Miss Florida is just about as comfortable in her own skin as a person can be. And she’s got great skin. But as I watched her rub pumpkin guts on her body in the shower (my idea), something felt wrong. Things weren’t going as planned and I started to worry that maybe this was a bad idea... maybe I shouldn’t have come.
Let me explain.
Simply put, what attracted me to this one was her idea of a fun date: “I don’t have nearly enough pictures of myself naked,” her email read, “I was just accepted to be a Suicide Girl, but I’ve only got one set of pictures and I don’t know how I feel about them... care to help?” If you don’t know what a suicide girl is, do yourself a favor, stop reading this, go to suicidegirls.com and get acquainted. It’s kind of a pro-girl, DIY, nudie site, where tatted punk-rock girls post pin-ups and lovers of tatted punk-girls pay fees. Its cooler than it sounds. You get to follow each girl’s exploits.
Anyway, she’d recommended I come down to Fort Meyers, where she’s from so we could rent a run-down cabin at a campsite and take the pictures there. Instantly I had visions of her jumping naked on a bed, both of us laughing, dizzy from the flash and high off the silliness. In the end, the room we rented (right on the beach, as the campsite we’d planned on going to was closed post-hurricane) had ceilings so low I had to bow my head as soon as I came in the door. Bed jumping was out.
But that wasn’t the real problem. Truth is, as I sat there, watching this lithe beauty bound around the room we’d rented right on the beach, I kinda wished I was doing this with someone else. Someone from my past. Yeah, I guess I’m heartbroken.
And in that moment it occurred to me that perhaps even fate had done it’s best to turn me around. First there was the hurricane. Then, on my way to the airport, there was a subway fire and I almost missed my flight. When I finally did get there, the people at the gate kept trying to find volunteers to give up their seats in return for travel vouchers. (This is how I live my life, constantly looking for signs, but never sure when it’s fate trying to tell me something and when it’s just life throwing road-blocks in my path to be overcome... but what if I’d made the wrong decision?)
Finally I just said something. I couldn’t have gone on, not like this, it wasn’t right. You know what? Turns out she kinda felt the same. Turns out, while we were carving pumpkins on the beach—while I was lamenting love lost—she was fearing the shower scene. While I was second guessing jumping on beds with strangers, she was second-guessing putting naked pictures of herself on the Internet. But we were both too embarrassed to change the plan... too scared to let the other down (OK, that’s a half-truth. MAYBE she had already mentioned something. But MAYBE I wasn’t ready to hear it just yet).
(Again, for those of you keeping score, this is why we decided not to put her name or likeness up. This way I could tell the story and show a picture or two from our misguided session without stepping any toes)
Anyway, as soon as we started talking about it—as soon as we both stopped worrying about playing the roles we’d commented ourselves to and just started being ourselves—I think we both felt like a weight had been lifted. I’m not saying my heartbreak just disappeared; all I’m saying is that Ms Florida is a pretty interesting person herself.
At 19, she’s done a lot of living. Her Dad had been Bob Dylan's tour manager and actually went on the The Electric Kool-Aid
Acid Test—that’s six-months of tripping (again, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, stop reading now, go to Amazon and place your order; the Author is Tom Wolfe)—so you can imagine how few rules there were in that household. Her mother had died when she was 8 and, though she didn’t say it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion she took over as the responsible one. Then, about mid-way through her teens she moved out. She’s been tending bar for the past year, and is just now getting ready to leave town to go to school.
There’s more though. She’s intelligent. She’s funny. And she’s pro-choice (no small feat in bible-belt). In fact, when you go to the DMV in Florida, one of the plates you can choose to put on your car is pro-life, but there’s no pro-choice equivalent. I’m not sure that’s entirely constitutional. Neither is Miss Florida. So she wrote letters to every policy maker in the state. Finally she had a meeting some comity or other... they told her they didn’t want a pro-choice plate cause it might upset people. Like the pro-life ones don’t? It’s bullshit. But you’ve got to admire her gumption.
But perhaps most interesting of all is that everyone in all of Fort Meyers seems to know her. Everywhere we went, the diner, the bar, the crab-shack, even the gas station, people of all ages would stop her to wish her well. “Hey, I hear you’re off to school. Congratulations. You’re going for the right reasons right? This isn’t just going to be a party.” They were worried, but in a nice way. It’s like all of Fort Meyers had had a hand in raising her. The whole town was watching their street-smart little girl grow up and wanted to impart a last word of wisdom or two before she left.
Yup, once we abandoned the bed jumping and embraced the booze (“that’s pretty much all we do here in Florida,” she’d told me, after her fifth story beginning with, “we got all the ice and beer we could find...”) I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a good time. Nay, a great time. Oh, and I even learned something... from a self-assured 19-year-old. After a day of sunbathing, we stumbled sun burnt into the second bar of the evening—the second one that pretty much comped her check I might add—only to bump into her ex. Her ex who’d left her. Her ex who’d left her recently. Her ex who’d recently left her heartbroken. Her ex who’d recently left her heartbroken and, apparently, had stopped into this very bar to say hi to the cocktail waitress he’s dating now that works here.
They didn’t say a word to each other, but she didn’t run off either. Ms Florida hardly seemed fazed, but she didn’t throw it in his face either. Instead, we casually finished our drink, paid the check and went to the next spot. It was like nothing happened at all. I couldn’t believe how cool she was about the whole thing. I would’ve flipped.
Finally I asked her what the deal was. Was she over him? Was she confident he’d be jealous, having seen us laughing in the corner? What? “It’s not like that at all,” she said after a brief moment of reflection, “I was having a good time; why let him ruin it?”
Maybe I was meant to come to Florida after all. I still don’t know everything... maybe I could learn a thing or two from a 19-year-old with a penchant for nudity. Maybe fate brought me here for a reason. Maybe.
Live in the north east? I’m hoping to pull off my next few dates without a flight. The lines are still open. Anyone interested in taking part should send their name, age, working phone number and picture to 50DATESin50STATES@gmail.com. Please be sure to include your hometown, state, nearest airport, any strange or interesting points of interest, a suggestion or two for what we might do on our date and a compelling argument for why you should be the one. When planning our outing though, please keep in mind I’m damn near broke; the opera could be nice, but a picnic and a freak-show would be nicer. See you soon…
