Topless bars and crazy buffets

Got back from Florida about a week ago where I was visiting my sister, who lives in the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area. I’m a child of the suburbs and have visited my sister before, so the trip shouldn’t have been any sort of eye-opening experience. But for some reason being there this time made me truly realize how much of a bubble we New Yorkers live in.

First of all, I couldn’t get over how many overweight/borderline morbidly obese people I saw. I guess it doesn’t help that many New Yorkers, especially when one ventures down into Soho, are unabashedly anorexic, but the weight differences were pretty stark. I guess I should be lucky that I’m forced to live in a city where I have to walk everywhere, as opposed to having to drag my ass around in a car. If I lived in the burbs I’d probably have to go to the gym twice as much just to avoid gaining any weight, much less lose weight.

I also couldn’t get over the inordinate amount of strip clubs there are, in the most random areas. We’d drive down a main street and there’d be a strip mall, gas station, office building…oh, and there’s the local XXX topless bar, right next to that there dentist office, not to be confused with the OTHER topless bar that’s over by the Winn-Dixie. Nobody seems to make any big stink about the placement of such “entertainment venues.” So weird. There didn’t appear to be a seedy part of town; the red-light district was woven into the suburban landscape as naturally as a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. And they are always relatively well-attended, even on a weekday in the middle of the day. There also seem to be more Hooters per square mile there than in any other place I’ve been. If not Hooters, its Muggs N’ Juggs, which I imagine to be like a Hooters, or Molly Goodhead, a raw oyster bar I saw advertised on a billboard. I guess that’s why my coworker calls Tampa Trampa. (On an aside, I once heard Conan O’Brien refer to Florida as “American’s Flaccid Penis” in a sketch about what state taglines should be on the new quarters. From what I saw, it doesn’t seem like flaccid is the right word. Maybe, "America's Erectile-Disfunctional Penis in Search of a Remedy"?) Now that Times Square has been converted from peepshow central to a breeding ground for corporate megalomania, you don’t see too many topless-type places anymore. Or at least I don’t. Maybe I just don’t hang out in the right neighborhoods.

I also realized how lucky I am to be able to find within 20 blocks of my apartment all types of ethnic restaurants, museums, dive bars, upscale bars, cafes, movie theaters, boutiques, chain stores…etc…etc. I mean, I grew up in the suburbs, but Tampa is different from even the D.C. suburbs, which, as far as suburbs go, is pretty darn great. I found Tampa to be kind of desolate and depressing. There are pretty neighborhoods in St. Pete and beautiful beaches, but I think I would have hated to grow up there as a teenager. I probably would have ended up boy crazy with fake boobs and auditioning for the Real World.

On the other hand, we did do some great suburban things that I miss out on in New York City. I love, love, love being in grocery stores where I can do cartwheels down the aisles if I wanted to. And it’s so much cheaper there. Unlike New York, where I roam cramped aisles full of overstuffed shelves, pay nosebleed prices for things that I can get for half price in the burbs, and take a health risk every time I opt to buy “fresh” meat or vegetables. And I also got to eat at TWO great buffets: Sweet Tomatoes and Crazy Buffet, which, despite the name, is a slightly fancier Asian buffet. My family loves us some buffet. We go to town at those places.

I also hung out at a pool hall (where it was smoky—not used to that since they outlawed indoor smoking in NYC) and bowled a 150. I have never in my life bowled such a high score. I’d forgotten how fun bowling can be. Not to say I can’t bowl in New York, but it’s a different vibe. As with everything else, New Yorkers are capable of turning even an event that requires ugly shoes into a costly-for-what-it-is, slightly pretentious experience. (Ever try to go to crowded Bowlmer Lanes on a Sat. night?)

Anyway, the trip was relaxing and I’m glad I got out of town for a week. And I always have to go through this slight adjustment period whenever I come back from vacation, in which I wonder whether I’d be willing to exchange living in a cultural and commercial mecca for somewhere that’s less cost-prohibitive. But then I snap out of it. At least right now, I think I’m where I’m supposed to be.