Rocking South Beach

I'm back from my long weekend in pastel-washed/Art Deco'y/super-gay Miami Beach. Leaving 90-degree sunshine and landing in 50-degree blustery Dallas was a shock. I was still wearing flip-flops! With sand between my toes!

Conference-wise, kind of a letdown. But who doesn't have a good time in South Beach? Stroll, eat at a sidewalk cafe, hit the beach, check out the bods (topless sunbathing! by ladies in their 70s!), shop a little, stroll some more, stay up late under the full moon on the beach. What a life.

Sigh.

I interviewed Eve Ensler while I was in Miami (for an upcoming column in Dallas Observer) She is there through Nov. 27 performing her new show, The Good Body, at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. (It opens in Dallas Dec. 6.) As a sort of older-wiser follow-up to The Vagina Monologues, The Good Body is Ensler's one-woman rant about her flabby stomach. But it's much more than that. It's about women's conflicts over body image. It's about media's mixed messages about beauty. It's angry and funny and political. Ensler is a dynamic actress with a real knack for impersonation (she does dead-on Helen Gurley Brown and Isabella Rossellini). The show has a great message for the thin-obsessed young women like the ones who kept fainting in their desks from hunger in my college classes. And she speaks to older women depressed at the sad, saggy things that happen on 50-year-old physiques. Great show. Great woman to talk to. More on that later.

Will catch up with gossip, lessons and some new college stories over the next couple of days. And I'll post the winner of the last Word Nerd contest as soon as I can make up my mind. Thanks to all readers for playing the home game.

Great to be home! And if you're anywhere near South Beach, eat at Big Pink (Collins Ave. between 1st and 2nd). It's open 24 hours. As is the rest of the town.