You should never take rides from strangers, or is it candy….tonight, I took both.  Not exactly a stranger, he made a way old Saturday Night Live reference so I feel like I know him.  I met him on the beach and he brought me wine at sunset so it felt like a pretty good idea.  He had to go back to Tampa to take a friend home and wanted to know if I’d like to ride along.  I’d only been here like two weeks and it seemed like a good opportunity to see more of the area and besides, it’s Christmas.  And when I asked if he’d bring me all the way back to my car again if I wanted, he agreed.  So in my bikini and sarong, I go along.  Because I can and because I think for some reason it’d be good for me.  To quote the quirky Jason I dated in Melbourne, “nothing sarong with that!”

We go over the gorgeously lit Skyway Bridge (I think I would seriously have freaked out had I gone over the first time on my own) and we call Karen and they rise to the occasion and sing a Happy Birthday to her that blows her away.  We laugh a lot and we talk about being free and things lining up, about what we’ve done and what we wanna do.  We talk about the secret spots of girls, the back of the knees, playing with her hair, kissing her clavicle.   And I feel such powerful energy in what I say next and I won’t be able to convey it….about how a woman’s invitation is so intimate and personal, how responsible she is for what happens inside her as a result, that it should feel like a frickin red carpet being rolled out.  I felt something in me believe me, and change.

When we got to his place I took like a 20-minute shower; a luxury that a house on wheels does not afford.  He took me to the Ybor neighborhood and I met a bartender who showed me what the next level was.  And then he drove me back.  I didn’t sleep with him.  Maybe because of what I said, maybe because I wanted something on that next level, maybe because I just wasn’t that attracted to him.  I wanted to be.  I drove 45 minutes home and couldn’t figure out what was missing.