One does not blunder blindly through the woods when walking barefoot. Slower is better but with experience I was able to walk faster.

Consider for a moment that the Calusa, primarily fisherfolk who lived in the Florida uplands along the coast, walked naked and barefoot through the saw palmetto like we would around our house.  How did they do that, I wonder, and can I learn somehow to do what they did?

In Swimming Time

Clouds above, as white as wool,

Drifting over skies as blue

As the eyes of beautiful

Children when they smile at you;

Groves of maple, elm, and beech,

With the sunshine sifted through

Branches, mingling each with each

Dim with shade and bright with

dew;

Stripling trees, and poplars hoar,

Hickory and sycamore,

And the drowsy dogwood bowed

Where the ripples laugh aloud,

And the crooning creek is stirred

To a gaiety that now

Mates the warble of the bird

Teetering on the hazel bough;

Grasses long and fine and fair

As your schoolboy sweetheart’s hair,

Backward roached and twirled and

twined

By the fingers of the wind.

Vines and mosses, interlinked

Down dark aisles and deep ravines,

Where the stream runs, willow-

brinked,

Round a bend where some one leans

Faint and vague and indistinct

As the like reflected thing

In the current shimmering,

Childish voices farther on,

Where the truant stream has gone,

Vex the echoes of the wood

Till no word is understood,

Save that one is well aware

Happiness is hiding there.

There, in leafy coverts, nude

Little bodies poise and leap

Spattering the solitude

And the silence everywhere—

Mimic monsters of the deep!

Wallowing in sandy shoals—

Plunging headlong out of sight;

And with spurtings of delight,

Clutching hands, and slippery soles.

Climbing up the treacherous steep

Over which the spring-board spurns

Each again as he returns.

Ah! The glorious carnival!

Every care beyond recall,

Every task forgotten quite—

And again, in dreams at night,

Dropping, drifting through it all!

James Whitcomb Riley

My tumblr collection continues to exist and to be updated on tumblr under the same Geeezeer identity, to the extent allowed by the prudes and/or misguided censors on tumblr.  The whole of it up to 17 Dec 2018 is archived and in a zip file. This consists of some 10,000 curated nudist photographs, memes, and texts.  The values expressed by Naktiv’s management are identical to those expressed in my blog, and it appears that I may well find more here to enjoy than on the thousands of blogs that  were previously located on tumblr’s servers.

This is my first day here, and I have not yet decided exactly what it is that I will do on Naktiv.  I have joined all three groups currently available. I don’t know if the tumblr archive is able to be uploaded to Naktiv, or, indeed, if it is suitable for this site.  Virtually all of my tumblr posts were reblogs of the work of others, except for a few text messages that represented my own experiences or beliefs.

By way of introduction, I am a lifelong nudist, beginning about age 10.  Bare in mind that for most of my years I have been fumbling around, being more of a wannabe nudist who was ashamed of his own body shape,  with a few peak experiences here and there as I became more and more accustomed to and knowledgeable about my own body.  I am a TNS member these past three years and will probably be one until I die.  I am forever indebted to Lee Baxandall, the founder of The Naturist Society, who gave all of us wannabe naturists hope and guidance in overcoming our own irrational fears about our bodies. I believe that being nude in nature is a spiritual experience that brings us closer to our Creator, and that in itself transcends all other experiences.

When I get the chance, I visit various nudist resorts here in Florida, but honestly, being a lone male nudist is boring at the resorts.  Therefore I spend as much time as I can hiking nude when and where I can. I am a passionate naturist, and a passionate novice amateur naturalist.

The weather in Florida permits me to be nude most of the time, in and about the house.  I am able to take decent hikes of 2 to 4 miles nude in carefully chosen, secluded areas and do this frequently for spiritual as well as physical health reasons.  I am not an exhibitionist, and treasure my privacy. Nevertheless, should a naturist hiking group be formed in Florida, I would be very interested in joining it.

My bucket list includes naturist hiking in the desert and canyons of the west.  I have not yet figured out how to make that possible. More practically, I am looking to simply expand my nude time outdoors and in the wilderness as much as possible.