#41 - F.L.O.R.I.D.A...flo-ree-dah.

back in 97, shortly after college graduation, i moved to pembroke pines, fl, a city in broward county just minutes north of miami. it was the year of the expansion florida marlins' first world series win, a dark year for baseball indeed.

my girlfriend at the time had moved down there to get a masters in o.t. & i really liked her & for the most part, had never left the northeast, so i went with. she was moving down earlier than i & so we flew down there a few months before her school year started to find an apartment, see the school & area, etc. i was 22 & it was the first time that i had flown in a plane & was old enough to actually remember doing so.

prior to that, the only other time i had been to florida was in between junior & senior year of high school, when i rode all the way down from hudson, nh to jupiter, fl in the back of a mostly-empty van that belonged to the father of my (first real) girlfriend at the time. we drove down there with her divorced parents & little sister. one day, the girlfriend & i took her dad's van to the mall & when i was finished purchasing a pair of midnight blue jean shorts at the guess store, we left the mall through an entirely different entrance & got lost. while trying to figure out where i was going i almost ran a red light & slammed on the brakes. the sand on the road caused the van to slide sideways & as we skidded to a halt, i remember a tool box & a jar of change unloosing themselves all over the van. we emerged unscathed other than the tool & change collection duties necessary to do to avoid detection from her parents. a couple days later, hurricane andrew hit. that should have been a clear sign as to the future of that relationship.

...so in august of 97 i moved to florida & lived in a one-bedroom apartment with my girlfriend. from the outset, it was obvious that she was stressed. school was pretty hard, neither of us had long-standing friends in the area & for the most part, things did not go well between us. i know i wasn't happy...hell, i only went to the beach once my entire time there.

my best friend at the time was a girl named michelle, who i worked with at my data entry job. as far as i know, we were the only two college-educated folks in our office, so we naturally gravitated toward each other. as far as i can remember, she was my first ever gay friend (nh & b.u. kept me a bit sheltered up until then). often, when my monthly new issue of playboy arrived (via a gift subscription from my girlfriend), michelle & i would flip on through together. we'd go out to lesbian bars & shoot pool & ramble about our respective relationship issues. she brought a lot of happiness to me at a time when many aspects of life sucked...& it helped that she was totally cute...& then i moved away after only eight months in florida & came down to visit a few months later for new years' eve & then through circumstances, we completely lost touch, even with the recent advent of social networking...friendwise, this is the loss i most regret. she was a really good friend to me & i really hope she's doing well now that we're ten years into the future.

#41 - F-L-O-R-I-D-A...flo-ree-dah.
snack: hershey's all natural extra dark assortment
drink: sobe orange carrot elixir

as i've mentioned previously, i currently have a thing for dark chocolate. recently, it's gotten worse & regular dark chocolate just won't cut it any more. when i go to a store & they only have one or two types of lindt bars & both of them are nothing more than your average dark chocolate, sans any fruits or nuts or geographical cacao branding, i scoff heartily...but i am occasionally a rational man & when my best choice at a local rite aid the other night was a bag of hershey's all natural extra dark assortment, which contains single serving pieces of both the average "pure dark chocolate" & "pure dark chocolate with cranberries, blueberries & almonds," i "went for it." i absolutely love the cranberry, blueberry & almond ones. the fruits & nuts are tiny & worked into the chocolate really well. basically, biting into one is like biting into any other candy bar, until you notice that there's a chunk of cranberry stuck in your teeth & you get to lick at cranberry for 2-5 minutes trying to get it out of there...& when you do, the reward is all yours. this bag is definitely no match for me tonight.

with them, i'm downing a sobe orange carrot elixir. it is SO ORANGE!...but i wouldn't ever turn one down based on its shocking color, because it's a pretty tasty beverage & carrots are totally good for your health. some might say "this beverage is too friggin' sweet." to them i say, "your teeth only live once, jacko." i was addicted to sobe beverages (& more specifically the black tea) in the years round the end of college, when they started appearing on the shelves of boston convenient stores. when i moved to florida in 97, i was forced to starve my addiction. as far as i could tell, there was nary a sobe drink to be found in the greater ft lauderdale/miami area, which absolutely baffled me, considering that the drink gets its name from south beach, an area of miami beach, located just 30-45 minutes south of my pembroke pines apartment. it turns out that sobe is based out of norwalk, ct, known primarily for its oysters & from what i can tell, "sobe" is pretty much just a pre-geico lizard marketing gimmick...& i hate their website. it tries to be cool while sacrificing functionality for bird chirps.

in closing, originally this post was going to be more lesbiancentric, but in the end, i decided to go in a different direction...instead i'm just going to throw out this one random thought from that thought train: are there any females in my neighborhood who aren't lesbians? even one? i remain skeptical.