You Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold 'Em

I had my "girl date" this weekend. It was great! The girls are really cool and we had a great time. We planned on going to brunch, but we got to talking and had such a good time learning about each other that we never left Renee's apartment. Before we knew it 2:00 was flashing on the clock and we didn't know where the time went. Very cool. Sara brought chocolate covered strawberries, so we drank coffee, ate choco-strawberries and talked like we'd been friends for much longer than a whopping few hours. It was so nice to have real conversation with people in this city. It's not that all people here are shallow idiots, it's just difficult to find someone who shares your kind of history and has a simliar background. So, while I was just meeting the girls for the first time, there was a familiarity about them that was comforting. They're the kind of people that I'd be friends with back in New York or DC or Pittsburgh. My friends would like them. That says a lot. We're getting together again this weekend and we have a happy hour set up for newxt week for the rest of the "transplants" as we call ourselves. This is going to be very good for me. I can feel it.

The rest of the weekend was great, too! There were a couple of hotel liquidation sales on South Beach and the man and I found some great stuff. It bums me out that so many old hotels are being turned into condos, but I love when they get rid of all their furniture. Some of these places haven't been touched since the 60s, so the furniture is really cool. Out with the old and in with the pretentious and wealthy, I guess. Pretty soon it will seem like a perpetual photo shoot for a "lifestyles" magazine that strives to highlight the fabulous details and perks of a life of luxury... lots of stick-thin bikini babes with their fake breasts and perfect noses, getting into Bentleys and Hummers with their Latin Lovers who wear too much cologne and use enough hair product for a small village while wearing their tiny t-shirts and buckle shoes... oh wait - that's South Beach already. Oh well. I'll still take my pale, giggly self out to the beach.

This weekend was great, but it was not great at the same time. What I mean by that is we had such a good time (we were always on the go, if we weren't at the beach we were going to Art Basel parties in the Design District or hanging out with friends or going to our new favorite little sushi place) it makes us think that maybe we're jumping the gun about leaving. We're not reconsidering, it's just that when you experience what we experienced this weekend it becomes apparent that if we lived in a different part of town it would be a lot easier to deal with the parts of this city that we hate. If we put ourselves out there and made an effort to meet people and hang out with friends, this place would be better. We wouldn't be as discouraged. Miami would still be Miami, but things would be easier to handle. Bottom line is that it would be hard to afford to live in a part of town that would make the crap more tolerable. I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it. I'm going to get some Cuban toast. That always makes me feel better!