“Mom, you have to bring me jeans, my short shorts are too short.”
Hello! When I saw her at 6.30 in the kitchen I thought she’d forgotten her skirt. But, this being a common thought, it slipped away without becoming another sarcastic remark, we were late for the bus, I hadn’t printed her essay nor sick note, panic ensued and my opinion on dress code was forgotten by the time we met up in my (still dark at 6.30) car.
Yes, DASH has a dress code. Its tolerant, but does require a certain amount of body coverage.
So.
At 8.45 I arrived, bagged jeans in hand, and told the dear woman at reception that my daughter had been nabbed by the DASH fashion police and here I was; bringing her Burka.
Don’t you hate it when a good joke goes to waste? It was a case of flat ears.
Now rewind 12 hours to 200 yards across the street from DASH at the Moore building in the Design District, 5- 10 pm yesterday evening.
Burka’s crossed my mind then too.
I was there selling tutu’s. My original princess-dress tutu’s.
(I don’t mean to confuse you, yes-yes I work with beach plastic now, and not tule).
But I confused myself. I mean what was I thinking when my friend Francesca told me about a giant sample sale fashion event called Sassy City Chicks?
Fate, I thought.
Tutu* destiny calls, I thought.
*Aside – I keep a “past lives storage unit” in Milford, across from ACE hardware. Last summer I was getting two tutu dresses from my previous Baby Gordon collection (in storage for ten years) for friends with brand-new baby girls in their lives and, in an inspired moment, thinking that Miami was the perfect market to get rid of my tutus once and for all (those princesses in the making) I UPS-ed two boxes down to our candy land bachelor pad.
my chic display for young miami princesses...
Little did I know that the crowd of childless Sassy City Chicks Fashion Bashers had come for the DJ, the party atmosphere with free Smirnoff Vodka while they had their nails done, carried no cash, nor checks, only credit cards (which I did not take) and had about fifty dollars to spend on themselves, which went to an instant gratification piece of bling and not a Christmas tutu for their favorite niece.
tutu or bling? that was the question...
I took one look at these girls’ heels, cleavage and legs and thought:
I may as well be selling burkas.
Like pastel baby tutus or black burkas @ Sassy City Chicks Fashion Bash = wrong demographic!
Miami trend: two drinks, one for each hand. Predicament: how to shop...
Still, I sold six pieces. I only lost thirty-five dollars. I had free Vodka. I hung out with Francesca, who oozes Italian style, and we bitched about the fashion Chernobyl going on around us.
Francesca = effortless chic...
I met a few cool young guys who do cool young things.
I got to stay out late by myself.
But, when I left the building and had to step over the passed-out body of a young woman lying in her own vomit, I decided to put my tutus back into storage for another ten years…
I didn’t do my 22 laps today. I did homework. I prepped beach plastic. I made dinner. I edited. I had a Martini (or two) …
Then suddenly I had a window, so I went down to the pool.
I did my 22 laps. Or was it 32?
Let me tell you; after those martini’s it was soo easy. It was actually fun! And pretty! Prettier than I’d ever noticed before. The palm trees lit from below swaying in the wind, the lights from the apartment buildings across Indian Creek, the slice-of-a-moon rising, the last contours of a pink sunset…
I swam like a fucking dolphin! I would have leapt if I could have!
I wondered if I’d burned the same amount of calories as when doing the same, only sober.
So politically incorrect though. No?
I mean I’m from the north. And from Holland. Swimming laps while intoxicated? Bad mother! Bad, bad mother! Bad temporary single parent!
But.
Hey.
This is Miami.
So while exercising intoxicated I thought of all the things you can do in Miami that you can’t do anywhere else in the U S of America….
Like:
1. Sex rules without boundaries #1 – Cross a busy intersection wearing nothing but a red sparkling Brazilian bikini (thong that is), on Friday evening Sabbath in the center of the Jewish quarter, 41st and Pinetree Drive… You go girl! (It wasn’t me, I wouldn’t dare).
2. Safety? Up yours! – Do a U-turn, in a SUV, in the center of a three-way-zebra crossing during blinking-light school hours with uniformed kids pulling their Zuccas on every black and white stripe (I don’t do this, it drives me nuts).
3. Fun beats responsibility – Send your kid on a two-day field trip with a chaperone, never call her (kid nor chaperone), and then NOT collect kid for another two days (courtesy of my friend F B ).
4. My body is my business – Sunbath topless on the regular (not nudist) beach. I do this when its REALLY quiet (my Mom and I tried it on Shelter Island and almost got arrested….)
5. Get out of my way, bitch – Cut into any and every line, whenever you can, proudly, as if it’s a Mark Jacobs Spring 2011 fashion statement.
6. Spontaneous manners – RSVP to an intimate (early-ish) dinner party, not show up, then call at ten, ask if you can bring a friend, eat left-overs and have a fabulous time till the wee hours…
7. Honestly I’m an honest person – Text a hostess to thank for a great dinner party, and write that it was fun only until the moment when she (the hostess/me) made that one stupid comment about…
8. Sex rules without boundaries #2 – Sit by the pool and hear the explicit details of a druggy orgy, as told by three extremely pretty Russian girls, while there are at least a dozen children under the age of seven swimming amongst them…
9. Scary shit is fun any time of the year – Have “Night of the Zombies” on Lincoln Road four weeks before Halloween, where adult men walk around in blood stained T-shirts, drunk, yielding real and churning chainsaws…
10. Sex rules without boundaries # 3 – Have a bus stop sign that says: Still a Virgin? Need Help? call 1-800- etc. on one end and a sign that says “Raped? Need Help? call 1-800- etc.” on the other…
(11 and 12 are added since this post was first written:
11: Have the office of a male and female, boys and girls, modeling agency inside a church building. Yes the Green agency is conveniently located (for recruiting purposes) on Lincoln Road inside the community church building, instantly absolved and blessed with divine credibility. And oh those lucky priests, inside the kids candy store….
12: On Sunday, when the sale of liquor is forbidden in many states including PA, we were give free and rather generous wine samples at the Publix supermarket check-out line at 11am, Halloween day. The man behind me passed “because I have to go to work” and the sexy wine seductress tried her best to persuade him that a bit of wine would do no harm…. )
I’m sure I can think of ten (yes I did) more but I have to get out of this wet bathing suit and call husband back…
Like one year ago is when we came down for our nine-month get away…
As in, lets try a school-year away from Milford with its six-feet-of-snow winters when I need a focus-group to determine how to best get from the front door to the car to pick up the kids, where we have crazy neighbors who shoot at eight-year-old twins (or at least try to hit a target that stands about ten feet in front of their neighboring twins) and then try to get the mother (moi) arrested for shoving the neighbor for almost shooting my twins (one day I’ll be ready to blog you that whole story), getting away from having Obama signs stolen five times from my yard, being called a commie for trying to have a library built in town and having to spend at least 1/3 of my life in the car driving for every little brain fart.
Anyone would agree that these are plenty good reasons to try something else for a while. And as you know, from 12 months of blogging, we did.
WE. I said.
We, as in husband and me and our children, Kiki, Leila and Iona.
So, if you’ve been a faithful follower of this Gordon de Vries adventure, you know that, based on mainly but not solely, Iona’s acceptance into DASH, we went for the second year. A second year in DJ Tiesto’s bachelor pad. Tiesto loves us, despite the fact, or because of the fact, that we’re not bachelors, we dont wreck the place every Saturday night, but instead the “Dutch Cleanser” has moved in, one who occasionally slips into heels and a mini, but still reports every toilet blockage.
Anyway.
I’m here. Kiki is here, very popular in her grade. Leila is here, very popular too, Iona is here, loving DASH.
But where is husband? I’ve been looking everywhere! The closets, under the bed, the garage, by the pool, in the car (maybe he locked himself in?), the fridge, the gym, the jacuzzi?
He’s not here.
He’s in Milford!
Yep, believe it or not, he’s there.
Next to the crazy neighbors, who reportedly are building a moat between them and us, like they’re the bridge and we’re the water (one day I’ll tell all…)
He’s there because of work. Like suddenly, isn’t it always like that, like you think you’re in the shitty check-out line and you move and then the register in yours breaks and the other, previous, line turns out to have an additional bagger, well this year he, husband, happens to have loads and loads of work in New York. He HAS to be there. Meetings every week. New editors, new jobs, new websites who want him, launches and openings and suddenly New York is where its at.
FUCK!
Like now I’m a single parent without benefits.
Like I go out with my single and divorced girl friends but I don’t get to flirt, exchange numbers, and pretend to be BAD.
I’m GOOD.
I’m so good I bore myself.
Sometimes, when husband calls at midnight on a Saturday night, just when I’ve come home and read his e-mail saying “call me when you get home”, I pretend that I was bad. But, to be honest, I don’t even know how to do this…
So between now and Halloween Barbi does Miami, alone.
Last night I saw Eat Pray Love. All about a woman who is lost. Right?
I hated it. (I didn’t get past page 30 of the book either). And I wondered. Why? Why do 300 million people love this story in 48 languages, buy it, get inspired by it, and I hate it.
Like I wanted to leave. I wanted to scream over everybody’s head, why are you buying this BULL SHIT ?
Anyway.
I think I figured it out. It lacks authenticity. Credibility. Like when Precious makes good we cheered for her. We admired her for facing horrific challenges and demons. But this? This is the cliche of a spoiled pretty woman lost. Really, she’s more enviable than pitiable. She tells us she’s desperate but shows us a gorgeous home, handsome husband, intellectual parties, NYC at its brownstone best, cutest actor rebound boyfriend, rambling apartment in Rome, all the prosciutto, basel and Chianti she can consume, fabulous funny friends who adore her, then onto the super cleaned-up version of India where she befriends the “I don’t want to have an arranged marriage” cliche Indian girl while scrubbing picturesque mosaic floors (all along her hair is Fekkai perfect) ending with the inevitable photogenic Indian wedding ceremony. Then onto Bali (How awful, are we suffering yet? I am, by now I’m so hungry seeing all that Italian food earlier) Anyway. Once there she finds out, like duh, that “giving” makes her feel good about herself, things start looking up… and finally she smiles!
BUT THEN.
While bicycling through a gorgeous landscape she gets hit by Javier Bardem in his white jeep.
JAVIER BARDEM!
Tell me, who here doesn’t want to get run over by Javier Bardem?
STILL…
Now she’s pissed off about that too!
After several scenes ( I only stayed this long because my friend Jessica swore there was steamy sex with Javier) of Roberts and Bardem having fully clothed sex behind bamboo doors the story reaches its end. (Phew).
The last scene is straight from the Bachelorette, radiant Julia at the end of the jetty, sun setting on the horizon, waiting for her knight in shining armor …
Fade out to “and they lived happily ever after.”
(Apparently not entirely, in real life the couple’s struggles continued because Javier, had “immigration” problems).
Now there is a movie I may watch:
Javier (without papers) in Arizona…. running his white Jeep over Julia Roberts on her bike…
Well, I’m here in Easthampton. (We left the day after my glorious birthday party, which still reverberates like a happy crystal…)
But I’m not really.
Like I do not venture beyond the compound of our hosts. I know. Some of you will think, well, if she likes Miami Beach then what’s so wrong with the Hamptons?
I’ve been trying to answer that question myself. Maybe I’m even writing this blog because I want to figure it out.
I know its not the obvious. Its not the A-types that are too master-of-the-universe-ish to stop at STOP signs, that will steal the last smoked duck out of your shopping cart at Citerella’s, cause wicker-burn by using their wicker baskets as tools of advancement in the Farmer’s Market’s line, or give you the finger when you point out that there is in fact a line to get onto the Shelter Island Ferry. Its not them. All that stuff is kinda funny in its own Hamptons way.
No.
I’ve been coming here for more than twenty summers. I met husband here. He had a lovely Tech-Built home right on the beach. Every summer we spent a few weeks there (our days wedged between those of renters, siblings and parents). Iona was christened on our beach and two years later we got married in the same spot, Iona frantically trying to plant her “flower girl” sunflower in the sand. The twins spent the first weeks of their life under a mosquito net on the deck overlooking the bay. We gave many infamous July 4th parties enjoying our (Devon Yacht Club) neighbor’s fireworks and were complicit in George Plimpton’s last wish to have his ashes blown in one last glorious glittering fire work shower over Gardiner’s Bay.
Then we sold the house, to Piccaso’s daughter Maya, and moved on. Still we come back every summer, stay with friends for a week or so. Husband has such yearnings here, for a childhood lost, for the way life used to be, for lost possibilities, expectations, friends and an ex-wife. He even wrote a book, Weekend Utopia, about the vanished dream that is the Hamptons.
But I don’t yearn. Not for the days when we first met here. Not for the years between then and having kids, not for my wedding day, the parties, the family dinners on the porch watching fiery sunsets… I enjoyed it all, but I don’t pine. Not at all.
So I wonder about this blanket of melancholy that covers me. Here, now, just off route 27 in Easthampton. Could it be that a layer of one of husband’s shadows hovers over me? Like one of his smaller ghosts is trying to rattle me? After all we’ve been together 20 years, like practically 24/7. I’m not trying to pass the buck, but shit, I’m happy when he’s happy so why not pick up on his melancholy?
It’s curious. We’re going home tomorrow, after the memorial service of an old friend’s mother, and I know I’ll be myself again as soon as we head west.
But.
I’m the kind of person who wants to know what bothers her now, right now, right here, analyze and fix it.
Maybe. In this case of Hampton Blues I’m just going to have to let it go….
There is, I realize, no place like home, and our house in Milford feels a lot like home, even while I’m still into de-renterfying mode, like why is our wireless network suddenly called Casa Cielo? Why is there no longer a phone in my office and where the hell is the egg tray from the fridge? I ask myself are these my pots and pans underneath this black crust? was that really a mouse running out of the fridge? And wasn’t my shower curtain white and not ombre´ brown…? Every day holds another renter trail surprise and all lead to the inevitable conclusion that renting and owning are two different states of mind and thats putting it nicely…
Still, I have a gorgeous home. My home is me. My home is us. Alastair, Iona, Iain, Kiki and Leila. I wish I could carry my house, like a turtle or a snail, to Miami Beach and to Eleuthera, and everywhere else I fancy living.
You have a question? About the town of Milford? What is it like? Actually, its pretty cute but culturally a bit disappointing. I’ve been here 22 years and given the chance the good ‘ole boys still call me a newcomer. An accent (the UK Queens English), a past in New York City (and beyond), and a wardrobe that may include a few designer labels, will earn anyone here that title. Newcomer. Like immigrant. Someone who does not belong. (A strange phenomena on this New Conservative American landscape, like really, which generation earns the righteous right to say they belong? First? Second? Third?)
The big disappointment came in the guise of Dunkin Donuts. On main street. Right next to the lot that had been bought and earmarked for our airy, lightfilled and green new library, designed by Fred Schwartz , the super fabulous architect from New York, who won the competition for this new building. Unfortunately to us, Milford’s new generation, the entire venture was perceived to be organized by so-called Newcomers. The ones that had lives in New York. Those terrible uppity outsiders who think they are better than everyone else. Thus the new library split the town in two. The good ole boys did not want this library and riled their troops as if a nuclear power plant was taking root right in the center of their town. While we were in Miami a referendum was held in Milford Borough, population 3500, which sealed the fate for the county (population 40,000). Result: No modern-architect-designed-green-library would disgrace their cute “historic” town.
However. After citing that no chains like Dunkin Doughnuts, Home Depot or flat-roofed modern structures would find their way into the Borough center (“over our dead body “) the town officials somehow thought that, instead of expanding the Milford mind, Milford waistlines could benefit from some expansion. Dunkins opened and, insult to injury, it borders the proposed, and purchased, library site, overlooking the stream, the Knob and the Victorian walk along the Sawkill Creek, which no DD consumer will ever appreciate.
And while I’m at it, can anyone tell me what’s with that third new fireworks store, the first thing one sees when arriving – Welcome to Milford – Historic town? For some obscure reason, this fireworks store is the only business in town, (who are they related to?) that doesn’t have to adhere to the strict signage ordnance (cute, small and historic) and has its own patriotic (tell me what’s so patriotic about fireworks, their sound of gunfire?) huge banners and flags and other in-your face-paraphenalia that tells the newly arrived visitor, NOT, “welcome we are a cute historic town”, BUT, “howdy we are a loudmouth, keep small children indoors, gun touting, heavy-drinking, devil-may-care kind of place where Bikers are Welcome, liberals and librarians – Keep Out.”
So. I love my house. It is perfect. It fits me like a glove. But Milford, after showing years of improvement, the Fauchere, the Black Bear Film Festival, the annual Music Festival, the efforts of Dick Snyder, Sean Strub, Peter and Reggie, Hilary, Nancy and Darryl, Donna Hamilton, Alan Greenbaum, Jerry Beaver and Nancy Pitcher, and many others, seems to be slipping towards the appeal of the mass dumb-down culture, like the Dunkin Donuts and fireworks stores, Turkey Hill gas stations, smoke and lottery shops and tight Park Service regulations instead of organic farmer’s markets, funky independent boutiques and many good, cool bars, music/poetry cafes and restaurants.
But I know Milford won’t give up. We still have the Patisserie, the Waterwheel Cafe, the movement to renovate the old movie theatre, the Indigo Arts building with 7th Street Coffee, and all power to them. Yes to those who may have lived in New York, and who know the cultural trends and call for originality, creativity and independence…
Speaking of which, Iona’s birthday, fourteen this time, was yesterday, July Fourth, and her adoring, adorable Dad, bought her a MACBook. She is in heaven while the rest of us are envious. Jealous of the speed with which she goes online, the perfectly white key board, the options and features that come with it.
Of course Iona had it all, call it fall-out from my omnipotent “singing telegram mother”. Birthdays have to be the perfect balance between gifts and wrapping, appearance and content, guests, friends, family, cake, singing, food and love. I think I scored 80 out of a 100. A brief but loud spat with husband knocked 20 points out of Iona’s otherwise perfect birthday chart… but who knows, maybe, in the end, that’s the best gift of all – the lesson that perfection is a mere rainbow which stretches from one unreachable yard to another and that in reality God is found in the details, including the small imperfect details like fights and conflict, which complete the whole circle of our existence….
Celebration fireworks and dinner-theatre at J Morgans Puett’s on Saturday night…
…the Mildred’s Lane saturday night events, our other home away from home sweet home.
Remember? getting ready to leave Milford September 2009...
Nine months since I packed the car in Milford and headed south with three kids, six bags, and loads of movies. Nine months since we did what we wanted, in a fuck the consequences kinda way, like – get outta town – hop on the bus gus – life is a beach – fuckem if they cant take a joke – the experience will do us good – life is too short – broaden the horizon – migrate like a nomad – follow the sun and live your dream…
So what was it like? Living the dream on the beach? It was just like life. But sunnier. It so wasn’t Milford. It was so Miami Beach. But it was life nevertheless. Husband and I still had fights. So did the twins. We still had homework and laundry and rashes and crushes. I still got rejection letters and I still cared when they came. Only it was 78 degrees in February. Only some days we said lets have lunch on the beach, and I made sandwiches and we hopped on our bikes and ten minutes later lay in the sand, stood in the surf, without guilt, on a Tuesday afternoon.
When I look back there were some memorable moments, quite a few actually, like I have a top ten of my high and low moments of nine months at the beach:
Best Parties:
1. October>The Halloween cross dressing party for grown ups, after candy rounds with the kids, going back home and dressing up with husband, have a scotch in the bathroom while he tried to get into a bra and pantyhose, making myself up like a man, and leaving the house around 11 instead of coming home at 11. Coming home at 3 am. Drunk and stoned. Not done that in a while great start to our Miami Beach party season…
2. Which concluded with a party on Biscayne Point a few weeks ago when husband wore his pajama striped pale linen pants and I wore new white silk pants, and our host dropped his glass of red wine at our feet, splashing it mostly over husband ‘s pants and within ten minutes of our arrival I’m sitting with my feet in the pool, for once wishing for high chlorine levels to help remove the wine stains, and look through the gauze curtains to my left only to see husband in his white y-fronts standing by an elaborate four poster bed while host holds up pant after pant, as if they’re at Prada together. Me thinks, well, thats the fastest A has ever gotten out of his pants at a party and how gay is that host? Not at all it turned out, he had buxom brunette twins in matching shorts and fishnet stockings launching around, bored and clearly waiting for the party to be over. One well-groomed older lady referred to them as “the hired help”. Still, it turned into one of the best parties when Tray Lockerbie, a young singer from Nashville stepped out with his guitar, sang a few songs and inspired three more musicians to come out, including husband. They jammed, we sang. We danced. Got home late, husband in different pants from the ones he left home in – a sign of a good time had…
Miami icons: Sam, Esther, Iran
3. Our dinner parties at our Aqua Candyland Bachelor Pad like the one in honor of Eyjafjallajökull and Zaha Hadid who could not make it home to London because of the ash… four fabulous Miami Matriarchs: Sam, Iran, Kathy and Esther, dishing and gossiping and one-upping with stories of their wildest Miami moments…
Zaha and Barbi in the Tiesto candy-land elevator
4. The twins birthday party by the pool, voted best party by them, in 90 degree weather, ten ten-year old girls and two boys (pretending they were at their own separate party) going wild. Iona came to the rescue, miraculously, like a pied piper, rounded them up and bossed them around into orderly games that included hula hoops, diving for prizes and water guns. All a sweaty, hamburger-scented blur to me.
twin birthday
5. Top best moment beyond, over and above parties: Finding out that Iona got into DASH. A top-ten-ever-proud-mother-moment.
6. The “gifted” test of the twins. A controversial public school moment, where I bought into the system that separates the so-called gifted kids from the rest, and puts them in classes that are superior in method and level of teacher. Hm. Ok, some another time shall I rant about this. Anyway. To get there from here, my girls needed to get an IQ test of sorts. Now. You have to know that over the years opinions by various teachers on their intelligence and the ability to apply themselves have varied. I never wavered, but was often worn down by negative reports that included notes like “unable to concentrate”, “reading impaired”, “incomplete homework”. So this test was a test. A test about who was right. Was my conviction just motherly love? Like Kiki said, “of course you think we’re smart, you’re our Mom!” She thought the teachers were the only authority, and when “gifted” teacher, Mr Spagnola, told their class that they were “the worst class in the school” the last nail had been nailed into their “see Mom, we’re stupid” coffin.
NOT SO.
my smart twins
They tested brilliantly. Smart, ahead of their age, eloquent, sensitive and insightful. A weight of self-doubt fell off my shoulders, the veil of insecurity was lifted from their aura. Just one silly test was all it took. I know its all relative, the Wizard of Oz is right about certificates, but, but, it was a good Miami moment.
7. The day I moved into my small sunny studio at Ofer Mizrahi’s utopian village alongside the tracks on 4th North Court. I’d had my eye on the small, like 250 sq.ft, studio for months – a palm-tree just outside the french doors, surrounded by young painters, designers environmentalists and architects. A place of my own to escape to… for more look under # 7 in my Worst Miami Moments…
8. My Mom’s visit. Showing her all my favorite things and seeing her health improve in the sun, surrounded by granddaughters and love.
love
9. Getting my scarves into Base at the Delano Hotel, making clothes again, finding local women who can sew and bead and enjoy making my stuff while getting paid, and realizing that I can start my business here and help clean the beaches from plastic pollution and maybe make a difference in the environmental consciousness of Miami. All of which is recorded here: http://itsamanmadeworld.wordpress.com/
blue beach plastic silk scarf
10. Marriage. We have been together 20 years this Labor Day. Twenty years is longer than I lived in Amsterdam by two years. Its ten years longer than my life in London. In twenty years everything happens. E V E R Y T H I N G. Jobs come and go. Money comes and goes. Parents die, kids are born. Friends die, friends are born. Dreams die, dreams are born. Together we lived in Tribeca and on 9th Street, we lived in an old terracotta factory on the Raritan Canal just outside Princeton which flooded during hurricane Floyd and a week later I was pregnant with twins. We moved to Milford, we built our dream house, we moved to Miami.
Alastair Gordon at Tiesto @ the Fontainebleau
Love. I learned that love changes. That love isn’t static but more like a pink lava lamp. Sometimes we are completely one, sometimes we are at odds, but we always come back together with more love, more intensity and more understanding.
Miami was his idea. We needed it, he said. We needed sun as in light, and parties. He challenged us and some days this made me mad. Some days I did not want to be Barbi in Miami, I wanted to just be Barbara again. But now, a year later, he has left for Milford and I miss him. And I love him more for making us do this, and for taking me into our marriage deeper than ever before…
Alastair, Kiki and Leila leaving Miami Beach, back to Milford....
Iona and I are here for two more weeks, while she does her DASH summer camp and I enter ten more memorable Miami moments, coming soon….
In case you didn’t know, our landlord is DJ Tiesto, and our landlord performed at LIV the disco @ the Fontainebleau last night, actually this morning.
“I go on at 1 am,” he e-mailed, “till whenever…”
So we took a mega nap, woke at 11 and got done up. I knew the drill, after 8 months of Miami I’ve learned that Saturday night on the beach means a dress that ends at the crotch and stiletto’s that can skewer a rat without anyone noticing it stuck in the arch of the heel. I complied, included ample make-up but went without my implants and the mandatory ironed blond hair. Would I get in? I was on the list. On the VIP, Tiesto guest, A-list.
Still, the big black bouncer made me feel like shit as in the minority revenge dish best served cold, like really stone cold….
“Stay there”, he barked as I moved forward, an inch past some imaginary line. “But, but..” He ignored me as I repeated Tiesto and my name in one sentence an embarrassing amount of times, while several younger, tight skirted, ironed blondes squeezed past, pressing their hard, high and large tits against me as if to say ” if you aint got these you ain’t goin’nowhere, bitch.”
But I got in. Eventually. So did husband. We got in. So there.
And it felt great. I’d taken half a Vicodin (what else are they good for) so everything was perfect.
“Ultimate 21st century kitsch”, husband said, “I love it.”
“Me too,” I said, looking around the space; chandeliers the size of UFO’s, almost naked waitresses balancing bottles of champagne decorated with sparklers, a flashlight, like a small dildo clenched between their lips to light their path, the monotonous beat pounding my chest and confusing my own heartbeat in an exhilarating kinda way.
The space filled up. Blah looking guys in shirts worn open over their jeans, and thousands of girls in tiny dresses, all dresses. Not skirts and tops, not shorts, not leggings. But dresses. Whilst high I imagined doing a collection of dresses called LIV and selling them at the Fontainebleau store. Even with a hangover, the next day, this seems like a good idea. Like where do they get all those sexy dresses? Tight. Low cut. Sleeveless, strappy, strapless, hugging, clinging stretching with lots of bling, jewels, chains, buckles and sequins, in every color.
To get noticed in this sea of sexy the pro-dancers wore nothing. What else could they do? They wore bondage that passed for more than plain nudity and girated and pulsated on their small pedestals as if to show the other bitches who was hottest.
Like, mirror mirror on the wall who’s the gyratest of them all?
So finally Tiesto appeared on the stage. Unassuming, not tall, not short, not gorgeous, not ugly. Just a blond guy from Holland in a striped Gap Tee and a smile that tried to please . The crowd went nuts. The beat amped up. Men holding poster board with giant letters pushed by. Girls hopped on the spot, like jumping beans, encased in their dresses.
T I E S T O ….
I let go. I stopped watching and analyzing and judging, I just grooved. The music in tune with some ancient rhythm in my DNA I too hopped and gyrated and danced on the spot, mesmerized by the light show, happy on scotch and chemicals, Tiesto took me off somewhere other than my mundaine mind.
Then, towards the end of his first set, as the naked dancers left the stage a happy guy leapt in their place. He was a great dancer too, only heavily clad in a cool skinny suit and pork pie hat. The crowd cheered him on as he danced his heart out. Until. A large, a large pumped up security guy pounced him, slammed him to the ground, stepped on him and dragged him off the stage so fast that the whole thing seemed surreal. Now I was paying attention again and I noticed the cordoned off areas around me and people begging bouncers to be let in, as if here and there were two different experiences, like a better parallel Tiesto universe awaited on the other side of the black security tape.
I noticed Alastair shouting at the guard who’d dragged off the happy dancer, “What did you get him arrested for? Having a good time in a disco?”
I tried to hang in my careless groovy state as I loitered up the stairs behind the stage, but a guard grabbed my arm and pushed me along,
“You cant stop here here,” he said. “Why not?” I was still oblivious. “Its a rule,” he shouted. “Like Homeland Security?”I screamed back.
“Fuck this fascist shit,” Alastair said. “lets go home.”
So home we went and wondered what was up with the controlling “BlackWater” patrol at a Miami Tiesto disco bash…
this year I counted them. 25 each. 4 went unaccounted for. They’re with the single socks. remarkably peaceful and laid back Easter sunday.
Husband had to do taped interview, go figure, so without annual church guilt, his father was after al the minister and easter by far the most daunting religious holiday of the year for him, us girls did pajamas, colored a few more eggs, ate proportionately more chocolate eggs than were colored, watched tennis, quick visit to Lincoln Road to photograph dogs, Iona’s plan for a blog: THE DOGS OF LINCOLN ROAD, swam 20 laps, dinner and to bed.
Audi super bowl party tonight at W penthouse with large outdoor deck only it rained so deck was closed for fear of ten inch heels slipping and diving down side of building. All of us cramped inside the PH suite with model renta crowd and two celebs as in Hillary Swank and Kate Walsh, going mostly unnoticed. Then onto the pool area where I met Mark Ellwood from Plum TV, celebrating his bday and talking about models, amazon models. It was that kind of night when mini mini skirts are more rampant than dead-from-frost lizards and husband remembers why we moved here in the first place and I remember why I stopped going… like why would anyone have a six foot sultry greeter in them ten inch heels at the door in a teensy black lace dress? She must’ve made at least 50% of party guests, as in women, turn and go home to hide under the covers hugging their teddy bears and pondering non-compete pre-nups. Tomorrow: twins have a treasure hunt birthday party at the Aventura mall, is this somehow an oxymoron? And one wonders: Twenty little girls running for clues and competing for treasure in a huge mall? Safe? Day before Super Bowl? Crowded? Lost little girls? I’m volunteering to chaperone…
Then another mini skirt leggy poolside affair at the Raleigh. Its party time again in Miami and I feel like Jon Stewart on Bill O’Reilly….I’m not scared….
Barbi Does Miami 