Tiny White Shorts

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. Namely, a trip to Miami.

Miami is a great city. I've been twice before, but I'll always remember this time: wandering down South Beach with over a million other humans from around the world, waiting for the close of a decade. And being on the East Coast, we were also the first part of the country to stumble into 2010, and I didn't use the word "stumble" just because it sounds cute.

New Years Eve was a mess. I won't go into long detail (storytelling of this magnitude can be a laborious process, especially when combined with weak attempts at redeeming my popular respect mid-paragraph with exclamations like, "But I wasn't THAT drunk! Hahahaha LOL!"), but at 4:30 a.m. I was wandering the streets of South Beach barefoot and likely beyond recognition, prompting at least one onlooker to mouth her astute observation of my evening. "There's someone tragic on every corner!"

I try not to linger on those moments--the first moments of 2010. A total mess. But I was having a great time, and except for the mild alcohol poisoning, totally healthy and happy!

But aside from Miami and the drama that, none of us can truly deny, made the trip much more fun, I had an amazing week back home and with my best friends who came to visit. I've had a great week since. Saw Avatar in 3-D, and I'm dying to see it again.

Oh, and if this particular post hasn't made me look shallower than a toilet bowl, I have also started Twilight. As in, started reading the first novel when I returned from Miami and am already on the third. That's nearly 1,500 pages of romantic goop, packed with metaphors that will you give you stomach aches and sentences so badly written you may be tempted to suck your own blood and die than continue the mental humiliation.

A few of my favorites, italics and grammar Meyer's:

"I felt well. Whole."

[Bella, spoken to her father] "I...am a...virgin!"

"I love you."

Meyer's a Mormon. I disagree with the Mormon faith wholeheartedly, and her agenda (no cursing, no sex, no pesky colored folk) is painfully transparent. Of course, if Bella wants to commit suicide because she can't live without her twu wove, it's like, SO totally okay for Bella to jump off a cliff and die for him. Like, right?! College is for women who HAVEN'T found the everlasting love of an immortal vampire who suffocates all ambition from anyone he meets. So are friends who have opinions. And if, one day, you have to give up everyone who loves you in your entire life to become a vampire and live out eternity with your lover, that's fine, too. Because Mom, Dad, your friends, extended family and future are worth nothing compared to a permanent seventeen year-old with a control complex who already dumped you once and, when threatened by you visiting an old friend, disabled your vehicle. Because that's healthy, Meyer.

And there's obviously the whole Edward (Vampire) versus Jacob (werewolf) argument. Which is a total joke, because anyone with an ounce of self-respect (and therefore not a reader of Twilight) would choose Team Jacob. Would you rather cuddle up to someone with "skin like cold marble" or "hovering around 103 degrees?" Of course, that doesn't really matter, because you...are a...virgin!

Fraud

Today I was the victim of Up In The Air, the Oscar-ambling flick about a rugged, lonely man (aptly played by a rugged, lonely actor) and his empty relationships. I didn't cry--I didn't know I was supposed to--but I left completely silent. Nothing to say. Nothing to think. My thoughts had been read by some screenwriter, probably living in Williamsburg or Seattle, a few years ago, plucked by some ambitious producer in Hollywood, adapted and cast with my friends and thrown on screen for all to see. The emptiness of daily life is something we mentally push aside, like bills on the dining room table, eventually buried with Crate & Barrel catalogs, grocery lists, our extra salt shaker and possibly even a placemat, just to make sure the Offending Article is hidden. That Which We Do Not Speak Of. But eventually my hollandaise needs a pinch of salt and my grinder is missing, or I need to set the table. And there it is. IMPORTANT, written in red. (It's likely Helvetica, and if the Offending Article didn't involve me having less of something it might even be kind of pretty, in it's perfect proportion and red-on-white design.)

Up In The Air is a bill left on the table. Life is tough, love is rare--exceptionally rare. I learned that from both a summer in Paris and the film Before Sunset. And today, walking out of the theater, I was on autopilot. Movements were slow, deliberate. And deliberation does not necessarily mean there is caution involved. Changing lanes becomes an arduous, "I hope there isn't anyone in the left lane going 80" kind of action, but made without thinking.

If love is life, lovelessness is numbness. I wish I had a better word than "numbness"--it's one of those that seems to be a mistaken combination of syllables--but it's the most appropriate.

Today I was also the victim of bank fraud. I checked my account this morning, one day before leaving for Miami, mind you, to find that my entire checking has been drained. The bank says there's a 90% chance I'll have the money back by morning, but it seems like such a slap in the face on December 30th, 2010. I am love(r)less, penniless, and a bit hopeless. Hopefully the superficiality of Miami will remind me why we Americans live--to eat, drink, and ogle on the beach.