Sophomore Year

3am street race downtown. Not with cars – but on foot.

We started on Flagler and ran full speed towards Wolfson. Screaming obscenities and rushing past homeless people and then collapsing on the Wolfson steps. Hah. Just like in high school.

Later JHR had a Silent Bob moment when he pulled a boom box out of his car and we danced in a parking lot in Wynwood/Rosewood like a bunch of dorks. There were only five of us but it was fun. He had Mindless Self Indulgence and Benjamin Theves. Holler.

Other people’s weeks were much more interesting. Megan had her purse and cellphone stolen and ended up doing a sting with police at the Douglas-US-1 gas station. She had a small female cop hiding in her car with a loaded gun cocked and everything.

Then last night after hanging out at the Martinibar at Sunset with Alexandra and her grad student friends – I don’t drink but she turned 21 so I was there for the less-than-appropriate conversation… we skipped off to the Mariloly show at Oz. She left with a Gogo dancer.

Hot. Latin. Passion.

She’s still screaming about it.

I move back into Hecht this week. I stayed in another residental college over the summer… RAs were told that we might have temporary roommates, but if we do we get $500 added to our stipend. That’d be awesome actually. I want three.

Exhaustion and illness…reading and writing.

I’ve worked 80 hours in the past week – next week looks very much the same.

Goodbye teens.

Skyscrapers have been slowly rising out of dirt lots and fleshing out downtown Miami for some time now but I’m still skipping around the warehouse districts.

Peter and I flying down I-95 in his car, running downtown in the middle of the night, all nighters, South Beach, Surfside, & etc.

Another fast week. The days were pretty much the same… I would get up, work at the yearbook, eat a long lunch while reading the new Donna Leon book, write, go to class, do mail in the dorms, go back to yearbook, then go out for the night.

– Started off the week with a nightime adventure in Homestead…abandoned paintball courses and tourist traps, taco bell.
– Took pictures of flutes in Wynwood while Francis the poodle glared at me.
– Misadventures in Surfside,
– Another one of JHR’s houseparties where I had to play taxi-man at 5am for people who lived nowhere close to each other… but being sober has it’s perks… $20 in gas money? Hell yeah!
– Industrial circuit with Peter – The Morgue and Dark Carnival (with surprise appearances by Danny-chan and Eric.) It was my first time at Dark Carnival…hilarious too. 70 year old grandpa’s, morbidly obese middle aged people, busted-looking performers, the cowboy, and of course the normal craziness.

– South Beach picture run with Christy…she cussed out a girl in front of the dorms. It was hilarious.

After that we saw “Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift”. The teen couple sitting next to us (it was ridiculously crowded) provided the real show. They were talking (not whispering but straight up talking) during the entire movie and ended up having a full blown fight in the middle of the movie. The girl screamed “fuck off!” and some choice words that even non-Spanish speakers understand as the guy stormed out of the theater. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

– Kendall hopping with JHR
– Noel’s scary (and stanky) ferrets
– Warehouse-roof climbing in Hialeah (never again.)

Nights during vacation week were going to be pretty exciting. I realized this Monday morning around 3:20am as Junior and I were literally crawling out of a car parked in Allahpattah as quietly as possible, keeping our head low so JHR’s exgirlfriend’s “cousin” (I suspect they aren’t actually related) wouldn’t hear.

Big hulking Cuban guy. Roid rage. Drama filled night. I completely expected to be treated to Taco Bell after that mess. Needless to say Junior couldn’t go back home that night. Que Drama.

Latin clubs…Little Havana, Houseparties Homestead (a waste of gas/toll money) and got stuck in warehouse district near Little Haiti at 4am with Junior and his brother because Junior’s car broke down. We decided to explore a little, but yeah, guard dogs, homeless people, and rain…AAA wasn’t thrilled.

Armando is equally bad at driving/getting lost as Junior is. He couldn’t find UM (even though he’s from Miami and the school is on freaking US-1) and semi-got lost on the way to Dolphin Mall. After watching “The Omen” I directed him to Denny’s but I suspect when he dropped me back off at the Mall after Denny’s he got lost on the way back to Miami Lakes.

Peter and I did the Industrial circuit this week and went to the Morgue and The Kitchen although we didn’t go to the Alter Ego party on Friday so I spent the night exploring the Everglades and farms with Armando.

That was sheer terror by the way – a guy came out of an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere and followed us. Didn’t say a word though. Yeah. Exactly. We ran the half mile to the car, screaming, and laughing later as we drove to the next place we wanted to explore.

We spent the entire night in the countryside. There was some ref/drug mess going down at the abandoned missile base. We got out of that situation though. Speeding down winding dark farm roads, blasting reggaeton…then sifting through miles of swamp/farmland on foot with flashlights and knives, chucking stones at frogs, and exploring quarries/getting freaked out by the threat of Alligators and guard dogs. Oh, and Wal-Mart of course.

Good times, good times.

Things were a bit too fast this week. The days mostly consisted of my three-hour art class, designing for the yearbook, gym, reading (PD James and David Thoreau), and sorting mail with the sting of exhaustion from the previous night lasting until about 8pm the next day.

The nights were busier than the days since everyone wanted to hang out – it was like a ghetto highschool reunion of sorts. Sneaking around Jose’s neighborhood in Culter Ridge hiding from Yamile the psychobitch, Racing in Homestead at 3am with JHR (left my hat down there), Hialeah four times including Wal-Mart…Allahpattah (Boulevard), something similar to canal diving in deep Kendall (which I admit was stupid), keeping it immigrant in that weird Fountainbleu place by FIU, and of course, the Doral Wal-Mart after a quarry adventure (que shaving?).

Oh, and movies – “See No Evil” with Kristen, who is in London now, and “X-men” with Ivan, after a failed attempt at Sunset. The next day we hit up Calle Ocho and the black Dennys on US-1, but my favorite waitress wasn’t there. Damn.

My hard drive crashed so no laptop for the next few weeks. Let’s hope that translates into productivity.

…so JHR lit the backyard on fire with his fireworks… it’s summer and illegal to have chickens in Miami anyway.

How was I this week? Hardcore,sleep deprived, and lackadaisical at best. Unproductive and thoughtless at worst.

Summer got off to a sort of rough start,

…marked by moving into Eaton in the middle of the night, getting hit by sprinklers that water more pavement than grass – even when it’s raining – spending forever getting my room in sorts, designing for the yearbook, desk shifts, mail, mail, mail, and forwarding mail.

– The art 101 class from hell, which is three hours a day, five days a week.
– Exploring abandoned buildings and terror in the Everglades with Ivan,
– Midnight pranks and climbing with JHR,
– Sunny Isles Beach listening to insane/bloody Columbian histories, & etc.
– A lot of & etc.

Too much etc.

Flitter – twilight of the semester. My last finals are on Tuesday and I’m finishing off the school year with a sinus infection,.

Last week of classes and Birthdays,

Aparna’s B-day and Indian food at Imlee’s, Kristen’s B-day and Soho Lounge, Denny’s three times, Napping at Pablo’s, Walking dogs in Kendall (pugs that aren’t pugs), Wendy’s in Hialeah (and the drama that ensued), Hide & Seek with Ken’s Cats, Papers, papers, papers.

Long nights, early mornings.

Traveled over 200 miles with Ken Saturday/Sunday,
– Silent Hill, Cocowalk,
– Aventura, Little Havana, then Redlands/homestead.
– Ended spending the night in Homestead actually, which I didn’t mind. except for the attempted robbery at 7am. The entire time Ken’s roommate kept calling threatening to kill him. By noon on Sunday I was watching Ken’s roommate get arrested. The cop had an interesting tatoo.
– Napping in Kendall watching Bible history on A&E, Long John Silver’s by the Everglades…
– Painting at the front desk
– Duty night from hell, bejesus.
– Rereading “The Passion of Ayn Rand”
And, of course. Writing.

Spent too much time skipping around the northern suburbs late at night. Hialeah Gardens with FIU students…

And Miami Lakes with former-UM students. Writing, spending, running.

Horrible nostalgic tinge this week,
Rockets in Allahpattah, and the 7-Eleven on 8th.

Reworking the plot, negotiating the protagonists.

Oh, and I cut my foot on a broken mug. Bleh.

I spent virtually all of Monday in Little Havana getting the glass fixed from last week’s misadventure. Sedano’s, Botanicas, Taco Bell, La Mia, you know how I do.

I don’t know why I look like that… I’ve gained too much weight.

Dropped my WWI history class – I only have two history classes left before the major is done and I don’t want to waste one of those in a lecture course. 500-level history courses should be seminars with intensive research projects… the WWI class was like a 200-level class where the teacher just talked at us. So it had to go.

I spent more time in the archives working on my Trinidad paper… I had to reformat my computer (windows wouldn’t launch anymore) so I lost a good deal of it. All of the stuff for the novel is on paper… so hah.

Did a lot of Club hopping this week… Azucar, Oz, with Joseph on Thursday (we are a horrible little pair). Friday I saw “Tamara” by myself (literally, there was no one else in the theater) then went partying/had misadventures downtown with JHR…I’m going to get stabbed someday. Saturday night Alex and I got stuck downtown in the Music Conference/Ultra Music Festival madness and then when we finally got to Soho Lounge/The Kitchen we pissed of the doormen. Heh. It’s not our fault the music sucked. We finally decided to go clubbing in Aventura instead… good times and a new club to hit up on Saturdays.

Definitely cut down on the Taco Bell and soda this week. Replaced it with carbonated water, and unsweeted iced tea, and espressos. Holler. A nice contributor to the anti-Taco Bell kick was the food poisoning from a shady China Buffet. Unholler.

Spring break was a little too Rock & Roll – we tore Davie up.

Last night I went to Bayside with John XIV… Chili’s, cameltoe, Ashlee Simpson, Mexican punk rockers, and fireworks that were a little too close for comfort.

Of course my car battery died in Riverside at like 1:30am. Riverside is this mostly abandoned area near downtown Miami. The homeless/crack district. John XIV and I walk the half mile to my mother’s house and by the time we get back a crackhead is in my car. He had kicked in the back window and was looking for change in my console.

My mother (who had just come home from going out) jumped out of her car and started cussing out the crackhead. “Get da FUCK out of that car! What the FUCK are you doing!?”

It was priceless.

He was terrified but left after 10 minutes. It took us about ten minutes to reach 911 with three cellphones because the operators were too busy due to the concert downtown and regular Miami Saturday-night badassness. Cops came eventually, car was jumped but of course the car dies again in Little Havana… John XIV and I have a mini-adventure there… tow truck comes about 4:30am… he had to go to work at 6am. Heh. Unholler.

Making John XIV miserable at work was my hobby during spring break… saw some movies, was in downtown/Little Havana everyday. Fish with Christy in West Little Havana… tripping around FIU… Kendall, more movies than necessary… the Morgue, Davie… etc. Good Spring Break, but yeah. A little too Rock & Roll…