So, it’s been a while, dear readers, but I’ve been busy, dammit! Gettin’ married, gettin’ honeymooned, not gettin’ shot at in Egypt, Libya, Saudi, Syria, Jordan, Israel OR Palestine, what a feat. That’s another whole post though… So in today’s edition, written in honor of my dear brother’s 30TH BIRTHDAY (HAHAHAHAHAHA), which occurred YESTERDAY (hint hint, please go give him lots o’ shit), I will recount the evening of his magical, disastrous, utterly asinine 25th. Even on the scale of us, this one was rough… In which we manage to: scare the shit out of a beach full of gay men, lead a merry chase through a club full of cops, somehow lock ourselves inside our own apartment and, yes indeedy, wear our sunglasses at night…

I’m in Miami, bitch! Benvenidos. Apparently the only thing in the world that my dear brother (I love you, Jballs!) wanted for his 25th birthday was me (excellent choice), so here I am. Trashing each others b-days is a common occurrence with us, actually. I went to Miami for his 21st (in which we sibling bonded, got crap-faced drunk, and he vomited all up in his computer keyboard. Lemme just tell y’all how well “computer keyboard warranties” cover brother-vomit stuck in the keys…), he came to Texas for my 30th (in which everyone ate pork-chop-on-a-stick, I was NOT arrested, and the little brother-bitch broke my b-day princess crown 😦 ), etc. etc.

Ugh, but this trip! Miami is a fucking disaster in and of itself. Like, what do people do here? You know, the ones who aren’t busy posing on MTV or actually working in porn. Or being Pitbull, I suppose. Cause none of these regular people seem to fuckin’ work either. Like, Jballs has a friend who, I swear, works part-time in a cake shop solely because she’s bored and likes cake (I love you, B!). And why are the beaches always full, doesn’t anyone have a job? I swear there’s some secret like, fund or something coming out of South America or Cuba or somewhere that pays for hot people to just stay hot in Miami. Only place I’ve ever been where even the fat people are goddamn gorgeous. Ah, jealousy… But back to my point.

My dearest brother, never one to do things by halves, has pre-planned his b-day fête in typically uninhibited fashion. We’re going to Space. Like, Space, which is the like, totally coolest club experience in like, the known universe. Space. Or some bullshit like that. Side note: I am not a clubber. I have since discovered that yes, I really do like heavily intoxicating myself then dancing like a mentally challenged recovering meth-addict in the company of thousands of similarly impeded strangers. But the whole, “That’ll be $40 cover, your gin a mere $15, and oh wait, nope, not you, you are sooooo not dressed fabulously enough to get in here” thing ain’t really my scene. But it’s his b-day, so… I have brought my most ridiculous dress ever (subsequently worn at SPACE Ibiza. Also a whole ‘nother story…). It’s purple. And silver lamé. And mainly non-existent. A friend once tried it on and asked me why it was only a shirt on her (I’m fuckin’ short, ok? And I love you, Weezie!). But most importantly, it don’t look good. Really more like an overweight hooker on a date. Not that I’m fat, just that this dress is perhaps a tad… anorexic.

So we spend the week derangedly drunken, and soon enough the b-day night looms. Dinner’s been had, bevvies’ve been drunk, it’s 11pm and I’m ready to go! The VIP lounge’s been reserved, it’s snooty-ass bottle-service all the way for us party people, let’s get outta here!

Oh, wait, but no. ‘Cause I’m in Miami. Bitch.

Silly Nina had forgotten that 11pm is nowhere near time to go out in this fuck-witted town. I am informed by B-Day-Bossy-Pants that our reservation is for like, 4am. And that that’s actually quite early, and I should be really pleased. So we go home to wait. And wait some more. And then,

“Fuck this shit, I’m having a nap,” I think to myself.

So about midnight, I pass out on an item of furniture that I like to call The Semen Couch. This name stems from the fact that this couch has absorbed a lot of semen, clearly. Gay semen, straight semen, bi- semen, foreign semen, local semen. Probably a number of additional types of semen, those aforementioned being merely the known semen. Clearly it was acquired free, Christ knows from where, and then spent part of its tenure in this shit-hole of a decrepit-ass apartment hosting what Someone Unnamed had christened Sunday Fourgies. You know, ’cause Someone Unnamed kept having four-somes on Sundays. Incorporating the article of furniture I’m now using as a bed. VOMIT. I am, as always, undeterred by the substance of my bedding, and so sleep on. Apparently right through the house gettin’ all full up of our co-revellers. When I’m rudely awakened by BDBP a couple hours later, I realize that I have in fact slept straight through the pre-game party. Boo! So I stick on The Dress, start catching up on The Booze, and am nearly out the door when BDBP yells at me not to forget my sunglasses. Not bothering to question His High and Mighty Bossy Pants as to why the fuck I’d want sunglasses in the middle of the night, I comply.

And so we went to Space. It was ok. Actually it was pretty awesome. BDBP dropped a grand to reserve the VIP area on the roof, which I thought was fucked insane until I saw it. It was ok. Ok, actually it was kinda bloody awesome. Mainly just for the rope though. You know how every club on earth has a rope outside it, separating the rabble from the cool kids? The rope beyond which Those With Fugly Shoes Shall Not Pass? Well, now I know, that rope’s not really there to keep the rabble out (I mean Christ, they let us in for cash), it’s actually there to make the cool kids feel cooler ’cause they got past it. It works, too!

So we’re chillin’ behind the rope, the bottle service has arrived (Things I Will Never Pay For In a Club: a bottle, particularly one of Grey Goose, that costs more singly than as the sum of its parts…), which is ok. We’re not in the main room, which is nice for us non-club-kids, but there’s a rampaging sea of humanity still thrashing uncontrollably outside The Upstairs Rope (the roof is apparently also a dancefloor). Oh, and everyone’s on drugs. Well, except me. Like, I mean everyone.

Side Note re: Drugs: now I’ll admit I’m a bit of a naïve little nerd, and certainly was more so at the time of writing, but I just totally missed the great Coke Comeback of the early 2000’s. Woosh, right over the head, me ‘n my gin’ll be over here in the corner, all by our lonesomes. And then like, two seconds later (in mid-January of 2005, to be precise), I’d been offered blow like, three times in a month. I’m still not sure I even know what cocaine looks like, but I was had at least become aware that it was Back Baby Back. But seriously, wtf, people, it’s not the ’80’s, no one was ever that enamored of Bret Easton Ellis (ok, that’s a bald-ass lie. I totally was. And so were you), and it turns out that no one looks good covered in starbursts of white powder, running screaming through Space in terror ’cause the cops / bouncers have found them snorting questionable substances in the back of the toilets, and all they really need is to hop that velvet rope and then they’ll all be safe… That being the other thing I’ve learned about the Rabble Rope: you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want once you’ve got past it. Drugged up clubbers sure are fun to watch though 😉

So we partied ourselves silly, drank oodles and oodles of bottles of Black Label and yes, eventually, yours truly even danced. It was at about this point, circa 11am, that I saw the value of never neglecting your sunglasses, a lesson I’ve had much reason to bless in following years. ‘Cause you know what happens when you don’t start going out till 3:30am, right? The fucking sun comes up, that’s what happens. Which is particularly annoying when you’re drinking on a rooftop… Finally, we two who remained standing most valiantly killed a last bottle of Johnnie Walker and decided to move on to Phase II.

So the plan had been to migrate to the beach, as it was also the weekend of WinterParty. Which is basically just a billion gay Miamians dancing on South Beach. Which is basically just a regular day in Miami, except with an extra stage. Sadly though, everyone else had gone home to die, and we were vastly intoxicated, nearly too much so as to sort that shit out. Like, we were downtown. The party was on the beach. Cab? Clearly. Cab acquired, the BDBP promptly passed out, hard. Now, I’m not from Miami, bitch, and while I have an excellent sense of direction (the beach is east, Cab Driver Man!), it’s a pretty long-ass beach, and driving around it looking for “you know, that Gay Tent?” did not exactly meet with the greatest success. Eventually I stabbed the BDBP in the ribs and told him to find it for us 🙂

Vague blurry bit I don’t quite recall… And now we’re on the sand?

BDBP: “Bitch bitch grumble whine moan.”

Me: “Yo, not my fault you didn’t plan ahead,” I smirk as I dump Insane-Purple-Dress on the sand to reveal… a bikini. Yeah, he might be king of remembering the sunshades, but I never forget to dress for the beach 🙂

BDBP: “You bitch. And I’m supposed to swim in my underwear??”

Sounds of violent scuffling, followed by an egregiously large splash. Or two.

Me: “Glarghhhh!”

Well, now I’m awake. As I looked back at the beach from my new, drastically soggier situation, half-sunk in the bath-tub of the Florida Atlantic Ocean, I could see what appeared to be entire legions of mainly naked gay men, some in speedos, some not, but all staring. Like, sunglasses lifted, bodies raised, mouths opened, staring at the drunken, underwear-clad fool who’d just chucked his drunken sister into the sea. We both continued our magnificent approximation of drunken drowning / wrestling, as the current carried us downstream…

About 20 minutes later.

Me: “Ok, I’m done. I’m too drunk to swim, I think.”

BDBP: “Oh, fuck yeah.”

We emerge. The gays are actually still staring. Jesus fuck, how drunk to you have to be to get a beach full of naked gay men to think you’re the ridiculous ones? So we stagger out onto the sand, and:

BDBP: “Shit. The gays’ve stolen our shit. They stole our wallets, the whores!!” Sound of numerous gays fuming in justified disagreement.

Me: “Dude, they fucking didn’t, we’ve just drifted.” Sound of me realizing we’ve dumped our wallets, cell phones, his clothes etc. somewhere on the middle of a crowded South Beach… Sounds of drunken wandering…

About 30 minutes later, we remain sodden, but are thankfully reacquainted with our possessions and, in a stroke of newfound luck, have acquired a second cab. Oh wait, I spoke too soon: Fuck me, the BDBP has passed out AGAIN, and I have absolutely no idea where he lives…

Cab Driver 2: “So, where y’all going?”

Me: “Uhh… Coral Gables?”

Driving.

CD2: “Uhh, so where in Coral Gables?”

Me: “Uhh… Ponce de Leon Street?”

CD2: “Yeah, you know that’s the longest fuckin’ road in Miami, right?”

Me: “Uhh… Yeah, I know. I’ll wake him up when we get there?”

And then we both may’ve slept…

So we finally made it and quickly went down for the count, as it was like 4pm and I had to leave for my flight home at like 6. Poorly planned, you say? Perfectly timed, I contend!

5:30pm: Sound of devil alarm ringing somewhere inside my screaming skull.

5:35pm: Fuck my fucking life.

5:40pm: Ok, I’m packing, and the cab is called.

5:45pm: Tearfull “Bye, it was awesome, love you, happy b-day Bitchy Pants!!” etc.

5:50pm: Call from Cab Driver 3: “I’m outside.” Me: “Ok, be right out.”

5:55pm: Double fuck my life in the ass. The roommate has locked us inside the house and the BDBP has lost his keys, possibly at the beach? So what happens in case of fire? We just die in here?? I mean, who lives in a house that can lock you in instead of out??? Sound of attempted window breakage…

Sometime the next week: I sober up 😦

And that is why, when in Miami, you never go out without your sunnies AND your swimmies AND a second house key.