This is the first Valentine's in years I have not been helping out at the flower shop in Miami. Instead, I sat in the government office from 8:00 AM till noon. I brought along the paperback,"The Hunt For Red October", a Clancey classic. It is also one of his older works and is indisputedly better written than what he's lately churned out. I'm only a quarter through it and already it suffers from character bloat. Really, how central to the plot is the sonarman's wife's name?
Speaking of hearse-shaped cars, here is a Rolls-Royce convertible. It was parked outside a Chinese restaurant, albeit behind a barricade of parking cones up at Sawgrass. It had a white leather interior. The problem is, there is no safe place to drive something like that in this country, except maybe around the private estate. I could easily have parked by scoot next to it to snap this photo, but I was tired. This was the Phantom Drophead Coupe (you may have to hit "replay"), but the English have always had funny ideas about word connotations. It comes with an aluminum frame and a V-12, base price $494,195. Plus tax.
While up in government row, I zipped over to Sawgrass Mills to visit Books-A-Million. They've revamped the format and that entire store had just two books on electronics. But they've got shelves of self-help (what a joke) and lots of instruction books on how to live with insomniacs, alcholics and pregnant women. A type of literature I'd brand "bleeding heart pornography".
Due to a virus attack, I wound up talking to an 18 year old by phone and advised him not to get into computer repair as a career. He was astounded to learn I knew exactly how colleges and universities operated, how they are geared to squeeze you for money, and that I would speak openly on the topic. I wish somebody had done told me when I was 18, you know. That's despite the fact that in my day, if you didn't have money, you never got the education your wanted.
I wanted to tell him to go to college even if he eventually failed. It is the only and last place after high school you will meet dozens of single (undivorced) women who are away from parental rules for the first time. I have pity for any young man that misses out on this experience. I had it even better, for I was the only hippie at a college full of nerds like my brothers. Nerds lived through the entire sexual revolution without ever leaving the trenches.
Even today, I got the look from a babe up at Dunkin' Donuts in Dania. I thought she smiled at me but brushed it off as she was too good-looking. Five minutes later she both smiled and gave me the look. There are two ways to figure this. If you think she was a prostitute, you'd be wrong, because if she was, I would not have been impressed and would not have written this account. In the moment I hesitated, she got a cell phone call and was gone. What a babe, and I blew it.
My lawyer is advising me to sue for back wages as caretaker for the past three years. The amount he says is justified is $4,800. I'm taking this under close consideration. The major obstacle is that I do not think my judgment in friends was wrong, but my judgment of how vulnerable they were to bad influences. Stand by for developments.
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