tuesday september 4 2001    |    6:28 p.m.

the tarte tatin is done! i just scooped it out of the oven, burning the side of the tip of my thumb in the process -- odd feeling.

i am a disastrous pastry cook. disastrous. i like to sort of crash-bake, à la jamie oliver, except he has a good idea what the hell he's doing by the time he hurls himself into the kitchen. i don't. usually the only prepping i do is skimming the list of ingredients -- then i turn up the oven and leave the rest up to fate. which, as anyone who's ever attempted to make pastry-things knows, is a recipe for disaster! haha! ha.

so, as my mom just told me over the phone, it looks like more than a tarte tatin, the thing is a tarte currín (ok, you got that.) but it still looks damn good. and i wasn't counting on the bonus side-product: hard caramel, like homemade werther's. mmmmm.

aside from a too-brief outing with patrick & co. on friday night, i had kind of a blah labor day weekend, wherein i slept, whined, slept some more, and tried to work out "coding issues" frantically and to no avail.

even though it doesn't really pertain to me at all, i'm relieved that the weekend's over and the routine's set in again. i'm funny like that.

miami doesn't really mark its seasons with the weather. maybe it's more of a psychological thing, or an instinctual thing. i've been painting my nails dark dark red, and brooding. the light summery conversations with friends (although there was nothing very light or summery about this summer) are turning edgy. the air isn't charged like it is in december, say, but there are sparks here and there.

i'm restless. i'm bored. i'm anxious. i'm thinking too much and smoking too much and trying to keep busy cleaning, teaching myself to make websites, trying to keep things in perspective. it's hard. it's really fucking hard.

i've noticed that generally when i clean i like to listen to disco or dance music or glam. i already mentioned queen and david bowie. the other day it was the jacksons and hedwig. today, george michael. i don't know what it is about boys in tight pants + cheese-beats (or brian may; whatever, his "i've got to break free" solo rocks) and hanging up maps and emptying cardboard boxes. maybe it's the ultimate release from tedium. like the next best thing to actually being at the disco with freddie. or something.

oh! more or less speaking of disco and south beach: i saw a company advertised in the new times called Cleaning Queens, Inc. in the ad there is a cartoon of a drag queen wielding a vacuum cleaner, and the caption reads: "because cleaning can be a drag." i love miami.