refresher

after two houseguest visits, i am finally back to being alone in my apartment. it certainly has been busy over here, but very nice to have benjamin last weekend, and heather this weekend, to explore and see miami with.

my weekends actually felt like, well-- weekends!

the apartment has completely come together, thanks to benjamin's help & a trip to ikea. we went to some lovely restaurants, explored coral gables, visited a spanish monastary, and assembled furniture (of course). i now have a little sofa that we conveniently were able to take home right away, as it fit into my car in a box. the sofa also, conveniently, pulls out-- so that any time there is more than one guest at a time, there will be room for everyone. i finally feel like i have a little home! what would a girl do without ikea (and a boy that enjoys assembling things and curating space)?

heather arrived on wednesday night-- i was late grabbing her at the airport as i was rushing with a last minute assignment at work. i felt horrible, driving up, and she jumped into my car, and looked like she was about to burst into tears. OH NO, i though, what have i do? but then she hugged me and said, 'it is so amazing to be with a friend you love.' how much cuter could you get? she also acted like my little housewife two nights in a row, first making me dinner, and then cooking with me the next night. oh, girl time!

friday night we went out to this club down on south beach, called mansion.
picutre it by thinking of ... well, any cheesey large club in new york. the difference, we later discussed, was:

(1) the other girls standing in line were not really intimidating, because most of them
(a) were wearing odd outfits that you werent necessarily jealous of, and also,
(b) several sported fake/out of proportion breasts, which is always a little strange (to me).

(2) because there arent other girls that you are intimidated/jealous/angered by, theres much less of a competitive vibe- even just standing online to get in-- whereas in new york in those situations, its almost like everyone is competing for the same prize: entry.

here, it was much more like, oh ok we have to wait briefly in a line, and will then get in. this also, perchance, might have something to do with the way bridge & tunnel trash girls will assault you for a better spot somewhere (no offense to my techncial bridge & tunnel brooklyn girls, you know what i mean- im talking jersey/long island).

once inside, "mansion" was pretty huge, but rather empty-- again, weird- waiting on line to get into an emptyish club full of mostly girls?? but that is the way things work.

eventually more people came in. at one point, heather turns to me and says, "there are these two guys over there that are totally going to come over and talk to us. i can just feel it. female intuition." i turned and looked at them -- wearing jeans with belts, and polo shirts with stripes on them, tucked into said jeans-- and said-- "you mean those two germans?". and we laughed hysterically because that it exactly what they looked like. ridiculous german tourists, just minus the fannie packs. lo and behold, they then walked over to us and started to talking.

you could barely understand their names, likeky because they were something like alubdsgnsvvv and silgleihlsezzz. notably, i was wrong-- they were hungarian, not german, (but not like that changes anything). and they were engineers, here on business/holiday. heather was amazingly cold (as in emotionally frigid- i was impresed!), to wit- one of the hungarians was trying to chat with her. after getting no response, fheuhkahhxzzz asked her what kind of music she liked. "everything", was her atonal response. without having any other line of conversation, he then asked her if she played any musical instruments. how european. and ridiculous.

after letting them buy us drinks, we then said we had to go to bathroom, i.e., it was our ditch-em move.

....yet... they proceeded to follow us. to the bathroom. when we walked out of the ladies room, the hungarians were waiting there for us. heather turns to me, grabs my hand frantically and says, "oh god, what do we do?" . thankfully, she emboldened herself to act as the confronter and told them that we hadnt seen each other in a few months, so that we just needed to catch up. to which hihwnxhich said, "ok can we still hang out with you?" and heather gave her best "no i dont think so" face, firmly establishing her "NO" response.

our other european union encounter was later that night with some frenchies. they were some of the only hipster-looking people that ive seen in miami. though, like french people of course, they were obnoxious, prompting me to call one of them a douche-bag. the best part of course, was that it was so loud in the club, that i had to repeat it several times, yelling it, at close range , so that they could look mildly confused. (we later laughed, thinking they thought we were calling them a "shower bag", as 'douche' of course, is french for that). no hard feelings of course, just heather & i being mean (one of our hobbies in these situations of course). during this interchange, apparently the hungarian boys were hanging in the background, waving to heather, asking if they could buy us another round. (denied. again).

later, after chatting with some other club-going random tourists, and with my encouragement, heather attempted to dance on a stripper pole that was elevated and in between some of the bottle-service tables, but sadly, one of the early-2000s, brittney-spears look-alikes who was employed by the establishment took over the spot and wouldnt let heather compete. all in all, a total miamian experience.

the night ended of course at the ihop around my corner, with pancakes and sweedish crepes and us waking up six hours later to hang out with jedd belman, high school classmate. when i say hungover, you cant really believe. or maybe you can. i had to drink seltzer with chunks of ginger in it to soothe myself before jedd arrived.

once he gt here, we went to brunch down in south beach, where they thankfully had unlimited refills of diet coke fountan soda, and then we drove out to key biscayne: the first of the florida keys, and just a short drive (15 minutes) from south beach. you can rent kayaks and wind-surf-boards (wind-gliders?) right at the entrance to the key, which is nice- & which i wanted to try out-- but felt rather unmotivated to do at the time, as during the entire car trip, i thought i was going to puke all over jedd's car. even walking on the scenic beach, i almost barfed. i havent been that hungover in quite a while. heather, suprisingly, was fine (apparently she gets more practice at going out than i do- not highly suprising, in and of itself).

key biscayne- lighthouse, there in the distance. the light in this picture is so bizarrely beautiful

heather & i on the beach in key biscayne

jealous that we are still in summer clothing?

all in all, that was the most exciting portion of our time together. the rest was lovely & laidback-- we went back to my house, bought some grapefruits at the farmer's market, made a watercolor painting together to decorate my walls, ate cuban food, and caught a bit of good will hunting on t.v. sometimes, those are the best ways to spend time with your girlfriends.

heather, dwarfed by a palm tree

this morning i took her to the airport, and am now back alone at home, remembering that i should lace up and go for a long run on the beach since its such a lovely day.

this week at work promises to be rather busy and exciting, but i am looking forward to it. my law school classmate blake, who is working in atlanta, is coming to miami this week to work with us, and will get in later tonight. blake & his coworkers will be around all week, so im sure those of us based here in miami will make some kind of a get-together to show them around. also, thankfully, tuesday is veterans day- so i will at least only have to get through tomorrow before i have a bizarro-day off. this girl needs to catch up on her sleep & sun (if you can believe it-- this will be my second weekend without any beach time!)> still-- ive had an amazing two weekends in a row, so i can only be happy that i have such wonderful people in my life that were able to come visit!

and with those happy feelings, im off for my run! i promise to enjoy the day in shorts for those of you in long sleeves & sweaters.

xoxo