Have you ever been to Florida? It's a criminal population. It's America's Australia.

Florida is all humidity, sun-baked palm trees, six-second showers and heat that smothers around you like a thick, heavy blanket.

It's big bombastic thunderstorms that rattle the windowpanes and cause car alarms to blare. It's rain so heavy, you can't see five feet in front of your face. It's the nostalgia and familiarity of Jason Davis and the Elevator From Hell. It's driving 20 mph on 95 due to the weather, singing along to non-offensive pop rock from the 90s and Steve Miller's Rockin' Me over and over and over again.

It's trying to surprise your mom but failing (thanks for keeping the secret, asshole) and walking into her work shouting, "Hey lady! How much for a shirt?" It's remembering just how tiny your Mom is. It's giving your dad a big hug and surprising yourself by getting teary-eyed over how much you missed the guy.



It's the world sweetest, smartest dogs -- Phoebedog's noises, Maya's wagging tail, Nala's big brown eyes, bellyrubs, stinky kisses and stealthy poops.



It's hugs-hugs-hugs-hugs, new jokes with old friends, apologizing for apologizing for calling one of your best friends a bitch while playing video games, dirty words on the board at Lush Manor, margaritas, Sparkletinis, berry vodka with soda while watching your memories flicker on screen and listening to the craziest, dirty-dirtiest hip hop.



It's homemade Indian food and the constant pestering to eat more, gossiping until midnight, the omnipresent prattle of the Indian satellite channel and watching Mom go gangbusters on bugs with her broom. It's the world's most comfortable couches, the head-nodding lullaby of the fan and raindrops hitting the big window, discovering ancient Judy Blume books in your old bedroom and laughing hysterically at Just As Long As We're Together and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.



It's Spanglish on the radio, reggaeton blaring from souped-up Hondas, the excitement of discovering Jarritos in plastic bottles, it's talking about the space-time continuum from Lost and the grandfather paradox at the kitchen table and seeing condoms and pregnancy tests next to one another in the clearance aisle.



It's home. It's family. It's your heart. It's never wanting to leave but knowing you can always come back.

When Temporary Hearing Loss is Worth It...

I get to the gym and notice the place is pretty busy.

Damn it.

Then, I notice both TVs are tuned to Fox News.

Damn it squared.

Glenn Beck is prattling on idiotically about how monogamous gay marriages will eventually lead to people marrying cupcakes or beavers or some other ridiculous, baseless shit (weren't arguments like this considered null and void with Loving vs. Virginia?)

Luckily, I have my trusty iPod, headphones and a collection of B.S. Reports featuring both Bill Simmons and Adam Carolla.

I switch it on at a pretty low volume and hit the treadmill.

Beck's still blathering on and I hear the following conversation:

Scary Buff Dude Who Doesn't Seem To Have A Home As He's Always At The Gym: (referring to Beck) Oh, I love this guy! He's great!
Exercise Bike Woman: He is! And he's right -- soon, it'll be three women marrying one man! It's all wrong!

Damn it cubed.

ClickclickclickclickCLICK!

That's the sound of my iPod hitting the highest volume and Adam Carolla blowing out my eardrums by bellowing about how he'd remove Talia Shire from every movie ever.

However compared to the fact that people actually buy into Beck's insipidity idiocy, it was a dulcet lullabye.

I'm down with Voltaire and believe that while I may not agree with what you say, you still have the right to say it....but when you're nodding emphatically at anything that comes out of Glenn Beck's mouth? Yeah....it's probably a better idea to just keep your mouth shut.

I love you, Mom!

Ten Things I Love About Mom:

10. She's forged in steel. No matter how tough the situation, she handles it with grace and placidity. I am amazed by that because my modus operandi is to fall to pieces.
9. She's beautiful. She looks at least ten years younger than she really is and when she gets dressed up, she looks twenty years younger. It's amazing and I pray feverishly that I have inherited those genes.
8. She's an amazing cook. Every time I visited home from college, she would make potato and pea curry because she knew it was my favorite. I never even had to ask. I tried making potato and pea curry by myself and even though I followed the recipe exactly, it came out dry and crap-tasting. Damn.
7. She understands the importance of gossiping and being unquestionably judgmental. There is nothing better in this world than getting together with my mom and sister and talking about people.
6. She's really, really funny in a very dry way.
5. She's immensely intelligent. She speaks about four different languages, has a degree in accounting and knows exactly how to shut up her mouthy daughters and husband.
4. Paps would be useless without her. Now, I love him and all, but if she ever left him -- even for a day -- she'd come home to a smoldering pile of ashes and a rather forlorn man wearing clashing clothes and complaining of blinding hunger.
3. She doesn't put up with anyone's crap -- least of all, mine or Paps'.
2. Biggest work ethic I've ever seen. Mom puts Ryan Seacrest to shame.
1. She's my Mom. She had a hand into bringing me into this world, she played noughts-and-crosses with me when I was a kid, she makes laugh hysterically even when she's insulting me and she's the glue that holds our family together. We're a band of buggered without her.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!

P.S. -- I didn't take Paps' copy of Angels and Demons. You know what I think happened? I think he left it at work and then, lost it. Now, he's looking for a convinient scapegoat and you know what? It's not going to be me! Besides, I offered to buy him a copy of the stupid book well before he started making these wild accusations!

You could put that fancy mustard on a shoe and it would taste pretty good to me.

Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh are criticizing a man for his choice of burger condiment.

Let me reiterate.

These three schmucks dedicated airtime to admonishing President Obama for his condiment choice.

The Republican party is imploding and this is what matters -- what the president puts on his burger.

Kudos. Way to hit him where it hurts.

Shouldn't you assholes be figuring out a way to make yourselves look a little less like exclusionary buffoons and more like capable leaders?

Oh and a helpful hint -- if you want to be the party of the future, try not to reference a commercial that came out twenty years ago

Why do you have to break up with her? Be a man. Just stop calling.

vice., originally uploaded by hocouture.

Dear Diet Coke:

We need to talk.

We've been together for a little while now and we've had a good time but it's time for me to move on.

It's not you. It's me. Actually no. That's not right at all. It's you. All you, actually.

The thing is -- you're bad. Not in the fun way that involves tequila shots and utterly regrettable pictures the morning after, but bad in that whole Aspartame causes cancer in lab rats kinda way.

I love you. I really do. You're refreshing, sweet, bubbly, always there when I need you and God, I love the way you taste...but I can't do this anymore. This just isn't a healthy relationship anymore.

Listen, you're going to find someone new. Someone great who loves you and is totally willing to overlook the fact that some scientists believe that diet soda actually leads to weight gain and that Aspartame converts into methanol in your body.

Me, though? I'm moving on.

Thanks for the great memories.

Love:

Jaime xx

P.S. -- Restaurant booty calls are still OK under the Geneva Convention of Break-Ups. We'll do it fountain-style!

I'm losing my perspicacity!

I think I have the Simpson Gene.

Yes, the last name 'Simpson' is about as prevalent in India as neighborhood steakhouses are, but the song remains the same.

Ladies and gents, I am getting dumber.

For those of you who didn't dedicate untold hours watching and rewatching episodes of The Simpsons, the Simpson gene is a cognitive anomaly which causes one to gradually lose their intelligence as they age and end up doing things like this:



Luckily for Lisa, the dreaded Simpson Gene only affected men. However, in the real world where people have five fingers instead of four -- The Simpson Gene is gender-blind.

In the past four months, I've stopped writing as much, I've forgotten where I parked my car, completely forgotten the definition of the word, 'esoteric', the capital of Nevada, whether it was Thomas Hobbes or John Locke who said that life was, "nasty, brutish and short" and sucked at Jeopardy. I never suck at Jeopardy!

What the hell is happening to me? I used to be smart as a monkey and now, I'm as dumb as a chimp.

Is this what happens post-college? You stop going to classes, you stop steeping in academia and you become a moron? Your intellect starts to molt and before you know it, you're actually taking Glenn Beck seriously?

I read constantly (books I finished this weekend: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes -- granted, it's not like I polished off War and Peace or anything, but hey -- give me credit for not spending my weekend nose-deep in Twilight), I'm much more politically involved than I used to be (well, as involved as one can be without actually partaking in the democratic process by voting), I have conversations with my buddy Will about the vastness and complexities of the universe and damn it, I watch Lost and spend hours theorizing about the show.

How can I possibly be getting dumber?!

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how did you overcome it? Read more? Wrote more? Did quadratic functions for fun? Dove headfirst into spirituality? Became BFF with Stephen Hawking?

Please let me know. I'm rage, raging against the dying of intellect and would really appreciate a little light.

That'll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!

Love is decorating each other's hands with bingo markers (orange and teal -- Go 'Fins!)
True love is terrorist fist jabs.