para bailar a medianoche...

Just add el espíritu colombiano.

Santa Marta, Colombia

mawwage.

Drew Moore: gentleman, scholar, married man.

On my first day of 4th grade, I got on the bus for my new school after having spent a summer being suuuuuper nervous about being cool. I had friends and boyfriends and I knew where all the classrooms were at my old school, and I really wanted to be awesome at Voyager too. THEN this short punk got on the bus two stops later, made fun of my Blossom hat, and literally did not cease to mock everything I did for nearly twenty years. Not kidding. Luckily, I am a saint with a heart of gold because I withstood the pressure and Drew became one of my oldest and best friends. You know, the kind where you can go a few years without so much as speaking and then pick up exactly where you left off.He's so cocky that he WOULD get married on our nation's birthday, but once we all got over that, we had an awesome mini-reunion of GHHS Class of 2002 where my main take-away lesson was that everyone I know is going through some phase of med school or becoming an ambassador to Serbia while I'm still making butt jokes. However, there was enough love and dancing and sparklers and Hendricks gin to make everyone okay with that, and as it turns out, a 4th of July wedding with some of your favorite people isn't so bad after all.

johnny b. goode.

At nighttime, we used to put on Otis Redding and Chuck Berry and dance and dance with all the windows and doors open in the top floor apartment so the whole neighborhood could see what what it looked like to be joyful.

bollywood calling!

Excuse me, I have to take this.

ATTENTION EVERYONE: I AM INVITED TO AN INDIAN WEDDING.

Hitha is getting married in Hyderabad in December (look, there she is at her engagement party, looking all pretty) and I'm invited. I've only seen Monsoon Wedding half a dozen times! I only rented the VHS copies of Lagaan from Blockbuster like, whenever possible because I thought it was the best story ever! It's like The Universe, by way of Hitha Palepu's engagement, has extended it's starry hand my way and beckoned me towards a real-life version of the weddings I'm obsessed with-- the kind where everyone wears saris and has henna on their hands and plays cricket and sings a lot with really beautiful voices and their cups overfloweth with joy and HOLY BRITISH IMPERIALISM ESCAPEE will I make it to that wedding if I have to scrape together the meager scraps of what's left of my bank account and live in a box in Belltown upon my return.

jersey shore hits miami.

We really could have been something, Vinnie. Ok. Let it be known that I am FULLY aware that Jersey Shore is a cast of the most terribly vapid people on earth, who survive for little more than Jaeger Bombs and AquaNet. However, I'm not immune to the trashy charms and Mar and I may or may not have clung to some small vestige of Americana by watching the first season religiously on mtv.com. I would ask you to please not judge, but on second thought, judge away.

So I'd say I'm kind of an expert. Ask me a question about Snooki's poof. Ask me about Pauly D's piercings. I'll tell you how charming I find Vinnie and how I think J-Woww is just a misunderstood soul. These vile douchebags are real to me, which is why when we became their neighbors in Miami, a thrill went through the crowd (our small crowd consisting of 5 girls who have a hard time playing things cool).

The first sightings were exciting: the cast standing around looking smaller than they do on TV and very bored. Here's a question: do they play these characters because they're what they fell into on the first season? Or, worse, are these really their personalities? We caught them buying sunglasses looking bored. We watched them drive around in their big black Escalade looking bored. We spotted them working at the gelato shop (hilarious move, MTV! A bunch of Italians at a gelato shop! It's genius!) and across the bar...looking bored. But we had yet to see them in action at a club, because apparently Miami is onto their skeeziness and won't let them in anywhere, as we flitted around Mynt and LIV and Set happily and anonymously.

So the last night, we slummed it a bit and went to B.E.D., by far the most ghetto club we had been to yet and the only one that charged us to get in. ("I'm giving you guys a deal by only asking for $10. It's normally $30. Do you want me to yell it?" was the beginning of the attitude from the Eastern European bouncer who thought so highly of himself in his new Miami job. He later said that if we didn't want to pay, we should just go find an Irish Pub. Cool insult, Jean-Claude!)

Once our vision cleared the half dozen strobe lights and adjusted to the awkward mixes, we found the cast doing exactly what you'd expect them to do: Ronnie was imploring Sammy to stop crying and whining as she folded her arms in the corner (on the real: how do guys deal with that?). Snooki was dancing by herself and getting sassy with the meatheads who tried to dance with her (and I thought she was Snooking for love?!). Unfortunately for me, Vinnie was making out with a chick that looked a lot like that go-go dancer that Justin Timberlake cheated on Jessica with; he is also pocket-sized, so that's two strikes. When it comes down to it, I probably only wanted him for his mom's lasagna anyway.

And then we have THE SITUATION. The girls talked with him a few times over the course of the week and by all appearances he was just a nice guy with overdeveloped deltoids and a penchant for only using half his mouth to smile. But watching this man in action live at the club was like observing Stephen Hawking calculate the pending contraction of the universe: a man 100% in his element. However, instead of the "hippoes" and "grenades" of yesteryear, these girls were pretty cute. Full of good conversation and original ideas as well, I'm sure. But the best move I have ever seen happen, EVER, in a public venue, was when one of the girls did a little booty drop on The Sitch and he shrugged and grinned straight into the camera like a creepy weasel who just can't help how much the ladies love him. Barf.

However, I can't wait to watch the new season because odds are good that for at least a few scenes, there will be an awkward set of Seattlites in the background of a fake-boobed, neon-spandex-clad club scene. I also feel a little smug that we stayed in a nicer place than the cast, could actually get into clubs, and could fester in our own condo whenever we wanted. Plus, Marlo brought home cigars and papas rellenas from Little Havana, and I'm willing to bet that Angelina doesn't even know what that is. Viva la Jersey Shore-- I'll be counting down the days until season two!

hola, vecino!

On one side of our little apartment: headache-inducing electropop that pulsates no matter the time of day.

On the other: delightful live jams from a band that plays rock, soul, tango, folk, and anything else your ears are interested in.

Clearly we had no choice but to play favorites with our neighbors, and became friends with Jose* and Agustin, two music students who never fail to delight us with beats and were kind enough to overlook our pathetic Spanish and include us in their group. Which is how we got to their Peruvian bandmate Alvaro's house on Saturday night and spent many moons participating in the following activities:

1. Singing Rolling Stones, Ray Charles and Michael Jackson really loudly while they backed us up with several instruments at once

2. Listening carefully while they taught us Argentine/Peruvian folk songs

3. Learning new words (sacacorches=corkscrew)

4. Letting Agustin look past our utter lack of rhythm and teach us his new passion, tango dancing

5. Being really, really content with life

*Jose lets us call him Vecino (Neighbor) and nothing else, which is also kind of him. We thought we might be freaking him out a little by our enthusiasm until he told us that the previous tenants in our apartment were two old drunk people who fought all the time, threw bottles of whiskey off the balcony and buzzed on everyone's doorbells at 5 am. It hasn't yet been confirmed that he was comparing us favorably to them, but just wanted you to know the classiness level of the building we're living in.

last tango in san telmo

Sundays in Buenos Aires would make one wonder whether all 3 million inhabitants are just figments of Argentine imagination; the city is silent, cafes are closed, even the usual rush of cars that defies lane-use and traffic laws seems to be mellowed out.

But if one were to wander into San Telmo, the artsy quarter just south of downtown, Buenos Aires would burst into life again. A vibrant street market is centered on the Plaza Dorrego and trickles out along the brick streets in all directions, winding its way through antique dealers leaning out of their stores, tango dancers who have taken over entire intersections, old men standing on boxes singing their bow-tied hearts out, Rastas selling pipes and dread beads, sheets covered with mate bombillas (some original, some with Homer Simpson's face... how that character became an international icon is totally beyond me), photographers selling prints and bedraggled moms selling the cheap plastic stuff you can find in any city in the world, tourists being loud, tourists being quiet, men pushing carts with popcorn kernels for a quarter, and the sex of Tanghetto pulsating throughout it all.

Buenos Aires comes here for Sunday, and if you don't follow suit, you'll have the whole city to yourself... but would you want it, without all of this?

"Quien quiere bailar?"

Being Really, Really, Ridiculously Good Looking Is a Full Time Job

December had already started off on a fortuitous foot when Tara and I snuggled into our seats at Joe Bar on Capitol Hill, steaming up the paned windows with our foamy cappucinos as we watched Blizzard 2007 draw the movie-like qualities out of life: as a soft white began to cast the outside world with a gentler tone, passerby got cuter and people became visibly nicer to each other. A middle-aged couple, appropriately clad in Danskos and Teva gear, opted to take their lattes outside and let the massive flakes settle onto their hair and eyelashes as they sat together on a lazy Saturday morning date. People grinned at each other as they entered the cafe, stamping their boots and shaking their wet hair. Somber dogs peered through the glass as their best friends warmed themselves on coffee and crepes. Joe's provided the jazz-heavy soundtrack, and Tara and I kept hugging ourselves and beaming about how perfect the world was at that exact moment.

(Later, as we tromped through Broadway, we found a bookstore I'd never been to that had, quite possibly, the world's most perfect cards. One summarized our day succinctly: "I bet snowflakes wouldn't be quite so lovely if they were shaped like prostitutes." So true.)

So the blissful beginning of December meant that, despite not feeling my greatest (5 am bedtimes and too much Three Buck Chuck will do that), I had a good feeling about Studio 54 Lives Again. My high school friend Ryan, who works for the Seattle Models Guild, had invited me to this fundraiser for a school in Kathmandu and obviously, despite the fact that I hate people (especially kids) with a passion, I wanted to go to see what the craic was all about. I donned a one-piece pantsuit (tight in the waist but loose in the crotch, for maximum awkwardness in the lower torso region), brushed my hair into a serious white girl fro, and headed out into the snowy night to see what I could find.

The first thing I found was a homeless guy who mumbled to me as I passed him outside the Last Supper Club, "I'm tempted to stab you for no reason." This was, perhaps, the scariest thing that's ever happened to me, besides the time I got groped on the street in Alicante. I chalked it up to him not appreciating the lace tube top portion of my pantsuit and hauled ass into the club.

After tromping ungracefully down a plush red carpet, the second thing I found was: myself, right in the thick of Model Central. Apparently, Studio 54 is a yearly phenomenon in which the big three Seattle model agencies put all their people together in the same room so they can stare at each other and write fat checks for poor kids while getting beautifully drunk (unfortunately, my drunk can more accurately be described as "Bag Lady"). To the untrained eye, watching shirtless guys with bow ties wander around flexing their oiled chests and asking for dollars in exchange for beads seems like a scene out of a skeezy Miami back alley, but to a professional model, this is what "fundraising" looks like. Cover your eyes, kids.

I clutched my free drink tab and headed straight for the bar, desperate for a higher gin:blood ratio before I could face the gorgeous hordes head-on. The bartender winked at me in a non-sexual way, which brightened my mood, and I turned back to the dance floor, sucking on a lemon and looking for a short redhead I could relate to. I scanned the room: giants. Lush-lipped, smooth-skinned, eight foot Glamazons. Not a split end or zit, as far as the eye can see. What an annoying crowd.

I made a personal goal of being purely observant for the entire night, but having at least one entertaining conversation. This is when Ryan popped up, and insisted on taking me around to his various circles and introducing everyone at length ("this is Sergio, he's a photographer..." "Daria, model..." "Francisco, agent..."). After the fourth or fifth blank stare I had to forcibly stop Ryan from continuing on his social rampage and let me stumble around in my own awkwardness. He dragged me to one last circle, and rambled off a few more models' names. One of the guys I recognized from my gym, so I attempted a little friendly chitchat with the most basic of commonalities-- "Haven't I seen you somewhere?"

KIDDING!! I didn't say that. As Mike Birbiglia would advise, what I should have said was NOTHING. What I did say was something sarcastic about not only knowing where he works out, but knowing where he sleeps (trying to make light of my already semi-stalkeresque comment... you know?). My joke went over like the Hindenberg. "So how do you know where I live?" my new friend asked me a minute later.

I'd like to pause narration here for a second to mention that this gentleman was named BLISS. That was his God-given name. Write that down, it becomes all too applicable later on.

As I backpedaled my way out of my overly sarcastic "new friend" test, Bliss became even more confused about whether or not I was actually his stalker or not. Let the records note that the only reason I recognized this guy was because he was awkwardly flexing in the weights section and not because I thought he stood out as a paragon of male attractiveness. As I kindly helped him get over himself, he relaunched the conversation in a new direction that sent me even deeper into my G&T. "So tell me something interesting about yourself," he said, apparently competing for "Biggest Cliche of the Evening." I mentioned something about my near-obsession with travelling and seeing how other people do things, which brought up his recent travels.

I was so excited to have something in common with this vacant-eyed dolt, but when I asked him to tell me more, he just rolled his eyes. "Well, I told you a few minutes ago, but I went to Southeast Asia for a month." I looked around, trying to figure out who exactly he had been speaking to previously that looked remotely like me, but let it go in favor of hearing more... the story already sounded suspiciously drug-induced.

"I went to Asia to search... for bliss. And I found it, right here (points to heart)."

Oh my good God. He just made an analogy with his name. This is gold. I'm leaving this conversation while it's at the peak. Fortunately, Whit showed up and pulled me away to dance at that exact moment.

Ah, Whit. How to describe a person like Whit? He is more of a force of nature than a person, a tornado of random inappropriate comments and stories that are better than fiction. Throughout college, I could always rely on Whitney to bring a heavy dose of the unusual to my life. He would call on a Monday afternoon from outside the sorority, waiting to take me for a spin in his new ride; a massive, gas-guzzling farm truck that looked better suited for central Wyoming than the middle of Seattle. One week later, he would call again, but this time the ride was in his shiny new Audi. Whit had mullets, he had rat tails, he had a joie de vivre that some saw as annoying but which I adored. He worked as a sandwich delivery guy on a bike, as the captain of a massive ship, as a model in Thailand. He came up with elaborate plans to buy Thai property and become a music television VJ. He showed up in random magazine fashion spreads we didn't even know he had done. He always makes me laugh.

Whit was there as one of the Beautiful People, but also bridged the gap as one of the sarcastic people who didn't really try too hard, so we danced in a very aerobics-friendly, non-sexy manner for quite a while. At some point in my Jazzercise endeavors, I got pulled away by Latin Lover Jorge with a minor ponytail who matched my rhythm (miraculously, because after a few more of those drink tabs, it didn't really "sync up with the music" per se) and stuck by my side for the next hour or so. After throwing a few stray dollars into the direction of one of the ubiquitous bare nipples, I closed the night out, content. I think I had more fun the pretty people in the end, anyway.