warm water & beer

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Ft. Lauderdale is a sunny mecca of beaches, Italian restaurants, old people who don't realize they're old, random rainstorms and palm trees. Restaurant patrons are anywhere from 18 to 85 and the women sport everything from surfer girl shorts to Chanel and loads of hairspray. The "old" architecture built circa 1960 mixes with art deco modern. This is where the city-dwelling snowbirds of all ethnicities come.

I visited Amie, my closest Austin friend who no longer lives in Austin. She moved to Florida over the summer, somewhat unexpectedly when I was in NJ. I didn't get to say goodbye. So I went down to say hello and goodbye, check in on this new beach life she's living, and squeeze in some ocean time myself.

On Friday, Amie picked up a somewhat sleep-deprived me at the airport. I left my house at 4:45 am and cramped neck sleeping wasn't enough to recover. We grabbed a fabulous lunch at a Real Italian Deli, with hot young Sicilians working behind the
counter. We split a proscuitto, mozzarella, roasted red pepper and basil with balsamic vinaigrette sandwich. I could've spent my weekend eating just here.

I then took a 3 hour nap on the couch, while she went back to work so I could be more than the grunting zombie I was at lunch.

Al, Amie's roommate and best friend from college, Amie and I went out to dinner on the ocean, where we had overpriced Coronas and listened to a self-absorbed whiny 30-year-old at the table next to us complain about his ex-girlfriend to his parents.

Non-stop. For an hour. We stopped talking for a little while just so we could listen to him. There was some mention of her "being locked in the closet" and "liking the rules."

Dinner was followed by drinking with friends at several dive bars. Amie's next roommate, a girl name Kristen, came out in a shirt that was smaller than my bra (it was a sports bra type, but still). She was having a "slutty" night, she said. Amie and I spent much time debating where one could even buy a shirt like that.

At dive bar 2, I was instantly tossed in the political debate ring with Al's "die-hard Republican" friend. I was mostly pleasant and gracious in the face of vehement conversion techniques and non-logical arguments. The most entertaining disagreement was on early voting. He thought Texas' early voting was wrong? unrepublican? undemocratic? Really, he didn't have a good argument for how that stood for anything, other than he was a better person for me because he was taking time out of his busy Nov. 2 to go vote and I wasn't. Have fun standing in line sucker. Fuck that dude, I've got a party to host. After a terse toast, I pulled myself away from our enthralling debate to socialize with others.

Al's friends have exciting bar games that involve ass slapping and making each others' beers foam. I liked the ass slapping game. Watch yourselves people, I may try to introduce it.

There were some Jager Bomb shots (not by me), rum and cokes (all mine), Miller Lites, and 3 buckets of Bud Light to finish out the night by which time I was so exhausted I kept asking to go home, but drunk enough that I sang bad music loudly at the pool table. I played the shittiest game of pool ever and fell asleep in the car.

At Al and Amie's I passed out in my clothes on the couch while they were walking the dogs. Saturday had a SSSLOOW start. It began with my hero Al making Amie and I breakfast in bed, followed by ice cream and a long nap on the beach.

Post-beach nap, we headed to the Swap Shop, a enormous trashy flea market, where I bought a $13 suitcase and a $10 watch. Also, we discovered where one can buy a bra-size slut shirt. For $5 no less. For lunch, I had a gyro, and then we went to the
biggest farmer's market I've ever seen, next to the amusement park in front of the flea market.

We headed back to the beach to wash away flea market smell. We swam for exactly 20 minutes as we watched a huge storm come in. We got in the car just as it started to pour.

We met my college friend Gregg for dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant. There was a lot of fashionable black clothing and gold jewelry and a good amount of $20 bills falling into the hostess's pocket. We opted to wait (almost an hour for our reservation) and weren't disappointed. The food was excellent. I had gnocchi.

After dinner, Gregg and I stuffed beers into our carbohydrate-full stomachs and chatted about travel, politics, the string of friends marrying themselves off and how rising oil prices are making plastics more expensive.

Yesterday, Al, Amie and I went to a cool state park beach. The water was perfect - warm and blue. Amie insists the water is cold every time she gets in, which doesn't make any sense since she's from Vermont and all. But hey, she's a wimp about temperature. The water is great - mid 70s.

We got greasy buffalo wings, fries and onion rings and 99 cent Bud Lights for lunch, and then Al and I got ourselves tossed around a bit by the encroaching high tide. I dumped alarming amounts of sand out of my bathing suit on both the beach and in the shower.

Last night we hung out, watched movies, played games and made food. OK, I didn't make food. I wasn't allowed to help and kept being told to sit down and relax.

It was a great trip. I miss Amie and getting to see her living it up was awesome. But don't worry, I'm not going to pick up and move to Florida or anything. Visiting is just too much fun, especially with all the getting spoiled. Next time, we're going to Miami and Nassau.

deli section

So I went to vote today at the grocery store near my house. hurray for texas early voting! the last couple of times I voted, I went to a trailer set up in the parking lot of a grocery store. This time I followed the signs inside the store. I walked in
and saw this.

well obviously, that's a perfectly reasonable place to cast my vote. the deli section.

I waited in line to get my ticket to vote and checked out desserts. see.

I love multi-tasking. And who would think that I could grab groceries, beer and a piece of the electoral process all in one 10 minute trip.

internet blogging hero

so while i love all my blogging friends, my secret blog obsession is the Nerve Blog-A-Log. They have about 6 people blogging about their dating lives. I don't care about 5 of them, but GirlGoneMad is the funniest person on the Internet.

I, and presumably her other obsessed readers, want to make her a best friend. You know the funny, caustic one who makes great jokes and uses curse words gratitiously when making astute observations about life in the smokest dive bar you can find.

I've been meaning to tell everyone to go read her, and today she has forever endeared herself to me with this.

"Offshoring (off-SHOR-ring) – The practice of outsourcing your love life to New Jersey, where boys will work harder for less pussy because they know they’re geographically undesirable. Usage: GirlGoneMad used to pass on Jersey guys because she’s lazy about taking the train, but now that she’s offshoring she’s knee-deep in quality ass."

I <3 GirlGoneMad. You will too. Try it.

*end gushing and goes back to regularly scheduled random blog posts about significantly less interesting life*

meyday, internet down

So my internet connection has been on the frizz for the last couple of weeks. It started with the need to occasionally power cycle the cable modem, and then grew to power cycling the cable modem, router and wireless hub a lot, to a mysterious orange
light blinking on the Time Warner equipment.

The orange light blinked every second for hours and as long as it was around, I couldn't log on. Thursday night, I called Time Warner. They sent someone out this morning to fix it. So I'm back online. Whee!

But I spent the weekend without the internet. It made me feel a little disconnected. I mean, what would I do all weekend if I wasn't aimlessly checking random unimportant cyber locations, and chatting on IM with friends who live minutes away. How would I keep in touch?

I lament my need for a high-speed connection sometimes. Surely, it is a distraction, sucking my time into the doing-nothing-and-can't-take-it-back bucket. You know, like the TV. I think about getting rid of my laptop, making internet access a more conscious and uncomfortable choice, instead of something I can do from any room in my house. Maybe that way, I'd be more *productive*.

But productive doing what? Reading, cleaning, watching movies, finding inspiration for a novel? All those things are well and good, but would I be more inclined to do them if I wasn't distracted by a wireless net connection.

Weekend consensus says maybe, need more data to be sure. I successfully avoided doing most of the cleaning chores I need to do, and took two 2-hour naps on Saturday. But, I did go to yoga and read almost 100 pages of an interesting-but-not-exciting book, which I am supposed to diligently discuss at Book Club tomorrow night. I even did this outside on my deck to enjoy the weather.

But I also spent a bunch of time outside the house.

Saturday night I went to a foam party called Spunk at a gay bar with Brian and Kate.

The foam was about waist high with a good 3-4 inches of water on the floor. It was gross. I didn't like the foam area or the generic techno, but I did learn about the impressive variety in men's underwear fashion. And I got to play pool with Brian and Kate at bar where people walked by covered in foam. The absurdity was great.

Sunday, I played board games in the afternoon, and made mediocre dinner and, guess what, got my internet connection to work long enough to check email and the news. But I bailed on my plan to *work* at a coffee shop to play Rummy 500 with Brian and
Kent. Really, who wants to write blog posts and balance the checkbook when there are cards to be played?

I like the comfort of having immediate access to my email, IM, and news distractions, which are arguably more useful than watching TV, but I'll try this no-internet thing again sometime. I liked the laziness of my Saturday and of not feeling like I had something to do.

the band

there is a band i like playing at the parish right now; a show for which i bought my ticket a couple of weeks ago.

instead of seeing ratatat and mouse on mars rock out at one of austin's best venues, i am sitting on the couch at my friend house where i am watching both our dogs.

i am lame.

while i was psyched to go to the show, i am also exhausted. i haven't slept well in days, in part because houston and amber really like to play loudly at 3:30 am. if you aren't familar with their play noises it sounds kinda like 2 big mean dogs trying to tear each others' throat out.

and the idea of hanging out in a smoky loud bar (probably by myself) was not at all appealing. i even had coffee. all it did was give me the "i'm too tired to get hyper and instead i'll sit like lead" stomach ache.

so i'm heading to bed. i am sure tomorrow i will hear how awesome the show was and lament that i bailed, but right now i am looking forward to climbing into the guest bed in the room that conveniently has no alarm.

now to get the dogs to move from ugly, ugly play noises to quiet, quiet sleeping.

anniversary

I arrived in Austin 4 years ago today, my car packed with everything I owned (or at least everything I gave a shit about), and my best friend and I wedged into the front seats. We were shell shocked from over-exposure to Texas; we spent a night at Texas A&M and went to a football game on our way into Austin. Kristen was afraid to leave me here.

Other than birthdays, i don't usually note dates as being significant. So I am not sure why this one is the exception.

This is the most amount of time I’ve spent in one place since I left Hillsborough. The wandering spirit visits me often, yet I continue to stay here. There is something comfortable about knowing a city this well, and with having a friend and acquaintance network. It’s taken a long time to get here and my life has gone through a couple of significant transformations since October 2000. There is something charming about Austin, even though I can easily list all its flaws and look forward to living somewhere new. It’s more home than Connecticut, which I hated, or DC, which I passed in and out of every couple of months in college, ever were.

So I guess today marks the passing of time in a way that feels more deliberate than my birthday. After all, I choose to move here, make friends, get a dog and a job, buy a condo, etc. I know my Austin anniversaries are limited. Hell, we might be broken up by next year, but in the meanwhile, I’ll keep it marked on my Significant Date calendar. And use it as an excuse to have a celebratory cocktail.

Rainy Day

I love rainy weekends. Well, it wasn't really rainy all weekend. Friday night there was some crazy lightning and enough rain Saturday morning that sleeping in (and missing yoga and Farmer's Market) was a super idea.

Saturday, I spent a long horrifying hour at the mall in search of a pleated mini-skirt to enact a hip, punk-rock outfit vision I've had in my head. However, execution didn't match the vision, even after a couple of outfit scenerios in the home mirror. I looked like an adult trying to dress like a trendy kid. I found it very entertaining. No short skirt for me. I'm returning it and sticking to what I know.

Saturday night was Rock the Casbah, where cute girls pulled off all sorts of hip 80s punk rock attire. I studied them for a bit, confirming that my choice to forgo the mini-skirt was the right call, and then danced, dodging between 19-year-old kids
making out to Fascination Street. I was surrounded.

Yesterday, I went costume shopping. I've never been a proactive Halloween costume person, but going this early was great. No crowd. Lots of options. I bought a bunch of stuff. How do I pass up a white and pink sparkly tutu? I don't "need" it for this
costume, but I will someday for something. Now, I just need to work on some Halloween plans.

Yesterday also marked the possible beginning of 2 new mild obsessions. I spent hours playing Katamari Damancy, the "sticky ball" game for PS2,and thumbing through Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, marking recipes I want to cook soon. I had
friends sitting at my pool, cause it was sunny and warm, and I left them out there to come inside and play video games.

Fortunately, I am a fair-weather obsessor. I'll be over them soon.

I managed to put the controller and cookbook down long enough to go to Burlesque the Vote at Emo's. It was pretty good. A couple of performers were fantastic. There was at least one performance from a real stripper (so it seemed), which didn't really fit in. It wasn't terrible, but seemed against the spirit of the show.

And after a busy weekend of, um, 3 hours of dancing, some errands, sleeping, sitting, and a movie, I came home and blissfully crashed out.

The Head

After cooking night on Wednesday, I went to G&S for a drink with a couple of people. (We were so full, I'm not sure why we thought beer was a good idea) G & S, for those who've never been there, is a South Austin dive bar. Apparently it stands for "Good & Smoky", but that's unconfirmed. Well the thick smoky haze is perfectly obvious, its the name that isn't.

A random guy, a gymnastics coach, chats us up, probably because he spies the tall girl giving me what looks like a professional-type massage in my chair after a complaint about a sore neck (massage therapist friends are awesome). We get free beer.

After which I leave. I walk out the back into the parking lot, past a parked car that is running with no lights on. I glance at it as I pass and I see a penis and a head.

There is some guy getting head in a car parked 10 feet from the entrance of the bar!

I laugh loudly and head to my car where I immediately call Dan in the bar to share my discovery with him. I feel like I've witnessed a good amount of sexual acts in random places -- dorm rooms I was not-quite-asleep-in in college, Ecstasy induced sex on a dance floor of a cheesy club, boys feeling up girls on the bus in middle school -- but for some reason, the BJ in a parking lot felt most out of place. I wish I had a score card or had knocked loudly on the window or something. It seemed like it needed recognition.