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The time: evening, after dinner.
The place: sitting in his car, holding leftovers. And out of nowhere--
"There's something I have to tell you."
Okay.
(pause)
"I don't know how to say this."
Okay.
(pause)
"I told you about my ex..."
A little, yes.
"He and I had an...'open relationship.'"
Okay.
This isn't a very eventful story, I just wanted to write something. So at the end if you feel cheated that there wasn't much action, don't say I didn't warn you.
~~~
THE TIME: 11-ish at night, a few nights ago.
THE PLACE: South Beach-related locales.
I was sitting at a restaurant called Talula, a fine little notch in the sidewalk of Collins Ave. Sitting with a group of people who are much more gainfully employed than myself, they dined on steaks and oysters, while I had a bowl of the house pasta. These are the sacrifices one must make when one is on a budget. Luckily the bread was free.
We had just attended the opening night of Miami's "Fashion Week," a trite little exhibition of fashion shows that vies to make its mark on the international fashion calendar, by featuring clothes found at your basic shopping mall. Sometimes the shows are alright; this night was not one of those occasions, with Jennifer Lopez's "Sweetface" line taking to the runway. The show started over an hour late, there was no open bar to placate antsy attendees, and there were only 10 outfits shown. Ten outfits is not a fashion show, it's a rack in a store. It was over before it began. We should have expected the worst; most of the shows are held in a tent on the beach, but Sweetface was in the reflecting pool lobby of the Setai Hotel. Boring clothes, boring location, boring boring boring.
But Miami's Fashion Week also falls on a legitimately big event: the Winter Music Conference has taken over South Beach, with the world of DJs and their aficionados all converging on our little stretch of sand to listen to the same electronic drumbeat play for several days nonstop. It's actually a really big deal. Hence, Fashion Week tries to snag a wayward cool person or two that gets separated from the flock, and lure them in with the promise of glamour and pretty people. Although apparently, you have to pay for the booze, which sucks. But I'm getting over that now, I promise.
It just so happens that this night in question was the opening night for the Winter Music Conference, featuring a huge party on the roof of the newly-styled Hotel Gansevoort (did I spell that right?). The Gansevoort takes up half of a humongous beachfront condo building; the other half is referred to as the Roney Plaza, which is just normal condos, it's a weird set-up, with two separate entrances for the same building. But it works for them, I guess. And both aspects to the building are super-swank. Needless to say, this was a very exclusive party. And also needless to say, not a single one of us had an invite. But we figured it wouldn't hurt to try to sneak in.
Phone calls were made, plans were hatched, our restaurant bill was paid and we were off scampering down the street, strappy sandals clicking excitedly as we reviled in our (drunken) dangerousness. We rounded the corner, looked up, and saw the roof glowing in the light of a fireworks display. I love fireworks so much, I find them to be extremely romantic. I have no idea why. But I really wanted to get up there.
We hurried around to the beach entrance of the buildings (guarded), we went to the loading dock (locked), and we pulled on every fire escape we could find. Nada. But if we go in the condo side, we could find some way to cross over. Right? Right. So we pulled ourselves together, waltzed into the condo, and saw a group of people heading up to another party in someone's unit. We followed them like we belonged, walking with much entitlement; the guards didn't question us, as we didn't make eye contact with them to give them the chance. Weaklings. We breezed past a guard with a name tag that said "Paulo" and entered the elevator, heading for the top floor. Although we were still in the wrong building, so one could only guess how far we'd get.
We stepped off, turned right, and found ourselves in a hallway still under construction. Getting our bearings, we deduced the other building was to the right, so we turned down that direction--and walked right into a security guard. A large one.
...and tell them you read it on this blog.
Let's take a walk down memory lane, and re-visit some of the gentleman suitors I have had the pleasure of dating in the past few years.
Hmm. Where to begin...there was:
1) Text Message Guy: I dated TMT for about 2 months, on-and-off. He was from Guatemala, or...Venezuela?...Nicaragua maybe. Some country where they speak Spanish, I don't remember. Whatever it was, his English was piece-mealed together when he spoke, so when using the phone he communicated only via text message, which allowed him time to think of the correct words to use, and he didn't need to worry about the proper pronounciation. It's a common occurrence in Miami, text messages make the language barrier easier. But he text-messaged everything--EVERYTHING--including the day I got the message of: "I cannot see you today. I am sorry. My boyfriend is coming over. Can I see you tomorrow?"
2) Sweaty Guy: Sweaty guy and I hung out for several weeks, after being introduced by a mutual friend. He was very sweet, a big lumbering hulk of a man, with a very gentle soul; very sweet, quiet, kind, and he had big brown eyes with long eyelashes akin to the sweetest puppy. But when he got you into bed, watch out--he became a screaming, thrashing lunatic, who punctuated every breath with the scream of "Oi!" "Oi!" "Oi!" I'm not sure where he was from, again it was somewhere that they espeak Espanish, but I presume "Oi!" means something there. But the minute the clothes came off, he became drenched in sweat--huge puddle of sweat that formed in every crevice of his body, and flowed off him like rivers. And there was that one drop of sweat, that one huge glistening drop of sweat that would form on the tip of his nose and hang there, undulating round and round as he would twitch and lunge around the bed. That drop of sweat haunted me. I would fixate upon it, the "Oi! Oi!" yelling becoming a distant echo, as I dreaded the moment when the sweat drop would dislodge from the point of his nose and inevitably fall onto my body. And I would watch it in slow motion, the space-time continuum crawling almost to a stand-still, yet I could do nothing to stop its descent, after which it would collide with my body, spreading microscopic spraylets of epidermal excrement across my defenseless skin.
He was nice and all, but it was like having sex with a Slip 'N Slide. No thanks.
3) This guy. It's not even funny. What an ass.
4) Spitty Guy: This guy had so much spit, if he was angled even slightly over me when I kissed him, I could feel it running into my mouth. I became exhausted from constantly dancing around, trying to position my head above his while he came at me for a smooch. The thought still makes me gag.
5) The Married Guy: I talked about this guy already, ad nauseum. The last I heard from him was an email on Christmas: "I just wanted to wish you Happy Holidays, and best of luck in the New Year. Thinking of you." I replied: "Best of luck to you too. I hope you got lots of good presents for your wife and kids, they deserve it." I haven't heard from him since.
6) Cokehead Guy: This guy could only, ahem, perform if he did a bump or two of coke. I didn't know this for a little while, I just thought he was really excited to have sex with me. Little did I know.
7) Addicted-To-His-Best-Friend Guy: Every time I went out with this guy, he brought along his best girlfriend. They spent the entire evening talking about subjects I knew nothing about--their friends, their co-workers, their gossip. I shouldn't say I "dated" this guy, we went out only a few times, never even got to second base. Too bad, he was cute.
(pause to think)
There have been others, but they were all normal. I'll add some later if I think of more.
We went fishing on Dania Pier the other day.
The pier is a little north of Miami, in a neighborhood that's not necessarily the fanciest place you'll ever visit.
I'm not sure what the pier was originally used for, as it is surrounded by coral, which makes it unreachable for boats. But the coral attracts fish, pompano and...uh...some fish with yellow fins, and some other fish that I don't know. Hence, people go out there to literally catch their lunch. It can get a little America's Most Wanted at times. But when we were there, it was alright.
These are not worm-eating fish you catch, either; bait includes live shrimp, squid parts, and sand fleas--which are actually crabs, and you have to push the hook through the shell. So gross. The lady next to us, fishing with her husband and daughter, had to put the bait on our hooks for us. I couldn't even get it out of the bag.
Needless to say, we caught absolutely nothing. But we did make friends with this pelican. Another pelican unfortunately gobbled up a bait fish, attached to a fishing line, and had to be laid out on the pier and doctored up. The delicate care the fishermen took with the poor pelican was encouraging, at least.
I look forward to going back, and actually catching a fish or something. Whatever I catch, I'll just give to whoever puts the bait on my hook.
(P.S. This post was made by Flickr. How cool is the whole Flickr thing? Loves.)
I made it in again! Look here.
You must think you live in the house of horrors.
Last night when I went to do laundry, I hurriedly grabbed all the sheets off my bed in one batch. I had no idea you were tucked into the blankets; I thought the lumpiness was just one of my blankets, all rolled up in the middle.
So it took a few moments to realize that blankets, in fact, do not move on their own volition, and therefore the mass in my arms must have contained something that was actually alive. And as there is only one living thing in my apartment besides myself, I should have realized the wiggling mass was you.
Again, I offer my apologies, and I'm glad you put up a struggle before I jammed you into the washing machine. I can't imagine you would have dealt with all that water with a very understanding eye.
And please don't feel bad about peeing all over my sheets. Accidents happen when we're scared; getting wrapped up in a pile of blankets would be very scary for someone as small as you. And staying up all night, repeatedly alternating between bleaching and OxyCleaning everything to get them fully clean, taught me a lesson how to be more careful with my things--especially you.
You're getting a fresh batch of catnip tonight.
Love,
Me
I know it's old news, but let's discuss Elliott Spitzer for a moment, if you don't mind.
Never mind the fact that he was having *unprotected* sex with prostitutes. It's anyone's guess as to what his relationship with his wife is like; perhaps they are no longer sexual with each other?...whatever.
Never mind the fact that he was *alledgedly* funneling government money into his own accounts to pay for these prostitutes. No one knows the situation exactly, the details will follow.
I'm just tired of the wives.
These wives, they stand by their husbands, like they've been brainwashed into believing it is their civic duty to support such wrongdoings, and be brave about it. His wife stands at press conferences, her hair perfectly coiffed, looking on like she supports him in whatever he does.
Did Hillary hurt her political future when she didn't divorce Bill?
Some say yes. Personally, I would respect her more had she left him. But I don't fault her for staying.
Just once--JUST ONCE--I want one of these guys to mess up, give the press conference, and then have the news cut to the helicopter over their house, which is filming the wife running around in her robe, screaming obscenities, throwing all the cheating dog's crap out onto the lawn and then lighting it on fire. I, for one, would be ridiculous about it. I wish he would cheat on me with a hooker. The American public can think what it wants, I would be pissed. And when he goes on that press conference, I would channel my inner Bernadine:
GET YO' SH*T, AND GET OUT!
That's the good stuff right there, bitches. That's real.
So let's talk about Idol.
Here are the contestans, should you need a reference.
1) David Archuleta...well, everyone gets a free pass. Poor kid.
2) Okay, I understand David Cook can sing. I gave him the close-your-eyes-and-is-s/he-still-good? test last night, and sure enough, he was. And honestly, his was the song I sang in the shower this morning, with that lion's roar-sounding voice that he's got. But I can't handle watching that big greasy doughy mess bop around the stage, so smug. He looks like every person from Kansas City, and the Midwest in general, that I have ever disliked. They're all the same. And they look like David Cook. Perhaps I'm just biased. I'll move on.
3) Jason Castro needs to do SOMETHING ELSE besides get really baked before the show.
4) Brooke White? Simon was right: the ability to just sit down, sing a song as it's written and not do any stupid jazzed-up improvisations, yet make it interesting, is no small feat. She won't win, but still she's fantastic. And the other song I was singing today was her rendition of "You're So Vain." LOVES.
5) Could someone please tell me why Amanda Overmeyer is on my television?
Dan Renzi
Dan Renzi
Dan Renzi
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Dan Renzi
Dan Renzi_d_ap1.htm
Dan Renzi
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Dan Renzi
Dan Renzi
GWM, 33, lives in South Beach, is seeking a new neighbor to live in the studio apartment across the hall. The current resident, a very nice Italian man, is moving at the end of March.
The new resident must be reasonably quiet, must not blast any stereo equipment as the walls are somewhat thin, must not play the electric guitar/drums/any other instrument that makes noise or vibrates the walls--Miami Beach Code Enforcement will give you expensive tickets for being loud during the day--and absolutely cannot have a career in selling drugs or prostitution. No dogs, but cats are acceptable.
Apartment is an efficiency, with a main living/bedroom area, an additional area for a dining table, and a separate kitchen. Building is a post-Art Deco 2-story; apartment looks over neighbor's back yard, so there is lots of light and fresh air. Street parking is by permit only, which is good for the entire South Beach neighborhood (HUGE BONUS) and is decently available. Everyone in the building is pleasant, polite, friendly and neighborly. The old Jewish lady on the bottom floor is a bit nosy, but if you just keep walking she'll leave you alone, and she's pretty nice anyway. Plus, you will get to meet This Guy.
Apartment is walking distance to Ocean Drive and the beach, and is one block off Lincoln Road. Location, location, location.
Rent is in the $800 range, but you can probably talk that down a bit; other bills will include electricity ($50-75 per month) and cable TV, if you want it. If you're interested, please email me at danielrenzi (at) gmail.com, and I will put you in touch with the landlord. No freaky-deaky weirdo people, no grumps. Thanks.
