Flowers of romance

I love these plants that I walk past on 16th Street on the way to the ocean. They remind me of David Lynch Lost Highway and also Blue Velvet. 

Just go to the beach

Yesterday was really overcast. 90 degrees in the shade but really cloudy so I stayed at home. I read and wrote and even went out to get coffee and cake but I was miserable really because I felt cooped up at home and exhausted when I left the apartment. I was BBMing Richard this morning and he said he wanted to go to the beach on Saturday and I said Of course but you know it's really cloudy. He said that its ok that we should still go. His actual words were ' you can burn like fuck through the clouds' so today I went anyway.

It was amazing. The clouds move faster over the sea so you are not really aware of them as much. Its far cooler to be by the ocean in fact in this heat it is actually pretty unpleasant to be anywhere else. There is plenty of sunshine coming through all the time.

It was really lovely. I normally don't go all that near to the sea when I am laying on the beach but today I had to as it was really too hot to stand otherwise.

There was a really nice cool breeze coming in off the water it was perfect and I managed to stay for about 3 hours.

It was a really nice peaceful afternoon although proper thunder clouds were gathering as I walked home.

Its as though the weather can change between one block and the next.

Breakfast

I ate fruit salad bought from Publix sitting on a bench outside the store.

In the beginning was the word ......

I used to say that coffee was my first thought in the morning. I now think that my relationship with coffee has gone beyond that. There is coffee. There is how I feel about it. There is how I feel without it. So if we were to meditate on these three concepts and yet some how go beyond it into some pre caffine big bang scenario then we would be coming closer to the understanding of what it is and what it always shall be.

I need you but I'm not gonna crack

I totally cracked and went to Wholefoods and got coffee and 2 tiny 99 cent cupcakes. They were perfect actually just enough. They had massive cupcakes for $2.99 but I really didn't need to eat that much. I just needed a little sugar to improve my mood. These two were divine. I fed the crumbs to a cute little Sparrow that came by.

Miami Sparrows are a little bit more pointy than UK Sparrows, they are braver, more forthright and have slightly longer legs. I sat outside eating my cakes and I noticed as I was watching people come in to the store that many of them were really very thin. I don't really have a problem with people being weight conconcious because obviously I spend a great deal of time thinking about that kind of thing myself. I do however believe that a great deal of the culture around health, food allergies, intolerances etc is actually just a manifestation of body dysmorphia and food disorder. Either way there was a high incedence of anorexia in Wholefoods this afternoon.

I bet your momma don't know you can scream like that

I was sitting on the step with my stray cat this afternoon. Its been a funny day, I feel a little overcast as though I am some how corresponding with the weather. It rained all night but by this afternoon it had dried up however it wasn't beach weather, the atmosphere was quite heavy and I felt really lethargic.

Cat makes me smile though, she really likes people. When I came outside she rushed over from her spot at the end of the balcony and came and sat with me. Its funny because although she is wild she is very happy despite the fact that her life must be a little hard at times. I see the domestic cats around here staring sadly out of their windows, they have food and company but they pay the price of freedom for that. I am not sure what is best really. I think stray cat has things pretty figured out, she seems to have made enough friends to get her through.

AA Related Announcements

I went to the meeting this morning and it was nice but the guy taking it was whining about his friend drinking and what a jerk he was.  I was reminded of someone telling me that you can't be powerless and responsible at the same time. Its good to remember that I am not sober because I am somehow a better person than one who is not but because I came to AA and after many years I learnt what I needed to do to stay sober. I am very blessed not to be drinking today.

Blood running down the inside of her legs

Well actually beetroot juice. I had beetroot, celery, carrot and ginger juice this morning from The Apple A Day wholefood store on Alton Road. It was really pretty sickening so it must be healthy. Service was ultra slow as befits the type of healthfood operation where the staff are too bloody zen to jump to it. Charlie tells me this is his favourite place in Miami, I prefer the office in Soho Square although they hardly excell themselves when it comes to snappy service.

Turn around brighteyes ......

As I was laying around contemplating my own demise...........I remembered that there is another eclipse on Friday. Hurray that means I am not really loosing my grip, it means that I am experiencing a melancolic response to related energy build up. It can be hard to be so  mad sensitive at times. At least I had the good sense to look at my horoscope sites and get a reminder about what is going on. I am excited as my life is totally on the up after Friday. All the love, money and opportunities I could ever need are in the post.

I need some body to love

So as many of you know I lost my pet dog Chilli in May which I am still very sad about. When I get home I am going to be on the look out for another familiar four legged friend. I am thinking a Miniature Dachshund might be an excellent choice.

Another option could be a Miniature Pinscher like this fine specimen above. All I know is that I want a smooth coated, tiny female dog. As Marianne says 'its not the love I am not getting its the love that I am not giving that hurts.'

AA Related Announcements

My childhood no longer defines me, my drinking no longer defines me, today it is my recovery from Alcoholism that defines me.

Dinner

On the up side is the fact that I am still eating healthy food and I weighed myself in the cinema and I am just 2lbs heavier than I was when I left South Beach in April. That means that I have managed to undo most of the damage I have done to myself in London. In London I eat mostly healthy food but I do drink things like the amazing hot chocolate from Artisan Chocolatier in Selfridges pretty much every day.

Let me put my arms around your head

I stayed home most of the afternoon, listening to Aladin Sane, meditating (not my strong point) and reading books. I remember lying in a bath that I made red with my own blood listening to Lady Grinning Soul when I was about 16 years old. I remember my mother not being able to cope, I remember not doing too well myself! I didn't listen to the album for about 20 years, I was afraid of it, as if the sound of the songs could flush me back into madness (or at least a more aggresive manifestation) like running water can flush a spider down a drain.

A Ghost In My Own Life

I feel like I don't exist today. I am not sure what the point is I am not sure that there is one. I feel along way from home and everything that matters. If I changed my ticket and came to London I would regret it I am sure and so I won't. Some days are just empty no matter where you are. Rachel and I were talking about lonliness yesterday. It's odd how I can be alone for days and not feel it at all and yet other times I can be doing all the right things and it washes over me in waves.  I read in a Leonard Cohen poem from The Book Of Mercy about how it is God's call to us all.

"Blessed are you who has given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth."

True Blood: Season 4 Trailer (HBO)

Breakfast

Yes popcorn! That well known protein based whole food snack. I met Ryan at the 10.30 AA meeting and we ended up walking back to Lincoln Road mall and seeing a movie together called Buck. The film was a very gentle inspiring tale about an abused child who ended up teaching people how to handle horses. His story contributed to the Paul Newman character in The Horse Whisperer. It was all about kindness and compassion being  more effective ways to induce changes in behavoir than brute force and cruelty. Lets all keep that in mind for the rest of the day.

Angelic Influences

I have been reading a book about Angelic Vision Magick. It is the magick that was recieved by Dr John Dee when he was astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I. He is thought to have conjured the storms that sunk the Spanish Armada as it sailed to attack England.  It's rather complicated but I feel like I may well access some latent scrying talent since my dog has already appeared to me in his mirror.

A little of what you like ...

I am having my cake and eating it  (and they said it couldn't be done) with coffee (I'll sleep when I am dead). This German Chocolate cake from Ice Box is amazing. It is dark moist chocolate sponge with sugary coconut flakes and chocolate chips as the filling. I know it sounds disgusting but it is divine. Not many of the sweet things in America are particulary nice so its easy to be 'good'. Ice Box however has the best cakes including about 5 different styles of chocolate cake. London is I think cake capital of the world so I am not easily impressed but this is heaven.

In London my favourite deserts are

• Mille Feuille from Maison Berteaux (pastry, cream and strawberries)
• Strawberry Choux from Maison Berteaux (as above but organised differently)
• Iphasan from Laduree (rose macaroon, rose cream and lychee)
• Frozen Yogurt from SNOG (ice cold, bitter and full of probiotics just like me)
• True Blood Pie from Bob (bitter red fruit and walnuts in low GI pastry - so he says)

Perfection not progress

Being on the beach today was some kind of torture, I have endured gentler beatings. I realise that you have to drink all the time in that heat, not drinking for even an hour is a mistake as I noticed that I started to feel really unwell. Still the main thing is (and I am all about the destination not the journey) I have my colour back in just three days.  I have abandoned the fruit only diet (it was that or surrender to incontinence which is not an option) and now breaking only for a slice of chocolate cake later I will switch to a protein only diet. A lady in the drug store was telling me I should buy electrolites, I was buying coconut water and she was buying chocolate she was talking about how the sun gave her sugar cravings and that electrolites are a good idea. Will give it ago. You can get really good vitamins and suppliments in America.

Conversations with .........

Me: Diet Coke Please
Skank : $4.75
Me: It says $3.25
Skank : $4.75
Me: I bought one here yesterday for $3.25 you have to charge the advertised price
Skank : Tax
Me: Bullshit! Do you want me to report you or do you want to sell me a coke for the correct price?
Skank : $3.25
Me: Have a great day.
I mean it's lucky I watched all those episodes of The Wire ...

A conflict of interest

Here is the cute life guards hut situated near to South Point. The Green flag means 'calm conditions', the purple means 'dangerous marine life'. Confusing non? Perhaps it suggests the following.

• You can calmly walk into the ocean and face certain death
• The dangerous marine life are feeling pretty chilled today so maybe they won't eat you
• Take a valium before entering the water
• It's really a matter of perspective
• Relax if your number is up its up

Secrets and Lies

When I look at the weather app on my Google home page, this is what I see for Miami. Even though I have chosen to stay in the apartment for most of the day to avoid the sun (my base tan hurts) the weather app insists that this is what is happening. It's 90 degrees outside. Yesterday was hot and clear all day and still the same picture was chosen to represent the weather. When I was buying my ticket I was looking on line at the weather and it showed the same kind of images. I was asking Richard if he thought I was making a mistake he was laying on the beach texting that he didn't know what I was talking about.

It's strange because although there has been rain and even one storm since I was here that really only accounts for about 8 hours of my whole trip and I was asleep for most of it.

AA Related Announcements

When you change the way you look at things. The things you are looking at change.

Love on the rocks

I love being by the ocean. South Beach faces East so when I look to the horizon I feel that I could eventually see England. Each day I lay on the beach around 16th Street for an hour each side. I am still timing my tan to Pulp, A Different Class since its one of the few albums I can stand to listen to twice in a row (front and back). I have really burnt my back though I think I am just not as adept at getting the sun protection on very well although it is a spray so it should work.

I walk up to South Point every day for the exercise as much as anything else. It is lovley though as it is the point where the ocean meets Biscayne Bay and you can see downtown Miami rising from the bay shore.

Miraculously Ryan appeared out of nowhere as I was photographing the view. He was meeting people from the Sobe rooms on the beach so I joined him down on the sand for a while. We were talking about our experiences of poor customer service. The conversation went on to employment as neither Ryan or I are currently employed at the moment. I was talking about financial insecurity which on the one hand I have and yet on the other my experience is that it doesn't bother me. This is my 3rd holiday in Miami this year and its only June so despite the 'no visible means of support' I am having this amazing life. Of course it occured to me shortly after that the reason I can do all this without so much as a scent of a work ethic is because Richard has such a ferocious approach to work, ambition and so on. I mean it's definitely a case of 'its not what you do its who you know. ' I have been terribly blessed like that. I don't have a family except the boy I made for myself but I do have the most amazing friends.

Ryan was telling me all about the fireworks that we will be able to see on Independence Day next week. I am excited watching fireworks from Miami Beach will be much better than watching them in the cold and the rain on Primrose Hill.

Breakfast

Pineapple and Cantelope. I am eating mostly fruit and a couple of rice cakes each day. It's quite a good detox as these kind of fruits are good for digestion (enzymes dontcha know). I doubt anyone who drinks as much coffee  & diet coke as I do drops below Sellafield in terms of toxicity in real terms.

Suspicious Minds

In the morning back home in London I make my coffee, actually I have a stove top pot that I prepare the night before. When my alarm goes off I press 'snooze' stagger blindly into the kitchen with sleep mask (very Bet Davies) pulled halfway across face (very Jack Sparrow) and turn on the ring. I then return to bed, pass out and by the time the 'snooze' goes off the coffee is ready and I can get started on my day.

One of the first things I do when the coffee kicks in is check my horoscope on the site that I have listed on my blog roll to the right. This is a great site actually but I like to cross reference it against about 4 other sites to be on the safe side.
http://www.jpastrology.co.uk/    http://www.cainer.com/    http://www.astrolutely.com/  http://www.freewillastrology.com/

I have listed them here incase you want to join me in this neurosis. I am particulary diligent about checking the sites on Fridays when the Love  horoscope is published and Mondays when the weekly charts are published, I am in quite a checking frenzy at the beginning of each month.

I also check the scopes of my friends to see if they are likely to blind side me with any of their nonsense. If I have had sex with you or even given it serious consideration I have checked your horoscope and run various compatabilty checks. Obviously those of you familiar with my track record know that I then totally disregard the warnings and carry on regardless.

Anyway the point (and Yes I do have one ) is that in Miami I don't check my horoscopes (much) because of two things, firstly I know whats going to happen and secondly I don't care. Today I am going to attempt an Angelic meditation process, go to Wholefoods, walk on the beach, have a look in the bookshop and attend an AA meeting.

Lead us not into temptation

Things I want to eat but not yet include.

• Cheese Fries from Shake Shack
• German Chocolate Cake from Ice Box

That's it actually I would maybe like a bagel as well. Have I mentioned (complained) that they close a lot of the AA meetings here with The Lords Prayer. I hate that prayer I refuse to utter a word of it. It reminds me of school assembly's which always made me nervous as I was a persistent offender in terms of non compliance with uniform. I was normally trying to avoid the head mistress who took particulary offense to my dyed hair, makeup and stilleto heels. God knows someone needed to inject a little glamour into the proceedings she activley thought otherwise unfortunatley. I eventually got expelled for grabbing her by the throat one time after she pulled me out of a class for some dress code crime she had spotted. She is long dead now of course and here I am in Miami wearing what the fuck I want.

Cellular Memory

Walking on the beach yesterday I got what Richard would call a 'base tan' in other words I got a little burnt. I like to feel a little heat in my skin after I get home. Its like when you have sex and it kind of hurts the next day (with any luck) it feels good.

Heap Big Exaggeration

I am obsessed with this Indian River grapefruit juice. It is delicious but also I love the label which promises that you can loose 19lbs in 13 weeks. Genius but I have just 2 weeks to loose 10lb so its not much good to me. Here is a link to the online diet site associated with the product http://www.indianriverjuice.com/skinny.aspx I love that it says 'skinny asp' (asap) it has a real fingers down throat urgency to it! One thing about Richard not coming till next week is that he doesn't have to see how bloated and pale I have become.

The sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful and so are you

I am all about coffee at the beginning of the day. It's a nice morning. I think what I gathered from yesterday is that its good to get some sun and sea early in the proceedings as all bets are off later in the day. I was quite scared last night. The storm was pretty intense. I had major concerns re the bug machine which I have now relocated and I can report it is flashing away. I was googling sharks in Miami Beach last night - there are so many its unbelievable.  I saw a You Tube video of thousands of the things just off the coast.The thing is that they are 'unlikely' to come very close to shore which is comforting since I am 'unlikely' to go in the water very far from the shore. I have done some of my best work in the realms of 'unlikely' I can settle for that. I remember Richard telling me about a boy he met who was  compulsivley shooting up cocaine in a cold shower so he wouldn't die of a heart attack. (I am not sure where he got this advice from so don't try it at home.) I said we (AA) could work with the part of him that got into the shower.

Is this just fantasy?

Perhaps American Airlines did have a point when they cancelled all flights. A pretty intense electrical storm is taking place at the moment. Lots of thunder and lightening (Bohemian Rhapsody).I went out on the balcony to take a picture and saw rats running across the power cables. It's a little creepy but not to worry I am only here for another 15 days...........

The lights are on .......

Richard has this bug thing plugged in the wall. Mostly it flashes, a moment ago the red light went off. I unplugged it and put it back in and now both the red and green are on but not flashing. I like it when it flashes, I like to think it is doing its job. This woman in the meeting was talking about a power outage during Catrina (she was actually talking about a dog biting her face because she was drunk and she grabbed it) but it has got me thinking about the dire consequences of a storm induced power failure on my trip. I am very focused on this bug thing I am not happy that it is not flashing but I realise that in the event of a power failure things could get a lot worse.

I am in a no fly zone

Richard is not coming tonight. No flights due to bad weather. About 4pm this afternoon dark clouds rolled in accross the beach. I walked all the way to South Point to avoid them but I got caught in the rain anyway. It's not like London, it comes down hard but its warm. I don't know what is so bad about the weather that planes can't take off but it is hurricane season in this part of the world. I walked out on to the balcony and it looks alright to me but maybe the experts at American Airlines know something I don't.

Take me to the beach

I went off the beach around midday today it was 88 degree's when I got there. I know this since there is a large clock and thermometre on Lincoln which you can see as you cross Washington on the way. It was wonderful although I was kind of wriggling around a bit. I get so hot that my legs curl inwards a little bit like a lobster on a barbeque. I have to keep reminding myself to unravel. Hopefully I will get my colour back pretty fast as I was only here two months ago and my skin has not quite revoked to the colour of milk just yet.
I like to drink coconut water in the sun it's really good in the heat for some reason. Richard knows all about it as one of his models is hawking it for a Brazilian company at the moment. As I was laying drinking out of the tin this guy came over to me and put down a large cup of ice and then walked away. It kind of threw me off a bit as I was giving off my 'what the fuck do you want?' vibe as he crossed right into my comfort zone ( 5 metres if I am armed, 10 metres under normal circumstances, 20 metres if I am not wearing clothes)

He was just being nice, I think I managed to say Thank You. American people are very sweet, lots of people are really, I like to think I am mellowing out a bit but at times like this I am reminded that I access inate hostility pretty easily.

I poured the coconut water into the ice and drank it. For a minute I panicked incase he had put alcohol in the cup. My ego is amazingly guarded I notice, first I think 'gift of ice' man is going to hurt me, or attempt to extract some sexual service in return for his unsolicted ice gift and then once he walks away without doing either I assume his goal was to poison me or derail my sobriety.

I need to work on my trust issues.

See these eyes so green, I could stare for a thousand years

I was met on the stairs by my mangey stray cat. Richard didn't have any cat food in so I picked up a chicken salad and gave it the chicken and ate the other bits myself. I think this cat is a girl, she is very skinny but I know she catches mice for snacks as I have seen her with one before. She has Purina chicken and rice cat biscuits now I am here.

Things I love about South Beach

Publix Supermarket. I go pretty much every morning to pick up food for the day. I don't actually eat much while I am here which is one of the reasons I come but I do eat fruit, avocados and drink coffee and grapefruit juice. I got orange juice for Richard. Orange juice bothers me as it is full of sugar. I was once looking on line on a diet site and they had this graph that showed the opitum foods for weight loss. They mentioned orange juice as being a really bad food as it takes you out of the 'fat burning zone'. Now if I take a sip of orange juice I have this voice in my head that says ' YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE FAT BURNING ZONE' like some sci-fi movie scenario.

AA Related Announcements

Meanwhile things at my favourite AA meeting The Sober on Southbeach Mustard Seed Group have been going from strength to strength. It was the birthday meeting today so they had sugar free cheese cake. I have coveted the cake since I heard about it 18 months ago but I have never been in town on the right day. So we had cake with our coffee and the message was really 'Don't drink no matter what'. It took me a long long time to understand that. I had a 'don't drink until things get really bad' kind of approach which didn't work particulary well because of course if you are an alcoholic and you do that you just make everything much worse.