Danny is my hero

Not just because he's a fucking brilliant kid who's going to do whatever he wants and succeed, but because he weaseled himself and *five* other people into the New Year's Eve party at Delano's of South Beach.

Yep, one in the same.

Tickets were going for $300 a piece by scalpers and the party had been sold out for weeks. However, because my friend is that well-dressed and a trained debater (read: bullshitter), he finagled wristbands for all of them, toasted champagne with P.Diddy *and* switched off dance partners with Will Smith. Alas, even though he himself is an *NSYNC fan, he did not rub elbows with JC. If anything this just further convinced me that, yes, he will in fact one day rule the world. You go, boiyy.

We had a lovely evening. As it should be duly noted, I was a full *nine* minutes early to the restaurant, the swanky new Bahama Breeze. Marvy coconut shrimp with citrus mustard sauce if you go. We talked for an easy two hours about relationships and school and New York and anything at all because that's just how we get - no matter how long separated, whenever we meet up again we just start back like no significant amount of time had passed. He looked good, and even our waitress when she finally took our order said she was loathe to come by earlier because we looked like we were having such a great conversation. Doubled my resolutions to include seeing him more than twice a year, too.

We saw Two Weeks' Notice afterward for free, thanks to our mutual friend Carlos who works at Regal Sawgrass. It was an enchanting little movie. Hugh Grant is delightfully British and I can't adore his facial expressions enough.

Lance is very pretty and Lenny Kravitz is very stoned in their respective New Year's party pictures. Did anyone else notice that the writing on JC's shirt looks suspiciously Russo-German, btw? Justin is just ludicrously sexy at this moment, and it's already common knowledge that I'm throwing down with the next person who says xyz about Joey's weight.


Entertainment Weekly's resolution for the business:
Label execs should give Afro-bohemia (think India.Arie, Beyoncé's brief pseudo-'70s frizz) the nurturing it deserves. Isn't it about time for a new urban trend? Big hair for everyone!

As well as their own writing staff:
We won't spend any more time wondering why 12 people are credited with writing Jennifer Lopez's "Jenny From the Block." (Was rhyming 'told ya' and 'Oprah' so hard?)

There's a reason why I was a subscriber.

Today was also a grand day for pictures. ( My current favorite. )

And this DVD, [the PopOdyssey] tour frightens us. This is Wade's brain on too much money.
-STO(k)

The dork within me is positively radiant with the amount of rejoicing at the new thread on the boys' vocal stylings. Almost as tingle-inducing as that in-depth discussion of Justin's liguistics and vocalization and just ooooooh. Mmm, nummy applicable education.

Another day,

another speed trap in South Florida. Speed limit goes from 45 to 35 over the bridge and I was seven kinds of on time and at least three varieties of early before the bastard pulled me over, and I wasn't even the one going fastest! Fuckers. However, for some odd reason, the ticketing officer only wrote me up for not having proof of insurance. I choose not to question such luck and went along to lunch.

Chili's is always a great time. I managed to drink four and a half glasses of ice tea in addition to consuming all of my Cajun Chicken sandwich meal as Jon got in about four words edgewise during the two hours we were there. Honestly couldn't tell you what I yammered about, but he didn't feel compelled to kick me or fall asleep, so I assume it was at least entertaining. Personally, I'm happy to see I've still got the social skillz.

We went to Starbucks and there was Grande Gingerbread Latte goodness, and caffeine as those close to me know actually calms me down. We were in there for a while longer, then I decided to make a Barnes & Noble run of it, see if the new Rolling Stones were in yet and if I could track down a stray copy of last week's Advocate. No such luck, although I finally caved and bought the year-end music issue as well as a lovely daily calendar of Vertical New York with quotes. Laurence Fishburne rocks my socks even more than he did before.

Jon and I said our farewell goodbyes. That was hard. I don't want to leave, he doesn't want me to go, mutual missage and yada yada yada parking lot angstcakes. Really though, this break has flown by. Just, poof, and done. Maybe that was part of the reason why the day planner was such an easy sell for me, minus the 50% off part. I need to be writing shit down even moreso than I do now, because apparently, I lose myself occasionally and don't meander back until the scenery (or at least the calendar date) has been drastically altered. More vigilance should probably go on the list, too.

Lovely drive home. Have I mentioned this song does it to me within the first three notes? Got down to it a little more enthusiastically than I normally do, too. To wit, more than one car missed its cue to go at the red lights.