I just got back from a weeklong vacation visiting my sister in Miami, where the people are insane. You can tell they're insane because they all paint their houses peach and pink and aqua, which makes you think they are peaceful and happy until you try to drive on the interstate with them. Insanity isn't all bad, though, especially the kind of insanity that causes women to remove their tops at the beach.

I walked around the beach a lot and picked up shells, which is kind of macabre when you think about it. I mean, these shells used to be homes for living creatures that are now dead. When I got home I spread my shells out and tried to imagine what happened to the animals that had been living inside them. Probably they had been minding their own business and going about their productive shellfish lives when suddenly they were torn screaming from their shells by moray eels or groupers or whatever. The more I thought about it, my shells didn't seem like reminders of a fun-filled, carefree week at the beach as much as symbols of pain and death and slow, gory dismemberment.

Which is kind of cool.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/25/2003 02:27:00 AM