I HEART HEMINGWAY
During lunch, I went to a used book sale benefiting the DC Public Library System in search of a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which a colleague and I are going to read and discuss together like the total nerds we are, and Slaughterhouse 5, which I've never read but have always wanted to, and in light of Mr. Vonnegut's recent death, feel compelled to do so very soon. In the small Classics section, I found a copy Uncle Tom's Cabin, but they didn't have a copy of Slaughterhouse, so I compensated by purchasing a couple Hemingway books, along with a copy of Farenheit 51 and The Great Gatsby, two more classics that I have never read.
I found an old copy of my ultimate favorite book EVER, Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. The cover is all dog-eared and features a technicolor picture of a couple kissing in true 1950's Hollywood glam style, and I paid $3 for it, which is a $1.50 more than its original price as published on the cover, but that's what makes it even better. I have already read it fifty times, and I will read it 1,000 more times before I die. I am completely in love with the main character, Frederick Henry, who is the toughest, most masculine creature ever imagined, and hope someday to marry a real-life Frederick Henry.
Then I got The Hemingway Reader, which is a collection of excerpts from some of his novels and some short stories. Although I'm on the last 50 pages of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, which I wanted to have completed by the time I leave for Florida, I just couldn't stop myself from cracking into this one. It starts with an excerpt from "In Our Time," where our friend Nick Adams returns home from war and hikes through the hills of Michigan by himself. There's something about Hemingway's male characters that just makes my heart ache. I want to reach into the book and pull Nick Adams out and hug him and kiss him and stroke his hair, although he's apparently doing quite allright by himself hiking through the pines and crushing the sweet fern in his hands so he can smell like it while he boils his pork and beans in a tin pan.
Anyway, if you're still with me, the connection to Florida is that Missmo and I are planning on going to Key West, where I will have the unsurpassable pleasure of being in the same room in which Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms and even be able to look at the very typewriter on which my hero, Fredrick, was created. It will be a religious experience for me, and I simply cannot wait.
SPEAKING OF BARACK
On Sunday, I will attend my first political rally, which will be for Barack Obama. I plan to be really inspired by his words, and perhaps get close enough to ask him to sign my worn paperback copy of Dreams From My Father. "Senator Obama? Will you please sign my paperback book? Be careful not to pull the cover for it is already halfway ripped off. Also? I love you."
FUCK WINTER.
It will be 30 degrees in DC when I leave tomorrow morning. Two hours later, I will step of the plane into an 80 degree haze of sea salt that only tourists (now me) can smell. I can't fucking wait.
Showing posts with label florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label florida. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2007
Thursday, October 26, 2006
can it be that it was all so simple then
I was recently asked what my favorite memory was. Okay, it was in one of those myspace survey things, and it was one somebody else filled out, so in actuality, I wasn't asked anything, but it got me thinking. What is my favorite memory?
It didn't take very much thinking at all. Always, forever and ever, for the rest of my life, my very favorite memory ever will be my 18th birthday. I imagine that even after I'm married at Cesar's Palace in Vegas where I will fly all my closest friends for a weekend-long boozed-up celebration of me and my perfect, funny, smart, beefy, fun, wonderfully charming and manly husband, and even after I have curly-haired, well-behaved children for whom I will throw big extravagant birthday parties complete with ponies and clowns in the backyard of my beautiful four-bedroom home which will be painted white with blue shutters and have a lilac tree in the front, I will still think of my 18th birthday as my very favorite memory EVER.
Guess who this memory stars? Yes, that's right. Missmo and Am and that's it. No guest stars. Except maybe Bertha, Missmo's 1989 Mustang convertible with the black rag top. We'll never forget that beast. We drove it down to South Beach, where we stayed at the Breakwater Hotel, with NO PARENTS. Just me, Missmo, my sexy black and white leopard print XOXO dress (which I still have, by the way), and Missmo's knee-high white leather go-go boots. Except about a week before our departure, Bertha started acting like a pubescent teenage girl and would just completely shut off whenever she felt like it. It didn't matter if we were on I-75 going 89 miles per hour or in the Taco Bell parking lot at 1 a.m. She'd just shut off.
So Missmo brought Bertha to the mechanic a few days before we left, who said that there was nothing wrong with her and we'd be fine to take her to South Beach. We trusted this mechanic, oh naïve teenage girls that we were, plus to have anybody tell us that our Super Duper Parent-Free Birthday Weekend at the Coolest Place on Earth would have to be cancelled would be the Worst Thing that Ever Happened, so we gladly took his advice.
So we're on Highway 1, bumping the DJ Clue and Puff Daddy (back when he was Puff Daddy) mixed tape (which Missmo still has, by the way), totally oblivious to the fact that we were totally going the wrong way when Bertha shut off. Luckily, however, out of nowhere, there was like a little spot where you could pull off the highway. In the miles and miles of Highway 1 that we had theretofore traveled, there was not one spot to pull off. It was a miracle, I say!
So we're sitting there on the side of Highway 1, no idea what to do, visions of sipping Malibu and Pineapple (because that was our drink back then) at Liquid dancing through our heads, when all of the sudden a tow truck pulls up behind us. So we're all "Yes, we're saved!" We get in the truck, the dude puts Bertha on the back, and we're on our way to South Beach!
Now, mind you, the Breakwater is on Ocean Ave (more about the Breakwater later). So we're on our way, butterflies in our stomachs, when all of the sudden it hits us. We're about to be TOWED ONTO SOUTH BEACH. Better yet, we're about to be TOWED ONTO OCEAN AVE. The humiliation was overwhelming. We were both near tears as we pulled off of Collins and onto Ocean. We begged, PLEADED with the tow truck driver, couldn't he drop us somewhere else or at least give us a discount since it was my birthday and all? He wasn't having any of it.
So sure enough, we pulled up in front of the Breakwater, and the valet guys had to actually valet park the car from off of the tow truck. Missmo and I ran into the lobby of the hotel as fast as we could so that nobody could identify us as the owners of the First Car Ever to be Towed onto South Beach and Valet Parked off of the Tow Truck.
Now, let me tell you about the Breakwater. It's classic South Beach. Missmo and I swore there would be house music in the lobby and a pool on the roof. We envisioned young, studly Cuban bellhops who would offer us champagne and strawberries when we arrived and accompany us to the clubs at night.
Not so, my friends. First, we were disappointed to learn that there was no pool; however, if we were ever on the beach and needed to take a shower, we could do so there for a mere $5, just like the European tourists standing next to us had done. Okay, we figured at least the rooms would be nice, and maybe there was still hope for the hot Cuban bellhops. Well, the bellhops never arrived with the champagne, and once we got to the room, we were appalled to find lots of polyester and bright blues and yellows. To top it all off, the toilet didn't flush.
So you might ask, "THIS is your favorite memory?" Yes. That weekend was the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. We hit Cameo before it was Crowbar and Prince's old club, and we had no problem getting served, which is a huge deal to 18-year-olds. We witnessed our first major bar fight, in response to which Missmo actually threw me on the floor and herself on top of me. We met our very first drag queens, and we saw topless dancing girls kissing on the balcony of a non-strip club for the first time. (I distinctly remember looking at Missmo and both of us screaming "Eeeew!" at the same time and turning to the boy I was talking to asking "Do you like that? Would you like to see your sister up there doing that?" Oh, so naïve I was back then.)
It was a rite of passage. We were never the same after that. We were no longer the teenage girls who sat out on my mom's lanai smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap ABC liquor. We were the party girls who partied like rock stars on South Beach. After that, we were there every other weekend. There was a new outfit for each trip. We switched to a different hotel, where we made friends with the manager (MISSMO!! WHAT WAS HIS NAME?!?!?!), and we went to Cameo often enough to know we HATED that stupid bouncer with those gay-ass tinted sunglasses. Some people had freshman year of college; Missmo and I had freshman year of the University of South Beach, and I've got ten bucks that says it was better than any frat party.
Ahhh…those were the days…
It didn't take very much thinking at all. Always, forever and ever, for the rest of my life, my very favorite memory ever will be my 18th birthday. I imagine that even after I'm married at Cesar's Palace in Vegas where I will fly all my closest friends for a weekend-long boozed-up celebration of me and my perfect, funny, smart, beefy, fun, wonderfully charming and manly husband, and even after I have curly-haired, well-behaved children for whom I will throw big extravagant birthday parties complete with ponies and clowns in the backyard of my beautiful four-bedroom home which will be painted white with blue shutters and have a lilac tree in the front, I will still think of my 18th birthday as my very favorite memory EVER.
Guess who this memory stars? Yes, that's right. Missmo and Am and that's it. No guest stars. Except maybe Bertha, Missmo's 1989 Mustang convertible with the black rag top. We'll never forget that beast. We drove it down to South Beach, where we stayed at the Breakwater Hotel, with NO PARENTS. Just me, Missmo, my sexy black and white leopard print XOXO dress (which I still have, by the way), and Missmo's knee-high white leather go-go boots. Except about a week before our departure, Bertha started acting like a pubescent teenage girl and would just completely shut off whenever she felt like it. It didn't matter if we were on I-75 going 89 miles per hour or in the Taco Bell parking lot at 1 a.m. She'd just shut off.
So Missmo brought Bertha to the mechanic a few days before we left, who said that there was nothing wrong with her and we'd be fine to take her to South Beach. We trusted this mechanic, oh naïve teenage girls that we were, plus to have anybody tell us that our Super Duper Parent-Free Birthday Weekend at the Coolest Place on Earth would have to be cancelled would be the Worst Thing that Ever Happened, so we gladly took his advice.
So we're on Highway 1, bumping the DJ Clue and Puff Daddy (back when he was Puff Daddy) mixed tape (which Missmo still has, by the way), totally oblivious to the fact that we were totally going the wrong way when Bertha shut off. Luckily, however, out of nowhere, there was like a little spot where you could pull off the highway. In the miles and miles of Highway 1 that we had theretofore traveled, there was not one spot to pull off. It was a miracle, I say!
So we're sitting there on the side of Highway 1, no idea what to do, visions of sipping Malibu and Pineapple (because that was our drink back then) at Liquid dancing through our heads, when all of the sudden a tow truck pulls up behind us. So we're all "Yes, we're saved!" We get in the truck, the dude puts Bertha on the back, and we're on our way to South Beach!
Now, mind you, the Breakwater is on Ocean Ave (more about the Breakwater later). So we're on our way, butterflies in our stomachs, when all of the sudden it hits us. We're about to be TOWED ONTO SOUTH BEACH. Better yet, we're about to be TOWED ONTO OCEAN AVE. The humiliation was overwhelming. We were both near tears as we pulled off of Collins and onto Ocean. We begged, PLEADED with the tow truck driver, couldn't he drop us somewhere else or at least give us a discount since it was my birthday and all? He wasn't having any of it.
So sure enough, we pulled up in front of the Breakwater, and the valet guys had to actually valet park the car from off of the tow truck. Missmo and I ran into the lobby of the hotel as fast as we could so that nobody could identify us as the owners of the First Car Ever to be Towed onto South Beach and Valet Parked off of the Tow Truck.
Now, let me tell you about the Breakwater. It's classic South Beach. Missmo and I swore there would be house music in the lobby and a pool on the roof. We envisioned young, studly Cuban bellhops who would offer us champagne and strawberries when we arrived and accompany us to the clubs at night.
Not so, my friends. First, we were disappointed to learn that there was no pool; however, if we were ever on the beach and needed to take a shower, we could do so there for a mere $5, just like the European tourists standing next to us had done. Okay, we figured at least the rooms would be nice, and maybe there was still hope for the hot Cuban bellhops. Well, the bellhops never arrived with the champagne, and once we got to the room, we were appalled to find lots of polyester and bright blues and yellows. To top it all off, the toilet didn't flush.
So you might ask, "THIS is your favorite memory?" Yes. That weekend was the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. We hit Cameo before it was Crowbar and Prince's old club, and we had no problem getting served, which is a huge deal to 18-year-olds. We witnessed our first major bar fight, in response to which Missmo actually threw me on the floor and herself on top of me. We met our very first drag queens, and we saw topless dancing girls kissing on the balcony of a non-strip club for the first time. (I distinctly remember looking at Missmo and both of us screaming "Eeeew!" at the same time and turning to the boy I was talking to asking "Do you like that? Would you like to see your sister up there doing that?" Oh, so naïve I was back then.)
It was a rite of passage. We were never the same after that. We were no longer the teenage girls who sat out on my mom's lanai smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap ABC liquor. We were the party girls who partied like rock stars on South Beach. After that, we were there every other weekend. There was a new outfit for each trip. We switched to a different hotel, where we made friends with the manager (MISSMO!! WHAT WAS HIS NAME?!?!?!), and we went to Cameo often enough to know we HATED that stupid bouncer with those gay-ass tinted sunglasses. Some people had freshman year of college; Missmo and I had freshman year of the University of South Beach, and I've got ten bucks that says it was better than any frat party.
Ahhh…those were the days…
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