The Girl is exhausted. Daylight savings time. Whose idea was that? It sucks. The Girl has always had a hard time sleeping. Her sleep patterns are cyclical, like the moon, or the seasons, or her period. They are connected to the Earth and her girl energy. Linear time is a man made construct; some boy thing being imposed upon her. And as if making her live by the tyranny of tick-tock alarm clocks wasn’t bad enough, twice a year they slide everything around and just ruin The Girl. Will she never sleep? Will she ever sleep? (How can those two sentences mean the same thing?)

The weekend was good. The Girl went to dinner with Sang Su the world famous grammarian/acupuncturist. Wielder of the English language by day, wielder of needles by night. She is a college professor at the University of State. Her fame is derived from her work as an acupuncturist. She doesn’t really wield needles, but grows mugwort, also know as moxa. It is an herb that is burned and used in acupuncture. She grows such a powerful variety of the medicinal plant in her greenhouse that people fly in from China to take cuttings and learn her cultivation techniques.

Dinner was fun. Sang is a wonderfully funny and a great friend. Dinner with her is always sort of crazy. They went to a local dive, called “The Dive.” They had dinner and drinks and drinks and dessert and drinks. They ran into their friend Frenchy. Frenchy is an itinerant cartoonist. So French, Sang and The Girl stayed up late into the night gibbering in booze soaked gibber. It was fun. The Girl remembered being young and free of cares.

The next morning The Girl and The Boy went to Ybor City with Harley and David. They stayed in a nice hotel. It had two swimming pools and two hot tubs. The four friends swam and soaked before heading off to dinner. Dinner was at The Columbia, the oldest restaurant in Florida. They ate a little of everything and washed it down with Sangria. While having dinner they watched the Flamenco dancers. The Girl loved their attitude. She loved the similarities between the dancing and a street fight: backs arched, chests out, snapping, slapping their own bodies, circling one another, loud contact, moving away. So graceful and precise. David likened it to a bull fight, the sway of the dancers’ skirts mimicking the torero’s capote. OLE!

The next day they went to the Florida Aquarium and toured a battleship. It was fun and relaxing. The aquarium is always cool. (Swim little fishies.) The battleship was very strange and magical. It was definitely a battleship. The four of them crawled down into hers belly and walked all over her decks. It was used in battle at some time. Now it was acting as a museum by allowing landlubbers to experience the claustrophobic workings of a war machine. The Girl remembered her grandfather who had served on just such a ship during WW II. She admired him all the more after the tour.

However, the ship seems to have been used most recently as a home, not a museum. The Girl knows this because The Boy opened every door that wasn’t marked “Don’t Open.” It was strangely out of character for him and The Girl liked it. She was tantalized to look at this person she was so familiar with and not recognize him. “Who is this Boy breaking all the rules?” He made her hot with his mischievousness.

Later that day The Couple, Harley, and David returned to Ybor for lunch. They ate at a Greek restaurant. The food was great. The Girl knows now why most Greeks are fat.

Then it was home again, home again…..and Daylight Savings Time. It sucks.

The Girl and The Boy are going to Pinky and Coco’s this weekend. The Couple love them very much. They are funny, cool, smart, and crazy. They throw the best parties ever. Pinky and Coco are also the politest people. They are gentlemen in a world desperately in need of manners. The Girl feels so at home with them…relaxed and yet refined. They are having some people over for cocktails and invited The Girl and The Boy. It is a testament to Pinky and Coco’s coolness that The Girl feels so chosen and special to have received an invitation.

The Girl hopes to sleep sometime between now and then.