Sunshine State Week 2

My time in the Sunshine State is over and I am back in the frozen North. Forty-four fuckingdegrees right now. This sucks. But further south . . . although it rained continuously the last two days I was in Sandestin, the experience just confirmed my new found determination that Florida is the place for me in January through Tax Day. To paraphrase the old golfing line, a bad day in Northern Florida is better than a good day in Southeastern Michigan. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off, but I am. The change in my health, mental and physical, is astonishing. I would not have believed it; but I do now. A simple walk in the sunshine is a better mood lifter than any anti-depressant.

I met two women in Florida. Not in the romantic sense - although there's always some kind of sexual tension between men and women - but in the sense that I would say they are friends now. If you've read my blog recently you know that for all my womanizing (the working title of my book is Womanizer), I am still awkward and shy about striking up a conversation with a stranger. And by a stranger I mean a woman. Men I don't even notice or, for that matter, strike up conversations. That explains the fact that I did not walk up to either of them and say "Hi. Come here often?" I met a real estate agent whom I'll call Anne and a bartender whom I'll call Christie. Anne and I looked at properties three different times and I got a good sense of what's available. I already explained last time that I went looking for a 40 cents on the dollar deal and it wasn't there. And when I thought I could google my way to a steal, I came up with foreclosures that weren't and better bargains than private sales. Anne was a true southern girl who knew more than she let on.

I ate lunch at Christie's bar every day. I had an excellent routine (for me, that is) going. Lay out in the sun until 2:00; walk twenty minutes to Beef O'Gradys (the bar in question of course); eat a reasonably light meal and walk 15-25 minutes after. It's easy to see why this beats the hell out of gulping down a Subway sub and driving home with a bloated gut like I do at home. Christie really developed a crush on me and when I left each day she wanted to be sure that I came back to see her. When I left for good she came out and gave me a big hug -- not for the first time. It was sweet actually. She was a working class divorcee who did whatever she had to to support her three kids and buy her own home. I really admire a person like that. We talked about our lives a bit and it turns out she is the same age as my oldest child, which is pretty old compared to my other bartender buddies up here. Although we live in pretty different worlds there are always plenty of connections if you look a little.

No conversation about women could omit the latest with me and Lovely M. We had a lovely, very, very expensive dinner at her favorite restaurant last night and the rest of the evening was even better. Hope I can just go with it and stick to my own rules; accept her without trying to change her; be true to myself; and get affection and respect in return. I've never been good at sticking to the rules or keeping anything simple, but that doesn't mean I can't.

The notes from Dr. Moller at the Sarcoidosis Clinic at Johns Hopkins were in the mail when I got home. Very obtuse but mostly understandable. There was a pretty amusing typo. When listing my medications the letter twice referred to Mestinon as Methadone. Not exactly the same. Tomorrow I hope to get into see my primary care doc and set out a treatment plan with him. Just hope I don't blow up like Jerry Lewis on steroids. Maybe I can resurrect my baseball career!

Thanks for reading.