Let’s see, twenty-first day of the third month of the 1991 year since Christ came to save us. Twenty five years, six mos, twenty nine odd days since I came to participate in it all. Anyway, this Spring Break stuff is getting old. Could lead to long term questioning of just about everything, not to mention severe depression, given time and continuance. Which it does. Continue. Or it could all be simply stored as another file in a long and boring book. Or then again, who knows? It could find its way to some other display, completely unexpected, a multifaceted literary keepsake, beneath glass, in the dusty ‘historical’ wing of some future museum of unusual anecdotes and stories. “Look, Mommy, what’s this one?!” Small lad, tugging his mother’s arm. “That’s nothing, Johnny. A nobody. Look over here, to the celebrity displays. Now here are stories worth reading!” “But, mommy, I want to see THIS one.” “Johnny!” And on it goes around and around.

Around to the Tiki Bar, in this instance. Another kind of strip parade, there, tho this one better organized, better attended, better funded, certainly a little more highbrow, it could be said, than the one in Key West, if that’s possible. More stately and refined, yes. There were top hats and monocles aplenty in the crowd. Fogged monocles. And on the stage? Well, there was no stage. Instead, the contestants proceeded in stately fashion in a kind of line dance, a prurient Hora, almost, around the bar. Chins high, not a glint of humor to be seen, in any of it, given the deadly serious nature of the $500 first place purse! (And for this I give better prize and kudos to the Key West version which, while mugly and fugly and scrappy and ridiculous in its own way, nonetheless had some FUN to it. This one was humorless and completely cold and COMPLETELY devoid of passion, for sure). Lycra, spandex, frills of lace + cotton, on display, crazy teased blond hair, wide (if vacant) eyes and smiles, stomachs cinched and corsetted, breasts breathless + protruding voluptuously(?) (not!) Wild, painted eyes. Razor blades for fingernails. But her pussy “was a tiny pink conch shell, curving in on itself with all the mystery and precision of the golden ratio.” 

And I have a plan! It involves walking into the surf until the waves nearly hit my face, then walking some more! 

So this quietly suburban FLA classic enclave w/canal leading to the ocean and stilts supporting the whole structure above the projected hurricane line, and cats scratching at the walls and the glass doors and the thick pile carpets… it’s all quite a contrast and a welcome reprieve to the campgrounds and the cold cement slabs which have made most of our beds the last weeks or so. Eight outdoor cats, three of which are pregnant. Two indoor cats. And an enormous and phenomenal meal of everything good: chicken, potato + pasta salad, egg thingies, beer, beens. Feast! Two stunning young ladies who may or may not have gravitated toward P.S. (or at least the Colgate faction among us would have you believe). It’s quite a notion and an image they have of P.S.: that of some godly blond Adonis cut from mythology and granite. [Chris, on the other hand, is drunk. As we sat six floors above the spring break ant colony milling and pressing through the doors of the Tiki bar below.] And I suppose to some extent, they have some credence to the claims. He is tall and blond, no arguing that, with the kind of unobjectionable (if bland) profile of a Abercrombie wannabe, true, but he also has the slightly goofy vibe of an oversized terrier that might leap it’s big front paws up on your chest and start licking your face, or rub it’s muddy floppy curls on your clean clothes and carpet. Plus, I’ve seen him try and come up empty too many times to fully buy into that myth. But let them have their heros, who am I to suggest otherwise. Opinion + preference, like beauty itself (or the flip side of it), remains locked up and distinct and personal and, bottom line, who can say? Like, for example, why does one person drool for rice pudding which may induce nausea in a second? Um… and on that note I did talk for quite some time to a quite nice, if plump, lass as I simultaneously schemed and plotted my escape. Which I did, sneaking back to the car, dim parking lot lights and crushed coral for gravel (that’s what they use for gravel around these parts… crushed coral. Says a lot about the place, actually) and the gate ajar, to find the gin bottle still half full and rolling around under the seat. We passed it around surruptitiously like high school losers, hand to mouth to hand to mouth, an instrument to add a little liquidity and dulled perspective to the evening, and nothing more, giggling like underage hooligans. Back into the heat + sweat + frantic sadness of the Tiki and I assiduously avoided the plump maiden who should have smelled of Patchouli (but didn’t!) and who expounded upon the merits of the Grateful Dead and her beach house on the gulf side which mirrored and shouldered Bush’s own. I knew she was angling to invite us. I plotted my escape. She’s into the environment, or so she claims. I escaped, then, later, wished I could find her. Isn’t that just the story of my life.

Pete mutters something now, in his sleep, about the raft. The boy sleep-talks in complete sentences. It’s another impressive habit and talent of his: “We blew it up and paddled in circles as it deflated beneath us hissing. I have begun a (the?) good book. It’s boring.” I swear he says all this, or something closely like it, before curling himself into a ball and going back to more ordinary snoring.