I have a place, in a naturist community, in the Caribbean. I want to make it my permanent home, but first I need to establish some means of support, so here I am stuck in the Lower 48.

The last time I was there, I held out for 18 months before coming back Stateside. With that much time, no need to lie out and risk sunburn; just my normal life of moving into and out of the shade as I went about my days in the nude led me to a dark tan, my only tan lines my sandal straps and the inside of my navel. I'm a natural brunet, but after 18 months in the Caribbean, I started to look like a "bottle blond."

I have come to the conclusion that the reason people get sunburned on vacation is that they have so little vacation. They are trying to pack a year's worth of sun into a week or two, so they lie out too long at a time. I can sympathize; when I lived in Washington State, the sun was so rare, I did lie out whenever the weather was warm enough, out in my front yard in a thong (didn't have a back yard), and sometimes people walked by. I don't endorse deliberate tanning, but up there in the Northwest, you've got to. I'm never going to live there again!

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